Ashwin Dongre's Blurty

Subject:	The Winamp/XMMS Daemon
Time:	3:21 am.

I’ve been noticing this particular phenomenon for quite a few last months. It’s about the daemon in the Winamp/XMMS.

Well for some of you people, a little fact file. XMMS is the nick for X Multimedia System. It’s the Winamp clone in the Linux or should I say GNU/Linux operating system. There is almost no difference in the looks and controls of Winamp and the XMMS. Then Daemons are the programs those are always running on a system and perform some action at the request of an external stimulus. They do this like ghosts or daemons. They perform their task without letting you know about their existence. So the name daemons.

So I’ve been talking about this particular behavior of Winamp/XMMS. It has happened with me at least a thousand of times, that sometimes I am playing some song in my mind or thinking about some song, and Winamp/XMMS is running, it will suddenly start playing that song. Sometimes I want to listen some particular song, it will play it. Many times when a song ends, I just wish that so and so song should start, or the tune of so and so song starts playing in my mind and as if magically, Winamp/XMMS will start playing that song.

Now there are some daemons those are probed in the processor and keeps watch on the temperature of the processor and when it exceeds certain limit they will start working automatically so as to let the processor do its work in the way it wants to and without being harmed. Now does this Winamp/XMMS has some kind of a probe that is probed into my mind and act accordingly? Well it sounds fantastic or silly rather. But what about my experience? Does my mind has a probe in Winamp/XMMS that makes it play the desired song? Is there any possible explanation for my experience?

I don’t know what it is. But whatever it is, it works splendid. The Winamp/XMMS daemon, keep on working like that. I Love You.

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Subject:	Did Of The Day!
Time:	12:12 pm.

Firstly, I want to thank all of you people for your wishes, greetings, flowers and Love. This for reading my last blog thoroughly so as to reach up to the last and the only important line. And then taking all pains to click the “Comment” link and then aching your fingers to type in all those lovely messages n wishes for me. Thank you very much. I really had not expected anything as incredible as this. Ferz, Khush, Saru, Sweety, M, Cyril and all you folks, You really are light of my life.

Then a little belated Happy Birthday wishes to my friend Susmit who had his birthday on 16^th and Lunar who had her birthday on 17^th. I am very sorry I couldn’t wish you on the day since I was at my home in Chandrapur far away from being online.

And now let me tell you about my birthday!
It started as usual, wished and kissed by my parents, my li’l brother, receiving phone calls and all. I was particularly waiting for the Ana’s call. She rang me up at around 1010hrs. She wished me and made my day. We talked and talked and were talking when it happened. The little boy Raj, of not even three years of age, at the next door was playing and suddenly he fall taking down the TV set with him. The huge sound of ‘thud’ spread the panic among us. We all rushed to their house. The boy was lying down on his back on the floor and his forehead was full of blood. He was weeping like hell. His mother ran in to the hall from the kitchen. She stood there paralyzed by the scene, unable to react, even cry. I checked how much he had bled. He hadn’t much. I asked his mother to bring some cotton. Some more neighbor rushed in. I asked if any of the uncles were home. Negative, they all had been to their offices for the flag hosting (it being our independence day). So now it was up to me. I wiped off all the blood, cleaned the wound, covered it with cotton, took him in my hands and ran away to the doctor who lived nearby. She immediately took him on, cleaned and dressed the wound and asked us to take him to hospital for getting the wound stitched. Just then one of my neighbor’s son arrived. He took Raj and his mother to the hospital on his bike. After a couple of minutes my father arrived and we both went to hospital. Raj’s father wasn’t available on phone. After the stitches were done, Raj started vomiting, now these symptoms are dangerous, so the doctor asked us to take the boy to a neurosurgeon. So Raj’s mother and my father took Raj to a Neurosurgeon in the city in an ambulance. Where Raj’s skull was scanned and a hemorrhage in the occipital lobe was detected. By the time most of the uncles and Raj’s father had arrived and so I was relieved. But yet I stayed there. At four ‘o clock, Raj had recovered much and was sleeping. My father announced the time and decided to go home. I was so surprised by the time. I was thinking it was around two ‘o clock. It all started at 1030hrs and it was more than five n half hours. And then suddenly I felt tired and hungry.

At around five, I reached home. And received the list of the people who had called in the mean time. Later all of them rang me again and wished me the day. Anju was first among them. I just had started eating when she called. It was refreshing. She sang the birthday song for me
We celebrated my birthday in the evening. We had a fish-shaped cake. The evening was enjoyed.
Later on the next morning, we learnt Raj had recovered very much and might be relieved from hospital that noon. He was at four in the noon.
Raj is fine now and doing great. He will soon have the stitches removed. But what makes me think is that, it was my birthday when it all happen. Nobody was there to take the immediate action but me. I don’t know why or what it was, but yes it was something that made me feel good. It was something that filled my heart with satisfaction. My father told me, we had almost lost Raj at the scan center. The doctor later said, had not the things happened quickly and had not Raj got all the help in time, we really might have lost him.

I don’t really know how exactly to react now about it. Anyone in my place would have done it. To be true, I really feel nothing for whatever I did but this feeling of satisfaction. Whatever it is, I wont ever forget this birthday of mine.

Happy Birthday To Me

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Subject:	Napoleon and Me!
Time:	12:00 am.

I couldn't help notice certain similarities between me and Napoleon Bonaparte. Now don't be surprised, I don't say that I am blood thirsty or a warrior or even an emperor. But there are some things those I often think are similar in a way.

Now when Napoleon was born in 1769, his family had received French Nobility Status that year, because of that he went to study at Royal Military School, far away from home. Well my family has not received any such status (may be because they are not French :D), but I made my way to Jawahar Navodaya Vidhyalaya for my secondary education, far away from home. Both of us have made our way from there through Graduation, far away from home. Okay if this does not seem much similar and can be matched with many other people, then take a look at this. Since he wanted to be a fighter, a warrior, an emperor and in my case a famous vfx personality, both of us differ in the genre and goal, but yet it is the approach that matches. Both of us so determined about the goal, we never relied totally upon the education that we would receive from our institution. We both spent (and in my case, am spending) hours educating ourselves. While he studied himself the history and geography and so, I have been spending hours learning the fundas and the skills of communication design, human brain perception of visuals and lots of visual effect techniques and so. We both are the students of the "University of Life-long Learning".

Napoleon was a great warrior and made his way fighting with all possible odds and studying and taking advantage of the situation of surrounding , my intentions and approach isn't different. I am not determined to be the emperor of India, though I'd like to be so in case of the vfx world.

Napoleon crowned himself Emperor in 1804, and then began the fall. They usually do. (Maybe the wind of success fills up their brains and so they become little careless or so) I know what the problem might be, as they say its easy to reach to the top, the difficulty lies in staying there.. I am going to try and achieve that. (arrogance!)

Yes I do understand these are very liquid evidences. But Napoleon and me are from two different surrounding and generations. But that doesn't mean that the nature has changed. And they say people born on the same date share the sunshine and are of similar nature. (Blah!) I don't believe that. But what is true is that, Napoleon and me are born on the same day (years apart) and we share our birthdate. Its August the 15^th. and maybe that is the most solid thing that is certainly common between us.

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Subject:	Darna Mana Hain!
Time:	11:17 am.

Have you ever heard a story that is as crazy as it couldn’t be, all the time you knew its an impossible one, but still scary? Yes, you have. These kind of stories are there and always always people do narrate them and people do listen them with utmost interest. And having heard it no one complains its impossibility or craziness.

Now, have you seen any Ramsay brothers’ horror movie? Did you find any of them even a bit horror? Okay if not horror at all, did any of them even increase your heart beat or made you feel the chill? Nope. If not anything, the Ramsay movies, I feel, are more erotic than horror and almost all of them spun around one theme, a group or a couple gone on a trip or lost their way, see one old villa, enters it for shelter and then killed by the ghost all but the hero and heroin.

Now put two in two and tell me, do you need to see a horror or a ghost story to scare you? Nope. Anything that is designed and executed, understanding and using your psychology, to scare you will do.

Darna Mana Hai is a story made using this concept. It is a story of seven people seating one night in a jungle, not that lost their way and walked into a villa, telling each other stories to pass time. And the stories are spooky. Not all of them are ghost stories but they do scare(if not scare, they will certainly raise your heartbeat), if told in such an environment. You might find some of them crazy, you do hear such stories all the time. And though the movie runs with six different stories, the overall story of the movie is not disjoint, its not a story somehow made to show six different stories and pass time. They all are entangled. Yes. As the byline says “Six stories, one end”. It says it’s the fear that kills the people, not the ghost. Its your brain that makes the ghost real and it is that what kills you.

If you don’t like the end, the last scene of the movie, then trust me its just your arrogance that says so. How did you like the last scene of ‘I know…’ or ‘Urban legend’ or so? At least this scene has some significance.

One of the dailies here “The Hitwada”, rated the movie two on the scale of five. And for years I’ve been finding the The Hitwada rated two movies are really good movies, three rated are okay and rated four are just ‘never see in life’ kind of movies. A four and half rating is really good and that’s what I’ve found for only ‘Lagaan’ and ‘Dil Chahta Hai’. Rating higher than that never been printed in the daily. So any rating two or four n half movie is a good one. For years I’ve been trying to figure out why The Hitwada has been telling people wrong thing? Bad. Okay you dint like the movie, but you are supposed to criticize movie technically and let the people to decide how good it is. But no, they will decide upon themselves if its good or not and let the people suffer.

If you can admire any Hollywood horror movie, no matter how bad the plot is, what had Bollywood done wrong to you. The era is changing, We are getting more and more technically superb movies. Criticize them evenly.

About Darna Mana Hai, I liked the concept, the performance (Raghuveer Yadav shines in his entry), the direction, the screenplay and the overall execution. Rest is up to you, how you see it. But for me Darna Mana Hai is a good thriller. And its made in India!!!

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Subject:	My Friendship Day!
Time:	3:20 pm.

My F’ship day was quite as great as I’d expected. Actually I had been to my home in Chandrapur. So I had thought to return back to Nagpur on 3^rdand spend the day with Anju and Ana and Vinod. But some things happened and I wasn’t gonna be able to return on the planned date. So I was thinking what will I do. But fortunately Tushar turned up. He came back from Amravati just a couple of day ago. And so everything was just great.
So I spent the whole day with my childhood friend, my best friend. Great! It was fantastic. And we enjoyed every bit of it.
Well I am back in Nagpur now and life is normal again.
But here are some lines written by Susmit, me and some friends, for a small animation feature a few months ago(which unfortunately is temporarily shelved). The lines were written for the end titles, and are the feelings those I want to say to you all my friends. Its titled

Amigos
We want to live the life that will bring
Many happy days(joy everyday),
We'll be together all the way.
You have a friend in me, ol' buddy,
I'm here to stay,
I'll be there for you come what may,

AMIGO! ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ta-ra-ra

I don't know what I'd have done
If it were not for you,
You are the closest to my heart
We always have a swell time together
Whatever we do,
It's always been like this from the start,

AMIGO! ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ta-ra-ra

Happy Friendship Folks!!!!
Love You all!

ashu.

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Subject:	Hurrah! Here I am!
Time:	12:15 pm.

The financial condition of ashu-da-great has improved and here he is back online, very much alive.
Its feeling really great to be online. Its been very difficult to stay away from it. Things were just … not in favour at all financially. The money would come and would go just like this. And so … well you see I was as good as dead for the online world.
But I am back now and wont be away now. So all of you friends, if you were thinking of removing me from your friends’ list, do consider again.
So in these days life was, um! I don’t know what exactly, was beautiful and ugly both. Sometimes it felt it’s going great, like never before, but sometimes it would really be like never before, but in opposite sense. But yes that period is over now. And its feeling great.
But before I finish, there is one thing I’d like to say, “You start to see real side of the face, the moment you try go independent.”

-ashu.

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Subject:	I'm Alive!
Time:	5:15 pm.

Don’t worry, I’m not dead, but alive. This might be the third time I am beginning like this. But cant help it. I am so much offline that it make others feel as if I am dead and I start receiving mails asking so. Hence this is to announce that I am alive.
But even then I am not able to post often, or should I say, at all. There are some problems. The biggest one being, I am running extremely short of money, even this post I’m publishing from the last paisa of my account (Saru, I need you!). And I don’t guess I’ll be able to come out of this financial crisis before end of this month. So you see, even if I wont be posting anything in this month, it doesn’t mean that I am dead and that I’ve stopped blurtying. It just mean that I’m not being able to come online.
But there is a promise, that no matter what, I’ll be back right on the first day of the month August.
Till then, ciao!

ashu.

P.S. And hey! You remember Anjali? She gave birth to a little girl. Both of them are perfectly fine and the baby is a real doll.
a.

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Subject:	For Your Eyes Only
Time:	8:17 pm.

Don’t worry, I am alive and can be located at 21 10 N 79 12 E. But yes I was too much offline for about last three weeks. Well there are reasons, so it was difficult. But anyways I am back (I guess).

So since Susmit is in Mumbai, my source of books is gone and so I had to join a library which I did two weeks ago. They have a very good collection of books and so I have a very good stuff for my brain for next eight or ten months.

It was from this library I brought the book “For Your Eyes Only”. Yes the Bond, James Bond book, by Ian Fleming the great. And to my surprise it’s a collection of five short stories. The title story itself is a thirty pages’ short story. What the hell they made a whole three hours movie from thirty pages!!!!! This is a must be seen movie. Though I’ve seen this movie before, but that’s over eight years old saga and I remember absolutely nothing of it.

But reading Ian Fleming is great. Now that all the characters from them movies are so fixed in my mind, as I read the characters from the movie forms the visuals for me. For instance Late Desmond Llewelyn (Q), Judy Dench (M), Pierce Brosnan (oo7) and all.

Now in all the books M was portrayed by a man, but now with Judy so much known to my mind as M, my brain converts He, his, him etc with She, her for all the references of M spontaneously. The only trouble arises when there comes the sentence like He relit his pipe. Or M put his pipe back in his mouth and drew on it deeply to relieve his feelings. Now I couldn’t see Judy with pipe or even smoking. So it was jerky to read them. But otherwise it was an exciting read.

Now I realize the title. Its for my eyes only that reads M for female.

And before I put an end, let me tell you. Reading Bond, James Bond stuff while the Bond movie background score playing in background is an experience worth experiencing. I am reading with the Tomorrow Never Dies soundtrack. Try it out, say if it wont add a flavour.

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Subject:	An Artwork
Time:	8:12 pm.

I’ve been quite silent for last
few days, almost a week I guess. It doesn’t mean that there I had
nothing to say or the life was very uneventful or even that I was busy.
But the life was full of events and there were many things happening.
The only problem being that I din’t think those could be talked
here. But even I don’t like the idea of being silent here.

For a long since I’ve been thinking of displaying some artwork of
mine here. So finally I am displaying one

It is in two colours. The concept is to emphasis
the glory of the classical music of India. I wanted it simple, decent
but powerful. Okay I am not able to put it into the right words but I
hope you do understand. That’s been an always a problem for me to put
thought in to words, especially to the point, in less words and yet conveying
exact message. I thought upon the byline for the poster. I came up
with lines like ‘Celebrating the glory (or glorious something)……’(dots
means some things I couldn’t think of), ‘Celebration of
the….’, and like those. Finally I settled with ‘an
enchanting world’. I was looking for an extension for it, like ‘an
enchanting world of notes or something'. Can you suggest something
or some new byline at all. All that I want is a small but decent, not
flashy but yet powerful.

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Subject:	Scary Affair
Time:	11:14 am.

Once I read in one Archie’s comic, a story called “Scare Affair”, in which Archie takes his newly found friend Laura to see a horror movie he has already seen. When Jughead asks why, he says, “Oh, Jug! You just never will understand female psychology! A girl that is scared out of her wits becomes very affectionate towards the stalwart male that can reassure her! She will scream and I’ll pat her reassuringly, and then she’ll throw her arms around yours truly!” Well The girl turns out to be a real horror movie freak and ain't scared at all at the movie. Nothing happens as Archie had planned and so eventually it turns out to be a real nothing date.

Well not for the reason Archie gave, but for she wanted to go for the movie with me and me with her, I went to see “Bhoot” again, with Ana, my not so but newly found friend. To my fortune, nothing like the story happened with me. Though she wasn’t scared out of her wits, but yes, she was scared. We enjoyed the whole movie, were occasionally laughing, appreciating and scared. And almost everything happened just like Archie thought would happen in his date. As we sat hand in hand, far away from the whole world, just us, it was a real everything date. Oh yes! I Love her!

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Subject:	Technically Perfect!
Time:	10:54 am.

Here are some of the "Technically Perfect" movies India has produced, at least in last decade, because my study of movies before that is not that vast.
Firstly I should describe the criteria for these movies to qualify for the list. For being technically perfect a movie should have a fairly good story, packed screenplay, sensible cinematography, a nice and audible music and the background score that goes with the story. It should have undergone a very good post-production. The performance by all the leading characters should be good. And the most importantly, the direction must be exceptionally good, all the ideas about the story and other technical details should be clearly defined to the director. The box-office performance and public acceptance are the secondary criteria and are considered after the movie has passed all the above criteria.

Dil Chahta Hai (2001), Lagaan (2001), Mother India (1957), Mission Kashmir (2000) , Sarfarosh (1999), Agnivarsha (2002),

There are following other few movies which fails to satisfy only one or two criteria.

Monsoon Wedding (2002), Hollywood Bollywood (2002), Dil Vil Pyar Vyar! (2002), Salaam Bombay (1988), Aastha (1997), Khalnayak (1993), Bhoot (2003)

It is most interesting to notice a few facts here: Out of all the movies in this list
-three have won the National Awards, plus many of the crews have won the National Award for their individual performance for some of these movies. I am not sure of the number, but it surely exceed five.
-three have been nominated as 'The Best foreign Language Film' for the Academy Award© for those respective year of release. Alas! None of them could win it.
-three featured Aamir Khan with one being his home production. Well no wonder he's called Mr. Perfectionist.
-two are directed by Meera Nair and for one of them she has been nominated for Prestigious 'British Academy Awarde', 'Goldan Glob Awarde', 'European Film Academy' and 'Broadcast Film Critics Association' for the best foriegn language film category.
-two has a score by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, the trio who ever just wanted to do music for just one movie if ever possible.
-five are maiden ventures of some people, out of which four in direction, one in production, and one of these movies had almost all the new crew. Now, what do you conclude? Don't go to the people who ask for experience to give you a job. :)
-three are period dramas. So who says India cant make good period movies!
-six are small budget production. Well now you know what is not the important factor to make a good movie-money!
-but above all, four movies flopped over the box office with three others doing a moderate business.
No wonder India produces hundreds of useless movies, after all Indian public will accept anything but good movies.

P. S. I am looking forward for the opinion of you people. Please let me know what do you say about this compilation. Besides if I have missed some good movies because of having not seen them or any other reason,those you think are eligible to opt their place in this list, let me know.

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Subject:	Darn Yesterday!
Time:	5:56 pm.

Yesterday, the main switch of power supply at my place got fucked up and refused to give me the supply. Okay! It would have been okay if it would just have done that, but no! Hell no! It gave me so many glitches that I had my computer automatically restarted at least ten times. And you know, Bindok (err windows) is such a *(@#&$ operating system, shutting down without a proper ritual will result into anything. Literally ANYTHING. (Thanks goodness it seems it that hasn't done anything as yet. But you never know about any Billu baba products! Fingers crossed!) So I had my computer off, fan off, cooler off, door open, no wind, and myself all sweating.

Its summer, and you know the summer in India! It was 47.7 degree Celsius yesterday. So.. Great!

And to make the things worse, the electrician didn't come yesterday. So I had candle-lit dinner, alone. :((

And since there wasn't anything to do in the eve, I went for a movie. Bhoot had a full (haunted)house, so I had to go for The X-Men 2. I knew that in this part they'll take Logan to the place where he became Wolverine. And the movie was okay, I mean the visual effects of first part were much much better than its sequel. See the irony, some people make masterpiece like Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within with Maya and these people made what, The X-Men with no x in the vfx! I wish Amol was there with me at the movie. I'll go for Bhoot tomorrow or day after.

So yesterday, since all my things were stucked with my computer, I couldn't even come online.

And so finished the day. Though not much good happened, I still seem to have enjoyed it. (Now that's me!)

And now that I got my power supply back, I am feeling a bit good. But I still feel I really enjoyed yesterday. After all it was an unusual day. Things goes dry and boring when in routine. There ought to be a different stroke. I had yesterday. And I did enjoy it. But that's me, Darn me!

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