Podworks will be a workshop style unconference where all the knowledge needed for making a podcast will be imparted from people who have done it before and there will also be many hands on sessions, competitions and discussions. Podworks will be India’s Biggest Event on Audio & Video Podcasting and promises to bring the best of the podcasting/blogging/new media community together to learn, share, experience, and grow.

There will be a door donation of Rs.200 for meeting the expenses of the event and of course there will be some give aways which will help you continue your podcasting experiments from home.

Registrations for the event are open and rush up if you are interested as the number of participants for the workshop is restricted. Keep yourself updated about the event by joining the mailing list. If you are interested in volunteering go check the wiki and take up some responsibility

The first organizers meet for Podworks was held last sunday at CCD, IIT Madras and surprisingly 34 people turned up for the meet and offered to volunteer and take up various responsibilities. It was a very diverse work force consisting of students, journalists, software professionals, RJs,actors and a singer. Many remarkable decisions were taken in the first organizers meet and a lot of brainstorming happened so as to make the event a grand success.

Check out more photos in Chinmayi’s blog. As per plans we will be starting for the bigrace after attending the podworks as it sounds too interesting to be missed.

After MOMO, we had our lunch at Tiffanys and headed to the CCD. People started coming in one after the other and the we pulled all the chairs tables and created a chaos. 34 peeps for a organizers meet! Even chennai bloggers meet didn’t see such a crowd. It was not like too many cooks spoil the broth but many notable decisions were taken in the two hour meet and many people contributed their ideas.

TUD-”the” man was at his full pace during the podworks meet. Every time i take the photos and pass it to Ganesh and he efficiently does this Photo essay with all the witty comments. Thanks to him.

Check out the photos of MOMO and Podworks meet.

After that there is a organizers meet for Podworks-The podcasting workshop to be held on June 9 and 10. Some new exciting people are to join the organisers team. It’s gonna be fun.

I saw Good night good luck and the other movies i saw only in parts. Most of the time we were sitting behind and having some random conversations and at other times i slept. The best part of the fest was the Tamil dubbed version of Kung Fu Hustle which we saw for some half hour during dawn. Fucking Hilarious!!!! Unfortunately we had to stop it

Sagaro’s Photo essay

The New Indian express carried a very good article on RTFF. Thanks to all those who took the initiative. It is definitely going to go places.

Registration was pretty good and fast. The name sticker sucked. On the first day, I tore 5 of those and only the 6th one i was able to stick on my t shirt. The second day fortunately the first one clicked!

IIM-B campus- Superb!!More than that the sandwiches which they sell at the 24 hour canteen are really tasty. That too for 15 bucks it is dead cheap.

Then there was an intro in the auditorium for which i was late. Some how the unconference mood was not there. Don’t know the reason, just because it was conducted in an educational institution or the way in which it was conducted.

I attended two sessions in the mobile sector of which “Active mobs” was very nice. Hope they bring it on to Chennai. Then we went to the lunch and some good networking happened in the canteen.

The best of all which i enjoyed was the photography session which me, ganesh and Gitu had. After lunch we went to the UFO tower(one hawt place in IIM-B) and clicked some amazing pictures. We didn’t climb the iron ladder to reach the top as we had our lunch just before and also it was steep.


Ganesh taking a picture of us from the bottom.

The self-timer shot.

The dry leaves…. I loved the sound when we walked on it.

The open discussion in the lawn between the chennai and the bangalore team to decide the venue for Proto.in

The paper wiki!

After the first day, few people played Quake and this was when so thought straight-Sagaro told that every time he visited Bangalore he never missed going to NASA-the gay pub.

We went to a nearby restaurent to have the dinner and i left early. The second day i attended some sessions and discussions. Good gyaan! The one by Lawrence from Creative Commons was incredible. People even continued it over lunch.

Things learnt from two days in Bangalore
-Bangalore is one cheri place nothing much different from chennai.
-The money which i spent travelling inside Blr for two days was more than what i spent for my to and fro chennai-blr train fare.
-8 out of ten people in Bangalore work in the software field, out of which 7 people drink and smoke.
-You can get alcohol every 100 meters in almost all roads in blr.
-Traffic sucks and so does the local transport.
- Auto walahs cheat be it bangalore or chennai.

Overall a memorable experience and also attending the camp made me think a lot about my future. Hope i hit the best decision soon.

It was 8:30 when i reached home and started to RTFF in a hurry. I somehow figured out Sid’s house in RA puram and the IIT guy Mohan was waiting outside. I called Sagaro and he promptly came down to open the door with a beer bottle in one hand. When i entered the first movie Hard Candy was over and the discussion was going on with Sudhish and Nandu spearheading it. TUD once again tactfully corrected some red bull figures and brought lots of cans and gave me one when i entered. The roof top was excellent and it was “THE” perfect place.

The next movie was Blood simple, the directional debut by Coen brothers(Joel and Ethan). An excellent thriller with a lot of twists and suspenses. Although it was a little dull in the beginning and hard to follow it went on interesting as the story moved. In between the Call center movie , TUD’s “Hi!dad” and few other short flicks were screened.

The third movie was Annie Hall by Woody Allen. Considered one of the best by Allen the movie was filled with humour. I think i missed few parts of the movie and it was the time when i started feeling sleepy. It was also the time when Sagaro’s four hour blank started after 20 shots of vodka, beer and rum.

The final one was That four letter Word by Sudhish. I watched it for the second time and at the end Sudhish also showed some of the deleted scenes and the parts of the previous edition which he shot some 5 years back with Abbas, Ranvir, RJ suchi and others.

The blank:
The best part of the fest which i enjoyed was the four hour blank that happened to Sagaro. He went crazy and didn’t know what he was doing. He blabbered a lot and spoke about how all his crushes are getting married. In the morning (6 AM) he was still high and became generous. He started giving money to people around. At the end he gave away 2000 bucks(to baggy, myself and Sid),we were kind enough and returned it to him later. That evening he called him and i narrated all that happened during the night. It is actually good fun to see drunken people. But still the best was at the Blogcamp beach house party. Nothing can beat that.

The sad part was many people got drunk (including the organizer)and went off to sleep. The spirit inside them killed the spirit of the festival. The next RTFF would sure be more interesting and high spirited( no pun intended)!

Pickpocket by Robert Bresson. I missed the starting part of this French movie and was blank for the next ten minutes. Overall a decent watch. Some of the scenes were amazing particularly when Michel changes the hand bag and the purse replacement in the train. The heroine looked hot and my curious search ended in the trivia that she is Marika Green, the aunt of Eva Green.
My rating~~ 5.5/10

Matruboomi- a nation without women by Manish Jha. A nice movie which throws light on female infanticide which is still happening in India. There is only one woman left in the village and all the 5 brothers from a family get married to the same woman and the story revolves around her sufferings. Although it seemed extra imaginary the way in which it was presented was good.
My rating~~ 7/10

Meghe Dhaka Tara-Cloud Capped Star
This bengali movie by Rithwik Ghatak portrays the selfless character of a woman from a middle class family who gives up everything for the well being of her family. The tamil movie “Aval Oru Thodar kadai” by K. Balachander is a remake of this movie. A bit slow movie but the storyline was good.
My rating~~ 6/10

Full Metal Jacket by Stanley Kubrick
A brilliant movie about the US Marine cops in the Vietnam war. The drill sequences in the first half especially the ones with Private Pyle will make you laugh like anything. In the second part Private Joker serves as a combat journalist for “stars and stripes” in Vietnam. The life of the recruits and war scenarios are depicted wonderfully.
My rating~~ 8.5/10

Rhapsody in August by Akira Kurosowa
This Japanese movie is about the atomic bombings in Nagasaki. The story revolves around a old woman whose husband was killed in the bombings. Four grand children stay with her for the vacation and their nephew from America joins them in Nagasaki when he learns about his grand father.
My rating~~ 6/10

Dor by Nagesh Kuknoor
Husbands of two women go to Saudi for a living but one of them gets killed accidentally by the other. The wife of the killer comes to get a signature from the widow pleading for mercy and meanwhile they develop a strong friendship bondage. An above average bollywood movie.
My rating~~ 7/10

Overall the fest was very good and i greatly look forward to attending future film festivals. The one round the corner is the Roof top Film Festival (RTFF) this weekend and the CMI fest later this month.

This time there were no hassles and everything went on really smooth. Credits to the super fast registration team. The unconference mood was perfectly set with the beds, the intrusion balls and the couches. I didn’t catch up with any of the sessions completely except the Blog vs Wiki debate in which i spoke for blogs with Sagaro against Siddharth and Kribs which was later joined by many others. The wonderful part was the wikibooklet. On friday night at 10 PM when we were at syed’s office for the final organiser’s meet a guy came forward to print the booklet and around ten of us completed all the chapters overnight and we got the printed booklets the next evening. THAT was the power of wikis and it was a great feeling.

THE HINDU carried an article about Wikicamp with a wikipuppy pile photograph of the organisers along with Jimbo. The Q&A session in which some 30 of us mobbed Jimmy was good fun. Good some intersting information.

Later Suderman came and we guys had a good chat with him about his movie. Thanks to Dinesh who brought those Red bull chicks and also stacking my backpack with 7 redbull cans with which he later hit Sagaro. At the end we all signed on the backdrop and brought it down. After the event we went to Farm House in ECR for dinner with Jimmy. Kaushik screwed up a little with the route and we reached there before people started eating in Sid’s car.

The networking which happened in Wikicamp was excellent. Met many new people and best of all this season was new found friend TU Dinesh who helped with the designing and lots of other stuff for Wiki Camp. Incidentally March 6 happens to be his birthday, Happy Birtday da machan

Once again Sagaro has come up with the wonderful picture story. Go there and scroll, it looks like a video. Go get the feel!!

Watch the pictures which i clicked HERE

Go to flickr and type WIKICAMP to watch the entire photo collection.
Indiainteracts has got a wonderful collection of the videos.

If
Yes
Then——> Wikicamp.in

WikiCamp will be a one day event and will be held in the Main auditorium of Tidel Park,Chennai on 25Th February. Wiki is one of the hot and happening things in the Web 2.0 arena and wikicamp will bring together some of the great minds from the internet world to discuss about the power of wikis. It will be held as an unconference and so everyone will be the participant/manager/speaker. Go ahead and put your details in the PARTICIPANTS page. A nominal door donation of Rs.200 will be charged to meet the expenses towards lunch,venue and logistics. Registrations are restricted….So grab ur seat and i assure it would be good fun and a great knowledge enriching experience!

For those who cannot attend the event in person, you can also participate as a virtual participant, no matter in which ever corner of the world you are. Check the main page on the day of the event. The video streaming and IRC channel will be set up then.

Wikicamp is one other brainchild of The Knowledge Foundation which has successfully organized events like BarcampChennai, BlogCamp and Proto.in

It is going to happen on the 20th and 21st January (Sat and Sun) at Indian Institute of Technology, IIT Madras. There will be 30 start up companies from around the country who will be pitching their product in front of a elite group of Venture Capitalists and technologists. If you wanna be there to go ahead and REGISTER.

TANSTAAFL, so entry to the event is nominally charged. It is priceless and i bet it is worth every cent. Dont worry high class lunch will be provided and there are a lot of freebies which will be worth more than your entry fee;)There is also a discount for students who are willing to witness the estimable presentations. Do check if the registrations are still open.
Please feel free to buzz me if you have any clarifications or want more details