Friday, December 29, 2006

Ramoji Film City - Movie Magic

Today, we (Rayo, Mahi & me) went to Ramoji Film City at Hyderabad - the world's largest film studio unit. It's about 30 kms from Hyderabad.

We set out at 9:30 am and reached there by about 10:30 am, thanks to the traffic. It has a pretty impressive gate to enter from.

Strangely, though they do have an Internet registration facility, you still need to go to counter #4 to present the generated Internet number in exchange for a physical ticket. Sadly, there wasn't anyone at counter #4, and we had to stand in the general line to get our tickets. After which there was another line to get into the public transport buses for the first stint inside. Private vehicles aren't allowed inside the Film City. We had to park ours in the parking lot just inside the main gate and climb aboard standard buses which took us a couple of kilometers inside to a staging area. This is the central area within the film city, where four bus bays have been setup. Bus Bays 1 & 2 are for internal tours, while bays 3 & 4 are for buses which take you back to the entrance and the parking lot. The internal tour buses are quite quaint and nice. Kind of remind you of the old British Raj.

The central areas have a number of small areas such as Eureka, Fundoostan, Alampana (a theatre) etc. These cater to kids amusement games, cultural shows, etc.

The first stop that we made was to see as to how a movie is made. The movie clip that they were shooting was Sholay, and the person in-charge asked for a Female volunteer to do the role of Basanti. This area was divided into three sections - The first would do just the filming, the second would add in the sound, and the third section would have the final movie projected. Quite neat. He had Basanti sit in a cart, and two other volunteers would rock it from side to side to simulate the movement.The background was a traditional blue screen, on which they superimposed the bandits on horseback chasing her. In the sound section, a couple of volunteers took over few of the instruments to simulate the sounds emanating from the horses hooves on the road, the banging and creaking from the wooden card, the whistling of the wind, etc. In the last section, they showcased the entire movie, and boy was it funny. All in all it was really good. Quite similar to the one in universal studios at Los Angeles.

After this we took the guided tour and boarded the buses. The bus took us through the various production houses, as well as gave us useful tidbits of information, such as the fact that the entire area of the Film city was 2000 acres of which 1300 had already been developed. The film city also employs 8000 employees at any given time!! That's a lot!
As part of the tour we also saw 4-in-1 sets, wherein the elevation on each side was different. We had the Airport, hospital, high court and library as one of these sets. We also ambled through the London street, the south Indian sets, central jail(s), etc. The tour guide also showed us a number of gardens such as the Japanese gardens, Sierra Hills, Arizona Garden, Mughal Gardens, Maze Gardens, and the Legs Garden, etc. Our tour guide was also a jovial sort of person, and kept the crowd quite entertained. The tour ended at The Hawa Mahal at the top of a Hillock, post which people could amble down all the gardens and lawns and land back at Eureka for games or departure. We spent some time ambling back and finally reached Eureka and then subsequently through the gaming zone, to Bus Bay #4, for our trip back to the parking lot. All in all, the place is worth one visit, though personally I felt that it could do with some more organization as well as proper crowd control.

Monday, December 25, 2006

Christmas lunch at the Rao residence

The three of us (Rayo, Mahi & I) swung by Jagan uncle and Rachel Aunty's place for lunch on Christmas, and before you jump to the conclusion that we gatecrashed, let me put your minds to ease by stating that Yes, we were invited!!!!

Met up with a bunch of people there - Ramu uncle, Shashi aunty, Jason, Samyukta, Lisha, Ipshita, Arvind (her brother), Ipshita's mom (I don't know her name), Rachel aunty's sister - Aunty Rhoda, Raghu, Varun.

Rachel Aunty had whipped up some mean food - Amazing the correct word for it!


We had stuffed chicken, Spaghetti Bolognaise, Cole Slaw stuffed in bread, and a pasta like baked dish.


She also had made some excellent fudge, the traditional cake (boy, were we sloshed after that) as well as her patented Tim Tams. I really fell in love with the Tim Tams - which reminds me, need to buy some cooking chocolate and hand it over to her!!

All in all, indulged in too much good food - need to work this off now!!!

Friday, December 22, 2006

Celebrations 2006 for Sierra Atlantic

Yesterday, we had our organization's anniversary party - the 13th one. Had this at the Laserium next to Lumbini Park. In true Hyderabadi style started half an hour late at 7:30 pm and went on till late into the night.

Was a pretty good show. Included a classical dance, an Audio Video Presentation, service awards, 2006 reflections and 2007 plans, a dance medley and the laser show.

If you are in Hyderabad, don't miss the laser show at the Laserium. This takes place at 7:30 pm on weekdays, and on weekends has an additional show at 8:30 pm too. It's the first of it's kind in India, and has a mix of laser & multimedia. It showcases the entire history of Hyderabad - how the name came to be, then and now. All the projection is done on an aqua screen. The fountains and the designs are mind blowing and reminded me of the fountains at Bellagio in Vegas. Quite nice.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Noodle Soup @ Rayo's

Did I mention that last night we had gone over to Rayo's place for a noodle soup dinner that he had invited us for.

We had dropped the noodles over at his place in the morning, and he had started cooking at about 7 pm. It came out quite good indeed. All those long hours on the ship and cadet ship must have really paid off.

The only hitch was the quantity. It felt like he had made it to feed an army!! Each of us (Bambi uncle & aunty, Arya, Rayo, Mahi & me) had two huge bowls each, and it still looked like the serving bowl had enough for another 10 rounds!!!

Must work on estimation techniques!!!

Also saw Arya in his element while playing Need for Speed carbon. Man, he's good - really good.

More scoop on City Center and Food!!!

Well yesterday we formally raised a toast to Kailash. Actually it wasn't a toast really, but in true Hyderabadi style & spirit, decided to take him out to lunch.

As all lunch outings revolve around the critical parking issue, we decided to not take our vehicles, and instead decided to walk across to the eating joints at the City Center. An initial description of the mall is posted
here.

As I had mentioned earlier, it has a bunch of restaurants on the top floor. Interestingly, these all belong to the BJN Group, same guys who operate Angeethi too. The restaurants are IndiJoe (a global cuisine place), Sahib Sindh Sultan (an exclusive Indian place) and Aromas of China (as the name says, an oriental place). Apart from this, it also has a pub called Firangi Pani, as well as a conference room.

Now, I must say, that these places are amazing. If you haven't visited / seen them, do see them ASAP, and if you have already seen them, then see them again and again and again.....
The attention to detail in all these places is mind boggling.


We had lunch at IndiJoe. The buffet costs Rs.135/- plus taxes, but believe me, the variety is mind boggling. Six types of salad (veg & non-veg), 8 types of desserts, Indian, Italian, Oriental, and Continental cuisines were part of the main course in the buffet. Of course, no drinks are included as part of the food, but hey - they have the chocolate fountain as part of the dessert !!! Lip-smacking!!!

Post lunch, we decided to explore the other restaurants. Sahib Sindh Sultan, is a restaurant set in the year 1853. It has a massive train coach / bogey inside which can seat about 20 people. On either side of the coach, they have setup mirrors facing each other, so when you actually look left or right, it's looks like a long train - pretty innovative. The coach also has tracks and gravel underneath which have been suitable lit to add to the overall effect. Inside the coach, the design is similar to the trains of the bygone era. It has luggage racks above the seats which have British top hats, and women's felt hats placed there as part of the display.

The seating area out side the coach can accommodate lots more, and is setup like the platform for the train. It also has a ticket counter, a book store etc. The staff too are dressed as per the clothing of the yesteryear!!!

Firangi Paani, the pub, is again set in the era of the Raj, in India. Authentic rifles on the walls, motifs, stained glass, leather sofas, all speak volumes here. The tables are setup as huge gunpowder casks, and all in all it gives a very English feel. A whole lot of polished wood too.Towards one side, they also have a small dance floor set up.

Didn't get a chance to see Aromas of China, as that is slotted to open next month, but will definitely take a look at it once it opens up. The picture sure looks nice though. Am sure the cuisine too will be great.

All in all, a really nice experience.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Dhoom 2 @ Sangeet

Oh Boy!!! Finally saw this movie yesterday at Sangeet along with Mahi, Rayo, and Gulshan Aunty.

I have only two words to describe it - "It's Different" (three if you want to count it's as "it is").

Quite unlike the first part - lesser focus on the bikes, sheesh!! Would have loved more focus on them. Who needs the babes and action - the bikes will do for us mere mortals!!!!

Aishwarya Rai is her usual plasticky self, while the lesser said about Abhishek Bachhan's dance is better !!! Hrithik does a fabulous job in his dances and prances - while the action scenes too are quite good.

The popcorn at the theatre hasn't changed for the last 25 years, and tastes the same. Somehow, as Mahi says - this popcorn sure tastes better than any Act II popcorn type!!!

Dell D600 and Norton Ghost

Well the laptop finally gave up on me !!! Today we went through an exercise in restoring the Dell D600 back to it's good ol' glory. Used Norton Ghost for an image and voila - it's up and running in under 20 minutes!!! Gone are the days where you'd need to sit with the Windows XP cd and the cd drive, and then reboot half a dozen times (not really, but well at least three times).

With Norton Ghost, all we needed to do was boot the laptop using the build in network card, and load the image from the server. After that it was a just a matter of 15 minutes, to get the whole operating system, Microsoft Office, and other packages installed, all in one shot! Amazing!!

This surely makes life easy, especially if you are running a company with a number of systems and need to carry out batch setups.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Need for Speed - Carbon

Last weekend I had a chance to test out the new Need for Speed Carbon PS2 game at Rayo's place. Man, it's good. Takes off right where Need for Speed underground left off. Quite thrilling and dark - all the racing is in the night, and hey - Drifting is back!!!!

It's got some pretty nifty features such as auto sculpting - which allows you to cusomize the shape, size, color and other variables of each component of your car - making it as unique as can be!!

At the start you get to choose the type of car that you'd like to drive - options being Tuner, Muscle and Exotic. Based on the choice the game decides the other parameters and unlocks in the game.

I'd give this a two thumbs up. Must try it out!!!

City Center Mall in Hyderabad

Well, it was a nice Saturday afternoon, and we had finished lunch at Sadhu's Vegetarian Bistro - a new place which had opened up on Road #12, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad. Interesting place - serves South Indian, North Indian and Chinese cuisine. Apparently the owner hailed from Australia and had travelled extensively across the globe learning all about new cuisines, and then decided to set up the Sadhu's chain!!!

Anyhow the food was OK, no great shakes.

Post the meal, we decided to explore the new City Center Mall which had just opened up here in Hyderabad. The place is really nice, though shops are still up for grabs. Phenomenal parking space - it can accommodate up to 400 cars at a time! Some of the interesting stores are Globus (an apparels store), eZone (a store dedicated to electronics - my idea of heaven!!!), a food bazaar, McDonald's Family Restaurant, Health & Glow and a couple of others that I don't remember now.

It also has three restaurants on the top floor, a part of the Angeethi management. These are themed restaurants, am yet to hear about the quality of food, but I gather that the food at IndiJoe is really good.

First Start

Well, what can I say. Having been involved with technology, computers (since the good 'ol Commodore 64 days), it's taken me this long to actually get down to blogging !!!

As I plod/blog along I hope to post some of the snaps that I have taken - with descriptions wherever possible.

Feel free to drop a line by / comment. Would love to hear from you all.