30 Hindi Movies you should watch before you die....

Today I am in mood to throw an extremely controversial blog, a list of 30 Hindi movies one should watch before die (according to me obviously). Somehow I managed to list out 30 names. I know this list will vary person to person but I am very sure that many names will remain in everyone’s list. After completion of my list I was surprised to see just one movie of SRK although I am a SRK fan. This might be because of the fact that listing out best movies till date and your favorite movies are two different things. Trust me, I tried hard to prioritize the list and find out best of these 30 but I was totally unable to do. I find myself somewhat biased towards few names that would be unfair with these great movies. So I just sorted out by release year. Here you go with my list:

1. Devdas (1955) - Bimal Roy's version, the third adaptation (second with sound) of Sarat Chandra's novel. Stars Dilip Kumar, Suchitra Sen and Vyjayantimala. Critically the most acclaimed of the four versions of Devdas to date.

2. Mother India (1957) - Heroic peasant woman (Nargis) does her duty towards her husband and sons despite heart-breaking obstacles. This movie was nominated in the "Best Foreign Film" category of the Oscars.

3. Dosti (1964) - Two friends, separated families, a missing sister. Stars Sudhir Kumar, Sushil Kumar, Sanjay Khan, and Leela Mishra.

4. Padosan (1968) - Comedy about a neighbour (Sunil Dutt) and a music teacher (Mehmood) wooing a beautiful girl (Saira Banu). Famed playback singer Kishore Kumar sings for Sunil Dutt.

5. Khamoshi (1969) - Asit Sen directs Waheeda Rehman as a nurse of a patient (Rajesh Khanna) she falls in love with.

6. Mera Naam Joker (1970) - A Raj Kapoor classic. Semi autobiographical-tells the story of a romantic artist (a circus clown) and all the women he falls in love with.

7. Anand (1971) - Rajesh Khanna as a dying young man who wishes to leave a legacy of love.

8. Abhimaan (1973) - Two singers marry. When the wife's career takes off, the husband falls prey to abhimaan, jealousy. Starring Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan (whom he later married). Music by S.D. Burman.

9. Garam Hawa (1973) - Directed by M. S. Sathyu. A critically-acclaimed drama of the Partition of India. Stars Balraj Sahni, Farooq Shaikh, Gita Siddharth.

10. Aandhi (1975) - Gulzar directs Sanjeev Kumar and Suchitra Sen in this sensitive tale of a female politician choosing her career over marriage.

11. Chupke Chupke (1975) - Hrishikesh Mukherjee's delightfully directed comedy about a prank played by the newly married hero (Dharmendra) on his brother-in-law (Om Prakash). Also stars Sharmila Tagore, Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bhaduri.

12. Deewar (1975) - A story of two brothers who follow different career paths. Stars Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor.

13. Sholay (1975) - In 1999 BBC declared it the "Film of The Millennium". Ex-cop Thakur Baldev Singh (Sanjeev Kumar) hires two jail birds (Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra) to save his district from Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan) and his band of dacoits. Based on American westerns, it became the most successful film in Indian film history.

14. Golmaal (1979) - If you like comedies don't miss this. Hrishikesh Mukherjee was always brilliant, but in this he is exceptional. Amol Palekar and Utpal Dutt are great as ever.

15. Prem Rog (1982) - Rishi Kapoor who loves Padmini Kolhapure cannot marry her due to her caste and social status and she gets married to a richer man. She soon becomes a widow and then the story of a clash between old and new social values is well brought out.

16. Masoom (1983) - Directed by Shekhar Kapur, a story about an illegitimate son.

17. Ghayal (1990) - A critically acclaimed film by Rajkumar Santoshi with Sunny Deol in the lead. One of the finest performances of Sunny Deol.

18. Roja (1992) - A man is kidnapped by terrorists; his wife refuses to stop fighting for his return. Dubbed from Tamil original critically-acclaimed.

19. Andaz Apna Apna (1994) - This film was nominated for Filmfare Awards 1995 in four categories:Best film, Best Director - Rajkumar Santoshi, Best Actor - Aamir Khan and Best Comedian - Shakti Kapoor (for the role of 'Crime Master Gogo'). Even though it performed poorly at the box office upon its film release, it has since gained a strong cult following over the years.

20. Bombay (1995) - Star cast Manisha Koirala; Arvind Swamy a south Indian Hindu man falls in love with a Muslim woman--taboo in the small village from which they hail. Directed by Maniratnam, dubbed from Tamil

21. Dilwale Dilhaniya Le Jaayenge (1995) - Raj (Shahrukh Khan) and Simran (Kajol) fall in love during a group tour of Europe. However, Raj must win over the hearts' of Simran's family if he is to win Simran's hand in marriage. Regarded as one of the most successful Bollywood movies ever.

22. Dil Chahta Hai (2001) - College friends (Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan and Akshaye Khanna) and their romantic misadventures. Also stars Preity Zinta and Dimple Kapadia.

23. Gadar (2001) - By far, the highest grossing film of the 21st century. Stars Sunny Deol and Amisha Patel. Love across the Muslim-Sikh divide during the Partition of India.

24. Lagaan (2001) - Officers of the British Raj and Indian villagers fight each other at cricket. The Film was an Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Film.

25. Black (2005) - An inspired teacher, played by Amitabh Bachchan, reaches out to a deaf and blind girl played by Rani Mukherji.

26. Rang De Basanti (2006) - The official entry of India into the Oscars is a drama directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, starring Aamir Khan, Soha Ali Khan and Madhavan. College-age slackers in Delhi get involved in making a film about the Indian independence movement and shed their cynicism.

27. Guru (2007) - Hard-hitting rags to riches story of a man named Guru. Starring Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai in lead roles and directed by Mani Ratnam.

28. Parzania (2007) - Parzania ('Heaven & Hell on Earth' in English) is an award-winning Indian film drama directed by Rahul Dholakia, written by David N. Donihue, Rahul Dholakia starring Naseeruddin Shah, Sarika and Corin Nemec. The film is inspired by the true story of 10 year old Parsi boy, Azhar Mody, known as Parzaan in the film, who disappeared during the communal riots in Gujarat, when a mob attacked the 'Gulbarg Society' in Ahmedabad, on 28th February, 2002. The film was premiered at 36th India International Film Festival in Goa, at the in the 'Indian Paranoma' section on 26th November 2005, before being released nationwide on January 26th, 2007.

29. Taare Zameen Par (2007) - Story about the struggles of a child Darsheel Safary suffering from dyslexia and a bond of his teacher Aamir Khan helps him succeed in arts. Starring child actor Darsheel Safary and Aamir Khan. Marks the debut of Aamir Khan as a director. The film also critically acclaimed.

30. Mithya (2008) - Given a rating of 4 out of 5 by Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN citing Mithya is a movie that never stops unraveling. Hindustan Times and The Times of India also gave it favorable reviews with 4 and 3.5 stars respectively.

All about increasing site’s visibility in Search Result page

This part of blog is focusing on increasing Site’s visibility on search engines, industry trade publications, trade associations, portals and directories. As a result, site traffic will increase along with leads and conversions. In search engine marketing the following issues are considered:

• Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art of maximizing website ranking on search engines such as Google and directories such as Yahoo! The maximization process is conducted on a carefully selected list of key words and phrases that prospects and customers are most likely to use to look up.

Why ranking falls:

If the rules change, sites may be dropped from SE's. If Algorithms change, sites may be lowered in the rankings. If competing to SEO firms are successful in finding a new trick just within the rules, site rankings may fall. If new competing client sites enter the market, site rankings may drop. If the Client site uploads altered pages or changes server technology, site rankings may drop.

Keep in mind that excessive repeating of META keywords could be considered as spamming by some search engines and site might get penalized with a lower ranking for that practice.

Why content is important:

Most of the major search engines index every word of your page and compare them to your title META description and META keywords. In fact some engines probably don't use the META keywords anymore, so that is why content is becoming even more important.

Search Engine Optimization Tips:

Things are changing, and that what a trick is allowed today will be blacklisted tomorrow. It is better to focus on "honest page" Search Engine Optimization than wasting time on something that will need to be abandoned soon.

a. Knowing the keywords and criterion used by competitors is the most important first step.

b. Keywords should be relevant, applicable, and clearly associated with page body content.

c. Keywords should be used as allowed and accepted by the search engines (placement, color, etc.)

d. Keywords should not be utilized too many times on a page (frequency, density, distribution, etc.)

e. Redirection technology (if used) should facilitate and improve the user experience. But understand that this is almost always considered a trick and is frequently a cause for removal from an index.

f. Redirection technology (if used) should always display a page where the body content contains the appropriate keywords (no bait and switch).

g. Redirection technology (if used) may not alter the URL (redirect), affect the browser BACK button (cause a loop), or display page information that is not the property of the site owner or allowed by agreement without sound technical justification (i.e., language redirects).

h. Pages should not be submitted to the search engines too frequently

i. Another important factor to consider is the use of misspelled words: Misspelled words could boost traffic because many people are likely to misspell keywords in a search.

In the proposed model, search engine optimization is carried out by various optimization tasks:

a. Key Phrases optimization: It is the most important step, since keywords are used throughout the optimization process. Few recommendations are:

- Think specific keyword phrases not keywords, due to extreme amount of competition for general terms and you have to be different from your competitors.

- Try to think like your target audience.

b. Title tag optimization: It is displayed on the search result page of search engine. Few recommendations are:

- Limit title tag to 50-80 characters.

- Use 1-2 most important keywords in title tag but not just list the keywords.

c. Meta tag optimization: Meta description and Meta tags are generally placed between & <\Head> tags. Few recommendations are:

- Keyword Meta should not exceed 1024 characters including spaces.

- Description Meta should not exceed 250 characters including spaces.

- In Meta description, include 3-4 most important keyword phrases. Try to have most important keywords appear at the beginning of description.

- In Meta keywords, use those keywords phrases which are used in copy page, title tag, meta description & other tags but do not forget plurals.

- If you know a common misspelling of a popular keyword relevant to your content, include it in Meta keyword.

- Watch out a word could not be repeated more than 5 times.

d. Page copy optimization: By 'copy' i mean the actual text that a visitor to site would read. Few recommendations are:

- For best results it is recommend that each page submitted has at least 200 words of copy on it.

- This text should include most important keyword phrases, but should remain logical & readable.

- Be sure to use those phrases that have used in other tags (i.e. metas, alt, headings, title, etc.) during the optimization process.

e. Images “alt” attribute optimization: It contains the description of the image. Few recommendations are:

- Never use more than a brief sentence or two to describe an image.

- Be sure to use the keyword phrases that are also used in the copy of your page, title tag, Meta description, and other tags.

- Do not try to cram a bunch of keywords into the "alt" attribute. It is recommended using no more than 2-3 per image.

- Describe the image - do not just list keywords.

f. Incoming and outgoing link optimization

g. Improvement of Quality, quantity, clarity and value of content.

• Link propagation

One of the most important factors to achieve a high ranking in the search engines is link popularity. It's not only the number of links to your web site that is important it's also the quality of the links that are important. A link at Dmoz or Yahoo is usually given much more weight than a link from a personal web site.

Link Maximization is the art of persuading popular sites in your industry to link to your website. In other words, it is equivalent to performing Public Relations (PR) on website. Customers must be able to find site and access it easily. Positioning link well is key to attracting customers. The simplest way to do this is to register link at all the major search engines, plus any specialty search engines that might be applicable to site. There are several services that will register your site with multiple search engines at once. Also, very important are site's meta-tags, the code that enable search engines to find them. Meta tags contain the key words that users may use to search for site.

Other link propagation methods

While search engines are an important way for customers to find a web site, a company cannot rely on them alone. Search engines account for only 6.86% of web site referrals. On the other hand, Internet links, such as banner ads, sponsorships, and affiliates accounted for 46.13% of referrals. Direct navigation and bookmarks together accounted for the largest percentage of referrals with 47.01%, showing that many Internet users already know where they want to go when they sign online [20].

Increasing the number of links to site does not have to expensive. Swapping links (inviting other sites to link to yours in return for linking to their site) can be very effective. Joining a web ring is a more formal way of swapping links. In it a group of related sites allow users to click from one to another. A "ringmaster" controls which sites are included in the ring. Another option is self-promotion. Site owners can self-promote by posting messages at forums, message boards, and email lists with a tasteful signature file that links to their site. Nor does link propagation have to be high-tech. E-businesses can print their URL on bags, receipts, stationery, business cards, and anything else they can possibly think of. This type of offline advertising is surely an important factor for the 47% of direct navigation referrals.

• Pay-Per-Click Management

Pay-per-click (PPC) programs allow to list site at the top of the search engine results. Website can be listed by bidding on selected groups of keywords relevant to product or service. Higher the bid, higher will be appearance in the search results. Pay only when a visitor clicks on listing and visit site. Since it is all the game of bidding, Choose key phrases which are not general to minimize the competition

Those awesome days passed away

Finally i got a new way to kill my time and you got an opportunity to hear something hilarious but senti one-:).

July 2002, the day i entered the gate (or better call it something separating the road from institute campus) of IIITM, Gwalior to experience a new taste of life....called hostel life. ohh...previous night incident was so funny. At Gwalior railway station i asked an auto, "Hey! take me to IIITM".....he replied, "which college? ITM? IITM? IITTM?"...he asked for every combination of I, T and M but no IIITM-:D. Anyhow i managed to find the treasure. It was a small building inside MITS campus. An apex institute of IT and management-;). Flashback is enough i guess...move on to present day.....Yeah! the IIITM Campus. It was in-total 3 buildings standing on a dry and rocky land. Boy's Hostel, girl's hostel (WOW-;)) and Academic Building. As soon i entered campus the first word came from my mouth was......O FUCK!!!.

But hostel was awesome. Then one by one i got the best assets of my life...starting with Rajiv. then sid, sumit, pawan, tanay, abhinit, amit, rahul, sabarish, aman, vinti and many more. Since the very 1st day till now....i found tanay very impressive. I got so many memories. i will mention one by one......

1) Ragging experience....oh god! i used to behave so boring-:D. I used to show like i don't know anything or i might be an alien. No abusive words, no porn nothing.

2) NGO experience..... with rajiv and puruda. A 3 month holiday. Frankly speaking we did nothing but did everything. We used to make food, listen songs on puruda's radio, kill days, little bit romance with someone as well-;).

3) BTP...... :D...best B.Tech project one can ever do. Quake 3 excellence, Midtown madness assignments, NFS certification and above all full time A/C bedroom cum dining room cum hall (professors used to call it computer Lab). I would rate it best of those awesome days. NINE...plz second me.

4) Historical Vaishnodevi tour (with some spices of piles-:D)..... with tanay, abhinit, gulli and obviously mota-:D. Best tour one can ever have, excluding someone-;). I have no words to explain the fun of this tour. All credits goes to our very talented tour organizer Tanay and ofcourse mota. Mote......u made this tough tour so easy. NINE.....again second me-:D.


to be continued........