I am not a terrorist

Its been a while since I have written anything. Well I have been very busy with work lately (forums.com to be precise, which will launch soon). More on that in later blog posts; today I want to talk about something else. "My Name is Khan". I am sure most people who follow my posts will know this is the name of the latest movie by Karan Johar starring Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol. And almost anyone who knows me, knows I do not watch many movies, neither do I do celebrity worship. Then why am I writing on a film?

There is enough reason behind it. Not many reasons though, just one solid reason: life. Each film has a message to deliver. And Indian cinema in recent times are very message oriented, less dance/drama, etc. I have watched "Wake up Sid", "Rocket Singh", "3 Idiots", "Ishqiya" in recent past and have thought of writing on all of them. They all had messages. Some love, some honesty and so on. But what eventually got me to write on My Name is Khan is how easily and vividly the film presents the right (or lack of) to live. Do not get me wrong, each of the other movies were wonderful and had clear messages. But love, respect, honesty come only after a 13 year old boy lives to see the age 21 or more.

Our world has become too violent, from within. It is not them (whoever "they" may be). It is us, yes all of us, each and every one stupid human being. Or should I not use that term, since we are not even human enough. I think some alien super-power should come and strip the "human" tag off us. We kill like animals, behave like butchers (even worse, at least they get paid), and then we suspect the other to be a "terrorist". I know this film will not appeal to many, it does not have to; we have already lost so much faith in ourselves that the message may not come clear through. Only time will tell if we will all die at 13 or live to see older years.

Big Bang at next OCC Kolkata

Hi all,
At the Upper Wood Street CCD we came across a blog post on Venture Woods, informing an Angel Investor Event happening on the 21st of this month.
During this OCC meet we crowd-sourced a template to crowd-source at least one business plan at the next OCC and present it to the event.
So during the next OCC meet at CCD RDB Boulevard (Oct 14) we are providing a platform to crowd-source at least one business plan and subsequently follow through to convert this plan to a venture. Here is the list describing the flow:

- Identifying the domain
- Identifying the pain points & the ideas
- A hand-raise voting of which ideas each individual wants to work for (You can raise your hands for multiple ideas!)
- For each idea that is then being eventually crowdsourced, select a moderator
- Following this, we will give you a proposed flow (which we formulated right now!). Each group can tweak it and carry on with forming their b-plans!

So, that’s it! Let’s meetup on this Wednesday at 2 PM!
We will start off with the crowd-sourcing at 3 PM, and would suggest you to be at CCD RDB Boulevard by 2:30.
If you have any suggestions, just shoot on the mailing list!

Experienced PHP Developer Needed

We need a very experienced PHP developer willing to work full time on a contract basis. This is telecommute work so you can work from anywhere. You will be working on new products mostly on Amazon Web Services platform. Required:

Linux, PHP, MySQL
Amazon Web Services: EC2, S3, SDB, SQS
Using Tarzan AWS PHP library
Experience in JS is a plus (AJAX will be used)

We are looking for experienced developer who can work in a distributed team environment.
Pay is very good to say the least.
We will prefer someone from Kolkata so (s)he can work from my place if needed.

Open Coffee Club Kolkata: Day 2

Hey Kolkatans,
Kolkata had another splendid OCC, on Sat Aug 29. We did have some glitches, with the Internet not working at the Park Street CCD venue. And since Park Street CCD has much footfall we had to shift out to a bigger CCD. The manager at Park Street suggested a few nearby and then Mitesh and Manish went out searching for one. At last we found the CCD on Upper Wood Street. If you are coming from Park Street (like we did) then just walk across 22 Camac Street (Pantaloons) and you will find a crossing, keep going straight, and you will find a CCD on your right. That will become our permanent CCD venue for South Kolkata. It has a great outdoor arrangement, simple superb for the coming season.

We did have new faces this time and that is great, so the news is spreading. Here are some of the people I remember:
Sanjib Chakraborty
Sumit Datta
Saikat Singha
Mitesh Ashar
Manish Sonkar
Pavan Gupta
Sumana Chakraborty
Prachi Kamalia
Amitabh Choudhury
Ashmita Brahma
Sougata Pal
Bibhash
Anirban Ganguly
Pankaj Bansal

Sorry for having forgotten the last names of a few people. And I can not recollect the guy from BITS. Someone please tweet the name(s).
Instead of the initial venue change, etc. we had a very good time. Me and Mitesh could start on the project he is to work on. I gave Ashmita an introduction to HTML. Prachi, Pankaj and me discussed celeb9.com and then a lot of scaling related stuff.
Well that's from my side. Others will blog their experiences. We are trying to get a basic website up for all such information. But the best way to enjoy OCC is to drop at one of the next OCC. OCC Kolkata takes place twice a week, at a CCD, with Internet available on wi-fi. Venues:

Every Wednesday at the CCD below RDB Boulevard (Big Cinemas), Salt Lake Sector V. (Google Map)
Every Saturday at the CCD, No 1, Upper Wood Street (close to Pantaloons, 22 Camac St.) (Google Map)
Both start at around 2PM and continue till 9-10 PM. So you can pour in after office. Remember to bring in your laptops, mobile devices, notepad. Meet, discuss, work! Oh and drink coffee (not free :P).

Open Coffee Club Kolkata: Day 1

Hello Kolkatans,
I am glad to make this blog on what happened yesterday at our first attempt to bring people to a CCD. That does not sound out of the ordinary right? Well there is a twist. Cafe Coffee Day @ RDB Boulevard Salt Lake Sector V was buzzing with people, many of whom even I have never met. About 7 laptops, wifi, coffee, music and more. If I remember clearly about 15+ people poured in and went back with an experience which will bring them back many more times. Do not believe me? Well ask them. Here are the names I remember in the order I remember they came in:

Sumit Datta (pixlie )
Saikat Singha (pixlie)
Prashant Verma (Salt Lake Software)
Pallav Nadhani (InfoSoft Global)
Sumana Chakroborty (pixlie)
Sougata Pal (KonectIt)
Bibhash (consultant/freelancer)
Samiran Ghosh (Cognizant)
Mitesh Ashar (freelancer)
Nitesh Ambuj (E Force)
Pankaj (E Force)
Abishek Rungta (Indus Net Technologies)
Ashmita Brahma (freelancer)
Nikita Poddar (Cognizant)
Debashish Mohanty (Cognizant)

What came out of this? Well Sumana got freelance creative writing work! Yay! I came out with the name for a venture that Pallav and Abishek are coming up with. Its a secret... shhhh. But we will have a good party at one of the future OCC where they have promised to sponsor a (huge) cake. Lovely! Me and Mitesh discussed a new project he will be working on with me. We had some serious work done, awesome fun and I had my lunch (chicken burger) at 5 PM!

So what are you waiting for? Pour into the coming OCC @ CCD Park Street, Sat 29 Aug. 11 AM onwards. (opposite KFC). You are welcome to come in anytime after 11AM. Bring your laptops, blackberrys / iphones or even your notepad. Sit and draw if you want. Its up to you. Kolkata meets, discusses, shares and gets work done. Oh btw in the next OCCs I will be looking out of freelance programmers, PHP and JS. Others are also looking out of talent. Many content work coming in... so creative writers, bloggers should join in! Lets ROCK Kolkata! (and get a lot of work done over coffee).

Related: Open Coffee Club introduction post

Note: We are looking out for some mobile broadband company to sponsor the events broadband connection. Currently we are running on something I use, plugged into my wireless router. But we need a better solution. So sales heads from the fiercely competitive mobile/broadband companies, here is your chance to prove your product.