2008 In Retrospect

It is time to go in retrospect for the year 2008. On the whole it has been a memorable and eventful year. I would remember this year throughout my life as I got married this year. In every person's life, there are some significant milestones and turning points where life can take a different turn. Marriage is one such significant milestone. It was so memorable occasion where all of my family and friends were there to bless us.

Continuing on the personal front, my brother also started his first job and he is doing well. My wife started her masters studies. Work wise it has been quite satisfying. I got a chance to work on some important modules of my project. This year we took trips to Myrtle Beach, New York City, Atlantic City and Philadelphia.

Now on the general front, there has been a lot of bad news. This entire year we were in recession. During the summer, gas prices were going sky high with the speculations that it would go up to $8 per gallon. There was serious worry as to how to deal with this situation. During those days, I had a dream in which there was no gas left in the whole world and we were walking to get to everywhere. When I woke up from that dream, I felt very happy that it was just a dream. I hope we don't get to see that day.

The real estate bubble burst and the home prices fell sharply. Stocks crumbled. Lot of big companies bit the dust. I always thought that Finance was the safest sector. But I was proved wrong. I was surprised to see that one wrong decision in one sector (real estate) has caused recession throughout the world. It is so amazing how all are interconnected.

This year America elected an African American as their president. November 4th was a historic day. Wars continued in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel and Palestine engaged in a war. And this year will be remembered for the most brazen terrorist activity in Mumbai. Nobody can imagine that something like this can happen. It was horrific.

Some good movies released this year. My favorites were "A Wednesday", "Aamir", "Fashion", "Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na", "Rock On". Among the english movies, I liked "Vantage Point" and "21".

As we enter the year 2009, let us pray and hope that there is peace in the world and people unite than divide and let there be prosperity. Happy new year.

And the award goes to........

Here are my winners in the various categories. 

Best Movie of the year

------------------------

Jodha Akbar

A Wednesday (Winner)

Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na

Rock On

Fashion

Best Out of the box movie

------------------------

A Wednesday(Winner)

Aamir 

Dasvidaniya

Best Director

-------------------

Madhur Bhandarkar (Fashion)

Ashutosh Gowarikar (Jodha Akbar)

Abbas Tyrewala - Jaane Tu ya Jaane Na

Neeraj Pandey - A Wednesday (Winner)

AR Murugadoss - Ghajini

Ram Gopal Varma - Sarkar Raj

Abhishek Kapoor – Rock On

Best Actor

-----------

Naseeruddin Shah (A Wednesday)(Winner)

Hrithik Roshan (Jodha Akbar)

Shah Rukh Khan (Rab ne)

Aamir Khan - Ghazini

Shreyas Talpade - Welcome to Sajjanpur

Vinay Pathak - Dasvidaniya

Ranbir Kapoor - Bachna Ae Hasino

Best Actress

-------------

Priyanka Chopra (Fashion) (Winner)

Aishwarya Rai (Jodha Akbar)

Katrina Kaif (Race)

Amrita Rao (Welcome to Sajjanpur)

Vidya Balan (Halla Bol, Kismet Konnection)

Best Supporting Actor Male

----------------------------------------

Arjun Rampal - Rock On (Winner)

Anupam Kher - A wednesday

Sonu Sood - Jodha Akbar

Pankaj Kapur - Halla Bol

Abhishek Bachchan - Sarkar Raj

John Abraham - Dostana

Best Supporting Actor Female

---------------------------------------------

Kangana Ranaut (Fashion)

Shahana Goswami - Rock On (Winner)

Ratna Pathak Shah – JTYJN

Ila Arun – Jodha Akbar

Kirron Kher - Dostana

Best Music Director

-------------------

AR Rahman - JTYJN

AR Rahman - Jodha Akbar

Shankar Ehsaan Loy - Rock On (Winner)

Vishal Shekar - Bachna Ae Hasino, Dostana

Salim Suleiman – Rab ne, Fashion

Pritam - Race, Kismat Konnection

Best Emerging Music Director

-----------------------------

Amit Trivedi - Aamir (Winner)

Dhruv Ghanekar – Drona

Gaurav Dayal – Sorry Bhai

Kailasha- The band -- Dasvidaniya

Best Lyricist

-------------------

Javed Akhtar - Rock On (Winner)

Abbas Tyrewala – JTYJN

Gulzar – YuvvRaaj

Jaideep Sahni – Rab ne

Prasoon Joshi - Ghazini

Best Emerging Lyricist

---------------------

Amitabh Varma – Aamir, Sorry Bhai

Anvita Dutt Guptan – Bachna Ae Hasino, Dostana (Winner)

Best Song of the year

---------------------

Kabhi Kabhi Aditi - JTYJN (Winner)

Rock on - Rock On

Bachna Ae Hasino

Singh is king

Pappu Can't Dance

Meri Laundry ka ek bill

Desi Girl - Dostana

Best Male Playback singer

-------------------------

Atif Aslam - Pehli Nazar Mein (Race), Bakhuda (Kismat Konnection)

Javed Ali - Jashn-e-Bahara,Guzarish (Winner)

Rashid Ali - Kabhi Kabhi Aditi, Kahin Toh

Sukhwinder Singh – Haule Haule, Dil Haara

KK - Khuda Jaane

Vishal Dadlani - Krazzy4, Jaane Kyun (Dostana),

Farhan akhtar - Rock On

Rupam Islam - Jannat Jahaan

KK – Zara si (Jannat)

Neeraj Shreedar - Kismat Konnection, Bas Ek King, Tha Kar Ke, Race

Best Emerging Male Playback Singer

----------------------------------

Benny Dayal (Tu hi meri dost hai- Yuvvraaj, Kaise mujhe-Ghazini) (Winner)

Rashid Ali (Kabhi Kabhi Aditi, Kahin toh- JTYJN)

Rupam Islam - Jannat Jahaan

Kamraan Ahmed – Lambi Judaai

Best Female Playback Singer

---------------------------

Shilpa Rao - Khuda Jaane

Shreya Ghoshal – Ahista Ahista, Tu hi Meri Dost Hai (Winner)

Sunidhi Chauhan – Race Saason ki, Shut Up and Bounce

Monali Thakur – Zara Zara touch me

Alka Yagnik - Tu Muskura

Best Emerging Female Playback Singer

------------------------------------

Shilpa Rao - Khuda Jaane (Winner)

Monali Thakur – Zara Zara touch me

Akriti Kakkar – Move your body

Hard Kaur – Singh is king, move your body

Best Male Debutante

--------------------

Imran Khan

Farhan Akhtar

Rajeev Khandelwal (Winner)

Prateik Babbar

Harman Baweja

Best Female Debutante

-----------------------

Prachi Desai

Mugdha Godse

Asin 

Anushka Sharma(Winner)

Shahana Goswami

Best Writer

------------

Neeraj Pandey – A Wednesday (Winner)

Raj Kumar Gupta – Aamir

Madhur Bhandarkar – Fashion

Haider Ali, Ashutosh Gowarikar,K.P. Saxena – Jodha Akbar

Abhishek Kapoor – Rock On

Aditya Chopra – Rab ne

Abbas Tyrewala - JTYJN

Male Face of the year

----------------------

Arjun Bajwa (Fashion)

Imran Khan (Winner)

John Abraham (Dostana)

Farhan Akhtar

Ranbir Kapoor

Female Face of the year

-------------------------

Priyanka Chopra (Winner)

Genelia

Katrina Kaif

Prachi Desai

Minnisha Lamba

Mugdha Godse

Anushka Sharma

Chitrangada Singh

Slumdog Millionaire

I watched the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" over the weekend. This movie is about a slum dweller who takes part in the show "Who wants to be a Millionaire" and gives the right answer to all the questions leading up the highest bounty which is 20 million rupees. He is one question short of the last question when it is the end of the show for that day. He has to come back the next day to answer the last question. 

At this time, the host of the show feels that he is cheating in some way because how can slum dweller know the answers to these questions. So the police take him away and question him and try to force him to confess that he is cheating. But he narrates his past which has answers to all the questions that were asked on the show. Finally he answers the last question and becomes a millionaire. 

Essentially this is the story of the triumph of the underdog. I have seen a lot of such movies like Lagaan, Chak De India and at the end of the movie, you cheer for the underdog and you forget all the struggle that takes them  to that final stage.  Even in this movie, when he answers the last question, I felt happy and was cheering for him. 

But my cheer was not full throated. I remember when I saw Lagaan for the first time, I screamed with others in the theaters as if the match is being actually played in front of us. The reason for a half hearted cheer might be related to the first half of the film where they showed the life in slums, what the characters go thru and I felt sick in my stomach to imagine such things happen in India. 

There is a scene where the owners of an orphanage take out the eyes of a boy so that he can earn more money by begging. It was gruesome. I felt so sad that conditions like these exist in India. But here are the positives of this movie:

In short it is a brilliant piece of cinema. It is rightly nominated in so many awards functions. The story, screenplay and direction are awesome. I must make a special mention to all the child artists in this movie. They have done a brilliant job. In the recent times, Taare Zameen Par has been the movie which is considered the best in terms of child actors doing a good job. This film leaves Taare behind. AR Rahman has given a good background score. 

This film also shows another human virtue through Anil Kapoor's character. When Jamal earns 16,000 rupees, he says this is like a fortune, take it and leave. When he has won 25 lakh rupees, he tries to mislead him by giving him a wrong answer so that he does not win the bounty. And when he is one question short of winning the bounty, he gets him arrested on the suspicion of cheating. In other words, we expect poor to remain poor. We do not want them to earn more than us, be more successful than us and we leave no opporunity to tell them where they belong and where we expect them to belong. 

Deductions

When you start your job, typically you are given a W-4 form and based on what you fill out there, your take out every month is decided. On the W-4 form, there is a column called "Deductions". Normally most of the people select 1 for themselves and depending on how many dependents they add so many deductions. For example if you are married, you select 2 deductions. But I did not understand the real meaning of these deductions. Here is the explanation:

Let us say you make $3000 every paycheck before taxes. if you have claimed 1 deductions, let us say you take home $2500 after taxes. That means you are paying $500 every paycheck. That means you are paying $13000 in taxes per year. Now your yearly wages are $78,000 (3000*26).

If you look at the tax tables and for the $78,000 tax bracket let us say you have to pay $10,000 in taxes. That means you have paid $3000 extra in taxes. So when you file your taxes you will get a refund of $3000. Some people like it this way. They want to make sure they do not have to pay the government and they like a refund. They jump in joy when they get the refund as if the government has distributed free sweets.

Actually there is nothing to jump about. It is your money that you got back. You had given a interest free loan of $3000 to the government and you are getting it back. What happens if you increased your deductions from 1 to 2. Then instead of paying $13,000 in taxes, you would probably pay $11,500 in taxes per year. Your goal should be to get close to $10,000 so that you break-even. The extra money that you get, you can put in your savings account or a CD and earn interest instead of giving an interest free loan to the government.

YOUR GOAL SHOULD BE TO BREAK-EVEN. So while filling out your W-4 forms, do this calculations and fill out appropriate deductions so that you can break-even with the amount of tax you are supposed to pay for your wages. If you think you are paying more now, you can change your W-4 anytime. I thought this information would be useful.

Ice Hockey

Today I went to a Ice Hockey game. It was the first time I have seen an Ice hockey game completely. It is very close to field hockey which is our national game. However there are some differences. 

At a time there will be 5 members from each side on the ice. But the difference is people swap when the game moves from offence to defence and also the other way round. Meaning  when the ball moves from your goal towards the opponent's goal, your team is on the offensive. So the Offensive specialists get onto the field and the defense specialists sit down. And when the ball comes towards your goal, the defense specialists get onto the field. I thought it was a cool thing. 

This is really good.

One more thing which is different in Ice hockey is it allows people to fight on the field and the umpires don't even stop them. They can fight!! This probably is the only game I know where people are allowed to fight except boxing and wrestling of course. 

I heard the loudest cheer from the crowd when people were fighting than when the home team scored the goal. Also it was a good experience because the viewers were engaged all the time. There was the thrashers mascot who was doing the rounds across the arena keeping the audience entertained. They were showing different people on the screen so people were excited. Then there was Kiss on Camera segment where they will show a boy and a girl on the screen and if you are on the screen, you have to kiss. At the end they showed two guys sitting beside each other and they kissed!!!!

There were a lot of prizes given away to the audience when they answered some questions right. Overall it was a good experience. I think they should give this kind of experience to the audience when we go to watch cricket too. I remember I watched 3 cricket matches in chennai and during the break I was bored to death. They did not even announce anything. It was so dull. I think if we make the matches entertaining, people will go and watch the matches. 

Nominations

Here are the nominations for the various categories. Each category has 5 nominations. I have also included the ones that did not make it to Top 5 just for your information. So let me know your winners in each categories:

Best Movie of the year

------------------------

Jodha Akbar

A Wednesday

Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na

Rock On

Fashion

Best Out of the box movie

------------------------

A Wednesday

Aamir

Dasvidaniya

Best Director

-------------------

Madhur Bhandarkar (Fashion)

Ashutosh Gowarikar (Jodha Akbar)

Abbas Tyrewala - Jaane Tu ya Jaane Na

Neeraj Pandey - A Wednesday

Shyam Benegal - Welcome to Sajjanpur

Ram Gopal Varma - Sarkar Raj

Abhishek Kapoor – Rock On

Best Actor

-----------

Naseeruddin Shah (A Wednesday)

Hrithik Roshan (Jodha Akbar)

Shah Rukh Khan (Rab ne)

Aamir Khan - Ghazini

Shreyas Talpade - Welcome to Sajjanpur

Vinay Pathak - Dasvidaniya

Ranbir Kapoor - Bachna Ae Hasino

Best Actress

-------------

Priyanka Chopra (Fashion)

Aishwarya Rai (Jodha Akbar)

Katrina Kaif (Race)

Amrita Rao (Welcome to Sajjanpur)

Vidya Balan (Halla Bol, Kismet Konnection)

Best Supporting Actor Male

----------------------------------------

Arjun Rampal - Rock On

Anupam Kher - A wednesday

Sonu Sood - Jodha Akbar

Pankaj Kapur - Halla Bol

Abhishek Bachchan - Sarkar Raj

John Abraham - Dostana

Best Supporting Actor Female

---------------------------------------------

Kangana Ranaut (Fashion)

Shahana Goswami - Rock On

Ratna Pathak Shah – JTYJN

Ila Arun – Jodha Akbar

Kirron Kher - Dostana

Best Music Director

-------------------

AR Rahman - JTYJN

AR Rahman - Jodha Akbar

Shankar Ehsaan Loy - Rock On

Vishal Shekar - Bachna Ae Hasino, Dostana

Salim Suleiman – Rab ne, Fashion

Pritam - Race, Kismat Konnection

Best Emerging Music Director

-----------------------------

Amit Trivedi - Aamir

Dhruv Ghanekar – Drona

Gaurav Dayal – Sorry Bhai

Kailasha- The band -- Dasvidaniya

Best Lyricist

-------------------

Javed Akhtar - Jodha Akbar, Rock On

Abbas Tyrewala – JTYJN

Gulzar – YuvvRaaj

Jaideep Sahni – Rab ne

Prasoon Joshi - Ghazini

Best Emerging Lyricist

---------------------

Amitabh Varma – Aamir, Sorry Bhai

Anvita Dutt Guptan – Bachna Ae Hasino, Dostana

Best Song of the year

---------------------

Kabhi Kabhi Aditi - JTYJN

Rock on - Rock On

Bachna Ae Hasino

Singh is king

Pappu Can't Dance

Meri Laundry ka ek bill

Desi Girl - Dostana

Best Male Playback singer

-------------------------

Atif Aslam - Pehli Nazar Mein (Race), Bakhuda (Kismat Konnection)

Javed Ali - Jashn-e-Bahara,Guzarish

Rashid Ali - Kabhi Kabhi Aditi, Kahin Toh

Sukhwinder Singh – Haule Haule, Dil Haara

KK - Khuda Jaane

Vishal Dadlani - Krazzy4, Jaane Kyun (Dostana),

Farhan akhtar - Rock On

Rupam Islam - Jannat Jahaan

KK – Zara si (Jannat)

Neeraj Shreedar - Kismat Konnection, Bas Ek King, Tha Kar Ke, Race

Best Emerging Male Playback Singer

----------------------------------

Benny Dayal (Tu hi meri dost hai- Yuvvraaj, Kaise mujhe-Ghazini)

Rashid Ali (Kabhi Kabhi Aditi, Kahin toh- JTYJN)

Rupam Islam - Jannat Jahaan

Kamraan Ahmed – Lambi Judaai

Best Female Playback Singer

---------------------------

Shilpa Rao - Khuda Jaane

Shreya Ghoshal – Ahista Ahista, Tu hi Meri Dost Hai

Sunidhi Chauhan – Race Saason ki, Shut Up and Bounce

Monali Thakur – Zara Zara touch me

Alka Yagnik - Tu Muskura

Best Emerging Female Playback Singer

------------------------------------

Shilpa Rao - Khuda Jaane

Monali Thakur – Zara Zara touch me

Akriti Kakkar – Move your body

Hard Kaur – Singh is king, move your body

Best Male Debutante

--------------------

Imran Khan

Farhan Akhtar

Rajeev Khandelwal

Prateik Babbar

Harman Baweja

Best Female Debutante

-----------------------

Prachi Desai

Mugdha Godse

Asin

Genelia

Shahana Goswami

Best Writer

------------

Neeraj Pandey – A Wednesday

Raj Kumar Gupta – Aamir

Madhur Bhandarkar – Fashion

Haider Ali, Ashutosh Gowarikar,K.P. Saxena – Jodha Akbar

Abhishek Kapoor – Rock On

Aditya Chopra – Rab ne

Abbas Tyrewala - JTYJN

Male Face of the year

----------------------

Arjun Bajwa (Fashion)

Imran Khan

John Abraham (Dostana)

Farhan Akhtar

Ranbir Kapoor

Female Face of the year

-------------------------

Priyanka Chopra

Genelia

Katrina Kaif

Prachi Desai

Minnisha Lamba

Mugdha Godse

Anushka Sharma

Chitrangada Singh