20 Best Films (non Hindi)

One would dream of having a copy of each of them in the album but guess unless i get a lottery or one of you readers decides to gift on my next birthday, it will take few months to build one.

I thought, not a bad idea to begin by listing them.

I am sure there are many other good films you know of/have seen that havent come in my favourites or I havent seen yet. Plz do add them in the comment.

1. Twelve Angry Men [1957] [Drama] [D-Sidney Lumet]
2. Apocalypse Now [1979] [Action&Adventure:War] [Marlin Brando, Martin Sheen] [D-Copolla]

3. Silence of the Lambs [1991] [Horror] [Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins] [D-Demme]

4. Il Postino [1995] [Italian,Romance] [D-Micheal Redford]
5. Hideous Kinky [1999] [Drama] [Kate Winslet] [D-Mackinnon]

The more talked about ones-

6 Braveheart

7 Bourn Identity/Supremacy

8 Forest Gump

9 Gladiator

10 Matrix
11 Schildner’s List

12 The Godfather
13 The Last Samurai

14 Titanic

15 Troy

Trilogies

16 Die Hard

17 Harry Potter

18 Indiana Jones

19 Jurasic Park

20 Lord of the Rings

Wimbeldon , WCF and weekend

Weekend…it was one word unheard of in my hometown, Latur (at least for me). All that we knew is ’study hard’ and crack the HSC [12th std] exams. Weekends worked well to revise week before and plan next week. Guess that worked. No complains, only a merit rank!

Life moved on from Latur to Mumbai to Ahmedabad to Delhi to Hyderabad and now London.

The jounrney of Latur to London in last 10 years has also changed the concept of weekend, very gradually though.

Wimbeldon is on the tele. Its Federer-Nadal final as you know. Wimbeldon is only 11.6 miles and 27 minutes away from my couch in the hall. I am certain Federer will win the game. I have fond memories of watching him play at center court last year. Oh Boy, its a super feast, I must say. Dont forget to add it on ‘N things to do before i die’

Then there is World Cup Final in the eve. France-Italy. It would have been great to have a south america—europe match but then its football. Lucky (3 time winners though) Italians shooting two goals in last 2/3 minutes against host germans were kinda not so obvious candidate for the final match. Anyways, i had a super treat with my laturite udctian co-alum in town and a couple of TCSers joining for the match at my place. Today is another such day. We are meeting at a TCSers place in hounslow. There would be more than 100 TCSers in town of hounslow. A few of them who work in london office are good family friends. We made one of the families volunteer to host us for this big match and we are all set to enjoy barbeque and world cup at the hosts Lawns.
So thats wimbeldon finals and Football world cup finals on the same sunday. I couldnt have asked for more…

…actually one can ask for the Ultimate. A box seat for Federer-Nadal match at Center Court, a limo taking me from SW to NW of london for terminal 1 to get in tele-checked in for business class BA flight going to tegel (Berlin) for the evening 2000 hrs France-Italy match at Olympiastadion. Is that asking for too mcuh…

The BRITISH 10K London Run

30,000 of us occupied most of central London streets this morning. Almost all of us ran 10K. Each of us ran for different charities but then we all were bound by one cause- Charity.

I ran with 9 other TCSers for Pratham. It is my second 10K run in london. I was very proud this time around because it is for charity. I have already collected GBP 100 through Just Giving which directly goes to this NGO that has the goal of sending every child in India to school by 2010.

The organiser tells me that my 10K and GBP 100 means at least 10 more students will be able to complete at least a year each in school. I wish, i could run forever…

This simple arithmatic and Sanjay Pal’s lead (colleague in TCS) made us three (Sanjay, Viji and Self) collect GBP 1500 from our sites and cash collection in office.

First time when Mohit (iima classmate) told me about 10K run, i thought- not my cup of T. But then its not that difficult, i must say.

The Race route was meant to be London Darshan. While running eavry km, we could one of London’s top attraction. London Eye, Trafalgar square, Tower Bridge, Westminister, Cabinet War Room and Downing Street. There was more to it.

The Run was very well organised to say the least. We reached the start point some 30 min before the strat. Kept the baggage in the safe, used one of the rows of toilets, collected some Lucozed from the sponsor and reached the start line.

After every two km there were sponsors with bottles of water and lucozed. There were police vans and red cross ambulances. Not to forget there were music bands every km to cheer up the runners. It was all too good to miss.

I had opportunity to catch up with some co-alums (Dabke and Solapurkar) and got introduced to dedicated, committed volunteer bunch.
It was great being just one of the 30,000 people who shared the Goal- Run for Charity. I am sure you agree—It was all more than a days worth!!! 67 min, 10K, GBP 100 and at least 10 students get to study for at least a year more.

Please let me know, next time you hear of a charity Run!