Assignment 4 June 24, 2007
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9327772@N08/611472115/
I am three years old and the only daughter of my parents. Like other kids of my age, me too enjoy playing outdoor games, go out for a picnic, park, hills, and spend time with my best friends. Clothing is a passion for me and I wear all different types of clothes, however traditional Indian clothes are my favorite ones. Today is my birthday, and I want to wear traditional Indian clothes for all day long. I know my parents will let me wear my favorite clothes, but will I be able to play sports wearing these clothes? Will I be able to walk and dance for entire day? Will I be able traverse across the bushes, trees and at the bank of the Lake? Will I be able to enjoy my favorite sports of hide and seek?
Assignment 3 June 10, 2007
ASSIGNMENT 3
Name of the Movie: Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (HDDCS)
Synopsis:
Nandini, the only daughter of a classical singer Pandit Darbar loves his student, Sameer half Indian settled in Italy. However, following the tradition of arranged marriage, Vanraj family sends his marriage proposal to Nandini’s father. Sameer and Nandini are caught romancing with each other, and as a payment for teaching Sameer music, Darbar demands Sameer to forget Nandini. After the weeks of the wedding, Vanraj comes to know about Nandini’s love for Sameer. He decides to unite the lovers even in the face of ridicule by the society and takes Nandini to Italy to search for Sameer. They find Sameer, but Nandini is now in shabby situation of dilemma between Vanraj, with whom she has come to Italy, and Sameer whom she loves…..
Bruner’s Narrative: “Particularity”
As I understand, this is whereby a story fall into particular, meticulous special details to emphasize connotation of storyline and classy events, progressively moving story interestingly with the sequence of games, pranks, kite-flying festival, and light revelry along with marriage sequences. These particular events and scenes play an important part in moving the story forward at the same time entertaining the audience and bringing light to reality. Culture, Ethics, Family Tradition, and Complications leave the movie poised as father of Nandini decides wedding in favor of Vanraj, leaving Sameer in despair.
In the opening scene of the movie, the actress is caught engaged in a rowdy, noisy game in an open wide muddy field, giving me an idea about her temperament. According to me, it emerges that she is playful, hot-tempered, outspoken as well as little spoilt, and mollycoddle by parents at times. Sameer, half Indian and half Italian, come to India from Italy to learn classical singing from the father of Nandini, and falls in love with the Nandini. He is picturized as a flamboyant, mischievous type, for whom dancing and singing is all that matters. That seems to exasperate Nandini at times.
Majority of the Indian movies, length almost three hours; thrilled, engaged and entertained by hodgepodge with songs and dances. It is not uncommon, in an ordinary Indian movie the film hero is seen escaping battered and bloody from a pack of villains in one scene, and singing a love duet against an exotic, preferably mountainous, riverside or rainy day, backdrop in the next scene. It is not the same with HDDCS, the songs are well-researched, and evenly placed on festivals of kites, lights and colors. The dance song, Garba: played with pair of sticks, traditional outwear has relied heavily on Gujarati folk music. This song is named “Dholi taro”, which comes with bang of heavy drum beats in the middle of a serious scene, is a super hit. Unfortunately there is no bumbling comedian, still the movie is well paced with nice jokes to relieve and lighten things up. For a while I thought the fart scene appear to be immature and ikky, however, it was the most realistic and reasonable (eating chilly and pepper:)) thing about the film. It was unexpected, well played and just typical of life.
As per my opinion, what exasperate me a bit is the sound of thunder with lightening that accompanies Sameer’s queries to his dead father. A thunder sound passes for a “Yes” or “No”, and Sameer stretch his arms to hug his father. Reciting and repeating same scene across some serious events appears bit corny. Also, during the wedding scene, Sameer compliments Nandini’s beauty and she acts as if she is a Miss World. Nandini (Aishwarya Rai, actress of the movie), actually was Miss World in 1994. The rumors came true; movie also resulted in the real-life romance between Sameer (Salman Khan) and Aishwarya Rai.
In the second half of the movie; Vanraj – husband of Nandini as per arranged marriage, comes out with a brilliant cameo role who on realizing the love of his wedded wife, decides to take her to her true love who is now back in Italy. The adamancy of Nandini being unswerving with Sameer, and the commitment of Vanraj to reunite Nandini to her love make some classy sequence make the movie well balanced. The movie draws a smooth climax mixed with scintillating melodious soothing background music which is not quite unpredictable, nevertheless still quite effective. Finally, all the people involved in creating the hit movie; Director, Producer, Singer, Music director, choreographer, deserve the credit for not going overboard as it happens so often with bollywood movies. Overall, I think all the spectacular events in the movie are perfectly fitted with relevant details which make it more realistic, entertaining and create an impact for both the audience and the production team.
Pass-1: Trip to India ~ Getting Familiar with Gujarati June 3, 2007
Alistar, who loves traveling, is visiting India and his trip includes Mumbai (previously Bombay), Veraval, Udaipur, Jaipur, Delhi and Agra. The two week trip was well planned together with a friend from India, Diya, who will accompany Alistar as a tour guide, friend and interpreter. Diya and Alistar are net-friends, met each other in the online chat room few years ago. Diya, being Indian origin can speak national language “Hindi”, mother tongue “Gujarati”, and business language “English”. Alistar communicates with Diya in English; however, he has sound knowledge of French as well. Alistar is interested in various ethnic languages, and is keen to learn Gujarati from Diya.
Alistar read about the country and its history, long before his arrival. He has seen plenty of pictures, relish Indian food, and also watched many Hindi (Bollywood) movies. On his arrival at Mumbai
International Airport, Diya and her brother greeted him with “Namaste” – gesture used when bowing by bringing of both hands together, palms touching, in front of the person. Alistar is glad, as he is in group of people who speak the own language and knows how to deal and bargain with the local people. He is also pleased to have been introduced with some of the Diya’s friends and family, and very happy to have made new friends in that part of the world. Raadha, Rajiv, Raj, Sharda are all very kind to him, and so far, he is having great time together.
Alistar, avid learner of language shows interests in learning Gujarati. Every now and then, he repeats the short sentences or words spoken by Diya and her friends. However, he could not understand what it means! Also, he has no clue about Gujarati Parts-of-Speech and the accent makes him puzzled. Diya, well acquainted in Gujarati and English, mentions that Gujarati words can be divided into: Open Class and Closed Class. Open class consists of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, while closed class consists of pronouns and other noun adjuncts, verb adjuncts, conjunctions and others. After a while, Diya came with a strategy to help his bewildered friend. Since Alistar cannot stay longer then two weeks, Diya will teach certain words, sentences and brief knowledge about noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, etc. Within this short span of time, Alistar will try to learn as much as possible to get familiar with Gujarati.
Diya: In Gujarati, gender markers are ‘O’ (masculine), ‘E’ (feminine) and ‘AO’ (neutral/ plural). During their conversation, Diya tells Alistar, “I have two kids, one boy and one girl”. In Gujarati it translates into “ Maare bey barak che, ek chokro ane ek chokri” ( Maare[I] Bey[two] barak[kids] che[is/have], ek[one] Chokro[son] ane[and] ek Chokre[daughter])
Visiting Mumbai, Alistar was fascinated by “Gateway of India”, the remarkable Victorian buildings constructed on the edge of oval ground in the Fort Area, High Court, Bombay University and Rajabai Clock Tower. During the day, a nice walk along the Marine Drive to Chowpatty Beach, and a horse carriage, at night hours are interesting and exciting. The memorable, interesting visit was a day out to Elephanta Island where there are some rock-cut temples & caves. Leopold Cafe and Bar in Colaba, a lovely place to stop for a drink and dinner. So far, Alistar and Diya visited major places of Mumbai and now they are heading towards Veraval. Diya: Gujarati Adjectives fall into two categories: (1) Variable and (2) Invariable.Variable adjectives vary in terms of the gender and number of the nouns they modify, whereas the invariable adjectives do not vary.
Example (Variable Adjective):
Saru chokru (Saru [Beautiful, Adj.] chokru [child])
Sari Chokri (Sari [Beautiful, Adj.] chokri [Girl])
Saro Chokro (Saro [Beautiful, Adj.] Chokro [Boy])
Example (Invariable Adjective)
Sundar Chokru (Sundar [Beautiful, Adj.] chokru [child])
Sundar Chokro (Sundar ([Beautiful, Adj.], Chokro [Boy])
Sundar Chokri (Sundar [Beautiful, Adj.], Chokri [Girl])
English: This is a beautiful child.
Gujarati: Aa [This] Sundar [beautiful] chokru [child] che [is]
Upon visiting Veraval, Alistar discovers more about Hindu culture and temples. Veraval is famous for Somnath Temple; it has been destroyed six times by Islamic rulers during 1024 – 1706, and has been rebuilt every single time. During 1024, the raid of Mahmud Ghazni, the temple and citadel were ransacked, and more than 50,000 defenders were massacred. The stop of Veraval was less than 24 hours because of connecting trains from Veraval to Udaipur. As Alistar got some familiarity with Noun and Adjective, Diya explains about Gujarati “Verb” on their way towards Udaipur. Diya: Gujarati Verbs (non-inflected) have the following structure: verb stem + infinitive.
Example:
Has-vuN [to laugh]
(verb stem + infinitive)
raD-vuN [to cry]
(verb stem + infinitive)
Kap-vuN [to cut]
(verb stem + infinitive)
Ap-vuN [to give]
(verb stem + infinitive)
Udaipur, Rajasthan’s most romantic city! The stay at the Udai Kothi Hotel with its lovely swimming pool on the rooftop was a memorable experience. The traditional hotel food, the chicken & fish tandoori was really yummy! At twilight, Diya and Alistar enjoyed Mango-Lassi and fruit cocktail. In Udaipur, major visits include the City Palace, a boat ride on Lake Pichola passing by Jagniwas Island, its Lake Palace Hotel and also a quick stop in Jagmandir Island. Before final departure from Udaipur, Alistar had breathtaking views from Sajjan Garh at sunset! Diya: Like adjective, adverbs are also variable and non-variable in Gujarati. Variable adverbs agree with the noun with which the verb agrees. There are various types of adverbs. Some of them are adverb of time, adverb of place, adverb of manner, adverb of order, adverb of doubt, adverb of frequency, adverb of negative and connecting verbs.
Adverb of:
Time: Aaje[today], Kale[tomorrow], savare[morning],Bapore[afternoon], Sanje[evening]
Place: Ahi[here], Tya[there], najik-thi[from-closer], door-thi[from-far]
Manner: fatafat [quickly], achanak[suddenly], Gem-Tem [some-how]
Order: Pehla[first], Pachi[next], chhele/aakhre[last],
Quantity: Ghanu[a lot], Thodu[Little], Barobar[appropriate]
Doubt: Kadatch[maybe], kya-rek[Sometimes], Motey-bhage[mostly]
Frequency: Roj [Daily], vaaranvaar[always]
Negative: Na/Nahi [No]
Connecting: Pun[but], vadhuma[additionally]
Few hours drive from Udaipur is Jaipur, – The Rajasthan’s pink city! The people in Jaipur were friendly. The food was delicious, and enjoyed vegetarian food as well. The major visit during the stay of Jaipur were, Hawa Mahal, Old City also known as Pink City, the City Palace, Jantar Mantar as well as Amber Fort, about 11km north of Jaipur. The Elephant ride was amazing and thrilling! Only five days of the trip were remaining and Alistar arrived at the capital of India, Delhi. Once again, Alistar finds this place over crowded like Mumbai but less chaotic. The arrival at Delhi railway station was scary, two rickshaw drivers fighting for us, but all ended peacefully, thanks to Diya. Two days to visit entire Delhi is not enough, however, we managed to see world famous tallest brick minaret “Qutb Minar”, “Bahai Temple”, “Red Fort” – palace for Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, “Raj Ghat” a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi, “India Gate” monument built to commemorate the Indian soldiers who died in the World War I and the Afghan Wars.
The final destination of the trip was crown city of Uttar Pradesh, Agra. A one day tour from Delhi to Agra, fabulous place where all tourists and visitors get fascinated and speechless in front of the spectacular world heritage white marble mausoleum, the Taj Mahal, the most extravagant monument ever built for “LOVE”! Taj Mahal is the finest example of Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements of Persian, Turkish, Indian, and Islamic architectural styles. That was the summit of the whole trip to India and a place which cannot be forgotten.
Story Proposal May 31, 2007
Type of the story:
The story that I will be using through out the course is intended to teach certain words and sentences spoken in my mother tongue “Gujarati”. Using the stories in various media, the audiences will be able to understand, interpret and pronounce Gujarati.
Genre for writing:
First Person
Why am I choosing this story?
In my dissertation, I will be designing and developing User-Interface to deliver structured information to learn any language in collaborative environment. Story aiming to teach certain Gujarati words or phrases will help me how to deliver language material through various media.
Purpose:
The purpose of the story is to deliver creative and engaging real life scenario to help an audience to get familiar and learn Gujarati.
Intended audiences:
Intended Audiences are those who are interested in learning Gujarati. These audiences must have an ability to read and write English.
Method of focalization:
First and third person narrative
How will your story be temporally arranged?
Temporal arrangements will be based on pacing Gujarati text/phrases at various plots of the story. Gujarati text for English noun, verb, adjective, etc will be interwoven within the story.
How will this story be shaped by media through each subsequent pass?
Ø Pass 1: Text
Ø Pass 2: Text and Image
Ø Pass 3: Text, Image, and Audio/Video
Ø Pass 4: Text, Image, Audio/Video and Interactivity
What types of stories will you be producing for passes 2 through 4?
Same story will be used for passes 2 through 4.
What do you anticipate the challenges will be in this project?
Ø Creating the short, precise, engaging story while learning Gujarati
Ø Interweaving English and Gujarati
Ø Delivery of Gujarati pronunciation in all media
Introduction May 16, 2007
My Name is Alpesh Makwana and I am the 2nd year PhD student from department of Modeling and Simulation at University of Central Florida (UCF). I have completed my undergraduate program from Computer Science in
India during summer 2002. Soon after finishing my undergraduate program, I came to UCF in fall 2002 to pursue higher education. So far, I have finished my Masters in Modeling & Simulation with thesis – “Voice track computer based simulation for medical training”. I was the fellowship student during my first year of PhD, and currently working as a Graduate Research Assistant with Mr. Ron Tarr at Institute for Simulation & Training (I.S.T). I have passed my PhD qualifying exams in Spring 2006, and currently working towards the candidacy exam under supervision of Dr. Rudy McDaniel and Dr. Michael Moshell.
Over the past few years in UCF I have worked on the projects such as “Emergency Management during chlorine gas release”, “Visualization of Hurricane”, and “Web based simulation in medical training”. My current research interest focuses on Serious Games, Collaborative Learning, Design and Develop User Interface for education and training. In particular, I am more interested in using Game Engines/Virtual Environment to increase the performance via collaborative learning or training.
Since childhood playing out door games is a passion for me, and I was never a big fan of playing video games. However, I enjoy more watching video game players and observe their reaction, behavior, and how well they get immerse while playing the game. I like movies which are based on true story or reveal any realism of human life. I love to travel, eat different ethnic food and also interested in playing or watching various sports such as football, cricket, ice-hockey, basketball etc. In my spare time I read about health and nutrition, love to watch and read news and also unearth the history of various countries, culture, and language. Every morning, I rarely miss the opportunity of doing meditation. I am also fond of working out in morning (sometimes I like to sleep little bit lateJ) and keep track on intake of various nutritional components for healthy living.
So far, in my career I have not written any story using text or interactive medium. Unlike movie, video games have a non linear story plot. According to my experience, story in a video game gets unfold depending upon user actions. However, to make game more fun, it is essential that video game progresses based on the author’s story plot. So, I am interested in constructing such story plots which engage the gamer in a way that the gamer follows predefined author’s story path. I wonder if I could create such stories using various medium of instruction.
I look forward to participate and interact with other classmates in class and web discussions.
