The forgotten hero - subhash chandra bose

Last weekend, I was feeling patriotic for some reason. Even 26th January had passed already. When I searched for movies on youtube I found this movie based on the hidden hero of our nation. This story revolves around the actual incidents that made him revolutionary.

He was the head of congress party when M.K. Gandhi doesn't agree with his principles which involved violence where as Gandhiji believed in non-violence. Then Bose understood that if he is in India then he won't be able to achieve his goals. He starts his journey by going to Kabul and from there he tries to contact Russians, Germans and Italians. Finally, he gets his Italian passport and he goes to Europe where he forms 'Azad hind fauj' with his efforts. It is an untold story of a man who always stood behind getting India's independence. He was mysteriously killed in an airplane crash. I felt happy to see how he contacted Hitler, Japanese emperor and persuades people living in Singapore and Burma to form an army that was supposed to march into India and make British government to flee. His efforts and intelligence was remarkable.

I had always learnt in my schools that M.K. Gandhi was main cause of India's independence because of his non-violence and dandi march. But now when I saw this movie it makes me to ponder whether this is really true. Isn't it possible that just because after independence since Nehru became the first prime minister of India he made sure that books have Gandhi ji's name prominently regarding india's independence struggle. What about other great freedom fighter's like Subhash Chandra Bose, Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru etc. Because of seeing movies on these legendry people we are now understanding that independence was because of everyone's efforts. But main important thing though is India's independence was not the result of non-voilence or satyagraha as I used to believe! I highly recommend watching this movie as a tribute to our great national hero.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_qtYCyQtPU

Review of Chetan bhagat's book: Revolution 2020

After waiting for a while I finally read the book Revolution 2020 by Chetan Bhagat. Being a hardcore Chetan Bhagat fan, I expected a lot from his 5th Novel. But sadly I am not very impressed by this one. One reason is may be my expectations were a lot and secondly the name of the book "Revolution 2020" i found it to be confusing.

The story begins in its usual style where Gopal(main character) he meets Chetan ji and narrates him his story just like he wrote in 'one night @ callcenter' and '3 mistakes of my life'. I think he shouldn't repeat these things in the book since it becomes monotonous or he wants to maintain this to show the readers that they are actual stories of life and not something he had in his mind. Anyways, the plot begins in the city of Varanasi where 3 childhood friends grow up and start having differences when they give JEE and AIEEE exams. This is the typical story of any Indian family who expects a lot from their kids. He has carefully written everything about Aarti and Gopal but I fail to understand why he didn't write enough details about Raghav. The plot moves to a point where Aarti and Raghav become serious even in those instances Chetan has not mentioned about Raghav properly. His focus was only on Aarti and Gopal whereas on the book cover it is mentioned that it is the story of 3 friends.

The plot becomes somewhat interesting when he introduced MLA, GangaTech school of which Gopal becomes the director. But later on i felt he lost the track. He has introduced corruption and ambition of Gopal but he failed to focus more on Raghav and his 'Revolution 2020' newspaper. That's where I got confused with the title. I was expecting the end to be more like where Raghav and Gopal unite together and fight for the people of Varanasi. But the story went somewhere else.

About the characters:

Gopal - He is the main character of the book and story revolves around his life sequences. His love for Aarti, his ambition to become a rich man and the way he gives in to corruption because of his family situation. All these resemble to that of a common Indian man. But the end was little disturbing where he just leaves Aarti abruptly just because he thinks he is not suitable to her. I mean Chetan shifted his emotions in a jiffy. This should have been in a controlled way, according to me.

Aarti - Most confused girl I have ever seen. She wanted only attention from the boy. She didn't mind cheating Raghav just because he didn't had time for her. This is non-sense. I just thought that Chetan wanted to add some spice in the book by introducing an affair between Aarti and Gopal just like he did in his other books. So, if we ignore that part other stuff is fine. She feels inclined towards Gopal and shows interest in marrying him as well.

Raghav - He is a non highlighted character in this story. Initially he is potrayed as a studious friend of Gopal and Aarti and later in the story he is shown as a revolutionary. But I seriously felt that Chetan should have thought more and written about this character in some detailed way since he named the book as 'Revolution 2020'.

Since most part of the book was written for Gopal, it would have added more colors to the story if he had written somehing like Gopal joins the revolution with Raghav or did something for the society in return apart from handling his college. Most of the story after midway, I felt was a filmy type. As if the story was meant to be written so that a movie can be released using this. I seriously hope that Chetan Bhagat takes this criticism seriously and writes great books in his future just like 2 states, 5 point someone and 3 mistakes of my life.

I give just 2 stars to his book 'Revolution 2020'

Will I loose weight just by consuming more water??

We all know that the weight loss journey is not so simple and many theories are presented by people who have lost their weight by following some specific protocol. Most common notion of people who are in this journey is 'Consuming more water'. I wanted to highlight some points in this area.

Tip 1# consuming right amount of water

Drinking more water to reduce weight is the easiest thing in the world. It doesn't need any willpower or driving force and also doesn't involve cutting back on calories. Then why aren't people in this world are loosing weight by this simple shortcut??

Consuming water is definitely good but how does it effect the weight loss phenomenon? When I googled today to know how much water is needed by any individual aspiring to loose weight, I found a website that finds out by knowing some little details about you such as - weight, how much exercise you do daily, climatic conditions etc. So, yes before jumping into any conclusion try to find out how much water is needed for you to consume. Some people just blindly go on drinking 4-5 lit of water everyday. But it is not really needed !

Just to give an idea : A person who weighs 155pounds, who works out everyday for 45mins and who lives in a weather which is either too hot or too cold needs to drink around 2.9 lit of water. Again with a condition that if he eats enough fruits that yield some percentage of water than only 2.4 lit of water is needed.

Studies suggest that people who drink more water tend to consume less calories. But drinking much water doesn't really account for the weight loss, but it might affect metabolism.

Tip 2. Drinking water before consuming meals helps to reduce the volume of food that you eat during that meal. That means you will tend to eat less! Try having a small bowl of soup or small portion of salad as well. It will cut down your appetite further more.

Main thing to remember here is drink enough water to keep yourself hydrated. Studies show that dehydration is also one of the cause for weight gain. We eat less vegetables, fruits and eat more processed food than we should. Also, drinking more caffeinated beverages instead of water is also a bad idea. These beverages are diuretic i.e. they tend to force more water out of our body. Once a person is dehydrated their body compensates by retaining more water as a preventive measure. This accounts for the water weight in our body. Also, a dehydrated body's metabolism is significantly lower than a normal hydrated body. Many people get confused by their body signals. They have lost the sense of thirst and mistake it for hunger and tend to eat food. Drinking a glass of water will reduce false hunger pangs.

So, the conclusion is that we should definitely drink appropriate amount of water daily but we shouldn't follow that protocol blindly.

Websites go dark to protest against SOPA & PIPA bills

Internet giants are protesting against SOPA and PIPA bills. Thousands of websites such as Wikipedia, Reddit etc have shut down for around 24hrs to protest U.S. congress’s anti-piracy bills. To my surprise when I opened a blank Google page it showed me a page where it blacked out its name. It is Google’s way to show that it is against these bills. When I clicked on the blacked out area it navigates to the page where google is shouting loud enough to make congress hear what it thinks. It asks for user information to sign the petition to tell the Congress not to censor the web. Google page is also captioned as “End piracy, Not Liberty’

Two bills Protect IP Act(PIPA) and Stop Online Piracy Act(SOPA) will be passed before the congress in the white house. This would censor the web and will impose some harmful regulations on American business. The senate would begin voting on January 24^th, so by signing this petition let them know how you feel. This is the more detailed message from Google

(This is the homepage of google.com with small caption under google search button)

When we open the Wikipedia page, we can see that the page has gone dark and now it just features a note to the visitors titled ‘Imagine a world without Free Knowledge’. The note even mentions “Right now, theU.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia.” Users have been given a link to navigate and know more about this protest. Wikipedia has called this movement “unprecedented” and believes that if the bills get passed then it would be devastating to the free and open web.

(This is the homepage of Wikipedia)

These protests begin late Tuesday night where students finished their home works early and many technical people posting instructions on how to access the cached Wikipedia pages during this blackout. We never know what might happen if Google and Facebook shuts down for 24hrs or more. The shut down in these sites have created anxiety in world’s internet companies. These companies have now broadened the debate on SOPA and PIPA by expressing their dislikes in getting handcuffed by the government. The founders of these internet giants are expressing it on Facebook or twitter.

As we know that fighting piracy is very important. But there is no need to make the social networks, blogs and search engines censor the internet. These companies have created million jobs in 21^st century. Internet is a tool for creating more open and connected world. It would be a poor decision to let laws get in the way of internet’s development and seizing the freedom of people to share thoughts and their opinions about something. Even though the congress party is not taking these blackouts seriously, the internet sites aren’t turning back. While government’s proposal to stop piracy is logical, but SOPA and PIPA might not be the right way to deal with it.

New Year and the excitement

Happy new year to everyone reading this post. Hope you all had a fun filled 31st Dec, 2011 evening. When we start our new year day, we usually like to do something that we always intended to do and something good and auspicious. Some people I know start making a list of new year resolutions and try to follow them, some of them already start implementing their resolution by going for a morning walk or joining a gym. For my case, I always start this day by looking at the horoscope, scary right?? Well, I don't think I believe in it totally but to some extent yes!! For my horror I saw that this year one of the 'Navgraha planet' is going to show adverse effect on me :( Poor me. I read two three websites to see if there is any good luck as well. But couple of vedic astrology websites mentioned about this and this started getting on my nerves.

So far I have seen major imbalances in my life last year and tried to somehow cope up with it. So, I started researching the remedies for the same. To my shock I found couple of sites suggesting to start reading 'Navagraha stotras' which are in sanskrit and they are so many to learn! I want to wish me luck this year with this new learning and surprises.

Also, I intend to write the most awaited short novel of mine. Atleast, now I think I should write it and publish it here on my blog.

Anyways this is how my first day of new year started. Wishing everyone a funfilled new year!