Sri's Cafe

My Desktop

2008-11-24T01:50:00.003+05:30

This is my desktop on my Laptop . If you are interested to know how its done, let me know :)

Sridhar's Book Wishlist

2008-11-23T04:26:00.001+05:30

Tips on Visiting India at Squidoo

2008-08-10T15:43:00.003+05:30

Hi
I have just created my first Squidoo Lens to help people visiting India. Inspite of the increased focus on tourism and millions of tourists, India still remains both forbidding and overwhelming - forbidding to those who hear about the pollution, the crowds and health fears; overwhelming because of the sheer diversity in culture, climate, languages and religions.
In fact, visiting India can be the most unforgettable experience in your life, if you plan it. In this Squidoo page, I would like to offer them assistance through answers to specific queries, links and even reliable contacts. all this for free, just because I am interested to see more people discover India.

If any of you have any information or links, please write to me or leave a message on my Squidoo page.

Vizag and Araku Trip Report - 1

2008-05-20T14:25:00.007+05:30

I have finally managed to shake off the procrastination demon perched on my and write this travelogue. Whew!
Months have elapsed since the vacation, so please don't bicker if I miss important details like the coach number of the train we took to Vizag :)

With a few days of holidays+leave under our belt, we embarked on a much-needed, much-planned trip to the cool hills of Araku. The Visakha express steamed on time into the Visakhapatnam Rly station on a nice January morning. An auto then whisked us to the APTDC Rushikonda beach resort (approx. 10 km from the Rly station), where we had booked an A/C room (you can get more information here.)

We were shown to rooms in the first floor of a cottage overlooking the sea. The rooms are clean, but expensive considering the rate per night [of course, this was classified as a "resort"]. It was a cool morning and we soon settled down to a hot cup of coffee, while getting our first view of the sea. Shruti was pretty excited when we told her we would go and play in the "lake" later in the day.

Having completed the morning rituals, we stepped out to have breakfast in the restaurant attached to the hotel. Idlis followed by tea - decent but nothing to talk about.

By this time, Shruti was impatient to go and play in the water, so we walked down to the beach.

Rushikonda has a nice, clean beach, where the waters are not very forceful. There are breakers (sand or rock formations) which reduce the "pull" of the water. The beach in the heart of the city (Ramakrishna beach) is more crowded and more dangerous to play.

We had a great time playing the water and an hour later, we returned to our room, tired but happy.

After a insipid lunch, we booked a cab through the reception to visit the city. A memorable trip through the submarine museum, and then some tea and pakoda at a roadside cafe.

We then planned an impromptu trip to Kailasagiri hill, where there is a open temple of Lord Siva. It was quite dark by the time we reached there, so we had to quickly return and missed the great views of the city and the sea.

Our next stage was Araku by train, which I will cover in the next post.

Note: More photos on Flickr - Badge on the left sidebar tagged 'Vizag'

Life Insurance

2008-05-15T17:21:00.001+05:30

In the previous post, I discussed the importance of financial planning and the factors to consider for financial security.

An important component of securing yourself financially is insurance. In this post, I will look at the two major types of life insurance - what they are and what is the difference. I will also discuss how much insurance you need and what other types of insurance are available.

I have a Unit-Linked Insurance policy (ULIP) for life insurance. This means that the premium I pay is invested in stocks, mutual funds, bonds etc.

If something untoward happens to me, the sum assured + the market value of the units is paid to my family. Sounds good? Yes, but it is not good. At least not good for everyone.

Experts say that unless you have a family, especially kids, there is no need for Life insurance. After all, insurance is to provide for dependants when there is no bread earner.

So, all those fresh graduates joining organizations don't need to invest in life insurance. Yes, the earlier you take insurance, the lower the premium, which is the argument agents use.

However, from a pure financial perspective it doesn't make sense to invest in a life insurance plan when you don't need it. ULIPs also tend to have a lower sum assured and higher premiums.

Term insurance, or pure risk cover is what you should be looking at if you need Life Insurance. In term insurance, there are no returns (not even sum assured) if the claim is not made before the policy end date. Hence premiums are very low, while the cover amount can be quite huge. This is what you get when companies provide insurance or you get free insurance with credit cards/auto loans etc.

Then why do agents and insurance companies harp on ULIPs? Commissions, fund charges and other fees. Agents get higher commissions once a ULIP is sold (regardless of the the type of insurance, an agent gets some money for every policy he has sold throughout his career!), compared to term insurance policy sales.

Now that we have a basic understanding about ULIPs and term insurance, we have to answer the question of how much insurance we require. Again, experts agree that it should be around 70 times your salary!!! This takes into account sustenance of your family, education of children and associated expenses and also considers inflation.

For more detailed information, you could use one of the many free calculators available on the Internet, as in here, here and here.

Note: The above links are for information and not a recommendation of any sort.

Remember, you will also need other types of insurance - cars, home, home loans and health. We will look at them in the next post.

Organizing my personal finances

2008-05-12T08:28:00.001+05:30

del.icio.us Tags: personal finance, budgeting, saving

In my blog reading journey, I came across a few sites that made me think hard on organizing and improving your personal financial situation.

If you are like me, one of the millions who are not 'rich', then you need to think of managing your financial situation.

[By rich, I mean those who don't need to worry what happens if they stop working or doing business or whatever for the next 3 months.]

We have to put food on the table, mortgage payments, credit card payments and other bills every month. While it is not a hand-to-mouth existence exactly, we are also not very well off in a job loss situation.

What about death of the wage earner? Funds for retirement? Emergencies? Let me describe what I do and am sure most of you will relate to it.

I coast from month-to-month, making impulse purchases to maintain a 'lifestyle'. To save tax, I opted for life insurance (more on this later), based on information from colleagues and friends. I also invested in some stocks, IPOs and MFs - again based on information from friends and the internet.

Net effect - we don't have a financial plan. We don't know if these investments will yield the benefits we expected. We don't really know if the total return will be sufficient for retirement - life expectancy is up, which means we will need money for a longer term, medical costs are rising with decreasing quality of life.

Its not a rosy picture and one which we seldom think of.

Solution: Financial planning.

Planning your finance means assessing your net worth, defining your financial goals and planning your investments to meet those goals. While it is best to meet with a Certified Financial Planner to do this well, there are a few things you could do for a start.

1. Spend less than you earn

2. Look for ways to earn more (legally, of course!)

3. Stop using credit cards for routine purchases

4. Stop or at least postpone purchase that you don't need

In the meantime, read these blogs to gain more understanding - www.getrichslowly.com, www.binarydollar.com

What about you? Have you been planning? Do you have any advice to share with us? Let us know in the comments. Ciao.

Being techno-cool

2008-05-09T14:49:00.002+05:30

~~This is my first post using Windows Live Writer Beta, so if there are any glitches, please bear with me.~~

I have spent the past few days catching up on my blog reading. With my current "passions" being personal finance, photography and new Web 2.0 inventions, I have a lot of reading to do. In all this reading, I am seeing a few online tools that make me look like, ummmm, "net-unsavvy".

Of course, the folks at Lifehacker are not making things any easier for me by their constant posts about new innovations on the internet.

Do you have a blog with its own domain and ads, facebook account, flickr/smugmug/picasa albums, twitter, digg/del.icio.us/technorati, firefox with its extensions AND integrated all of them? Then you are not cool enough.

In the last few days, I am trying to become ubercool.

I am updating my blog (signed on to Adsense, but I need to confirm yet)
I updated my facebook profile and added new friends
I have a flickr account with more than 300 photos :)
Created a netvibes.com dashboard to get all my RSS feeds in one place
Added del.icio.us buttons and bookmarks
Trying to install Windows Live Writer (latest)

I want twitter and firefox, but the place I work doesn't allow it. Heck, it doesn't allow many things.

Anyway, do you think I am techno-cool now. What about you? Let me know about being techno-cool in the comments.

Technorati Tags: techno cool, techno savvy, sridhar, windows live writer, ubercool

A Trip to Vizag and Araku

2008-05-08T15:28:00.003+05:30

A mixture of personal and official reasons have kept me from posting for nearly 5 months now. My bad!

A major reason is my suddenly evaporated interest in blogging while another reason is an internal (internal to my mind, that is) debate on privacy. finally, I decided to continue blogging as a way to express myself.

Let me start with our long awaited vacation to Vizag and Araku. While I am planning to post the trip details by each day, it will take sometime to get my thoughts in order, since its been a couple of months and I need to bring up those memories.

In the meantime, you can look at the photos in my flickr stream.

Ciao and do mail me if you would like to see me blogging more regularly.

Your level of education to read my blog

2007-12-28T01:57:00.001+05:30

Are you in Elementary School? (more likely, your children are).

Then let me offer Congratulations, you can read this blog. Evidence is this tool, which gave me

Should I be happy that everyone can read my blog? or should I be hurt and read up on "A How-to guide for dummies for writing for geniuses on your boring blog?"

A more scientific-looking test here gave me the following results.

and said I should happy, considering typical readability levels of sites

But the egotist in me is unhappy, considering I hover in the popular novels range. Nah, I do not stoop to that level. But being close to the revered Reader's Digest is honourable.

But, my "conscience keeper" persona reminds me its nothing to jump about - no one reads this blog anyway! Sob.

BTW, for anyone who happens to read - this post celebrates the "Shashtiabdhapoorthi" (Tam Bram name) or 60th post :)

My new website demo

2007-12-25T15:49:00.000+05:30

Hi

As some of you may already know, I am trying to put up a virtual home. You can visit the demo and comment here.

Website: http://www.sridharj.com
Photo Gallery: http://sridharj.free-web-hosting.biz

The free web part will change when I have buy the web space. Currently, I am evaluating Bluehost and Dreamhost, although Bluehost is on top now.

Christmas in Karlsruhe

2007-12-24T19:51:00.000+05:30

Depressed, angry and lonely.

Those 3 words summarize how I feel right now. Depressed that I am not travelling to India tomorrow as planned, angry about the stupid service provider who is the main reason for this delay and lonely as there is no one to even talk to here.

Its cold and forbidding to step outside the house. So, you can imagine how i feel cooped up in addition to the adjectives mentioned!!!

What really bugs me is that these so called international companies do not have a simple helpline or even a reliable phone support. All my emails through their web-based contact form are lost in their inboxes. Worldbridge must be the worst service provider and I am not sure how they were selected. They charge a whopping $14 to provide information over the phone!!!

Anyway, some pics for those of you who are still interested in them.

A longing for clean comedy

2007-12-18T04:00:00.000+05:30

Thanks to fast internet speeds over here, I have been able to watch some movies, including ones which I had missed.

After seeing the movies, I have a desperate longing for clean comedy, comedy that can have you in splits even if you watch it many times. Jandhyala's movies are like nectar with his crew of Rajendra Prasad, Naresh, Chandra Mohan, Sutthi Veerabhadra Rao, Brahmanandam, Kota, Sutthi Velu, Sri Lakshmi, Rallapalli and many others.

"Navvadam oka bhogam, Navvinchadam oka yogam, Navvalekapovadam oka rogam".

I have compiled this list of clips from Youtube. There are to many great films and I will keep adding to this list.

Conversation

2007-12-15T02:45:00.000+05:30

This was the best conversation I have ever had in my life. Those of you who know me also know what a sparkling wit I am (lol).

I was reading the other day somewhere about witty repartees and in a fit [tut, we are not talking about fitness here], I wrote this fictional conversation. to make it interesting, I have made myself the Protagonist [Thats how, self-acclaimed and progressive critics like to refer to the main character in a movie]. Beware, some of my answers are not scientifically correct.

Additions or modifications are welcome. Other types of wit, typically described as "sarcasm","irony","pithy" and various adjectives are frowned upon. come on, "frowned upon" is a figurative speech. I can't raise my eyebrows, if thats what you are after.

He: "Are you human?"
Me: "No, I belong to a sub-species of the human race called Pithecanthropus. This sub-species stands between the Neanderthals, you know those ones, right? with those funny-shaped heads? and between homosapiens."

He: "Are you joking?"
Me: "No, in fact, I belong to a sub-sub-species, called Pithecanthropus Erectus. This is the full name based on the scientific Linnaer method. There are two versions for this. The additional Erectus comes from the fact that they were the first human species to stand erect, goes one version. The other version is that they were the first humans to have an, er, you know what..."

He: "You didn't answer my question. Are you human?"
Me: "No, I am sorry, I am an intergalactic spider, masquerading as a human."

He: "Are you sick or something? you seem to be drunk in the middle of a day?"
Me: "To confess, I suffer from a disease of the mind called klypsositis."

He: "Is it also called insanity in common parlance?"
Me: "No, it is a state of mind, where the individual tries to invent new terms and uses bombastic sesquipedalian verbiage in an attempt to prove himself."

He: "We simply call such people idiots"
Me: "Thats the result of limited vocabulary, improper upbringing and self-taught knowledge. There are so many states of insanity as between 0 and 1 in a binary system"
He: "Thats ridiculous. Binary system has only 2 states."
Me: "I never said there were many."
He: "But you said..."
Me: "Yes?"

He: [Completely confused now]"lets think logically"
Me: I usually think logically. There is nothing new for me to start now. Do you have a techniques to separate your thinking?"

He: "I mean lets start again"
Me: "OK. where we started off was with humans called Pithecanthropus erectus and their eating habits."
He: "That was not our discussion."
Me: "Oh sorry, you are at the wrong table."

[I leave the table...]

By the way, the true master [or rather mistress] of wit was Dorothy Parker. One of her gems was "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force. "

Read here some of her wit. Its a meagre list, but I am sure you all google well.

Kalari - Indian Martial Arts

2007-12-08T06:00:00.000+05:30

Awesome video. I would have run away the first day itself!!!

Diwali in Karlsruhe

2007-11-11T05:17:00.001+05:30

Today was different.

In a land 6,500 miles away from home, grey clouds and cold (really cold) weather, my heart was warmed.

It started with a call from a colleague of mine – “There seems to be an get-together of Indians in Karlsruhe to celebrate Diwali. Shall we go?’ Having nothing better to do, I said yes.

Later, another phone call from him – “6:19, there is a tram at the Marktplatz stop. Be there.”

I was there and got into the tram. There were a few Indian friends I knew and one or two I didn’t know. We all got down and went into a kind of Christian meeting place, which had been rented for the Diwali celebrations!!!

Oh my God!!! I never knew there were so many Indians in Karlsruhe!!! More surprising was that there were many families and not just students.

After paying a sort of entry ticket, we all sat down on long tables, where hot tea and biscuits were arranged. A cultural programme was arranged, which started off with a Carnatic vocal song invoking Lord Ganesha.

Then followed a series of bharathanatyam dances from kids – gorgeously dressed and performing really wonderfully.

It was good to be immersed, at least, for some time in the songs and forget our sorrow that we are not with our loved ones for Diwali.

However, there was a note of irritation for me. There were a large number of Germans also, who had probably come on the invitation of their Indian friends. They were the only ones who were really watching the performances and applauding. We Indians as usual were chatting and making friends!!!

Come on, respect the artist by at least remaining silent if you cannot appreciate the art!!!

We also had a Powerpoint (aaarghhhh) presentation on Diwali, which was the most untasteful point on the Agenda. Scenes/snaps from Bollywood movies, advertisements of sweets and some nameless documentary were stitched together in a silent presentation while the kids were changing for another performance. It was amusing in a way, though, as we all cracked jokes on it.

What was also funny was that a compere was explaining Diwali in English. I do not know to whose benefit, since I assume there were only Germans and Indians there. Well, if some Indians need to be explained...

This was finally over, followed by an extremely limited dinner (limited in the size of portions), in which we were too embarrassed to go for seconds (there was a huge line for firsts!). We said good bye to some of the new friends we had made and came back home. Overall, a very nice evening in an otherwise drab weekend.

Photos of this may be posted later.

Long time no see

2007-10-07T13:31:00.001+05:30

Hi folks,

Its been a long time since I have added to the Internet junk. With a growing up daughter who clamours for attention and severe restrictions on Internet access at the work place, there has been no time to post here.

The good news is that I am once again in Germany on work, so I should be a little more active here. I am typing this from a Paris hotel room, but I will be in Germany next week. There are a few friends in Germany, whom I would be calling up, so if you read this, don't be surprised.

I went sightseeing yesterday and visited the Eiffel Tower. Yes, I took some pictures, but due to some adjustments in the Camera made earlier, the pcitures need some darkening and post-processing. So, please bear with me while I do so.

More on France and Paris to come, so please be tuned and for God's sake, please come back.

Experiments in Digital Photography

2007-05-13T20:38:00.000+05:30

In a burst of Sunday enthusiasm, I opened Photoshop CS2 and did some post-processing on some photos I had taken earlier. Nature (landscape, wildlife, birds etc), indoor and macro photography - I have tried all of them.

Tell me what you feel about these photos. Honesty please.

A Rule Book for Consultants

2007-05-09T21:12:00.000+05:30

1. If you don't know, just pretend you know.
2. If you can't convince them, confuse them.
3. Use "buzzwords".
4. Never admit you are wrong. Just say that others may do it differently.
5. Know Powerpoint. It gives you the power to make half-truths into truths and lies into statistics.
6. All ideas originate from you. Others' ideas are polished to the point where the author cannot recognize them.

If you have more, please add in the comments section. But beware, you acknowledge that your additions become my property :)

Kruti - A Community Project

2007-05-06T01:24:00.000+05:30

A very close friend of mine, Raghav and his wife devote a lot of their spare time in running Kruti, a community project for slum children in school.

Veena, Raghav's better half, by all means ;), started this as part of a project in doing a personal improvement course, the name of which has escaped my mind now. It has grown to a good stage where it has helped the children dwelling in Gurppanpalya slum by creating "Joy, enthusiasm and dreams" for them.

I feel the last is quite important - that of allowing the children to dream of a better future, where their life is not just a struggle for a hand-to-mouth existence, but more rich and meaningful. A lot of projects are devoted to various areas such as education, health and more basic things, but this project is quite unique, in that it gives a new experience for those children. It has given them memories of a lifetime. Expressing your creative talent, which is not encouraged in more well-to-do families also, on a stage with so many people watching, would be so wonderful for these children.

The team has grown quite well and now counts more than a handful. I have been a strong vocal member, but as Raghav would readily agree, I have not done much beyond make some noises.

Part of the reason is geographical distance, but a major reason is that the group does not accept monetary contributions, yet, which is where many of us can help (with a few mouse clicks). However, the team wants us to go beyond such token contributions - if you really want to help, come down and work with us.

If you are in Bangalore and feel suffocated by the home-traffic-work-traffic-home routine, just drop in a few weekends. You will find that you find the "joy, enthusiasm and dreams" returning to your life.

You can visit the fledgling website at www.mykruti.com, where Raghav has yet to post details/pictures/videos of the latest event.

Do contact the team and let them know if you want to help. Help yourself.

Overdue Blog posts

2007-05-04T14:14:00.000+05:30

I have been quite amiss in posting here for sometime now. Part of which (psst, the only reason, actually) has been sheer laziness. In fact, I have not posted anything on my recent trip to Switzerland (I had planned on writing a travel log), nor my trudges into the woods near my place in Germany.

Photos, though, have been posted in my Flickr account (see my flickr-badge in this blog). Hopefully, I will come out of the limbo and write something, although the fingers on one hand would still be too much a number to count the regular readers of this blog.

Ravi and Sid, on the other hand, seem to have some creative juices flowing, although I wouldn't wonder about that in Sid's case - He is supposedly the "Creative Shocker" and from what I read in his blog, could become a good screenwriter for Bollywood/Tollywood films (for his great people characterization skills, lol).

What I like about these guys (and many others, which I unfortunately seem to lack) is their ability to create a blog post on everyday occurrences. Must have been Income Tax guys in previous lives - getting something out of nothing...

See ya

Steinhuder Meer - A Trip report

2007-04-01T20:15:00.000+05:30

Yet another Saturday dawned and with it, an extreme reluctance to stay at home. I had done some research the previous day on Steinhuder Meer, one of tha largest lakes in Germany. It is close to Hannover and would provide multiple photo opportunities for me.

So, with a friend and his family in tow, I went to Hannover, where the tourist information center gave us pretty clear directions on reaching the place.

We boarded a train to Wunstorf, which was exactly 12 minutes away. From the bus station, a bus deposited us 30 minutes later in front of the park.

Much to my disappointment, the man at the information centre cheerfully told us two things. We cannot cover the entire lake, since we were on foot (Bicycle or car would be preferable) and the boating facilities would be open from the next day only.

We, however, did not let these smallthings weigh us down. So off went on foot. while I did not get to see much variety of flora and fauna, I had a pleasant evening. However, there remains a sore spot in the trip, since it is definitely a romantic place and I really missed wifey dear.

Do you detect this feeling in the couple of photos posted here? I leave it to you.

Steffi Graf - Proposed for Marriage

2007-03-29T11:27:00.000+05:30

No. I am not the one proposing. I already have been condemned. You can't execute a man twice for no crime (once is ok).

This is a video I found in YouTube. Steffi, I thought was one of the greatest athletes of all time, but she is also a master in repartee.

BTW, she has a great smile. Look for it.

Long walks, Alu Bhajjis and movies

2007-03-25T05:02:00.000+05:30

Had a lazy saturday (samstag, in German). Compared to the past few weeks, no going out anywhere today, so got up late.

Made some filter coffee after quite some time. Aaaah, the aroma of fresh-decoctioned coffee is to be smelled!! After a quick and weird breakfast of broken "Instant Dosa" and "Italian Salsa dip", I settled down to organize my online photos. I have been postponing this as it is some grunt work. i find it hard to decide on what exactly I want - professional-looking albums hosted on a third-party photo album site such as flickr/myphotoalbum? or create a small black canvas around each image with copyright info?

I browsed a few photo-hosting site looking for alternatives to Flickr. Some friends tell me to try Picasa, but somehow there is some element that is missing. Or it may be that I may not be clear of what I want.

Afternoon turned out to be quite sunny, so after looking through my favourite nature sites - indiabirds.com and indianaturewatch.com, I brought out the photographer from within me. Both of us went for a nice stroll through the woods near my place. Although I did not get any good shots of birds, there were a few photos that I liked.

Macro Photography is also a fast becoming a favorite of mine, so I took this photo.

By this time, it had cooled down considerably with a cold wind. After a few purchases to sustain me for Sunday, I decided to go back and make something different to eat for snacks. Crispy, tasty Alu Bhajjis with strong, hot tea!!! Mmmmm, heavenly.

With that, I settled down to watch a movie and lo, finally found the movie I had been wanting to see for quite some time - Godavari. Very nice movie, reminds me of times spent with the Missus. More on that later. See ya.

Sid's Rantings and Musings: Pokiri Pandugadu Spoof - 'Yes' AP Consultant

2007-03-14T02:50:00.000+05:30

There is a good amateur video doing a spoof on the movie "Pokiri". What I liked most was the creativity in juxtaposing scenes from the original movie in this video.

Posted at Sid's Rantings and Musings: Pokiri Pandugadu Spoof - 'Yes' AP Consultant

Khosla ka Ghosla - A movie review

2007-02-22T02:01:00.000+05:30

As promised in my previous post, a review of a more cheerful movie. But again, don't look here for the plot :)

My first impression of the movie - funny, yet subtly showing us how limited choices we have in our dealings with the big bad world outside. Some facility for "tit-for-tat" looks the most promising wa to get back at more powerful people.

Boman Irani - As I said previously, he is one of the best actors around, probably will rank as one of the greatest. In this movie, he is the perfect "landshark", the typical specimen of the class. Looks cheerful, but there is always an undercurrent of menace, seething below the surface. Just put a pebble in his way and you bear the full brunt of his anger.

Again, he is also a fanatic "devotee", seeking to bribe even God, through his piety! Enjoys all things money can buy, but believes that land is the one thing that will never lose value. How true in these days!

Anupam Kher - Actor par excellence, he is a perfect match for Boman. You can immediately substitute your father in this role - has worked hard throughout his life to build his own house, has many dreams about it and waiting for them to come true.

If you are as normal hearted as most young people, you cannot hold back the faint glint of tears at Anupam Kher's "father" - he wants his children to do well, but still is protective when they don't "shine". He wants to be as a friend to his children. He wants his children to stay with him, but is ready to let them go if it makes them big in life. Behind every tough-looking father, there stands a tender-hearted man, who is afraid that being gentle always makes his children go wrong. Tremendous.

Parvin Dabas - Typical IT guy, wants to be big in life - going to America. But like all of us, has too strong ties to hearth and home. Torn between ambition to be something and his family and lover who need him, he has our sympathies.

Tara Sharma - "Girl next door" suits her. Not a drop-dead bombshell like other heroines fit only for running around trees when the hero wants, she comes across as a normal, good-looking girl, who is modern, but still shy enough to wait for the guy she loves to make the first move.

Navin Nischol - he has been around too long for me to talk anything. A veteran, he carries off his role with ease. As a run-down actor who has seen glorious days, you can understand how he feels when he has to act like a rich guy. To be on equal terms with the paranoid Boman is not a laughing matter and Navin plays the role of a frightened, yet determined man to perfection.

The crew - cinematographer, editor, screenplay, dialogues - complement wonderfully the director (Dibakar Banerjee). It really takes guts to produce such a movie - no big stars - just a story that takes place hundreds of times every day across India, an excellent cast and crew and some really wonderful story telling ability from the director.

Although they are two completely different movies, the two movies I have reviewed so far - Being Cyrus and KKG - are two offbeat movies that somehow have my complete admiration. Acting, Direction, Story are completely different from run-off-the mill Bollywood movies - but more importantly starting to make journeys inwards into the minds of people.

We now have producers and directors and yes, more importantly actors, with courage. that I applaud.

Finally, I have to place on record my admiration to the "Man of the movies" - Boman Irani. Hats off.