Mee Nathuram Godse Boltoy.......

Nathuram Godse is as famous as Mahatma Gandhi. Why? Simple……because he assassinated Gandhi. But what most people do not know is the reason why Nathuram Godse did it. This play that I seen today “Mee Nathuram Godse Boltoy” reveals the story from Mr. Godse’s point of view.

For all those who do not know, let me tell you that Nathuram Godse was not a madman or a criminal to assassinate Gandhi. Infact, during his teen years, Gandhi was an Idol to Godse. And yet Godse assassinated Gandhi on January 30, 1948, approaching him during the evening prayer, bowing, and shooting him three times at close range with a Beretta semi-automatic pistol. Immediately after this, he surrendered himself to police, rather than running away.

It’s just that our history books portray him as the bad man who shot Gandhi. And no surprise in that as India after Independence was mostly governed (I prefer the term “mostly ruled”) by Congress. So most of the history that is been told in our education system is NOT the truth. Hence it’s best to investigate yourself using trustworthy sources. Anyways…..this blog is not to blame or accuse the Congress.

As I mentioned earlier, Nathuram Godse shot Gandhi (who was his Idol), three times and just stood there. He could have run away in the commotion of the crowd. He could have also shot himself in order to escape the punishment of assassinating the Father of Nation. Instead, he chose to stand there and get arrested. Now there has to be some moral reason to do this. Yes there is a reason to it. And the pity is that most of us are not aware about it. You know whom to blame for that :-). Well, the play “Mee Nathuram Godse Boltoy” presents to us the assassination of Gandhi from Nathuram’s point of view and why he chose to take this drastic step.

This play has been banned and not available on cd or dvd (atleast I could not find one). But you can view this play on www.youtube.com. It’s banned for obvious reasons that some people who have written our Indian history do not want the common man to know the truth. Do also visit this webpage http://ngodse.tripod.com/. It shares a lot of information regarding Gandhi and the reason for his assassination. They mainly highlight Gandhi’s idea of non-violence and the partition of India into India and Pakistan. Check the play and the website and decide for yourself about the truth.

If anyone asks me, I don’t think Mahatma Gandhi deserves to be the Father of my Nation.

PS: Once you open youtube, type in the search field 'Mee Nathuram Godse Boltoy' and you will get the play in parts. Its divided into 14 parts and its in marathi. If you want it in English subtitles, then go to http://ngodse.blogspot.com/, and download the files by copy-pasting the links given in a different browser.

And the actor who plays Nathuram Godse does a fabulous job in unfolding the character.

India vs Finland - Volleyball !!! :-) .... Chak De style.

There are so many stories about how a person who is considered as an underdog rises to his tasks and achieves his goals merely by his desire and belief to win. Take for example the stories shown in Chak De India and Lagaan. But these are just reel stories. What i have to tell is not a reel, but a Real Story. :)

The day was 29^th August 2008 on a beachside. That’s where a beach volleyball tournament was to be held for all Elektrobit (Oulu, Finland……that’s the company where I work) employees and sub contractors and all entries were to be given 2 weeks before the date. So we decided to participate and send in our entry. Total number of players in a team was 7 and all were Indians. The team name was selected as Just4Kicks!

Great, so we had our team we had a funky name, and now the big question was, how to play the game. Well, for those of you who do not know, the Finnish people play volleyball in their country as we play Cricket in India. So they are well versed with all kinds of tactics and strategies. And to top it all, the average height of a Finnish person is 6 feet 2 inches and they have a very strong and muscular physic. More like the WWE people. Now just imagine us standing among these huge dudes. Its like Rajpal Yadav standing among a group of Dara Singhs :). So it was evident that our team had no chance to win even a point in the game, forget winning a game.

For the next two weeks, we practiced regularly for 2 hours after office, thinking that its fine if we loose, but we will not loose without a fight. We learned a few basic tactics during our practice sessions and had a simple game plan – that come what may, we have to give our 100% and pass the ball to the opponent’s court. We all felt good about the practice sessions as we took it like a temporary exercise to this software body of ours.

So the day came, 29^th of August. It was a Friday and many employees were ready at the venue. Some to see the games and some to participate in their teams. There were 5 teams including ours, that made it 4 Finnish teams and 1 Indian team. And from the Finnish teams, there were 5 players who were national level players. While we were warming up before the games, our Finnish colleagues challenged us that we wouldn’t even win a Set. As a matter of fact, that’s what we all felt when we seen the Finnish people or Finn’s practicing. Their game was so perfect, and so strong. Unfortunately for us, the temperature that day was 7 degree Celsius. The temperature did not matter for the Finn’s as they are used to extreme cold temperatures.

Well, with all odds against us, we said to ourselves, let’s enjoy the game and win some hearts :). The games started with a huge applause from the crowd. Luckily, we started our game with a bang. We got 3 straight points on our serve. So we were leading from the start. It was a best of 3 Set matches. So the team who won 2 Sets would get points added in the table. We were doing very well in the first Set, and guess what, we actually won it. This gave us confidence that if we just calm down and focus on the game, we can do better than we expected. The match continued and we performed even better and won the firs match. Wow! But there was a weird silence in the crowd. The Finn’s never expected us to win, but we did. So this became a prestige issue for them. And they started cheering all the Finnish teams against us.

Our second match was against a team named Godzilla. And likely so, all players were huge:). But we had one thing in mind, not to go down without a fight. And fight we did. We won the first Set. Seeing us perform so well with such enthusiasm and high levels of energy, few of the Finn’s from the crowd started cheering up for our team. And we really liked it. The game went on. We lost the second Set, but won the third Set comfortably thus winning the match against the mighty Godzilla. And the crowd cheered even more for us.

Then was time for a third match. We stumbled at the start but won that match too in the end. So with 3 wins to our team, we were now going to play a last match, which was the final. Now could you believe that? Well, we couldn’t at that time. With no chance to win even a point, here we were winning 3 continues matches against some of the best players and now even had a chance to win the finals. That itself is some achievement, isn’t it?

The whistle was blown and the tournament finals started. We were playing good, but the opponents were even better. We gave everything, but it didn’t matter, they were just too good. We lost the finals. But it was still a close match, with just a difference of couple of points.

But too our amazement, everyone from the crowd was just saying our name Just4Kicks……Just4Kicks :). Most of them came and talked to us, saying that they liked our style of playing the game, it was unique and different. Even the Finnish players came and applauded us. Everyone was in total surprise that how could a bunch of Indian guys manage to give such a great performance when they had all odds against them.

We lost the finals, but it didn’t matter, as we had accomplished what we had aimed for – to win hearts! And we had done it in style:). We won the silver medal and we felt like winners, not the reel way, but the Real way.

"A Wednesday" on a Sunday

Thanks to my fast internet connection (10 Mbps) and online streaming, I am lucky enough to watch the recently released movies on my laptop. The movie that I seen today is called “A Wednesday”. Guys, go watch it!!! Hats off to director Neeraj Pandey for making this movie and selecting the perfect cast and crew. Naseerudin Shah is as usual excellent with his dialogue delivery and Anupum Kher does full justice to his role as police commissioner of Mumbai and for the first time you can see Jimmy Shergill playing a role as a tough guy………..and he does it in style. I never knew he would pull of this character of “Arif” in the movie so well.

A Wednesday is one of the finest arts of cinema in 2008. The story is about a set of events that occur from 2 pm to 6 pm on a Wednesday. As the movie unfolds you feel a sense of curiosity as to whats going to happen next. I won’t write more about the story as it would ruin your surprises in the movie. One can say that the movie takes few concepts of Black Firday or Aamir, however, the story is unique and definitely not predictable (well……..it is a little bit). Overall I rate it 9 out of 10.

PS: Another reason why I liked the movie is because its short (less than 2 hours) and it has no Songs :)

Cycling in Oulu

I still remember those days when I used to cycle around in Mumbai. I got my first cycle at the age of 14, it was named Generation X Ranger ( yeah I got it for its funky name ;-) ), and used to cycle a lot during holidays and vacations. But soon I gave it up as the roads were very bad and I used to get a flat tire almost every 2 weeks.

And ten years later, now when I am in Oulu (in Finland), I bought a second hand cycle and started cycling again. And the only reason was the well maintained separate roads for cycling. In fact, the cycle roads in Oulu are considered as one of the best in the world. The total length of roads is approx. 512kms. That’s right, no heavy motor vehicles are allowed on these roads and they are meant only for cycling, skating, walking and running. And unlike that in Mumbai, its great to see so many people cycling around the city.

Well, I see it as a nice solution to reduce pollution. And it’s a nice way to stay in shape as well ;). The scenery alongside the roads is filled with greenery and forests.........simply breath taking. Its as if I am traveling through one of the landscapes shown in Lord of The Rings movie.

Its been 3 months now that I have been cycling within the city and its been one of my best experiences here in Oulu. I even go to work on my cycle. As a matter of fact about 20% of employees in my company get their cycles to work. And about 10 % come on their roller skates and the rest get their car. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined to come to work on a cycle (that too dressed in formals………hehe).

Here are few pictures for you to enjoy. The cycle in the last photo is mine :)