For Indian bloggers,specially Delhi bloggers, web additcs February 2009 will always be a month to remember, with aquantity and quality of events that kept the community buzzing.

If you dont know, Delhi has this month already hosted Mozilla Camp on 10th Feb for which I was not fortunate enough to be able to attend it though I wanted so badly as I am a Firefox fan.

Then Delhi was host to Twestival too on 12 Feb 2009, which was a global event organised simultaneously in 175 countries to support charity:water.

And now, a real treat for wordpress users,fans,developers in Delhi and all over India: India’s first ever Wordcamp is being organised in Delhi on 21st and 22 Feb!

The mega event is being organised by Delhi Bloggers Bloc.
Now the best part. The highlights/biggies of the event are:
- Matt Mullenweg, the founder of Wordpress, will be joining us! Its once in a lifetime opportunity to meet the brain behind the world’s most popular blogging platform.
- Om Malik, named one of the 100 most influential bloggers by cnet.
- Amit Aggarwal, of labnol, the BIG name of Indian blogosphere and the most successful Indian blogger. (more…)

All right, here is the thing. We have so many rakshaks of our Indian culture. One of them, Sri Ram Sena attacked girls in a pub in Mangalore because they claim that women going to pubs is not in accordance with Indian culture. Just in case you do not support the heroics of Sri Ram Sena (i bet you do love and support SRS,whats with opposing Sri Ram Sena anyway? heh), this valentines day, you can send a pink chaddi to Sri Ram Sena as a mark of your protest. Why pink chaddi? Because chaddis are forever! Its a great idea courtesy http://thepinkchaddicampaign.blogspot.com/, which is a “consortium of pub going, loose and forward women”. (more…)

I just came back after watching “Dev D” and could not help but writing about it.
Anurag Kashyap’s Dev D is a great movie, story adapted only marginally from the classic Devdas. But mind you,the resemblance with the original ends right there. The two have got nothing in common. This is more like Devdas of the Gen-X,the modern Devdas. The one who doesnt just ruin his over loss of a female in his life but rather, “moves on”.
Dev D is not like your typical SRK (and party) starrer bollywood romantic movie set in abroad which whence you come back watching, will make you say “this does not happen in real life”, then you can even go on to question your intelligence that why did you ever go to watch the movie at first place. Dev D is as real as it can get. Its characters are real and not larger than life unlike normal bollywood movies. They live and face real life situations.
Abhay Doel has done it yet again. I (used to) watch his movies without any expectations. I watched his “Manorma Six Feet Under” and loved it. Then a few days back I watched “Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!”  only because I had couple of free tickets but I loved it as well. He does a decent job in this movie too,as Dev D. He may not be working with big names right now but, watch your road man, there are many more coming your way. You will make many fans too.

Mahie Gill also does justice to her character of a modern and strong Punjabi girl who does not get all crying even if her lover leaves her and she can hold her head high even when her morality is questioned and doesnt let stereotypes get a hold of her. So is Kalki Koechlin who plays another great role in the movie. I loved her scenes with Abhay more than the scenes of Abhay and Mahie.
As much as the casting, the camera work is also excellent. I dint realise that there were 18 songs in the movie till I just read it moments ago,that is how apt they were in their placement in the movie. Each song went with the mood in the movie.

There were enough daring dialogues that will entertain you.

You should watch this movie for the gutsy director, Anurag Kashyap who does something which not others can just not do. Portraying love and sexuality in an un-told way,something which bollywood has never seen. There are too many firsts with this movie.
In one word: Dont miss it if you want something fresh from bollywood and can digest some at-your-face reality,daring dialogues.

Dev D rocks: 3.75/5

So its time, like I promised, to announce the winners of my first blog contest.

The contest was announced on 1st December on my new blog Knayam in association with wordpressland.

And here are the winners:

1st prize of Content Press – Premium Magazine/News Style Wordpress Theme” woth $75 (sponsored by wordpressland.com): David

2nd prize of Magazine News – Premium Magazine/News Style Wordpress Theme” woth $49 (sponsored by wordpressland.com): Topen

3rd prize: $5 cash via Paypal (sponsored by Knayam) : Rahul (prize given)

4th prize: 1000 EC credits (sponsored by Knayam): Rahul

5th  prize: 500 EC credits (sponsored by Knayam): Sherry (prize given)

Here is the video I made of the draw: For some weird reason,im unable to upload the video on any video sharing site. You can download the video from here and see it.

Congratulations to all the winners!

Winners will be contacted via email (by which they subscribed) soon and they will have 7 days to claim the prizes they have won.

Thank you all for participating.

Rafael Nadal marched his way to glory by beating former world number one, Roger Federer by 7-5, 3-6, 7-6, 3-6, 6-2 in the Australian Open 2009 final in Melbourne. The greatest player of all time for me, Federer was bidding for a 14th grand slam to equal the record of Pete Sampras but he was halted like he was at the French Open and Wimbledon. The sensational and upstoppable Spainiard now has 6 grand slam titles including 4 at French Open and 1 each at Wimbledon and Australian Open. He had never won a grand slam on hard court before and by winning tonight, he now has titles on the three surfaces; hard,clay and grass. And with his age(22), you can be sure there are many more slams coming his way.
The way he lays his tennis is just incredible. He just hates the ball dropping in his court and thus runs like a rabbit and make sure ball doesnot bounces more than once in his side of the court. Verdasco said after his defeat against Nadal in semifinal that you have to win a point three times against Nadal. That is how difficult it is against the man who plays amazing muscular tennis.
I mentioned in my post how I wanted to write about Federer winning is the final but it isnt the case now. I am always rooting for Roger so it is obviously sad. But do you know what is heart breaking? If you have seen this match you know it.
It was the scene when at presentation ceremony the great Roger Federer broke down and cried inconsolably. Man, I could not bear those scenes. Roger said” May be ill try later. God, its killing me…” and then he broke down cried his heart out for long time. A tsunami of emotions at that very moment. A terrible sight for tennis fans. I would have written about how he played the match but after watching this, I am not in a position to write anything. It was just so overwhelmingly difficult to see him sry. That shows how much he wanted it (a win against Nadal in finals) and how badly it hurts him losing yet again to Federer. But I dont think the loss again was the factor that made him cry. Nadal has just gotten so deep.. ahh…forget it. I wont say anything. It was just too hard to see that sight. For the champion he is, I cant believe it.That is one sight I will never forget. You are still the champion and still the greatest Roger.

Here is the video that says it all:

A few more pictures: (more…)