Hey, did you have a PD on the case? No, I am yet to receive its FI and De-dup. Be careful coz my PTP case turned BP today. I already have 2 RTPs hanging around my neck. I know what you are thinking - these must be some college-going youngsters talking in their ever-incomprehensible language. Well! You are only half right.

For, young they are but not college-going any more. In fact, this is a piece of serious business being conducted in a regular office. You don't expect students to say that they did not have a 'personal discussion' on a case because they had not received its 'field report' and 'de-duplication'.

After all, it is only an office-goer who can render an advice to be careful because his 'promise to pay' clients turned 'broken promise' and not to forget the two 'refusal to pay' cases!

Welcome to the world of Gen Y. It is busy breaking all sorts of barriers these days and language, of course, is no exception. This is something we already knew but what we are now discovering is the wide reach of it.

It is no longer restricted to the college-canteen or student laboratories. The youngsters are joining corporate sector and are changing the vocabulary of their success stories - officially!

H. S. Sidhu, a youngster working in Indiabulls opines, "It is a matter of convenience. In today's lifestyle, one is always short of time. So, right from addressing somebody to discussing a topic, slang always finds a place in our lives."

So, do you use these short-forms verbally or do they find a place in written communication as well? "They are extensively used in e-mails. And new ones keep popping up everyday."

He goes on to narrate how a senior official wrote a line in his mail - I am sending this ARBY and he had no clue what it meant.

"I spent so much of time trying to comprehend it. In the end, it turned out to be an acronym for As Required By You." Phew!

The only solace is the fact that the expression is almost similar all across the industry. "There are only some technical terms that might be special to a particular office but generally the same short-forms find place in all offices. If we converse with somebody outside our office, the language remains the same" smiles Narottam Sharma, a 31-year-old, working in GE Money.

So, what happened to that image of an office goer who used heavy, impeccable words of the language as we all gaped at him in awe? "That surely has taken a beating. The image has become hazy even if it has not been completely erased."

"It is a spill over effect of SMS culture," Sidhu puts it all in one line! All we can recco is that you make a list of the short forms FYI before joining your new job and it might just end up being the MID of your life.

And if you are too lazy to do that, simply refer to the information given in the box below. But if there is one I have missed out on, believe me I am not to be blamed. Chances are it was invented after this write up went in print!

When we get the cue that some documentary maker is shooting a mega scene using 50 horses and an equal number of gatka boys, the first thought that comes to mind is: Mangal Dhillon is at it again. But we were proved wrong.

For, the man who claimed to be the writer and director of this untitled documentary looked unfamiliar with an even unfamiliar name - Jagmeet Samundri.

"I have some serials to my credit, including Sab Golmaal Hai on SAB TV, in which I had played the prankster," he says as introduction. Well, not much of help there, but nevertheless, we get curious, as this guy happens to be a passout from the School of Media Studies, Panjab University. We want to know what made him quit acting and hide behind the camera.

"It was always a dream to own a production house which is being realised now as I have one by the name of Samundri Creations. We make ad films, corporate films to sustain ourselves," says Jagmeet, who has recently made Birla Sunlife Insurance, a corporate film.

So, we learn that making ad films means bread and butter to him, while making documentaries is food for the soul. And after the success of the Rise of Khalsa, he has found his calling in the panth.

"My first documentary The Rise of Khalsa was a huge success abroad after it was screened at the New York International Film Festival," he claims.

So, the idea that followed was to talk about the unsung heroes who sacrificed their lives for the religion.

Intensive research was carried out and the team identified lesser-known heroes like Garja Singh and Bota Singh who fought against 400 Mughal armies in 1739.

However, the script alone is not the strong point here. "We are trying to maintain the international standard of documentary making when it comes to the camera, voiceover and the script. And all actors are real," says Jagmeet.

Anil Dhanda, the renowned Bollywood cameraman who handled the coloured project of Mughal-E-Azam, is doing the cinematography.

Before turning a full-time director, Jagmeet had some assisting for a few Bollywood projects - Veeru Devgan in Hindustan Ki Kasam, for instance.

So, how was the transition from being an actor to a director? "Smooth and at present, that's what gives me the high," he admits.

And the high comes from not just creating and recreating the scenes but also from understanding the emotion which runs in the script, pre-production planning and the visualising the final output. Guess, he is on the right track.

parbina@tribunemail.com.

A man known for his upbeat direction and diverse topics, Anurag Kashyap, an eminent filmmaker and script writer was in city to interact with students of Dikshant International School, Zirakpur.

One of the most talented directors of this generation, Anurag has directed movies like Satya, Kaun, Yuva and Water. Loved by the audience and the critics for his movies Black Friday, No Smoking and Hanuman Returns, as a director, he has created a niche for himself in the tinsel town.

In an interaction with the students of Dikshant, he taught them a few things about filmmaking and scriptwriting. And for the students they were definitely thrilled to have him amongst themselves.

In a tête-à-tête with the children Anurag, also informed the children about various career options in the film industry. "It was a nostalgic moment for me, as my own school memories got refreshed in my mind."

Mitul Dikshit, director, Dikshant International School, said, "He is one of the most talented young directors in Bollywood today. He is a thorough intellectual, a creative genius when it comes to directing a movie. And his presence in our school is a moment of pleasure for us." — TNS

Aditi Desai, widely considered to be an expert on kashmiri shawls, will be holding an exhibition and sale of jamawar paisley embroidered pashmina shawls in the city. A collector of unique shawls from India and abroad, her collection has some of the finest pieces from Sikh, Dogra and Mughal periods.

Determined to preserve India’s 500-year-old tradition, Desai has been in constant touch with the expert artisans. Her shawls and stoles are one of a kind, all hand-made pieces.

“The shawls in my collection are from Kashmir and Europe. The European versions were also called kashmir or paisley as they were inspired by their Kashmiri counterparts, except that they were woven on more sophisticated looms. The Indian kashmiri shawls were woven by hand on a basic frame loom using the kani or twill-tapestry weaving technique. The production of a single patterned shawl required tremendous division of labour between thirteen or more female and male specialists and took up to a year or more to weave,” says Aditi.

The shawl in the collection have motifs from nature and the colours are derived from natural substances.

Aditi’s collection of shawls as been exhibited at the Cosmopolitan Club in New York and the Museum of Asian Art in San Francisco in addition to various private exhibitions across the world.

In 2007 she exhibited at Fabindia stores in Northern India. Her endeavour has been to bring about appreciation of the craft of kani weaving and the eternal beauty of the shawl designs.

Also their preservation and exhibition, so that those fortunate ones who own kani shawls can take care of these treasures of our heritage. The exhibition-cum-sale will be on from November 26th to 28th at Fabindia-9. — TNS

As a team leader of the photography club of St. John’s School, Michelangelo Francis believes in giving total freedom of thought and expression to his boys. And this freedom has led his boys to do some independent thinking, which, now are on display at the Government Museum and Art Gallery-10.

To sum it up, the work of 22 boys of the club along with Michelangelo’s, show how keen an eye these children have, when it comes to freezing some particular moment with their SLR cameras.

Most of these shutterbugs show fondness towards nature photography, but their creativity is not limited to just clicking a flower or a caterpillar. Each frame shows a thought process, which goes beyond the surface.

In fact, most students have managed to bring out the cultural element of the place they have captured. Like Pranjal Choudhury of class X, captures the essence of Jaipur in his frames, balancing the charm of forts and ruins with human form.

And talking about cityscape and landscapes, one gets to see some exotic locales of Switzerland in Raj Sameer’s series. A student of class X, Sameer wanted to bring out the true essence of the city and he sure knows how to go about it.

“You have to be sure where to focus and the second important thing is to keep trying till you get a perfect shot,” he shares. It is the sense of balancing your subject and colours that matters in photography, chips in Jyotbir Singh, a student of class X, who specializes in product photography.

As one moves along, one gets to see landscapes giving way to cityscapes and wildlife of places one has heard of — Shillong, Nagaland, Seattle, Las Vegas, San Diago, Amsterdam and Peru.

One of the frames, which has a great historical potential, comes from Michelangelo’s collection. It’s an aerial view of Macchu Picchu in Peru.

The Inca civilisation, which was the contemporary of the Harappan civilisation, shows the sun temple atop the highest mountain peak where the first ray of the sun hits the ground.

There are others like a cycle track in Amsterdam, through which Michelangelo conveys an eco-friendly message to the viewers.

Coming back to teaching photography he says, “We, at St John’s, believe in learning through interactions and then practically doing it. And as each child has a style of his own we try to encourage and develop that.”

He points at the work of Sanyam, in support of his statement — a class VIII student who has found his calling in clicking infants and kids. Sanyam has been working on this particular theme for the past three years and looking at his frames, one can say he has matured in his chosen field.

Technically speaking, the team leader does not encourage his children to manipulate their subject expect for a little cropping here and there.

If all this sound’s a little too heavy, there is a fun side to the exhibition too. There is a particular section dedicated to papermache masks, in which the children have let their imagination go wild. So, what one gets to see here is their favourite superheroes, pirates and wrestlers.

Their exciting chatters, bubbling enthusiasm and spontaneity of work make this exhibition a must visit. On till November 27.

Pyramis S.A. of Greece, stainless steel sink producers are all set to make its presence felt in the Indian market.

Digital camera batteries are inarguably most important camera accessories and need the most careful selection, depending on the power and battery type of the gadget.

Now, some cameras give you a limited shooting time before the batteries drain out while some better ones offer a battery with a long life that supports the camera without worrying about the power consumption.

It becomes important for you to know under which conditions you intend to use your camera and what type of battery it requires.

There are different types of digital camera batteries in the market and the most widely available and used batteries are the standard double AA and AAA size batteries.

These batteries come in variants like alkaline, rechargeable alkaline, Nickel-metal hydride (NiMH), Nickel-Cadmium (NiCad) and Zinc Chloride (heavy duty).

Among few batteries mentioned, some offer the advantages of being lighter and more powerful, but they are substantially more expensive making the prospect of buying one or two backup sets much less appealing.

The alkaline AA-AAA size digital camera battery usually has a very short life - less than an hour, even in extreme cases - when used in a digital camera. This type of battery makes an acceptable emergency backup, especially if you are traveling with your camera.

However, the Nickel metal hydride (NiMH) digital camera battery can be used instead of the alkaline ones with a charger and this rechargeable NiMH digital camera battery has a substantially longer life at an affordable price.

Another type of battery is the non-rechargeable Lithium batteries and rechargeable Nickel Cadmium (NiCD) batteries. The lithium battery has a superior life to alkaline ones and offers good cold-weather performance but their price and non-rechargeable nature make them less useful than rechargeable NiMH batteries. It is also important to ensure that your camera can take a lithium battery.

On the other hand, the NiCD digital camera battery offers the advantage of retaining their charge while unused, unlike NiMH cells, but have shorter lives and need to be discharged completely before recharging which can be extremely inconvenient.

The LCD screen of a digital camera is responsible for consuming most of the power from a digital camera battery so it is worth using only the LCD when necessary to help conserve the battery life. Always try to carry at least one backup set of batteries, especially if you plan on being away from power outlets for an extended period of time. The universally-available alkaline AA or AAA-size battery can make for a convenient emergency backup if your regular digital camera battery fails.

A new entry in the state-of-art luxury phones is the Russian-made "Gresso", made of gold and African blackwood. Gresso will be releasing a collection of five models called Black Aura Collection.

Currently, there are two versions of the African blackwood phone, one with pink gold highlights named the Gresso Blackwood Gold Edition and one made entirely of African Blackwood.

In addition to the two, Gresso will also be making a phone made entirely of pink gold named the Gresso Gold. Initially, the phones will be on sale only in Russia.

Beauty with brains is a lethal combination and apni kudi Aanchal Kumar is one such femme fatale.

This Gladrags mega model winner, and one of India's top supermodel who has walked the ramp for fashion biggies like Manish Malhotra and Ritu Kumar, remains the busiest person in the glam circuit.

After walking the ramp for LFW (that concluded recently), she has her hands full with 15 shows in the next few months and is quite upbeat about her upcoming visit to Pakistan, where she will be a part of a show in Karachi.

Commuting within the city may no longer involve long traffic jams, for researchers have developed a software that can turn cell phones into traffic trackers.

The research team from University of California, Berkeley, worked in collaboration with experts at Nokia to develop the software that collects GPS data from mobile phones in moving vehicles, and creates traffic maps.

These traffic maps can be accessed through Internet or sent to the cellphone to provide local traffic analysis. This software could be downloaded free from Internet.

Alex Bayen at UC Berkeley said that if enough people download the free software, the system should help relieve congestion, even on small intercity roads.

Bayen ensured that the software could not be misused for the system anonymises GPS data and it will be impossible to track individual cars. — ANI

The all-new Honda Civic Hybrid, claimed to be India's first fully hybrid vehicle, got its first run in Chandigarh recently.

Harmony Honda has become the first dealership in the tricity to sell the Civic Hybrid, which was launched this June and had generated a lot of interest.

And the person to own the first Civic Hybrid was Aman Gupta.

With an excellent mileage and performance, it is also extremely eco-friendly, reducing the cost of maintenance. — TNS

While the Internet is one of the basic necessities in today's world, a rather interesting Facebook visualisation has shown how users communicate with each other around the globe.

In a video released by social networking website Facebook, one can see how the web has made global conversations a part of everyday life.

Developed as a part of the latest Facebook Hackathon event, the visualisation, dubbed Project Palantir, shows interactions between users of the social networking website to a three-dimensional globe.

Jack Lindamood, Kevin Der and Dan Weatherford created the application, reports News.con.au. One can see messages from one user to another as comets flying between countries.

Other activities like status updates are shown on the globe as white dots rising into space from the location of the user.

"Hackathons" are collaborative events in which programmers get together to work on new ideas.

According to a report by TechCrunch, Facebook is now thinking about making the application official, but at the moment it is only a demo.

Other ideas suggested by users in the lead-up to Facebook Hackathon XI included video chat, support for Microsoft Office documents and the ability to change the appearance of profile pages. — ANI

Not a serious statement on sexuality, but a breezy comic fare-Dostana, finally rids Bollywood out of the homosexuality taboo.

As John Abraham and Abhishek Bachchan keep the audience in splits, it is tempting to believe that Bollywood may be ready to break away from the tried and tested.

Some have hated the film, saying that it just
perpetuates the gay stereotype, others have
loved it. But Dostana is well on its way to becoming a super hit.

Abhay Deol hopes that one day he will get to share screen
space with his uncle, veteran actor Dharmendra, and cousins Sunny and Bobby Deol.

"I really want to do a film with my uncle and my cousins. I'm
sure it will be really interesting to work with them," Abhay said in an interview.

"I am scared to work with my uncle and Sunny bhaiya (Sunny Deol) because I don't know if I will be able to play anybody else around them apart from my usual self. I feel acting with Bobby will be much easier since we are closer in age," he added.

Abhay said that uncle Dharmendra has been very supportive of his decisions and always appreciated him for his performances and selection of roles.

"My cousins and my uncle have been iconic heroes in the industry and I don't think I'm anywhere close to that, but I'm happy that they like my work. They are my elders and it's natural for me to look up to them," Abhay said.

Abhay made his debut in 2005 with Socha Na Tha, a home production. He then went on to prove his acting prowess with films like Ahista Ahista, Manorama Six Feet Under, Ek Chalis Ki Last Local and Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd.

After giving critically acclaimed performances in the past, he is now ready and upbeat about his forthcoming film, Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! directed by Dibakar Banerjee of Khosla Ka Ghosla fame.

Abhay, who is working with Paresh Rawal for the first time in the movie Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye, said he was initially "nervous" at sharing the same platform with such a senior actor.

"It was really good working with Paresh Rawal. I was nervous at first because he is such a big star and I love his performances, but the initial nervousness went away once I got to know him. He is a very simple and hardworking man. And while working with him, my performance also got better, because when you work with a great actor, your timing also falls in place. I was glad that I got an opportunity like this," Abhay said.

The actor who has a penchant for unusual scripts and different subjects had only worked with debutant directors before Oye Lucky....

However, he maintains that it was not a "conscious decision" to work only with the new crop of filmmakers.

"I knew that it might be a risk working with new directors and I didn't want to do that. But it just worked out this way. There was no conscious decision behind it," Abhay said.

"I just read the scripts and I really liked them, and it just happened that all of them had a debut director attached to them," he added. Abhay said he is interested in producing a film next year.

After a career spanning more than 50 years, Clint Eastwood is set to retire from acting. The 78-year-old, whose iconic roles include Dirty Harry, the cop with 44 Magnum revolver, the most powerful handgun in the world, has said that he has no plans to appear in films again after starring in Gran Torino, a drama about a racist veteran of the Korean War.

"That will probably do it for me as far as acting is concerned," he said. "You always want to quit while you are ahead. You don't want to be like a fighter who stays too long in the ring until you're not performing at your best," he added.

Gran Torino revolves around the relationship between a disgruntled war veteran and his young neighbour, an Asian American teenager who tries to steal his prized possession, a 1972 Gran Torino car.

Clint also directed the film, which will be released in the UK next year. The veteran said that he has no intention of giving up his successful career behind the camera. "I've got no plans to stop making films," he said.

Aussie singer songwriter Natalie Imbruglia
was seen throwing herself at Welsh actor
Rhys Ifans despite having claimed that she is happy being single.

Imbruglia, 33, had previously thrown herself at the Black Eyed Peas rapper Will.I.Am, and was spotted doing the same at the opening bash in Dubai for the giant Atlantis Hotel with Ifans.

"Of course I'm single. I'm enjoying myself," the News of the World quoted her as saying. The actor was later seen all over drunken Ifans, sharing a passionate kiss as he naughtily bounced her on his knee.

According to Fergie, Condoleezza Rice could be
the next Calvin Klein model, at least that's what
reports suggests.

The pop tart was seen talking to the outgoing
secretary of state at Carnegie Hall, where "Fergie
introduced Condi to Sean Patterson, the president
of Wilhelmina Models," according to the New York
Post's sources.

Rice's "eyes lit up," according to the onlooker. This
prompted Fergie to tell her, "You never know. This is
the guy who could get you a Calvin Klein campaign,"
the source added. — ANI, IANS                  Condoleezza Rice