Life Of Navin

Recently, the British military were looking to get rid of a stranded C-130 Hercules cargo plane, in the north of Baghdad which had some technical error. So what do they do?? They BLOW IT UP of course. In the matter of a few seconds, $50 million were powderized into the atmosphere!! Ironically, The Indian Air Force is in talks with their American counterparts at Lockheed Martin to ink a deal to get 6 of these planes to India. And the deal is said to cost India $962 million!!

Here's the amazing video that shows the Big Boom!!

Video Source: LiveLeak.com

Some great news for India's on-the-move populace. Now you can carry your data around with you for the amazingly low price of Rs. 15000!!

If its unbelievably cheap, its gotta be Zenith Computers, one of the largest manufacturers of personal computers in India, and sticking to their philosophy of price is not quality, the company has launched the nation's lowest-priced laptop, at an amazing price tag of Rs 14,999!! Whats more, the PC comes preloaded with Microsoft OS!!

The announcement, made by Raj Saraf, chairman and MD of Zenith Computers; and Ravi Venkatesan, chairman, Microsoft India, is an effort by the companies to further their initiatives in the affordable computing space.


The new laptop, which was launched under the EcoStyle brand name, will be available across India in time for the festive season. The EcoStyle laptop series is ideal for youth as it is quite trendy. The laptop is Net-enabled and comes preloaded with the Microsoft productivity suite. The customer has an option of choosing Windows Vista Starter or Microsoft Windows XP Home. This makes it great for SOHOs and students.

The laptop weighs 2.2 kg and has dimensions of 185mm x 250 mm x 70 mm. The Eco part of the Ecostyle brand comes from the fact that these laptops consume far less power than other laptops. One an average, the EcoStyle laptops claim to consume 30% less power!! Or so Zenith claims.

Lets just hope that the EcoStyle brand of laptops get accepted and do not end up like so many other ambitious schemes launched by Indian companies in the past.....but overall its great to see that Indian companies too are going the "eco-friendly" way.

This initiative is a part of our continuous effort to foster advanced and hassle free computing experience. The initial Rs 10,000 PC was launched with much fanfare, however it failed to perform. With the EcoStyle PC, Zenith is bringing a true low-cost PC which underlines performance and affordability for the consumers. -Raj Saraf

I recently was in Bhopal, and with a late night train to catch (at 1:10 AM!!). With nothing else to do, I decided to check out the night show (9 PM) show of the mega-blockbuster Akki starrer Singh is Kinng. Not a multiplex mind you, a theatre (the kind i thought were all dead in this day and age!!). So here's my take on the movie......

Just a word of caution before you watch this film: This movie is not for the intellectuals or those pretending to be one. You know the rules when you watch a leave-your-head-at-home flick: Just don't look for logic. If you do, too bad for you, for you would never enjoy a film of this genre and more specifically, Singh Is Kinng!! And just incase you wondered, the extra "n" in the title is for good luck......sheesh!!

The film starts off with a slick action sequence which sets the pace for the film at a birthday bash for Lucky Singh (Sonu Sood) aka King (should i add an extra "n" here as well??), who's an internationally renowned don based down under in Kangaroo land.Post the James Bond style chase, we cut to a not-so-Bond-ish chicken chase, in which Happy Singh (Akshay Kumar) is introduced to us as the large-hearted Sardar, who means well, but causes chaos everywhere he goes. Animal rights activists needn't worry, coz the movie actually starts off with a note that says the chicken chase scene was done using CGI and tht "No chicken was harmed in the shooting of the scene".

So getting back to the movie, the villagers conspire to rid the village of Happy and convince him to set off to Australia and bring back Lucky, who hails from the same place. And so, Happy goes to Lucky, with so called buddy Rangeela, played by a marvelous Om Puri. The duo end up in Egypt after a ticket mix-up (in filmy style), where Happy meets Sonia (Katrina Kaif) after yet another chase, to retrieve her empty hand-bag. Happy falls in love with Sonia but ends with with nothing more than a bunch of memories when she suddenly disappears - Amelia Earhart anyone??

Happy then departs for Down Under and along with Rangeela tries to persuade King to return to his parents in Punjab. If Lucky agreed, the movie would've probably ended within an hour but Lucky says Nahi, thus dragging on the story.

Happy roams the streets of OZ until a motherly rose-shop owner (Kirron Kher) gives him food and shelter. Happy decides to reform Lucky and ensure that his parents get to see him before they make their one-way trip to heaven. But before he can reform Lucky, an unexpected twist of events lands the underworld king into a wheelchair and Happy Singh on the throne of the king. Thereafter, the new king turns the whole functioning of the underworld upside down. Charity and compassion replace coercion and kidnapping. And the don’s henchmen end up getting new duties – like cutting vegetables in kitchen or watering flowers in the garden.

The first half of the movie thus goes by breezily. However, the second half becomes a drag when Sonia re-enters Happy’s life as Kiron Kher's daughter with her boyfriend Puneet (Ranvir Shorey). Once rich, Kher's husband died leaving her bankrupt. But daughter Sonia - who hasn't returned home in 3 years - has no clue of the family's misfortunes. Happy, who has now taken up all of Kirron's problems upon himself, and his henchmen maintain their maali-waiter-assistant-manager façade and try to get the lovers married. But then, ofcourse Sonia falls in love with Happy.The comedy in the second hour becomes a tad too deliberate as Bazmee adopts a no-holds-barred approach and pulls every possible string and tries every available trick to make the film funny.

The climax is fairly predictable in total Aneez Bazmee style, and definitely whacked-out to say the least!!

Performance wise, the movie belongs to Akshay Kumar and Om Puri. The first half is a laugh riot thanks to Mr. Puri alone!! The childish bickering between Yashpal Sharma and Sudhanshu Pandey is near-perfect. Manoj Pahwa is good in his role. Javed Jaffery's talents have been wasted. Katrina Kaif is pure eyecandy- Nothing more, Nothing less. Neha Dhupia is mostly OK-OK, but looks bad lip-synching Hard Kaur's songs. Kirron Kher is motherly as usual. Ranvir Shorey maintains his identity well.

The music of the movie by Pritam is pretty funky but badly placed in the film, and the Snoop Dogg track (which arrives with the end credits) is just, sort of, a launch for Dogg into Bollywood. Hard Kaur does her bit with the vocals but as I mentioned before, Neha Dhupia looks weird lipsynching them. 'Talli Hua' is simply a waste of film-reel. 'Bhootni Ke' certainly brought back the memories of the last few Punjabi 'shaadiyaan' I've attended. The cinematography of the song is absolutely illogical and nauseating, but at the same time brilliant as well.

All in all, Singh is Kinng is not intelligent, nor is it witty, nor is it inspiring!! But, it clearly has no pretensions of being so. On the other hand, it's loud, fast and at times even funny. At the BO, the film fetched a hurricane-like start shattering all known records for an Indian film. Somehow, the movie has managed to rule the hearts of the aam junta (whose verdict matters the most), which , sorry to say, once again pushes a nail into the coffin of logical yet profitable movie-making.

I'd recommend you wait for the movie to be broadcast on the telly. Go to a theater at most, (like the one I was in) but the movie isn't worth spending hard earned $$ in a multiplex.

My Rating: 2 Stars

Main toh sirf Bolta hoon, acchi toh baatein apne aap ho jaate hain -Happy Singh in Singh is Kinng

Related posts:

• My review of Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na (My rating: 4 Stars)
• My Review of Sarkar Raj (My rating: 5 Stars)

"Google is by far the best search engine out there!!" How many times have you heard someone claim that?? Well, maybe it was, but somehow its results seem to be getting more and more irrelevent by the day.

Have you noticed the ever-growing number of Google-owned sites that have crept into the search giant's results? Doing a Google search for Mentos and Coke will take you to a results page where over half of the items are videos on Google's two video sites: YouTube and Google Video. And lets not forget AdSense, and those never ending ads towards the right hand side of the search results page. The search I've mentioned returned ads from sites such as Monster.com (offering me jobs in Coca Cola and Mentos!!).

However, the entire issue set into me to a much higher extent when I stumbled across Timo Paloheimo's blog. This guy from Finland seems to think the all-around increase of Google-owned sites in the results is impeding with what the search engine is all about (My point exactly!!). To remedy this he's put together a Google custom search called Google minus Google that removes all of Google properties from the equation. It's like any other Google custom search, except for the giant handpicked blacklist of Google properties. So that basically means the Original Results -Blogger -Knol -YouTube -Google Videos!! But AdSense ads still exist!! There is NO Google custom earch engine that can exclude all AdSense!!

To Google Minus Google's credit, doing the same search puts a Wikipedia article on top, followed by the Eepybird people, who were the creators of the video that's the best known example of the Web phenomenon. Hmm... but it all depends on what you were originally looking for....... if you were looking for the video then Google did manage to get the job done right?? All a matter of perspective I guess!!

Hmm...what form factor is your phone?? a 'trad' candybar, or a 'suave' slider, or the 'ultra-oomphy' flip?? Or maybe its the 'Bend'!! Oh yeah...that's drool worthy eh??

The Bend Mobile Phone concept, with a extractable camera and bent double screen sounds is more of a "like it or hate it" kinda concept....count me in the former!! I'd say this is one of those designs that designers come up with an idea that, while impractical, would at least be interesting should it ever be made (read "the Plica").

The Bend, which is meant to be easier to get in and out of the pocket. It packs a sideways sliding camera with squashed up components at either end as if an elephant had sat on it. This phone would hardly fly off the shelves.The dual screen idea, which seems to be the only thing designers want to put into phones these days, looks very bizarre with a number of bits stuck on the side randomly.


Oh, and not to forget the keyboard.... It's touchscreen!! Unfortunately though, the keys appear to be the size of pinpricks (or maybe even smaller!!).

Wait for its international lunch this November.Pure genius this one!! :)

Paolo Coelho: not someone who really needs an introduction. The multi-million selling author and writer of such classics as The Witch of Portobello, Eleven Minutes, and The Alchemist. Now that's an author huh?? And definitely someone who's a staunch opponent of Piracy right?? Well....wrong!!

Paolo Coelho has actually claimed that online book piracy has actually increased sales of his books in hard copy instead of decreasing it. Amazing huh??

One of Coelho's fans supposedly posted a Russian translation of one of his famed novels on a file-sharing site and since then, sales of his books increased in Russia from 3,000 to 100,000 to a staggering 1 M in the timespan of three years.

"This happened in English, in Norwegian, in Japanese and Serbian," said Coelho. "Now when the book is released in hard copy, the sales are spectacular."

However, HarperCollins, Coelho's US publisher pulled him up on a supposedly unauthorised version of one of his books that the author had linked to from his own website. Supposedly the unauthorised version was found to contain Coelho's own author's notes!!

Coelho has long been known as one of the most tech-savvy authors. He Twitters, he blogs, he encourages his readers to submit their thoughts on developing stories (or their pictures to Flickr). However, in his own words, "he still believes in print."

It gives me a lot of joy, because writing is something you do alone. -- Paolo Coelho on why he writes

How many times have you heard a joke and found it to be mind-numbingly stale? Well, it certainly doesn't get older than this. Researchers have found the oldest one of them all!!

The world's oldest recorded joke has been traced to roughly 1900 BC and seems to suggest that toilet humour was as popular with the ancients as it is today. The joke, which is an ancient Sumerian saying, was recorded from modern day Iraq and goes: "Something which has never occured since time immemorial; A young woman did not fart in her husbands lap." Get it?? Neither did I when I read it the first time!

This "joke" topped the list of top 10 oldest jokes and was followed in second by a 1600 BC gag about the pharoah King Snofru,which goes: "How do you entertain a bored pharoah? You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharoah to go catch a fish". Din't get this one either?

OK, here's the one that I found the best: A joke from the 10th century AD which is definitely not one for the kids: "What hangs at a man's thigh and wants to poke the hole that it's often poked before? Answer: A key". I bet I know what your answer was !!

"Jokes have varied over the years, with some taking the question and answer format while others as witty proverbs or riddles," said the writer of the report, Paul McDonald. He also added " Modern puns, especially sex girl jokes and toilet humour can all be traced back to the oldest of jokes identified in this research"

Visit this link to view the list of Top 10 Oldest Jokes.