Indian Railway Ticket Status on Phone

Computerization has made it a lot easier to book the ticket with Indian railways. Gone are the days when I used to fret with the imagination of standing in long queues for getting reservation, on mercy of "Sarkari Babu" gone for tea break in between working hours. Initially there were hicups in the way irctc.co.in used to work but now it looks good.

Recently I got the reservation in waiting list and knew that it's possible to see the status online of your waiting list ticket which is a far relief again from the days when you got to know about your ticket confirmation only after reaching train station. Now based on the availability check ahead in time (2-4 hours before train departs), you can plan what to do next. However again it's not possible to have internet connection and laptop everywhere unless you have internet connected phone.

So I thought it would have been great if the same (availability check) is available on phone too. By chance, I dialed to one of my friends and asked him if he would have time to let me know about my ticket confirmation from internet when I am away on the road. The next thing what he told me is what I really wanted.

It's certainly possible to look at waiting-list ticket status on phone by dialing 139 from any phone from anywhere. It will ask you the PNR number of your train ticket and will provide information on the current status of your ticket. It's also possible to know about the arrival and departure of a train and book ticket with cash-card using 139.

I felt great to know about it and thought others like me who don't know about it should know it too.

Wedding Culture of Bollywood

Today I was watching one of my favorite movies again, "Main, Meri Patni aur Woh". The movie is quite refreshing as it touches many of North-Indian cultural nuances which are mostly untouched in Bollywood movies. Though the movie focuses on the insecurities of a person short in height, the instances/emotions/human psychology is quite near to North-Indian cultural sensibilities.

One of things which attracted me in the movie is the depiction of the way arranged marriage happen in North India. In Hindi cinema, I have observed whenever it comes to marriage, its rituals and traditions, most of the times it looks like that Panjabi traditions are default to all North-Indian marriages. Our real North-Indian wedding traditions are never shown in Hindi Cinema. This movie endorses my view as by looking at the movie you realise the cultural richness in North-Indian arranged marriages. Also it looks like there are many stories waiting to be told which may focus on cultural richness of small towns of UP/MP or Bihar.

Looking for a treadmill in Delhi

I started a huntout for treadmill in Delhi. Looked at google and could not find anything. You can find sponsored links but they are selling just because people don't know about alternative places. I looked at Aftons (http://www.healthclubindia.com) and went to their showroom in Delhi. Their machines are substandard and very costly. If you look at Yellow Pages for Delhi, you'll find most of the phone-numbers are outdated and you manage to find very few shops. The problem is - most of the shops in Delhi are not IT savvy and because of that it's difficult to find the rights shops. If you want to buy something, you need to be in the market of that particular commodity. So if you want to buy treadmill, you need to be in the market of it. It provides you a lot of advantages. When you are in a market, most of the traders share their competitive edge, you get to know the problems in different brands when you discuss with them, trade-secrets and at the end of it you get the right product at the right price. 

So for treadmill, I somehow found a market which is located in Jhande Walan in Karol Bagh (near Videocon tower). You'll find around 10 shops there at the same place. They have very competitive price and provide a lot of features. You'll be surprised that the similar model which I saw in Aftons showroom at Rs 60000 was available at Rs 30000 with a lot more features and guaruntee. Yesterday, I looked at many shops, took the brochurs of different models and currently comparing them. I looked at models which provide automatic features like automated reclining, hydrolic standing, sufficient width, multiple programs and display windows, ac/dc motor and their capacities in horse-power and also difference between guaruntee and warrantee stuff. In the end I came up with a good conclusion and plan to buy a treadmill from there in coming week.

No Smoking (the film)

Sometimes back I saw "No Smoking" - a movie by Anurag Kashyap. Simply out of the blue subject and treatment for Indian cinema. Some people simply didn't like it at all. Rediff gave it "No rating" and others were happy with single star. But it generated a wide spread debate across which is a phenomenon for a movie in recent times. I also wrote my comments at Anurag's blog (interesting debate at http://passionforcinema.com/i-smoked-classic-milds/). I am reproducing the same here also. My 2 cents about the movie ...

I went to movie before I could read any reviews which is a practice I follow to avoid nonsense movies. So the comments I am making right now can be considered unbiased.

The first half was terrific. It was gripping and beyond my imagination. Each scene, sequence was unthinkable and unknown and that’s what I like about a movie. This was a different and unknown world and I had to throw all prejudices whatsoevr to understand the concept of the movie. As I said, the experience was exhilariting and everybody in the cinema-hall seemed to be shell-shocked. However I was so impressed with whatever I was watching, that as soon as I came out in the interval, I called up my friend who is also a movie freak and told him that finally we have got a movie in the Indian cinema which is going to change all the predefined moulds. I asked him to watch this movie the very next day.

As I expected a lot better next half and went with a lot more curiosity, for some time I endured the sequences but after a period of time, I begin to feel what the hell it is…And there were many reasons:

1. I and similar to me others got very confused with the entire sequence of second half. I had no idea how K reached Ajarbaijaan. If in the end, it was about “aatma”, how come people like K were able to see them? What’s all that confusion about her dead wife and secretary and their so-called role-playing sequence? I also could not understand the significance of shower sequence.

2. The movie was too long. The kind of genre and type of movie it was, I felt exhausted long before movie ended. Some people left in between which is very rare for a movie I saw ever. In the end too, people couldn’t wait movie to end and started leaving thinking it has ended. Bipasha Basu song was simply wasted. Very few people were there in theater to watch that song and even then it looked completely wasted. In my view you should have edited the movie for at least 20-25 minutes and it should have been 1-1/2 hour movie max. I like the way RGV made Nishabd. Crisp, concise and with no-frills.

3. Too many songs. In a movie like this, songs seem to be like dampener. One or two thematic songs could be enough but more than that was just dragging the movie.

You might be having abundance of ideas but it’s not necessary to put them all in a movie. You need to understand the mind of a movie-goer also. Human mind can take one thing at a time. Also it gets exhausted after a period of time. So, unrelated sequences, too many ideas may not make a great movie. It’s necessary to understand the dynamics of crisp and concise words. Simple things work. This is a rule. Even for a subject as bizarre as NS, things would have worked, if you could avoid that much of confusion from the audience.

In my view, our viewers cannot become thinking audience in a night. The attempt was as harsh to Indian audience as it was for K in the movie. In foreign movies, I have seen that some of thinking part is never explained. You need to understand that. To that I would say, the second part was even an overdose for such an audience and Indian audience haven’t experience such a thing before.

Even after saying so many negative things, I would like acknowledge that this is a landmark attempt for Indian cinema. Though I felt exhausted after watching the movie, I felt good to be part of such an attempt. It’s just that I would have felt happier to watch a landmark movie which it could not because of above mentioned reasons.

The Other Facets

For quite some time, I have been writing on some important facets of my life. In "Swadhyay with Shri", I try to examine important inquisitive concepts of human behavior and psychology. "Lok Sangrah" is the expression in my mother tongue. Similarly for technical and professional front I have a Java blog on jroller.com. But then there are other not-so specific aspects in life which I wanted to share for quite some time. I wrote some of the movie reviews like for "No Smoking" and for "Parineeta" but I was a bit hesitent to put them on "Swadhyay on Shri" blog for obvious reasons as they simply don't fit there. Similarly I had no place to talk about my other passion , i.e. music. So this blog is a beginning to talk about other facets of my life. I hope you'll enjoy this one too. Cheers.