District 9 – A Funtastic Movie

I have been thinking of writing about this for the past one week. Finally I will give it a go.

Last weekend I went to see District 9. A movie which shows that you don’t need spaceships firing phasers & photon torpedoes and have huge explosions in space to create a superb science-fiction. In his simplistic portrayal of Wikus, Sharlto Copley has outdone what the director Neill Blomkamp might have even set out to do.

Without giving away the plot. The movie does tend to start a bit slow in the beginning. At times in the first quarter it even appears to be going nowhere. But as it moves along that initial buildup is worth every moment that follows afterwards.

A must see for anyone who likes to watch a movie that appreciates the intelligence of viewers and does not just bombard them with loads of special effects.

My First Big Screen Sci-Fi (My Story – Part II)

I have been at this one for the last 5 days. Finally, I have some time to finish it…

My 2nd semester a IITK (or was it the first? I am not so sure). We had Umang, our annual student film festival, organized by the SFS, Student’s Film Society. That year, the entire schedule consisted of 14 movies spread over Thu (3), Fri (3), Sat (4) and Sunday (4).

As I was looking at the SFS Poster on our notice board. A friend of mine stopped next to me and said “This is a stupid schedule. I wanna see all these movies, but no way I can watch 14 movies in 4 days.” I just casually replied “It’s not a big deal. I can do it.” With a wide smirk on his face he said “Yeah” and walked away.

As I followed him behind into the mess hall for dinner, I pondered over the idea and realized; it was really not that big a deal. So I thought maybe I will give this a shot. I discussed this with other guys who said that no one can survive through the entire experience of watching through movies continuously for 4 days on a huge screen like our auditorium. One of my seniors overheard the conversation and said “Maybe in your 2nd or 3rd year. You’re too inexperienced to handle this.” There was a pun intended in the word ‘inexperienced’ but I got what he wanted to say.

We have a huge auditorium, 1000+ capacity, at iitk. And believe me, staring at its screen continuously for 4 days was no fun. Still at that time it sounded like fun to me, so I had to try that. Especially when the list included movies like

1. The Matrix
2. No Man’s Land
3. Lagaan
4. Hannibal
5-14. Rest of the data is missing from my memory. Could be accounted to the possible brain damage I might have sustained during this endeavour

The above ones also I remember only because of the special circumstances surrounding them. I will list them in reverse chronological order on why is that.

4. Hannibal – I had made through the first 2 days, Thu(3) & Fri(3), and 2 movies on Saturday. Now my stamina was being taxed to its limits. I had to practically hit myself in the head to keep myself awake. Also anyone who has seen Hannibal, especially when you haven’t seen The Silence of the Lambs, can understand that it can be difficult to keep interest in it, especially when you are dealing with movie exhaustion. Still I continued with surprising determination.
But then close to its ending when I saw Dr. Hannibal Lecter making a guy eat pieces of his own brain. It was enough to knock me out of my sleep. Luckily horrorific scenes don’t scare me, otherwise it was a pretty gory scene.  Still, after that, I didn’t have to try hard to stay awake through the last movie of the day.

3. Lagaan – There were only two reasons I went to see this movie. First, the movie got nominated at Oscars. Second, it was in the schedule and I had planned to see all the movies in the Festival. Still I do have to admit, I did have a good time.

2. No Man’s Land – Come to think of it, it was good planning. Lagaan followed by the movie which beat it at the Oscars. The auditorium was packed. Though after watching it I could see why that happened. If Lagaan was great then this was a masterpiece.

1. The Matrix – We had a subject in first year, Math101. It had something called matrices. And why we studied it is something that has always eluded me. So even after my pledge for watching all the movies I was a bit skeptic. So I went around looking for feedback from those who had already seen it. They all said only one thing “You have to see it for yourself.” So I recalled my pledge and tried to convince myself to see it.
So came the auspicious day when I walked into the auditorium to see it, my first science-fiction on big screen. And from the minute I sat down on my seat, to the moment where Morpheus says “Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.“, till its ending has been the best movie going experience of my entire life.

After watching The Matrix in Umang I got it on VCD and saw it almost every alternate day through my entire summer breaks. There were moments when my father would come back from the office. Look at the TV for a moment and say to my mother “So he is watching the same movie again. When will I see the news.“

Till this date, I have seen The Matrix at least 75 times. I have it’s each and every dialouge committed to my memory. The Wachowski Brothers, Andy Wachowski & Larry Wachowski, did a fantastic job in creating this movie and I was lucky enough to see it on the big screen when I saw it for the first time. Even now if I catch it running anywhere then I cannot move from that place until the last scene.

So this was another episode from the life of Gaurav Kumar Gupta. Keep looking, there will be more…

My First Bunked Lecture (My Story – Part I)

It was a day during my 1st semester at IIT Kanpur. Time was almost around 3:00 pm. I had to attend a lecture of TA101 (Engineering Graphics) at 4:00 pm. I was getting bored just sitting in my room, so I grabbed a sandwich from the canteen and sat down in the TV Room of my hostel (Hall-3).

One of the guys in there had the remote and was sifting through channels. As he stopped at a channel (it was either HBO or Star Movies, I can’t recall), we saw a few flashes of light followed by the opening credits, whose soundtrack I can still recognize in a heartbeat (Terminator 2). A movie so flawlessly fantastic that nobody in there changed the channel even during commercial breaks.

As it got closer to 3:45 I grew anxious and asked a senior of mine sitting there that when will it end. Apparently unfamiliar with the duration he told me that the Hollywood movies typical have a run of 1:30 hour to 2 hours. My lecture was of around 2 hour duration. I thought I could probably afford to be late by half-an-hour. Also the movie had me glued to my seat. So I decided what the heck, lets watch it.

At around 4:15 the movie didn’t seem to get any closer to its end. So I asked another senior of mine. He appeared to more knowledgeable. He told me that the movie was of roughly 2 hours plus the commercials make it a bit longer. By that time I was superglued to my seat.

I pondered over the idea of making a dash for the class as I saw the T-1000 chasing Sarah Connor, John Connor and the T-101 out of the asylum. Those breathtaking visuals were quite helpful in making the final decision for me. At around 4:45 I had made up my mind. Screw the class, lets watch Terminator 2.

Before this, for me a movie was something I would watch to pass the time when I had nothing else to do or if I wanted to avoid doing anything else .  This was the first time I saw a movie, and a class which I sincerely wanted to attend didn’t take precedence over it.

So I bunked the class, watched Terminator 2: Judgment Day on TV, and even today don’t regret a second of it. Thank you James Cameron for creating such a masterpiece and making my day.

This was first of the things that drove me into the world of science-fiction and was a key factor in influencing the topic of my book.

Also as promised, there is more to come. So keep looking…

My Story

Since the time I have started telling, to people I know, I have written a book; every single one of them has asked that what drove me to take up writing a novel as a full time effort. Some say it is a crazy thing that I did; some feel I was being stupid; some think it was quite a daring feat.

The thing is, for me it is a part from everything: some craziness, little stupidity, a bit of daring. But above all, it has always been about my fondness for creativity.

Now for my friends who keep asking me about this, I thought maybe I would pen it down now. Not that I get tired of telling. I like it more every time I say it again

Though it has been a cumulative effect, I would still like to credit a list of events, which if not happened or not in the way they happened might not have gotten me deep inside the world of fiction.

It’s gonna take some time for me to put it together. So keep looking at this space for more……

Phew! finally online again

Thanks to the awesome efficiency of MTNL, my broadband connection was dead for a week.

I am still waiting for my landline phone to come back alive, so that I can stop making calls from my cell

Finally wrote the synopsis

I did it at last. Wrote the damn thing. Sent it for reviewing to my friend Sikdar.

Honestly, not fun at all trying to shrink the whole book into a few pages.

Hopefully, it would be worth sending.

Writing a synopsis

Now, I have to write a synopsis of my novel for submitting it to a publisher for consideration. Before this, I thought that writing a book was the most difficult task I had to face.

But now I have to cram up a story of more than 73k words, without loosing the essence of it, into fewer words. Of course I cannot put in everything; at the same time I cannot leave out the basic plot.

I went through various sites looking for some sort of guidelines to writing a good summary. The only common and comprehensible points I found

• keep it short and simple.
  How short? Just remember it is a summary of your book. You are not writing another book.
• don’t leave out the major plot points or the ending. So no cliffhangers.

So, I am just gonna try and follow these pointers.

Wish me luck!

Copyright Registration Procedure (India)

It is a supposedly well known fact that Copyright is with the author/creator as soon as the work is created. Everything else from Private Copyright Registration sites/firms to the Government Copyright Registration Office only serves its purpose as providing documented evidence in case of a dispute.

Is it necessary to register a work to claim copyright?

No. Acquisition of copyright is automatic and it does not require any formality. However, certificate of registration of copyright and the entries made therein serve as prima facie evidence in a court of law with reference to dispute relating to ownership of copyright.

taken from Hand Book of Copyright Law

Nevertheless, one cannot deny the importance of registering in order to protect your work.

Procedure for registration of Copyright in India is fairly simple. First you need to download and fill up the Copyright Registration Form IV, which is fairly straightforward and simple. After that you will need to submit the same along with copy(s) (1 if unpublished & 3 if it is published) of your work, registration fee of Rs 50/- for a Literary Work (Book), for other types fee will be as per respective categories mentioned in the form.

Completed forms may be sent/submitted at:
Copyright Office
B-2/W-3, Curzon Road Barracks
K.G. Marg, New Delhi – 110001, India

Note: The fee can only be submitted as a Demand Draft or I.P.O (Indian Postal Order) in favor of “Registrar of Copyrights, New Delhi”. They do not accept Cash, cheque or any other mode of payment than the one mentioned above.

Mid-Air (First Copy)

Just finished the another set of review & editing of my book to the point where it seems a lot stable. So I printed out a few copies and got each one of them binded into a nice hardcover.

Looks lovely doesn’t it. But of course my opinion is biased .

Now that I have it ready in my hands I am faced with the herculean task to look for a publisher. At the moment, I feel exactly like the working title of my book, Mid-Air.

I will write more about it in time to come. Right now, I just wanted to share my moment of joy.