Devil's Advocate

Dark Matter

2011-02-07T17:31:00.004+05:30

I remember when all the games began / Remember every little lie and every last goodbye / Promises you broke, words you choked on / and I never walked away / it's still a mystery to me.

Well I'm so empty / I'm better off without you and you're better off without me / Well you're so unclean / I'm better off without you and you're better off without me.

The lying, the bleeding, the screaming / Was tearing me apart / The hatred (deceiving), the beatings; it's over.

Paint the mirrors lack to forget you / I still picture your face and the way you used to taste / Roses in a glass, dead and wilted / To you this all was nothing / Everything to you is nothing.

Well you're so filthy / I'm better off without you and you're better off without me / Well I'm so ugly / You're better off without me and I'm better off alone.

The lying, the bleeding, the screaming / Was tearing me apart / The hatred, the beatings (disaster); it's over.

As wicked as you are, you're beautiful to me / You're the darkest burning star, you're my perfect disease.

The lying, the bleeding, the screaming / Was tearing me apart / The hatred, the beatings; it's over.

Disaster

The lying, the bleeding, the screaming / Was tearing me apart / The hatred, the beatings; it's over.

Disaster

It's over now...

- The Bleeding, FFDP

A snap of fingers startled him from a state of suspension. The lyrics were making perfect sense to him. The walls of the cubicle started to come down on him. Everything’s imploding. The rage started to flow in his veins. He felt bitter. He tried to get up. Slump! A lil’ part inside him died.

Nothing much was left inside anyways save for a bitter heart and tar filled lungs. He tried to speak. Squeak! Meek was him. His laptop screen was staring dead into his eyes. He tried to make sense of the gibberish on the screen. The words seemed to come together to make an amoeba like figure. It’s color, dark. Darker than the heady cocktail of bitterness and tar in his lungs. He wanted the figure to spawn around him and suck him in. Killing the last breath of humanity in him he had saved for his coup. It would be a bloody coup. The figure moved. He wanted to be in unison with the dark matter. The matter seemed to writhe and twist changing its shape. It was doped. It made a crying sound, a pitch which would deafen mortals. He was barely alive. He wanted to be in unison with the dark matter. Spit! The dark matter just spat on him. The defeatist in him had won.

Snap! again. He tried to come to terms with his surroundings. The walls around him had collapsed. He couldn’t move himself. He was being crushed under his own weight. So this is how a black hole would feel like, he thought. Betrayed by the dark matter already, he now wanted to be crushed under this immense weight. But he felt no pain. In fact he wanted this to continue.

Pat! The last stick was successful in breaking his neck, again. He mumbled under his breath and turned his neck. His colleague was holding a telephone receiver. He felt as if he wanted to shove the receiver down his throat. He couldn’t hear anything. He knew the routine all too well. The receiver was cold. He liked the numbing comfort it provided. After a while, he returned the receiver to his colleague. Looking at his face made him feel disgusted. What a sorry excuse for life, he thought. It made him think about his life as well. But he is morally subjective. He wanted to retort. He wanted everyone to retort. No one did. And this fueled his bitterness. He wanted to smash the receiver on his face, spurting blood. He wanted to be drenched in his blood. Maybe that’ll wash away some of his sins. He was true to himself. He knew the defeatist in him wins every time. And that made him feel nauseated again.

Or maybe it was the smell of his office. Yes, it was the office. He hated the stench of conformity all around him. He hated it. But he hated himself more. The nausea was making its way to his throat. He looked at the cold and numbing telephone receiver. He wanted to shove it in his throat. Maybe it’ll stop the snot of defeat. He didn’t want to be defeated. He rushed to the washroom. He passed numerous cubicles. His hands felt numb. He punched himself in the throat. The snot that had built was pushed down, but only momentarily. And he knew it.

Each step of his was growing heavy. He felt cracks were developing on the spanking clean office floor. He hated it. He wanted the fissures to burst open and engulf him in the molten matter that was brewing beneath. It wasn’t red. It was dark. And it was cold. Dead cold. Yet it was boiling. The matter was following him everywhere. And he lunged into the washroom. The snot was now being flushed. He felt week.

He splashed water onto his face. The topology was gone. It was flat. He felt it was slippery and shiny like a manikin made of steel. He looked up into the mirror. But it was already painted black. He had already painted all mirrors black for the fear of not recognizing himself. He was no more human. He didn’t even look like a demon. He felt pathetic. The black paint on the mirror was slipping down. The dark matter was back again. He wanted to be at unison with it. He could now feel the stench of his office. He took a deep breath. The stale re-circulated air was cold. It smelled of dead dreams. He was hearing voices. Of dying men and dying dreams. The voices were too shrill for him to take. The rage inside him was making its way to the far ends of his limbs. He felt alive.

The black paint on the mirror was gone. It was lying plump on his feet. He looked up into the mirror. Yes, his was an expressionless face, shiny like cold steel. He looked down at the dark matter. Rage was throbbing against his veins. He nodded. He felt the dark matter making way up his feet. He felt good after a long long time. Rage had now taken over his senses. His brain was long gone. The dark matter had now taken over him. He was black. Pitch black. He sighed. Clasped his fists. And then he made a war cry. He felt glass shattering around him. Shards of glass were flying towards him. They stuck themselves in his flesh. But there was no blood. He took out his baseball bat he had hid years ago in this washroom for his coup. It felt good in his hands. He smirked.

The coup is here.

He emerged out of the washroom and made way to his cubicle. He struck the bat with the worst fury known to him on his colleague’s head. He felt a sweet cracking sound. This was the best stroke he had played in his life. He stood there looking at the motionless body. It was soaked in its own blood. The blood was not red. It was colorless. He felt good. He looked around. No one cared. Everyone was busy in their own cubicles staring into their monitors mindlessly punching away at their keyboards. Slaves. He thought. He looked at the bat and then at the room again.

The coup was here.

He felt overwhelmed as he went on a rampage indiscriminate between human life and machines. But were they alive anyways? No. He was simply freeing souls. It would have been hours. Or days. He barely remembers this now. But it is immaterial anyways. He went out of the building and lit a cigarette. He took a long drag. The smoke hit his lungs. He got his kick. There was an explosion. The building collapsed. He was caught in the aftershocks. But he stood his ground. It lasted for hours. And he kept on lighting a cigarette after another. He threw away the last butt. Blood was trickling out his flesh. And it was red and warm.

He stood there for a while and gulped down the red pill. Darkness spawned around him.

--
Sometimes your darker self is your true self. Darkness isn’t absence of light. Black isn’t lack of color. Light isn’t strong enough to overpower darkness. Colors, collectively, cannot overpower black.
--
For Sir James Alan Hetfield.

Polygamy? Will have!

2011-01-20T16:10:00.007+05:30

Statutory warning: Stop judging. This post has more to do with polygamous thoughts than absolute polygamy.

Polygamy. It's a dirty word (I'll continue at the expense of being booed as a Mahesh Bhatt clone). Or so you believe because the social construct around you has programmed your thoughts in a certain way. Here I am, claiming polygamy, something deeply detrimental to the moral-social fabric, as the truth. It is an antithesis to the very institution of marriage which is more of a system to prevent family wealth to squander away. Or in some, err most parts of India, an instrument of amassing wealth. Yes, dowry. But that is not the bone of contention here. Man is a polygamous animal. Our 'thoughts' wander all so routinely. No? Maybe you're a reincarnation of some yogi or you need to see a doctor.

As much as we hate to accept it, polygamy creeps in our daily lives. Traveling in a bus, I can't but appreciate how a certain lady carries herself. Oh! I should've talked to that cute boy, a female's tweet proclaims on Twitter. A lil' bit of flirting is harmless, isn't it? And why or rather where do we gather the courage to indulge something as ungodly as that? We're alone. It is our zen of solitude. And our thoughts wander. To the unholy, unacceptable evil. Cocooned in our monotonous 9 to 5 lives, maybe we do look forward to that bus ride, that air travel or what have you. Platforms like Twitter have given masses a medium to vent out or confess, as the case may be. It lets you be anonymous yet true. And I see more and more rants, confessing. In our secret lives, we all want to be Barney Stinson or as the older generation would have said, Hugh Hefner.

How or why is beyond my comprehension. We just do. A rather pathetic example witnessed is of a certain moral broker of how certain birds like penguins stay true to only one partner for their entire life. Lest we should forget, we're talking about an animal, a brain which hasn't evolved. Most of the activities that animals indulge in are either out of their sheer instinct or they're wired in a certain manner. Have you ever witnessed any animal procreating beyond its mating season? No. Humans, on the other hand with their highly evolved brains and a false sense of morality mate all year long. And that is why you see so many of them around you eating away resources at will. The parallel drawn is flawed. The underlying logic beneath this example would put a Systems Theory professor to shame.

Pick up any lifestyle magazine, TOI or whatever you read, a self professed relationship guru will be doling out suggestions to save marriages / relationships. Most of them will suggest couples to indulge in role plays and pornography. Such voyeuristic pleasures. If it was for your monogamous behavior, traffic to pornographic sites would be minuscule instead of a Goliathesqque 80% of the total traffic. Avenues like Facebook has married / in a relationship partner stalking. If you need to imagine someone else while procreating, are you really monogamous? The fact that we accept it as counseling to save marriages is a step in making polygamous thoughts legal in our moral fabric. Men are openly polygamous. Ask any woman from Delhi about her plight to cover herself from lecherous looks and you'll be opening Pandora's box. This is not to suggest that women are absolutely monogamous. All these years of my existence have taught me otherwise.

Morality isn't absolute. It evolves with time. It is influenced by many factors. But most of it is rooted deeply in either Victorian era or is defined by the clergy or the moral police of that region. But morality is flexible. It is subjective. It varies from person to person. So should be the construct of monogamy.

Christopher Nolan's Joker indulged in a social experiment. And he did expose the frailties of a morally strong yet weak people. We indulge in such experiments daily. And we keep the results to ourselves only to look forward to another such result. As far as morality goes, I like to baptize with the following adage, "Make a stew out of your morality and have it".

French - a subset of Bengalis?

2011-01-19T14:21:00.008+05:30

A few thousand of years ago, some 'adventurous' Bengalis went to Europe. We now have France~ Gautam

Atrocious is the word brewing in your otherwise uncultured mind (cultured if you're a Bengali). Atroce if you're a French. But French are too lazy to read anyways. Right? Now I've come across a plethora of blogs dedicated to decoding the rather peculiar race of Bhadralok aka Bengalis. Some of them like Dhoomketu's - The Bong give an excellent insight into a shy community. Which presses me to digress momentarily into 'Bongs'. Bongs is the culmination of the process of anglicizing which began a couple of hundred years ago. I see more and more Bengali kids referring to themselves as Bongs. The problem is a widespread one. Mallus, Tams, Bongs et all. The said communities are easily the ones aligning themselves to English education. And it is a well documented fact. Now before you get ready to shatter my mistaken-to-be-a-communist-posterior with your capitalist kicks, it is a case of mistaken identity. I hate communism as much as Lenin did.

Coming back to the issue of a highly anglicized race, Bengalis take pride in the fact that they're Bhadralok - the reminisce of ruins of Gora Sahibs. Perhaps that is the reason we take pride in distinguishing ourselves from rest of India. Heck, give us our own country. Viva la revolucion! And for those from UP / Bihar / Jharkhand / Chattisgarh / MP (see what I did there!), we group you as Hindustanis. For a Bengali, Hindustanis represent a brazen, uncivilized, loud, manner-less set. Which brings us back to the topic.

Yes, the French may very well have emanated from the Bengali gene pool. And I have proof. Gaping, in your face comparison to ensue. Read on!

Bengalis are known to be lazy. Lazy shudders at the mere mention of a Bengali. French laziness is well documented. The only active French was a corporal called Napoleon. But I doubt his pedigree. Yes! We're lazy because we are thinking. Of politics, of art, of wars, of culture, of nations, of Obama's policies, of Pamela Anderson's D-cups, of what-have-you. Period.
Culture - If it's one thing we can shove down rest of India's throats, it is Culture. Bengalis are the sole custodians of India's culture. It is safe with us. Look what people with frail will power from North and West did to their culture. Our's? It is still intact. Desh aka Kolkata is still the cultural capital of India. So it'd be in the best interest of our nation to officially appoint Bengalis for the upkeep of our culture. French? Oh, that is their only export. Apart from a few over sized jets and particle colliers. Who cares for these anyways?
Coffee houses - Picture a place frozen in time, full of the sweet clutter of china, smoke and intelligentsia of Kolkata thronging for their daily shot of adda. Yes, I'm talking about the National Coffee House on College Street. You can hog in under 50 bucks (yes, hog). Intelligent discussions free. Adda is a daily activity without which a bong cannot sleep. Discussions. From politics to what have you, even porn, is discussed. And believe me you, it can get heated. France? Can you imagine France without it's cafes? No. QED.
Art- A Bengali is a born connoisseur of art. Since his birth, he is exposed to varied forms of art. What other race in India can boast of influencing their kids by sending them to learn music, painting, dancing, film making etc? At the same time? None. Hindustanis are simply happy watching their kids become barbarians to continue with their business of extortion and stuff. India, we have given you your best directors, actors, singers, poets, novelists, what have you. French, their love for art is well documented.
Food - A Bengali lives to eat. A Bengali will attain moksha only if he dies choking off on a generous morsel of machcher mudo and bhat. Sweet tooth? Well a legend goes that early British settlers decided to immortalize a Bengali's love for all things sweet by coining a phrase for this phenomenon - sweet tooth. French love for good food is unparalleled in Europe.
Smoke - Now the next best orgasm a Bengali experiences other than the now much cliched macher jhol, is a drag of Navy Cut post a heavy lunch. Unlike primitive races, we don't depend upon sex alone to experience orgasms. Salted biscuits, strong tea and cigarettes is what has kept Communism alive in West Bengal for so many years. French are avid smokers. Too bad, they now have ban on smoking in public places and cafes. Bengalis, on the other hand showed a big-collective-middle-finger to deliver a very simple message to the Central Government - Fuck You! We smoke in offices, restaurants, cafes, banks, railway stations et all. As suggested, we are a nation unto ourselves.
Unionbaji - Unions in West Bengal are legendary. So are their Union Leaders. French Unions are legendary. Their Union Leaders are pale compared to Bengali leaders. 'nuff said.
Women - Bengali women are dusky, have curly hair (or not), are voluptuous, are cultured, cook excellent food, make excellent mothers, etc, etc, etc. French women are said to possess similar qualities albeit in lesser potency. A gene pool will depreciate with years of intermixing.

Bengalis. Whattey race.

And yes, Bengalis shall inherit this earth.

PS: The post is a result of a drunken discussion with one of my elder cousins who wishes to stay unnamed for the fear of getting raped by Hindustani barbaric women.

20 reasons why Texting is better than making calls

2010-10-07T13:19:00.007+05:30

Here are 20 reasons why making calls suck. And messages are a better way of communicating.

You live in Mumbai.
The recipient lives in Mumbai.
Your service provider is Airtel/ Vodafone/ MTNL/ Some-random-new-entrant.
Your recipient's service provider is Airtel/ Vodafone/ MTNL/ Some-random-new-entrant.
You're in a Local/ Bus/ Auto.
The recipient is in a Local/ Bus/ Auto.
Because you're in a public place, you don't want others to get a whiff of what is going on. Privacy FTW.
The recipient is in a public place and does not want others to get a whiff of what is going on. Privacy FTW. (Personally, I feel this point sucks. We don't give a fuck about others privacy, do we?!!)
You can sext. Yes, S-E-X-T. It's like phone sex. But you can read the conversations later and get a hard on. Plus, it can be done sitting in the middle of a corporate presentation (they suck donkey balls anyways), Local/ Bus/ Auto. Although you can have phone sex sitting in an auto, but that pervert of a driver will have fun. And charge you instead.
He/ She can sext.
You're talking to a Gujju girl, in which case your phone will be on mute but you can still hear her shrill, irritating voice. Soft spoken Gujju girl is an oxymoron.
The recipient hates talking to a Gujju girl because of aforementioned reason.
You could flaunt the touch interface of your latest iPhone or an Android phone while texting (No, I don't give a fuck if the recipient has an iPhone. God, please make his/ her iPhone crush under the merciless Local. Amen.).
You could listen to a song while texting and cut out all the ambient noise.
The recipient can listen to a song while texting and cut out all the ambient noise.
You can text while you're getting laid. But that'll make you a sore loser. Get a life instead.
The recipient can text while getting laid. And this makes him/ her a sore loser. FUCK YEAH!!!
It IS easier to abuse a person in written text. And maybe he/ she will retain the message and feel humiliated. *imitating Jaquin Phoenix as Commodus* A-G-A-I-N and A-G-A-I-N and A-G-A-I-N.
The recipient wants to humiliate you. Where did I keep my Colt?!!
I LIKE TEXTING. Period.

The poke

2010-09-18T12:27:00.004+05:30

An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind~ Gandhi

A poke in the eye will make Mumbaikars blind.

Picture this: A street strewn apart with construction, clogged gutters, ankles submerged in water, a continuous supply of humans from either side, rains lashing and wetting masses with whatever paltry means they have to protect themselves (rain gods must be having a good time watching all this, live). Everyone just wants to get into or out of the local station. And then you have a beautiful, petite figure walking towards you with a sense of urgency. There's an unmistakable ruthlessness in her strut. But that innocent face hides a sinister secret. A secret that you're going to find out soon.

Very soon.

The Mumbai mob pushes you forward towards your destiny. There's a poke. Pain starts to grip your entire head. Soon you feel it all over your body. There's a moment of blindness (pray that it isn't permanent). Giddy, you come back to your senses with rage getting the better of your rationale. You turn around to catch hold of your attacker. But the cold, wet, emotionless mob pushes you further. Your femme fatale is long gone. You curse her, the rains, crowd, the infrastructure, government (maybe even your birth!!!) et all.

But you vow to take revenge. A revenge against the system. The crowd. You walk like a man who has found meaning in his life. Pushing aside and cursing, somewhere in the crowd your figure disappears; nudging, elbowing and pushing aside fellow humans. Humanity died today. You are now a part of a vicious cycle, engulfed by the monster that is Mumbai. At a poke. The weapon of choice: A rather innocent looking umbrella.

Gandhi died today.

Based on a true story. No humans were harmed during the course of writing.

Middle Class Elitism

2010-08-29T12:20:00.005+05:30

Scene 1: Look Maa!! All those semi nude tribal are fighting against Vedanta (read Imperial power) which is going to usurp them from the mound they worship.

Scene 2: A hip SoBo type woman in my home town lecturing a vegetable vendor in Anglicised Hindi, "Bhai sahab! Aapko paataa naahi ki polythene bags se environment ko harm pahunchta hai. Chhi, aapko yeh practice band kaarni chaahiye."

After watching Avatar and the ass kicking Na'vis received at the hands of humans (guys, I'm proud of you) and relating with their immense suffering, the middle class humane quotient is at a rise. Yours truly witnessed it at The Indian Coffee House in Kolkata (not that Bongs have anything worthwhile to do except debate at addas anyways). Any ways, in a mundane town like mine, the middle class is baffled at what is happening in Orissa. How can the government do that to those unarmed tribal people. It is supposed to protect the people. It is acting against the very people who elected them. Arnab 'the-I-won't-let-my-guests-speak-for-more-than-23-seconds' Goswami is behaving on the show as if he's suffering from PMS stress due to all that mining. Environmentalists and those GreenPeace terrorists are behaving in their now rehearsed 'I told you so' manner. (I've taken a jibe at all the usual suspects or did I leave someone?!! Feel free to add in comments)

So the middle class blood is boiling (accept it guys, it can only boil. It's not potent enough to get your Trans fat fattened ass to get out of the couch and do something). The timing for all this couldn't have been worse. What with all the public outrage against Bhopal fiasco, Mumbai oil spill (die biatches for you have made my drive to Marine Drive hell) and now the Nuclear Liability Bill. Naveen Patnaik amidst all this, is going to Delhi and asking why he, like all the other CMs shouldn't have the right to pollute and destroy and plunder the natural resources of his state. After all Orissa is hit by a cyclone every other year. Let there be some man made disasters too! BTW, Patnaik should sack his PR guy.

So what is my problem with all this? Well for starters we won't stop driving our cars. We won't appreciate car pooling (Ideate this to a Dilliwala and you may find yourself under his BMW's expensive Bridgestone radials. I won't ride in the locals or the Best buses (moving up the social ladder FTW). I'll board only the AC buses with loads of CFC. I want my iPhone chiselled out of a single block of Aluminium.

In effect, I want all the luxuries of life. Luxuries which somewhere down their value chain pollute the environment. But I'll turn a blind eye to that. Akin to 'I enjoy pork but can't see a pig being slaughtered'. We, as a people want to come down heavily on all these projects which seem to uproot locals and destroy nature as we know it. It's in vogue after all. But do we ever realise why these projects never cease to exist? Such evil (if I may) corporations exist? Oil spills continue to occur? Nature being destroyed?

Only because our insatiable need for all things material and luxury. Think about it, the same middle class complaining about all this is sitting in his flat in Bandra or some suburb. And mangrove vegetation in Mumbai was destroyed to provide him his housing.

And yes, Na'vis will continue to get their ass kicked. Atleast in India. All this IS middle class elitism.

PS: The author is in no way prejudiced against the Na'vis.

PPS: Vedanta has not paid the author. Although he would have liked it.

PPPS: For me, GreenPeace will always remain a terror organisation.

Us v/s them

2010-02-19T10:59:00.005+05:30

Disclaimer: The following post is very harsh on 'artists'. Feel free to feel offended.

Is artistic freedom everything?
Doesn't the audience count for their presence?
Does being narcissistic and claiming I-do-it-for-my-happiness-only not amount to insulting the audience?

These are but a few questions that come up inadvertently between artistes(?) and audience alike when one is defending his/her work (crap in some case) and one is criticising. We've all been privy to 'art' and the lingo and air associated with the artists. The stand that they take. The way they (mis)behave. The way they question the intelligence of the audience when it comes to understanding their masterpiece. Yes, the same audience who would wait patiently for hours before these artists would start their performances, would sit through their tantrums, would stand their arrogance and believe me you, some of their so called performances are a tolling on the senses of a common man. But then we are dismissed as not having that knack of understanding art. Lesser mortals, us commoners.

But who are these people performing for? Who are these people displaying their talents to? Why do they want to be recognized, receive awards, be cheered at? Ego. As much as anyone on this world may like to deny, ego is the underlying reason for many of our endeavours. It may take different forms, it may be dubbed as inspiration by many but one cannot deny the existence of ego. For me, my self esteem emanates from ego. For someone else, ego may mean something else. Appreciation is something we all crave for. As kids, we would be more than happy when we'd be patted on our backs. We all like it when we're appreciated and appraised. It's the basis of a meritocratic society. It satisfies our egos. Maslow wasn't kidding when he proposed the need hierarchy theory.

Then why such despise for the common man? Why differentiate stuff as artistic and non-artistic? The so called performer who revels in his own glory after taking a higher moral ground when he says I perform for the love of performing, wants to see the auditorium/ cinema hall/ art gallery brimming with people. Why does he/she crib when not selected for a national award or some sort of recognition for that matter? The answer is ego.

The notion of some people being gifted with a heightened sense of some form of art is the basic premise that gives rise to what I shall term 'art-feudalism'. Similar to feudalism, some minds (demented in some case) take unto themselves the onus of saving the world from the absence of art. Their works are critiqued and applauded within their own fraternity, given fancy names such as neo-progressive, cubism (Picasso. See I know my art!!!), et all. What do you and I understand? What do you and I care?

If it was not for the common man, whose senses and intelligence are sometimes loathed at by artists, thronging the cinema halls, theatres and art galleries, these people would have been jobless. Fancy gimmicks apart (like roaming barefoot and all), belting out crap in the name of art, innovation and invention cannot be a valid logic. We all can tell how something is pathetic. Instead of taking in the criticism and improving upon, some artists sit back and blame the public on their lack of sensory perceptions.

Art isn't running around the trees but it isn't for sure, capturing scenes form weird angles wherein one has to tilt his/her head 120 degrees to make sense. Art isn't being so damn abstract that only the one conceiving it understands. People, universally, can make out what appeals to their aesthetic senses.

It's not always about exclusivity, it sometimes borders around abnormality.

Artistic freedom is epic fail when one does not appreciate the audience.

Pliss be excusing.....

2010-01-26T10:19:00.006+05:30

Cricket is a religion. There are the demi gods. And each religion is run by clergymen. That the hierarchy of power in Indian cricket is complex is no new news. That BCCI contributes 70% of ICC's expenses is stale news. That Kevin Pietersen earned $1.55 million in the last edition of IPL is an indicator that people will kill to be a part of this extravaganza. So the news that Pakistani players are crying foul over their exclusion should not flutter wings in the Indian news circuit. But it is. And that is what is appalling!!!

It has been a few days since the latest auction for this year's edition took place and the baseline was that no Pakistani player was bidden for (The glee on my face gives away my happiness!!!). There have been n number of comments, counter comments, people displaying their dismay at the turn of events, et all. Things, for me become farcical when celebrities owning circus teams jump in the fray to gain some cheap publicity. And who other than I-want-to-hog-the-limelight-all-the-time, SRK, jumps the bandwagon and indulges into some introspection wherein he feels that he felt humiliated for the simple fact that Pakistani players were ignored for the bygone auctions. Humiliated?!! Yeah, right.

Lets get some facts straight Mr. Khan, shall we? That your team did not bid for tells a lot about your feeling bad. Where was your sportsman? Why did you let the businessman in you overshadow the sportsman? It all sounds good when we talk about how cricket unites the people of the two nations. But sample this, a now legendary pacer of yesteryears from Pakistan stated this category that for him, playing against India is like going on a jihad. That sports are modern war format, devoid of all the weapons of mass destruction, where the pride of a nation is at stake is common knowledge. But jihad? Seriously sir, you need to reconsider your choice of words.

The PCB is crying fowl now. Some politicians are doing the same on both sides. Celebrities on both sides like SRK are feeling humiliated. Because big money is involved. Call this post jingoistic rhetoric, but its not going to change facts. Things sound very rosy when we all say that cricket unites hearts. And in a few days, those united hearts carry out attack on the Indian soil. Those united hearts harbour terrorists. And the list can continue. People like SRK sometimes forget the simple fact that we call the shots when it comes to cricket. We are the El Dorado of cricket. And till the time the other country in contention cleans up its acts, boycotting them is not a bad idea.

I love cricket. I love the in-swinging, toe crushing yorkers of Pakistani bowlers. Us v/s Them matches are epic. But I also mourn the deaths of fellow countrymen dying in incidents like 26/11. So if the money can be a thorn in their flesh, so be it!!!

Cause!!! What cause???

2010-01-09T23:48:00.004+05:30

Picture this: A person rushes to you to get your signature and email id on a petition. When you ask about the cause. They just shrug their shoulders and nonchalantly answer that its for PETA something and their 'cause' for doing it is because they'd been promised a t-shirt!!!

So much so for a cause.

I was privy to this scene at my ongoing college fest where PETA people have put up a booth and are promoting in their now well chronicled jingoistic rhetoric. The fact that I disagree with their ways is a different story and more on it sometime else. The point here is that the conscious of supposedly educated people is so darn cheap that it can be bought with a measly dirt cheap t-shirt!!! That PETA resorts to such gimmicks is a concern for me. The youth is happy when given badges, stickers and t-shirts is really hilarious considering the fact that we call ourselves 'concerned citizens'.

The signatories too will not be unscathed in my verbal assault. Non-vegetarians sign the petition without giving it a thought that killing animals for food is antithetical to the PETA philosophy and that this act of theirs is no more than a farce. The same criticism is associated with this set of citizens too. That being associated with a cause or for that matter an NGO is cool is a mockery of any movement. Most of the youth takes up such seemingly cool causes only to leave them mid way is a pattern I've observed and no amount of vociferous denying can turn the facts head on. This, not taking away from those who really feel for some matters and devote time and efforts should be respected though.

We live in an era of politically correct statements where a big number of grey haired men and women would like us to believe how we, the younger generation, are more into social causes than their generation was. The fact though is that the number of devoted people is really really small.

Fellow countrymen of yore, let us respect the spirit of social causes and movements and the people who are driving it. Unless we feel very strongly for them, lets refrain from joining them just for the reason of looking cool or peer pressure for that matter. Your just abiding laws and paying taxes on time does not make you a second rate citizen.

At-least don't sell your souls for a cheap t-shirt to look cool!!!!!

PS: This one's for my pup Milo who I'm missing too much :(

Beer equals happiness!!!

2009-12-28T11:40:00.004+05:30

I know you guys would have seen it earlier too, but it somehow never fails to tickle my funny bone. As such its the festivities that are having the better out of us and this might just prove handy!!!

My music.....

2009-12-27T20:15:00.007+05:30

It was a year of great music. There were off beat movies. And there was music to compliment them. If we had a Piyush Mishra penning a beauty like Yaara maula, we had Gulzar with romance revisited with Pehli baar. Here's a list of songs which made me tap, rock, hum along or just plain old lying-with-my-eyes-closed thing. There's no rating for them. Each one is unique and when played at the right time, had a mesmerizing effect. So here it goes.

Dev.D- Some simply outrageous posters. An awesome take on Sharat Babu's Devdas. Music that made me think. Emosanal atyachar- all the three versions. Three?!! you say? Include the x-rated one too. I know, you possess it. Nayan tarse was another song that I felt was beautifully composed. Hats off!!!

Kaminey- an awesomely written movie wherein each character was so minutely etched that one had no reason but to be in awe throughout. If Dhan te nan was psychotic to some extent, then Pehli baar satisfied the romantic in us. But the show stealer was the title track itself. What with Gulzar and his lyrics. Masoom sa kabootar nacha toh mor nikla. Pure genius.

Gulaal- hard hitting. Crass. Caustic. True. I don't find other adjectives to value this piece of art. Piyush Mishra is one of the most under rated lyricists. Listen to Yaaraa maula and you'll know. Or for that matter, pick up Aarambh hai prachand. Prachand is what that song is. The verse wherein he says- aaj ka launda yeh keh raha hum toh bismill thak gaye...... apni aazaadi toh bhaiya laundiya k dill mein hai is superb.

Other notable stuff has to include

Masakali
Iktara
Guzarish
Fiqrana (best thing in a disaster called Blue)
Hai junoon

PS: This post is powered by Ubuntu 9.10

The RED Dot.....

2009-12-22T11:54:00.004+05:30

Lets get some facts straight-

Gmail is the BEST email service. Ever.
Gtalk is the greatest invention since Windows 3.1.
Americans who feel that AOL is better than Gmail prove the 10=35 rule (read One night at call centre if you don't know what that means).

Now why do I write all these facts which everyone (even the Americans) already know? Well for one, I had an incessant itch to post a post for quite sometime now. For others, I suddenly realised how Gtalk has become a part of my life, the way I communicate and all. But the most peculiar thing that stands out is a behaviour pattern that has emerged out of using this chat client is the urge to stay on-line 24x7. Well almost. At least for us Indians.

The moment I get up, my lappy is fired up and I'm on-line. Depending upon my mood, it'll either be a red dot or a green one. But I need to be on-line. Its an urge. A craving. Even if I'm doing something important like watching a movie, I'm on-line. Lesser evils like attending classes do not discourage me from remaining on-line. What with wi-fi and all, being on-line 24x7 is my modus operandi. And this addiction is there for most of us. Even before Twitter became a vogue. Being away, sleeping, et all do not encourage me to get off-line. My lappy's still on-line. My friends who are in the US too suffer from the same problem. And this has become a way of life.

I suppose, and I know I'm not tangential from my hypothesis when I say this, but its something that all of us practice.

Most of the time red works but that does not mean you shouldn't ping me. Except for those days when red really really means I'm busy. But you have no way to find that out. HAH!!!

#FML Google.

PS: Google in no way has sponsored this post.

PPS: Google has not threatened me to make amends due to my earlier posts.

PPS: I would have loved if they'd sponsored this post!!!

PPPS: I'm not a communist and my fascination with the colour red does not construe anything.

Comfortably numb.

2009-12-11T00:49:00.008+05:30

There's methyl isocyanine filled in the air. People are gasping for air rarely knowing that it may be their last breath. Those who died, didn't have to suffer the trauma of living a life of disorder of the worst kind and frailty. Those who did survive, well, their lives epitomise living hell. Justice is still a far cry for them. Warren Anderson is living a life of luxury. Mothers are forced to give birth to children with serious heart disorders. Its been 25 years since the Bhopal gas tragedy. Governments have come and gone. Much water has flown under the bridge but for those suffering, its still poisonous and they are condemned to drink it. Union Carbide has since long wrapped its business and fled. Yes fled. And what have we done? Well for starters, we have continuously pacified those agitating outside the Jantar Mantar for quarter of a century now. Pacified.

Even the Nazis who operated gas chambers during the Holocaust were tried at the International Court of Justice. Those poor souls in Bhopal that fateful night did not belong to a particular race or religion. They were not political dissidents. What they were though were citizens of a seemingly democratic country. And they did pay for this. With their lives. Justice is still a far cry. Mankind was brutally molested on December 3, 1984. Humanity was raped beyond recognition.

They say- justice delayed is justice denied. What does one say when it has been delayed as well as denied for 25 years now?!! Why is Amnesty International silent? Why are the Americans who pride themselves in sniffing out weapons of mass destruction and then duly fucking a country to stone age silent now? Is it because their people are involved in a heinous act which they are unwilling to accept?

And now the best act of them all. The Indian government. The same government which vows when taking an oath of maintaining the sovereignty. The same government which vows on the constitution of withholding the welfare state flag. The same government, on the 25th anniversary of the innately tragic Bhopal gas tragedy, gifted the nation with a gift called the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill. Sounds innocuous, doesn't it? Well it is, lest the fact that it pegs the compensation by MNC's building (or even supplying parts) in case of a nuclear holocaust at Rs. 2500 crores. Its a measly sum for companies like GE. Especially when we consider the fact that the market for reactors is around Rs 60000 crores. The compensation in dollar terms would be $ 450 millions. How cheap are the lives of Indians any ways. For the organisations though, its like minting money with limited liability. Because all this while they knew that one can get away even after killing 25000 people. They had full faith in the incompetency of us Indians to bring the guilty to justice. Whatever happened to the fundamental rights guaranteed to us all in the constitution?

And what does one do when the government goes ahead in fixing the liability of companies when it comes to lives of hundreds and thousands? Rejoice. For they can be rest assured now that our own government values us as nothing more than maggots swarming the face of earth.

Why does Greenpeace stay silent? Why do our so called NGO's stay silent? Why do our legislators who are too busy in carving out states for themselves stay silent?

States are inhabited by people. Else they become ghost towns.

How many more Bhopals do we need before we wake up?

When Bob Dylan said that the times are a changing, he was wrong. 'coz they are for the developed countries. For a developing country like ours, life is still cheap. Dirt cheap.

Democracy FTW.

But for the perpetrators of crimes against humanity, here goes-

Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead

-Bob Dylan

PS: I have full faith in the indifferent attitude of my fellow countrymen. My son would be writing a similar post on the 50th anniversary of the tragedy.

Five Milds and a Verve.....

2009-12-09T15:43:00.002+05:30

Freedom is over-rated.....

2009-12-04T19:40:00.007+05:30

It’s easy to fight for freedom but it’s tough to retain it.

Readers beware. The following post is going to take some digs towards the concept of freedom as we've conceived it and are portraying it (at best). But portrayals seldom last a lifetime. They too are subjected to the lifecycle of an idea sprouting and dying a death. Natural or forced alike. Be warned.

Freedom is over rated.

There, I said it all. And before all of the freedom loving bandwagon jumps into the debate with their cohorts, read on. Just what is it about freedom that means to you the most? To have our fundamental rights in place? Guess what, its passé. When was the last time the state did not encroach upon your right in the name of national interest?! To pee or spit on the roads?! I’d not venture down that dirty road. But what is it about freedom that makes us jump up out of our slumber and start ranting all about it is a question to which I have no answers till date. It happens all too regularly when we encroach upon the rights of others crushing them under our inflated egos and the false sense of superiority. The meek take the hit. The poor take the hit. Every-damn-time. The right to freedom of speech/ expression are the most hit. Still we vow to live by our constitution and champion the cause of freedom. Farcical.

Let us take some leaves out of history and understand this phenomenon better. France championed the cause of freedom almost 300 years ago. It did a good job at overthrowing the despotic rule of Antoinette who had suggested them to have cakes when they couldn’t afford bread. This particular event in history inspired many a revolutions all around the world. But did it? Almost a couple of years back, Paris faced one of the worst riots in its suburbs, ghettoising them. The prodigal champion of instant democracy all over the world- the US is a classic example. Bombing sovereign countries because they have a hunch that the rouge country is hiding weapons of mass destruction seems to be their forte now. The Noble peace (?) prize declared, Obama decides to up the count of soldiers in Afghanistan by 50000. Some nobility there. The Russian revolution was to create a classless and just society. But we all know how Stalin killed his own countrymen in the name of upholding the honour and dignity of the fatherland. Did someone say China? Mao. His cultural revolution. The Tien Mann square massacre. The image of a boy braving a battle tank. Freedom??? ‘nuff said.

But the cited examples raise a quintessential question. Why is it so? Why did freedom fail when the intentions were good? Pious? As Edmund Burke has succinctly put- All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. And believe me you, history bares naked the impotency of good men. Men of honour reduced to mere spectators by their own indifference and ignorance. And indecision. Yes. Indecision is one of the foremost reason I recognize when talking about the failure of institutions. Take an example on a micro level. There in our classes we’ve have had vociferous kids who would seem to make all the decisions all the time. And we would be left cribbing. And it’s sort of a vicious cycle that continues. But why is it so, is the food for thought here. Our indecision. Whenever we have a public with diverse interest and wants, fighting about what needs to be done, not for one moment stopping to find a common minimum interest, a figure rises and towers all the confusion bringing stability. And stability is what we long for. An equilibrium is what makes the masses happy. Period.

The best example to support the logic would be the rise of Adolf Hitler himself. In a county with a bruised ego and divided thought process with an incredible amount of indecision and political instability, he brought some sort of orderliness. And when people started to blindly follow him, reposing in him their faith and support, an unprecedented genocide begun.

So as we all can see, freedom is short lived. Humans somehow cannot take cognisance of that the fact their inability will lead to their downfall. One way or the other. Chaos is eternal. And so will all those with dictatorial tendencies lurking in their heads.

Equilibrium will be attained. But at the cost of freedom.

Gentlemen, the melancholy event of yesterday reads to us an awful lesson against being too much troubled about any of the objects of ordinary ambition. The worthy gentleman, who has been snatched from us at the moment of the election, and in the middle of contest, whilst his desires were as warm, and his hopes as eager as ours, has feelingly told us, what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue~ Edmund Burke

#TweetCloud

2009-11-29T20:55:00.002+05:30

Don't be evil!!!

2009-11-22T12:23:00.005+05:30

Don't be evil.

But is it?!!

This is an adage by Google which has captured many imaginations. Whatever Google does invokes strong reactions. Its all over the place. Everyday. Literally. With a technology company which permeates deep into our everyday lives, such reactions are natural. All this is reminiscent of the Cold war era when the world was bipolar. It still is when it comes to information indexing and Google. There's Google which knows many things about you (for now. Eventually it'll be EVERYTHING!!!) viz. your search patterns (yes, they know what all porn sites you've visited). And there are governments across the world which need Google's help. So they're pretty much okay with the idea of Google invading your privacy (sorry EU guys, but you'll eventually bow in front of Google). And there are the privacy rights group who want all their searches. For free. And no invasion of the privacy. Breaking news guys- There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Gmail. Chrome browser (this neat piece of sexy code is a malware to put it mildly. Don't believe me? Well it sends all user data. Without the user knowing. Malware). Gtalk. Gtalk client. Google Docs. Wave. And now Chrome OS. Yes, the list is not exhaustive, but these are those nifty free codes which have come to define communication as we know it.

And Chrome OS is what is scary. Linux based. Light. Sexy graphics. Awesome. Free.

Scary.

Coming back to why Chrome rings doomsday bells in my head. Its all of the above. Just imagine this- as such Google is snooping on all our mails (and hence the targeted ads on the right side), our chat, our search history (if it hadn't been porn, google wouldn't have been GOOGLE. Right? Wishful thinking.), a malware called Chrome browser, our online docs and now an OS which integrates all this and much more. What do we have? A hundred million network of bots which relay every bit of information they can lay their hands on to their master. And snooping becomes all too easy. Its centralised now. And we turn a blind eye to all this. Why? Ease of use. Governments around the world don't care much about the privacy of their citizens. Heck, they would do anything to know what's going on beneath the sheets. And Google gives them just the opportunity.

All the brouhaha created around the world as to how long these guys can retain information about people is a farce. The fact is that they have become a perfect tool of surveillance. Its fine tuning time. Google is ready to help Indian government with the UID project. Are they so philanthropic??! No. We all know how Google bowed down to the whims and fancies of the Chinese government. Or did they? Lets first capture the market guys. World domination is next!!! So much so for not being evil. Couple Google's indexing and storage capabilities with this fact- they are investing heavily into genetics. The genome project is already on its way. Scary? I thought so.

And this is really cool- Is Google the new NSA, CIA, Mosad, et all? If intelligence is what we are talking about, it is.

It has been a silent paradigm shift. They are monopolitive. Akin to a Microsoft. But unlike the seemingly bad guys at MS, the Google guys have managed to pitch themselves as a panacea.

Slavery ahead.....

PS: Don't block my services. This post was an aberration. Won't happen next time.

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.....

2009-11-21T12:57:00.003+05:30

Tum nahi samjhogi Anjali, kuch kuch hota hai!!!

The said lines made an entire movie hall gasp into a helpless 'awww' and a few seconds later, applauds erupted out of nowhere. As someone ready to step into the teens, I watched the movie with excitement. Each scene presenting an extravaganza of emotions which though sublime made girls coo for SRK (Damn it! He scores every-time.). The grandeur of sartorial excesses (casuals only) made kids and teens alike crave for a certain Polo t-shirt brand. Yes, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai is a case study in itself. The film is an institution. Its landmark cinema at its best. And not because any of the actors were able to pull a la Al Pachino. Even the director did something which in common parlance is attributed as a formula-film. No, Karan Johar did not pull off a signature Subhash Ghai. The story was a run off the mill love triangle (and the vox-populi dictated that Aman played by Salman-the-shirtless-khan as the one making the sacrifice. Touchy.). Screenplay, narration, cinematography- sufficient. So what makes this film an institution???

Aspirations. Yes, the aspirations of a middle class, waking up from a slumber of a don't-know-how-many-years. The film made a strong comment on the sartorial senses of how we'd wanted to dress all along. It gave us a sense of style. The C-O-O-L necklace went on to become a best seller within days. Friendship bands became a rage. The glares sported by SRK were nice. Skateboards. And the college life portrayed by Rahul and Anjali was simply awesome. Everyone now wanted to play basketball. Heck, I wanted my school to finish asap so that I could attend college which was..... cool!!! Yeah, and how can I not mention summer camp. Every demanding kid worth his/her salt wanted to go to a summer camp. Gah.

So how does all this make sense?? Well for one, the timing of the movie couldn't have been better. It had been 7 odd years since our markets had opened. We had finally started to appreciate the idea of a free market. Everything phoren was cool. It was a marketing blitzkrieg when KKHH released. I remember getting a box of Kellogs Chocos just because they gave away the music cassette of KKHH. And parents were shelling money on their kids (spoiling them :P) because their disposable income had risen. Sure Yashraj Films had already started with all such things, but KKHH proved to be the last straw to break the camel's neck!!! KKHH proved to be a tipping point of all sorts. And kudos to Karan Johar for that.

Here's to one of the greatest movies in Indian cinema in the words of Barney Stinson- It's Legendary!!!

Are we done with 2012???

2009-11-14T18:14:00.007+05:30

Circa winter solstice of 2012 and the world is going to end. The Mayan calender says so. The Bible seems to indicate an Armageddon up the sleeves. Nostradamus warned us in advance. All the major religions have a hunch (so to say) that the end of the world is near (forgive my ignorance but why didn't Hindus have a doomsday prophecy?! Laggards.). Doomsday sayers are having a ball. And the world ends in a couple of years (too bad for all those dying virgin. My sympathies!). And yes, news channels never had it better. Aaj Tak, India TV (#fail), Star News and all those pseudo news channels who have nothing better to report lest the plunging hemline of Kareena being the cause of markets falling and how the planetary motion is going to screw my life. Every other disaster, major or minor alike, is being treated as a precursor to the END. And the ripped off scenes of 2012 is only adding to the titillation of masses gorging on these news(?) pieces.

The release of 2012- the movie is proving to be a tipping point of all sorts. Like the world ending and a pretty violent end at that. The reasons for the end are as varied as they come. From the earth's magnetic field changing its polarity to solar winds to the firing up of the Large Hadron Collider creating a mini black hole (isn't it exciting that according to some intelligent souls, we can now have our own black holes!). The director of the movie would have never thought how certain scenes he'd shot are going to be a part of news stories of sensational media often mistaken as news in India. Yes, that's what they are. Instead of reporting facts and giving us unbiased insights, a bunch of clowns under the pretext of journalism are feeding us crap. And being the nation of Bollywood crazies, we want our news to be sensational to say the least. Else, we're not interested.

The biggest grunt of mine with the sensational media (read news channels) stems from the fact that they're not discharging their duties as they're supposed to. Panic is the last thing they're supposed to create. But no, a panic struck person on the screen ranting about his ordeal is any-day good business. The real news can wait. How else does one classify the manner in which these clowns handled the Swine Flu panic in India, Pune in particular. The recent outing of Phyan and its just brushing Mumbai was covered with much enthusiasm. Felt like it was a star or something. People interviewed were happy (Look Mom, I'm on TV!!!). But it did jeopardise the fourth pillar as such.

The fact that the title of fourth pillar has been christened onto the news media (electronic and print alike) is an indication to the fact that how important it is to any democracy. They shape democracies. A strong media means that truth will find its way to the populace. Remember Deep Throat bringing about the eventual downfall of Nixon? It's that strong. But with great powers come great responsibilities. And this is what the current generation of rumour mongers (again read news channels) have forgotten. They want all the special concession they're entitled to, all the perks of being a journalist is what they want. But zero responsibility. And zero accountability too. Is this journalism? Sorry clowns, it ain't. And that's a breaking news. Period.

The way they are behaving with all the clippings of 2012 downloaded from YouTube (atleast get some HD footage) makes me sick. It also proves one thing. Their getting away with such reporting and masses hooked onto their pieces is an indication- we want to be titillated. And news is no exception.

Earth, Rest in Peace.

PS: All those virgins around, you might want to reconsider. Just in case.....

MBA is not for you if.....

2009-11-07T14:38:00.007+05:30

MBA..... For the last few years it has become a glamorised degree, what with all those MBA grads minting money. It has come to a stage where it is considered a sort of a panacea, a cure for all societal ills, including getting a girlfriend!!! But is it as lucrative as it sounds? Perhaps for all those herders who run MBA collages(?) in a two room flat! But I'm not going to write about the industry it has become. No sir. This post will be aimed at all those who are aspiring to join a top notch b-school and land in a million dollar package. Well dreaming is good but living in an opium eaters paradise is a felony in itself (pun intended!!!). And since I've completed 75% of mine, I suppose I have the moral and intellectual right to comment on the rats ready to join the race. Here's a list of reasons why you should NOT join a B-school. Don't feel offended, don't take the post personally (even if you do, I'm not going to apologise. And don't even think about threatening me, my neighbour's dad is an SP). So here it goes. Read on.....

You are poor with numbers. MBA is about number crunching, sirs. Don't worry if you aren't, the entrance exams will take care of it. You won't be able to clear the cut-off and the world will be saved!!!
Your communication skills are poor to say the least. Sorry to break the bad news, but B -school is certainly not the place where one can improve per se. What makes you think that you did not work on it for the last 24 years of your existence and suddenly 2 years are going to change everything?!!
A B-school is not a place to gain knowledge. Its where one learns the skills to apply what he/ she has known for so long.
Common sense is not common in common people. MBA=Common sense. Henceforth the mango people are barred from all B-schools.
If you are the toppers type who have only one goal in life- to study day and night and fuck the CGPA, I suggest get a life. MBA is not for those who can mug up entire dumps and puke it all over in the exam paper. Thou shalt be called CGPA chasers henceforth.
There exists a glass ceiling for men. Accept the fact and move on. (If you are unable to comprehend the meaning of a glass ceiling, its pointless to read the rest of the post!!!).
Make way for the pretty girls. A fair demographic mix of the sexes ensure a good batch. So all the male losers who did not make it, STOP WHINING.
You must not be technologically challenged. If you find it tough to press a button on a computer because you're afraid the hard disk will come spinning off and behead you, its not true (the hard disk's got better things to do). And google what productivity tools like MS Office can do.
All those people who have filthy rich parents and join a B-school in management quota to fool and screw around, better don't get your asses down. People like me and the CGPA chasers will make your life hell.
You are a successfully unemployed graduate who feels that MBA is the shortest way to get a job, well its not. Its not a straight line joining two points. Period.
All those who are committed, forget MBA. MBA kills all the romance (Snapshots from Hell).
You are clueless as to how to use the net as a tool to generate (read ctrl+c, ctrl+v, plagiarism, et all) handsome reports and presentations.
If you are the hard working guy. I cannot stress more on smart-work!!! (Gals, don't be offended but a hard working gal is a oxymoron).
Girls, if you have run away from the sword of marriage looming on your head ready to strike any-time. You'll end up getting married anyways after two years. HAH. So please don't waste the seat. Use it judiciously.
If you have the habit of getting your assignments done from your ass, err boyfriend. Start doing things on your own for a change.
If you use unsuspecting testosterone laden men to get your work done!!!
Stupid dumb men who would keep their assignments on the back-burner to honour the commitment of formatting the report of a beautiful damsel.
If you don't booze. (#fail I'd say).
If you cannot stop yourself from salivating at the mere sight of a girl because you never got the chance of studying in a co-ed!!!
If you are already working and have no ambitions of growth in life (also the happily content types splurging their husband's salary). And don't give the peer pressure excuse. Grow up instead!!!
What? You want me to write the 21st one too? Forget it. Get your own excuse!!!

If it wasn't for Pamela.....

2009-11-04T10:06:00.005+05:30

The Internet recently celebrated its 40th birthday. From being a niche research baby of the American Department of Defense and all those men who roamed about in a lab in white coats, the Internet has come a long way where the Google homepage has become a shrine, a page which is visited by the masses religiously. If Internet was a religion, Google would be its god, undoubtedly. I, for one, cannot imagine my life without a net connection (a high speed one for that matter). But a 40 year old spider's cobweb also brings with itself a whole lot of nostalgia. Some sweet memories of using the Internet in the cyber cafes still linger in my otherwise volatile memory.

Like millions of other kids, I too grew up in the post liberalization era. Cable TV was (and still is) a staple diet. Everything American was cool!!! And with all those movies playing out on Star Movies, the one's which showed that two computers could connect and communicate were watched with gaping sighs. And then it happened. Internet was ushered in my city in late 1998 in the form of those (in)famous cyber cafes which, time and again have been blamed for corrupting the minds of the impressionable youth (as if we ourselves don't want to get corrupted!!!).

But back then, the Internet was the cool thing. It was obscenely expensive. Surfing rates were as high as 100 bucks/hour. Surfing speeds, if one was lucky enough, during peak hours would peak out at 10 odd kbps!!! Some speed there compared to todays easily accessible 1 Mbps networks. And since we'd have limited financial resources at our disposal, it usually required 4 people to pool in money to enjoy an hour's worth of drive on the information highway!!!

But the major credit of attracting men towards the Internet was Pamela Anderson!!! Being the sex starved nation that we are, people would flock to the cafes to get a good look at her incredible anatomy. So you see, the Indian government should confer upon her some award for hooking an entire nation to a phenomenon. If Internet had a brand ambassador, Miss Anderson would be it. And its not as if this is true only for India. No sir. Its true for most of the world. The Internet's traffic, 80% of the precious bandwidth is still hogged by adult content (now don't expect me to put a link for that!!!). Also all those unknown hackers who have wrecked havoc should thank Miss Anderson as they would embed their malicious codes in her photographs and some unsuspecting lecherous prick would download it, just to find that their system is fucked!!!

Only later did we realize that apart from all this, we could actually use the Internet for some good use. Like ripping off material from the net to make reports. MBAs would be doomed had there been no net. My acknowledgements read till date- I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude towards Larry Page and Sergei Bin without whom this report wouldn't have materialized.

Here's for Pamela Anderson..... the Internet owes you much.

PS: I hope I satisfied some souls there!!!

Sufferings in the words of Dylan.....

2009-10-30T19:55:00.005+05:30

War is old men talking and young man dying.....

The last few days have been particularly bloody for the American soldiers in the Middle East recording the highest number of casualties. Feels bad for the poor souls who are carrying out the wishes of their political masters in the name of patriotism. Here's to the spirit of freedom penned by the great Dylan himself.....

Come you masters of war
You that build the big guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just don't want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten all the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
While the death count gets higher
Then you hide in your mansion
While the young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead

At the same time feel for all those unlucky one's who had been born in such tumultuous times on minefields, literally..... Dylan again.....

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways,
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it,
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin',
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin',
I saw a white ladder all covered with water,
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken,
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin',
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin',
Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin',
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin',
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony,
I met a white man who walked a black dog,
I met a young woman whose body was burning,
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow,
I met one man who was wounded in love,
I met another man who was wounded with hatred,
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner's face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin',
But I'll know my song well before I start singin',
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Second rate in our own country.....

2009-10-24T11:40:00.005+05:30

Boredom and nostalgia had attacked me at the same time, and believe me, its a cocky mix!!! It so happened that I wanted to get a ticket to Pune, and having nothing else better to do and missing the good old days of getting a ticket from the reservation office, decided to head straight for the same. My lazy ass retorted to the idea, but I had the rush of nostalgia already filling me up with the excitement. And so I went.....

Standing five minutes in a queue and a bit of observing (mainly the ladies-only line!!!), this peculiar thing about our country struck me. A male foreigner was standing in the ladies only line. Given that the ladies only counter is shared by senior citizens and foreign tourists alike, but such an arrangement is done because of a few considerations for the womenfolk. Now it raises a few questions, viz.

Are foreign males considered at par with Indian women? (Due pun intended!!!)
If they are considered harmless, then the same should apply to Indian senior citizen males.

Atithi-devo-bhavah has long been the Indian motto but I'm seriously fed up of the second class citizen treatment meted out to us Indians in our homeland which is appalling to say the least. The dollars seem to shut the brain signals of Indians coupled with our fetish for the gori-chamdi (fairer skin). Go to Rajasthan, visit any of the monuments of historical significance. You, as an Indian would be subjected to cordoning off of certain sections of the same monument of which the foreigners will have complete access. Worse still, many of them would have a policy of entertaining only foreign guests. Worst still, we will be subjected to all the routine security checks whereas the foreigners will not be subjected to any checks. And this comes off of an eye witness. This at a time when a former president of our country is subjected to security checks from an American airline. Looks like the terrorism bit has become the forte of Asians!!!

As an Indian citizen and a tax payer (to top it), I should have the access to all the national monuments. As much as or more than the foreign tourists. And stop giving the tired excuse of they bringing dollars. If the guys at tourist spots are welcoming to Indians too, I do not see why a billion plus people would not visit places.

And it happens all too regularly. Come down to Pune. Go and try getting a picture clicked in front of the Osho Ashram (yes the same ashram which caters only to firangs and Indians with deep pockets!!!), and the guards take an exception to it. As if the road in front of the place belongs to these guys!!! So much so for roaming freely in your own country!!!

I'm not against foreigners visiting India. Heck no. But I'm opposed to this idea of bending backwards and welcoming foreigners. Of treating my own countrymen as second rate citizens. What a farce.....

Pulp fiction.....

2009-10-13T17:56:00.005+05:30

One of the best movies which mirrors the society more than adequately...... as is always the case with Tarentino, the characters of the movie are greatly etched and keep coming back..... great background score and awesome screenplay..... one of my favorite-est lines of the movie, worded by the Jules himself

"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the
selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity
and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness. For he is
truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children."
And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you."

My idea of a perfect weekday.....

2009-10-07T20:22:00.006+05:30

The cell phone alarm rings for the nth time and with blatant stubbornness, I press the snooze button for the nth time (its kinda love and hate relationship that we have). But this time when it rings, 'my' alarm bells start ringing 'coz its 11:30 am and I have a presentation at 1200hrs. Whoa!!! I jump off the bed (and in the process ape Ethan Hunt!!!) and barely make it to the class. Barely.

I'm sure the above scene is not too alien for our imagination 'coz most of us are lazy asses. Still, here's my list of acts, which, if they fall into place, make for a perfect weekday. So here goes nothing:

It starts with one of my friends shouting and making all the noises in this world to wake me up. Or this pious act is sometimes done by my cell.

At least two large cups of tea (just writing 'bout it makes me crave for it!!!) for breakfast. I don't care if I don't have anything to eat, but no compromises on my daily dose of caffeine.

Now all this exercise will be futile without me smoking. I need my share of nicotine, man!!! And stop judging me, I'm not a rapist!!!

Some nondescript events here and there (like attending classes and all) and its lunch.

Lunch should be heavy. Heavier the better. Being the Bong that I am, I live to eat.....

An afternoon nap is inevitable (provided fate has not scheduled a class or two).

Its evening and my caffeine+nicotine craving is back. But this time, its not the mess. A tapri (roadside tea stall) is the single-point-of-meeting for all the lazy asses. Just for the records, all you high nosed people who have tea in the typical Victorian fashion, its NO good (#fail I say).

And before we even realize, its dinner time. Time for the pigs to feast on the grub, once again.

Night is for everything (yeah yeah that too, you dirty mind) but studies. Invariably it would be a movie(s) or seasons of some sitcom (its the fifth rerun of Friends for me!!!). If movies fail to do the trick, we sneak out of our hostel for the graveyard shift of tea and maggi :)

Now what? Sleep.

That's pretty much what a typical day of mine pans out like. Yes we would have submissions, evaluations, exams et all, but the happen. They just happen. If it was not for the 11th hour, we would have never finished the job on our hands.....

Word art.....

2009-10-03T00:36:00.003+05:30

Created @ Wordle

Binary.....

2009-10-01T00:58:00.005+05:30

Unity can only be manifested by the Binary. Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two- Buddha

Zeroes and ones, on and off, right or wrong, black or white, yes and no..... what is the lowest common denominator amongst these seemingly disperse phrases? It's binary. Dealing with only two options at a time. Various constraints, factors, forces et all zeroed down to two options. How easy it is for our cognizence to play with two variables at a time. Heck, the same is true even for machines. Look at all those processors churning out data at teraflop speeds whose efficiency we've come to appreciate. Why are they so efficient? Because they have to deal only with a '0' and a '1'. Eliminating and filtering all those 'choices' we are so fond of choosing from leaves only the dust of confusion clouding everything around us. Boolean would have been a better choice.

Life is not only about black and white, it's also about shades of grey. Or so we are made to believe. How good was the time when we had heroes saving the world and those villians out on the street to destroy everything. But no, we want complications to fill our lives. Now we have a thin line between the two. Grey. Two is not good. Throw out the binary out of the window. 'Bring multiple in and enjoy the chaos' seems to our mantra. Or how else would you explain our gratitude towards the notion of 'spoilt for choices'?!! Anyways, instead of treading through our choices carefully, we make decisions in haste. Wouldn't it be better had we to choose from only a couple of options?!!

Choosing that new bike, deciding which restraunt to freak out during the weekend, what to wear and the list goes on, we want our options!!! Narrowing down to binary choices simply wouldn't do. So why this utter complications and chaos in our lives when we can simplify it? Are we wired genetically in such a manner that we simply cannot keep complexities out of our lives or do we derive some sort of a kick out of it? Answers to these profound questions is something which I don't posesses as of now (because I'm more than happy with my little binary world!).

There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those that understand binary and those that don't.

FYI: 10 is 2 in binary.

Dust

2009-10-01T00:38:00.000+05:30

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise.

It's a guy thing

2009-09-26T19:32:00.005+05:30

Would You Like Fries With That?
Tom Steele Answers The Tough Questions - The McDonalds™ Analogy
(http://tom-wfbc.itmblog.com/2009/09/23/would-you-like-fries-with-that/)

Why guys don't want to be friends with a girl who breaks up with them…

I know a girl who broke up with a guy and she told him she wanted to “still be friends.” He said, “No thanks.” She wondered why he couldn't fall back to being just friends after they had a romantic relationship. I came up with the ”McDonald's Analogy” to try and explain it in a simple way that would help all women understand this tough question.

Imagine if you went to McDonald's a lot and ordered a Big Mac Combo meal. A Big Mac, Large Fries and a Coke. You really like this meal. One day, you pull up to the drive through and order the Big Mac Combo meal and the girl tells you, “I'm sorry - you can have the Big Mac and the Coke, but you can't get fries with that anymore.” You think about this for a moment, and sure - the Big Mac is the centerpiece of the meal, but McDonald's has some really good fries and you like their fries with your meal. So you say, “I've been able to get fries with that before, why can't I have fries with my Big Mac combo anymore?” The girls says, ”Well, I just think it is better if you only have the Big Mac and the Coke from here on out.”

At this point, a lot of guys are going to go to Wendy's or BK and see if they can get fries with their combo at that drive through window. But there are some guys who REALLY like McDonalds Big Macs and they might think, “If I keep coming here and ordering the Big Mac and Coke, maybe she'll change her mind and give me some fries with that later.” So they will keep on getting the combo without the fries until the deal breaker happens: One day that guy is going to order the Big Mac and Coke and then he's going to pull up a little bit to pay, and someone else is going to pull up to the drive through speaker and order the “Big Mac Combo” and he is going to hear the girl say, “Would you like fries with that?”

That's why guys don't like to be friends with a girl who breaks up with them.

Aptitude or attitude???

2009-09-26T06:13:00.001+05:30

Here's to one of the timeless and classical debates (maybe controversial too)- aptitude or attitude??? This question becomes all the more pertinent for people going in for professional courses like MBA's (which has become a bastion for all the jobless- due pun intended) or those looking for jobs. The old school folks will prefer the aptitude route for it's so called ability to quantify(?) the skills of a person. But seldom do they take cognizance of the fact that such tests can be be-fooled by rote. We all have come across bookworms (no offense guys) who would bury their heads in books and mug up stuff all-day-long. But is it enough? Does it suffice the objective and obligation of us being social animals? Aptitude tests are designed to find out whether the person has the innate, acquired or learned or developed component of a competency. But are these tests really designed to find such qualities? Of all the aptitude tests that I have come across, one fact stood out, glaring down into my eyes (as I bravely attempted to answer the questions)- that it would have been better if my parents would have brought me up as a bookworm.

And since I have lambasted aptitude so much (also because of the fact that I HATE them), here's my share of praises for attitude. This has been my firm belief since long that the only difference between a successful and a non-successful person is their attitudes. I will defend my attitude even at the cost of being called arrogant. It is the attitude which has made seemingly common people stand out of crowd. Unlike aptitude which dwells upon the amount of formal education one has acquired (read mugged) during the course of endless years, attitude will be a better yardstick to judge people for their abilities. I suppose quoting the example of Bill Gates would serve as a testimony to all these facts. MIT threw him out because he, supposedly, did not possess the right aptitude. But look at the results. MIT now runs machines on the products created by the company whose head was kicked out by the same university. Some irony there. And why did he succeed? Attitude. Period.

So where are we getting to? All those hackers and script-kiddies who would run havoc on networks around the world would have been fruitfully employed had some people given up the notion of aptitude's superiority over attitude's. Just look around sirs. The world has changed. Why should we confirm to the yardsticks that have been set by you? The IIT-JEE is invariably the toughest aptitude test in the whole-wide-world. It ensures that the sharpest(?) minds get through. But how many patents do these premier institutes hold? How many SUN Microsystems or Googles have they produced? None. Instead they produce engineers who sit in yet another aptitude test called the CAT to get into IIM's. Where are we heading anyways?

It seems that life has become a vicious cycle of endless aptitude tests!!!

Happy endings.....

2009-09-24T12:04:00.000+05:30

I'd come across a very good blog on Mumbaikar.com written by Rati Agarwal which beautifully portrays a relationship between a wife and a husband. Read it and enjoy :)

My Happy Ending

I saw you again today in the lift. You looked lost somewhere which gave me ample time to take in your beauty. To take in those eyes, deep deep eyes. That chiselled nose, and those lips. I loved that chin of yours, tilted to that stubborn angle. You seem like a matured guy with a kid inside. Seeing you makes me want to love the kid inside and to be loved by the man.

Ah! Me and my fantasies again. I should admit that for a married woman I have not lost the imagination. At times I think of speaking to you, to tell you a lot of things, to tell you how lonely I am. To tell you that the guy, this society calls my husband is no where related to me. Emotionally we lost contact years ago and after the three miscarriages, he lost interest in me physically too. I am like the phone number which cannot be deleted from your contact list and is never dialled. The unpaid maid who sleeps in the master’s bed.

Ah! Leave it. Now days I don’t like thinking about him or cry on my miseries of life. Now I have you to fill my dreams and thoughts. To fill the void created and thats whats makes life beautiful. In the past two years I had lost the urge to dress up or try and look good. But now days I can’t stop staring in the mirror and blushing like a love sick teenager. At times I make faces in front of the mirror imagining you to see from somewhere laugh and talk to me. You at times feel like the manna from heaven sent to make me happy again.

Can’t forget the day you came to our flat, talked to Ashok, and told him you were shifting to the flat next to ours. And borrowed the stool. I was there, looking at you from behind the curtain. From that day onwards my heartbeat has not been back to normal. Even Ashok noticed some changes. He actually after years of ignoring said that I look different and asked the reason. Why should I tell him, that it’s because I am in love again. I feel pretty again. The love songs make sense again and every time I open the door, my eyes search for that known face again. It’s like am alive again.

This is no bollywood movie so I know that there will be no happy ending. May be you will never know my name let alone like me, u will not even know that I exist let alone touch me. But you know what I have no hopes and no demands, because after a long long time I am happy, happy, not for him, not for you but happy for myself and in the end isn’t it all that matters. My happy ending.

Split second

2009-09-19T12:35:00.000+05:30

Humans just don't get tired of harping on the merits and needs of planning deeds. Since our cognizance is wired in such a manner that we love creating a shell, a comfort zone inside which we feel safe, feel cozy et all. So what does one do to create this shell? Obviously plan. We love to brag as to how planned our lives are, that how well we've mastered the variables that affect, that constants is what we deal in. But this assumption cannot be farther than the truth. The truth that split second decisions shape, make (or break for that matter) our lives.

Slapping someone, using profanities, making choices, deleting that folder you loved so much, and the list would just go on. These are some of the acts we don't think through. Impulse rules our reason. Choice? Well we don't have any. To quote from Matrix itself- we've already made our choices, we're here to simply understand our choices. And when have we made our choices or rather how have we made a particular choice? Split second. Imagine this scene (and I'm sure this has happened with most of us who actually have conserved the gray cells to recollect it)- a competitive exam, say CAT is going on. You stumble upon a question to which you supposedly have derived the solution but still are in that ubiquitous dilemma as to which choice to mark. In that split second (some even term it as heat of the moment) you mark your answer. It turns out to be wrong. No amount of kicking yourself will redeem you of the sin you'd committed. Endless hours are spent contemplating the choice we made but to no avail. It's something we've just done.

Maybe this quote of Merovingian from Matrix will testify my stand on choices. He says- There is no choice. It's an illusion created by those with power to pacify those without power.

The decision to drop Fat Boy on Hiroshima, wars being fought, what stocks to buy/ sell, marrying, breaking up, this, that, everything rests on that split second which overpowers our emotions, logic, rationale. No matter how much we hate to confess, the truth is we all indulge in decision making which, to put colloquially, just happens (just the way shit happens!!!). But that moment has a bearing on our lives (on a micro level) and maybe millions (on a macro level).

Split second..... how small is it anyways?!!

PS: This post is a result of a conversation between me and Nidhi.

Rocky

2009-09-14T09:53:00.000+05:30

I've been listening to a lot of OSTs these days and one particular song that makes me stop and take look around is 'Burning Hearts'. The lyrics are simply too good. I dedicate this post to one of the greatest fictional protagonists of out times- Rocky Balboa. May he continue to inspire future generations too.....

Two worlds collide - rival nations,

Its a primitive clash - venting years of frustrations,

Bravely we hope against all hope - there is so much at stake.

Seems our freedoms up against the ropes.

Does the crowd understand?

Is a east versus west, or man against man,

Can any nation stand - alone.

In the burning heart - just about to burst,

Theres a quest for answers, an unquenchable thirst,

In the darkest night - rising like a spire,

In the burning heart - the unmistakable fire.

In the warriors code - theres no surrender,

Though his body says stop - his spirit cries - never!

Deep in our soul a quiet ember,Knows its you against you,

its the Paradox that drives us on

Its a battle of wills, in the heat of attack,

Its the passion that kills

The victory is yours alone.

Salutes for whom?

2009-09-10T00:58:00.000+05:30

A gleaming black Merc S-class stops in front of the gate. The guard at the gate jumps off his seat (literally), opens the gate and what follows is something which I would term as utterly disgusting. The guard actually salutes the person sitting inside the car. Now the distinguished citizen inside the car was definitely not the President of India nor was he associated to the defense forces (or his car would have declared so!!!). The disgusting part? That the salute is now cheap enough to be available for every tom-dick-or-harry who has the coffers to buy obscenely expensive cars or so to say for people who are rich.

Now I'm not biased against the riches. But the salute should be reserved only for our armed forces. These so called educated and responsible citizens should apply their common sense(?) and ask these guards not to indulge in saluting. Poor souls do it to feed the egos of their shameless pay-masters. This act stinks of feudalism and of the worst kind. Standing up in respect for someone is acceptable. But to go ahead one step as to expect salutes is simply inexcusable. Are the corporate head honchos who are battling in the boardrooms doing such an gallant act as to merit a salute? I don't think so.

Feudal tendencies still rule the roost in free India.....

Gangs of the World

2009-09-08T12:25:00.000+05:30

Gangs of New York..... a film full of gore for some..... a masterpiece for some. But this post is not going to be one of the innumerable threads which discuss the the film-craft of Scorsese, rather it's going to discuss the larger underpinnings of the movie. Of how the dream of equality of men was a farce then and how it still is. Of how outsiders were not welcome then which is true till date. Of how men feel threatened from people coming in from different countries to earn wages. Of how hoping for a better future is reserved for some.

So why do I feel in such a cynical manner when the whole world is talking about holding high the dignity of humans (?), of justice and equality. Following events materialized in the recent past and I hold them testimony to the fact that we still are living in a draconian era.

A few days ago the news of Indian students being bashed up in Australia was the only thing media.
Obama warning the US companies against Bangalor-ing the jobs.

So how do these seemingly incoherent mutually exclusive events link up? In both the cases the natives were threatened by cost arbitrage i.e. people from third world countries gobbling jobs because they do it cheap. What was true in 1846 is true even today. The worst part is that so-called-statesmen (yes I am referring Obama) who assume offices on the pretext of bringing about changes but what they do instead is to beat-around-the-Bush (pun intended). Even the Australian government went about lip-service only condemning the attacks. The attacks went on unchecked for many days.

So is all this high talk just a farce? By the looks of it, YES!!! The movie had just showcased the gangs of New York..... the world has many..... My only hope is we learn from the movie even if it is considered gory, obscene because Roman Polanski said

“You have to show violence the way it is. If you don't show it realistically, then that's immoral and harmful. If you don't upset people, then that's obscenity.”

And yes, countries are born in the streets!!!

Preachers not allowed

2009-09-02T23:49:00.000+05:30

Aim for the stars!!! Aim high!!! People want YOU to succeed. Outperform. Deliver. Be geeks in our respective fields. Expand our horizons. Dream big. Even become CEOs of companies. Drive around the town in expensive Mercs, Audis and their ilks. Sorry, not interested. Period.

The pretext that people assume is that everyone wants to be successful which is sort of true. Well sort of. One of the fundamental flaws in this logic is that people are preaching their version of success to hapless souls. It's akin to pushing something down the throats of kids because they are not allowed to question. It's good that preachers want to see us go ahead in life. But the idea of success is different for different people. What maybe success to one maybe mediocre stuff for another. Here's what I think about this whole brouhaha about preaching- people want to be successful. They even try hard. But somewhere down the line they're unsatisfied with the results. So now they have us as their targets. Those endless lectures on how to be successful, what to do, what not to do!!! Take a hike......

Success is now measured in matrices now. I suppose we have templates in excel now. We even have sure-shot formulae which have a certain input, a process, and an outcome. Can you guess the outcome??? It's success. Wallah.....

And what about happiness? Ain't I supposed to be happy? Picture this- I want to lead a decent lifestyle. A good enough package will do. I don't give a damn if I'm a line manager for the rest of my life if my ends meet. But no, I'll be rounded up and be informed that this is not good enough. That I need to look at life with someone else's filter. That I need to aim higher. That I need to write down on a piece of paper where I will be in next 10 years.

To sum it up for all those who preach- Those who can, do it. Those who can't, teach (preach in this case!!!).....

Heroes

2009-09-01T13:05:00.000+05:30

I was watching a video of George Carlin yesterday (yes the same fellow who uses the 'f-word' more time in a day than breaths) and this is what he quoted:

I am fed up of being told who to choose as my hero!!!

And it is pretty tough to deny this flawless point. Pick up a newspaper, magazine, log onto a website, switch onto a channel. What do you find (apart from all the gore or terrorism related news)? That this is how an ideal idol should be. He/ she should be your hero. You should have morals/ ethics like this/ that person. Yes, whatever!!!

I do not need to be told who to look up to. I do not need to turn onto these self help gurus, who in my opinion are in dire need of some self help themselves. Better they read their own crap before they start preaching. I am fine the way I am.

I have my own heroes and I'm happy the way things are!!! And yes, George Carlin, your logic IS flawless.....

Code of conduct

2009-08-28T17:58:00.000+05:30

Conformity is your enemy!!! Time and again we've been asked to stifle our creativity. We should not challenge our teachers. We should not wear this, we should not wear that. This outburst is because I am fed up of being told what to do!!! Rather what not to do..... how to do..... et all!!!

Code of conduct is just one of the numerous ways deviced by college authorities to maintain discipline which in fact is a way to make us sit back so that they don't have to answer all our numerous questions.

Formals or no formals, code or no code..... I will remain the way I am..... Defiance is the order of the day.....

Here's what conformity to me means

Freedom of expression is a farce..... mithya

Supreme Court judges to disclose assets

2009-08-27T19:13:00.000+05:30

The rabbit's finally out of the bag!!! But with a caveat.....

Yes the Hon'ble supreme has finally decided that it's judges will have to declare their assets and liabilities. The rabbit. But they will not be answerable as how how the wealth was amassed or how it depleted. The caveat. But it comes as a welcome move no less. Public representatives, government officers et all had to declare their 'wealth'. It was only logical that the judiciary too followed suit. It would have been better had they showed the executive and the legislature the way, but even this is not bad either. For the common man in India, the judiciary is the epitome of truth, ethics and morality. The two aforesaid pillars of democracy namely the executive and the legislature had long given to the rot of corruption. Judiciary is the beacon which we all look up to. Sporadic cases of some people in the judiciary being dishonest have done the rounds. But they did remain sporadic.

The current decision by the Hon'ble Supreme court will only act to bolster the faith of the common man, who is so easily manipulated by either the neta or oppressed by the babu. True we all, including the judges fill in our annual income tax returns but it's only for the babu's eyes only!!! Getting to know of the assets of someone who is a respected public figure, his decisions open to public scrutiny will only result in transparency. The judiciary still worked as a black box in some areas but introspection and a spate of recent decisions has made it more transparent.

To sum up the importance of this landmark decision, here's what Soli Sorabjee had to quote: "salutary and important''!!!

Ashes.....

2009-08-24T12:20:00.000+05:30

Test cricket is not dead. It's still going strong. In some ways, it's more exciting than your so called fast paced ODIs or your mindless slogging in a T-20 match. So lame. Ashes 2009 proves just that. Congrats England. Kudos to the Aussies.

Coming back from an innings defeat in the previous match, the English batsmen showed what determination can do for you. Their determination left Ponting with the dubious distinction of being the only Aussie captain after Billy Murdoch to loose two Ashes series in his stewardship. But distinctions apart, such a closely fought series was needed to put the waggling tongues of the pro T-20 dudes(?) to rest. Time and again people have tried to write-off test cricket and each time the great game of uncertainties has risen to the occasion and proved why it separates men from the boys.

Ashes is more than cricket. It's the repute of two nations which is on the line. One who ruled the entire world not in the too distant past. One who was once branded the continent of the convicts. Akin to a India-Pakistan cricket, Ashes is big money too. And be rest assured, such closely fought series will keep on raking in the moolah. And such a filmy climax was only apt.

The series was bitterly fought with all those controversies starting with the first test itself. It's the last Ashes for many stalwarts from both teams. Freddie has called it shots. His hanging-up-the-boots surely marks the end of an era of a great all-rounder. We'll miss those short-pitched balls of yours!!!

'nuff said. Time to soak in the nostalgia.....

Ashes 2009 5th test scorecard

Unique IDea???

2009-08-20T13:36:00.000+05:30

What is the price you are ready to pay for your freedom? Your life?? Nah, the government is not interested. Your privacy? Looks like someone's interested over here!!! Our society is fast becoming a vigilante society. More so since we've had the 7/11s and the 26/11s of the world. The war against terror is on. Terror has permeated into our cities. Intelligence is of paramount concern today. Agencies worldwide are trying to gather greater power by all means possible. Even if it means at the cost of privacy- your, mine, ours alike. With each passing minute surveillance techniques are getting more and more sophisticated. Getting to know that spy satellites can read the time off someone's wrist watch is passe. Everyone knows about killer drones. The fact that a cellular phone is a homing device evokes no emotions. What's next?

Next is happening right now. Companies like Google are indexing the way you surf the net- an insight into your psyche. Couple it with information like your Social Security Number or a Unique ID(UID) and the terabytes of data from The Human Genome project and you have a system in place wherein your privacy goes for a toss.

But why am I creating such hoopla suddenly? The reason- The Enemy of the State. After the movie got over, one of my friend pointed out that if Social Security Number is a boon, it also is a pain in the ass. Why? Because all your social activities- right from your driving license to vehicle registration to bank account to cell phone to medical to what have you is connected to this one number. Result- a glaring vulnerability. It's akin to a double edged sword- the government can (mis)use it, so can the hackers. Watch the movie The Net to see how your identity can be stolen. Just at the click of a button.

So what shall we do? Security of a nation is necessary. So is your personal freedom and privacy. Certain rights cannot and should not be compromised to ensure freedom. What good is a freedom which keeps a tab on what is going on in your bedroom.

The gestapo is watching. There is no escape lest you, the common man is aware of your right. The Indian Establishment has already started the process. Unique ID Number is just one of the ways forward in a slew of many such steps.

The swine flu chronicles- 2

2009-08-17T12:58:00.000+05:30

Lost count of the days..... eat, sleep, eat some more, sleep some more..... this has been the regimen we've been following for the last few days..... boredom has a new dimension for all of us..... debating nondescript and trivial topics is no more helping..... seasons after seasons of TV series are over.....

The above paragraph sums up our mood. As a child I would dream of days where I would idle around doing nothing. Eating and sleeping would be my only jobs. But I was entirely wrong. Sitting idle and doing nothing is the worst kind of punishment anyone can be subjected to. Gawd how I miss those lovely days when we would be scurrying around with loads of assignment. Gimme back those days......

On a passing note, I would like to take this opportunity to vent out my no-so-misplaced anger on news portals like The Times of India and its ilk. Blowing a pandemic situation out of proportions seemed to be their motive (maybe they had some vested interest). And now their home page is devoid of all swine flu related news. As if the virus has suddenly disappeared from the face of this earth!!! Some journalism over there.

So long for this post. Gotta go downstairs and have something to eat 'coz it seems to be the only solace.

PS: For some more blame game, follow the link.

Jai Hind.....

2009-08-14T16:20:00.000+05:30

It's that time of the year when suddenly we realize we're Indians. That apart from our rights, we have duties too. That we need to imbibe patriotism into our future generations. That 'The Tri-colour ' will be hoisted. That we'll be singing 'Jana-Gana-Mana' prolly for the second time in a year (the first being 26th Jan). That we need to show our solidarity towards our armed forces. That tv channels will air movies oozing with patriotism. That we'll have those small plastic Tirangas which will be lying here and there once our nostalgia is gone. That suddenly zara yaad karo kurbani (remember the sacrifices made) is in vogue for the second time in a year. That post lunch, it's a holiday.

What are we? Proud citizens of a great nation or aloof citizens who are proud of their legacy only twice(?) a year?? Why such hippocracy is shown to a truly national event??? Doesn't it deserve the same level of joyous celebrations that we display on a Diwali or an Id or a Christmas???

Happy Independence Day!!!

Jai Hind!!!

The swine flu chronicles- 1

2009-08-12T19:04:00.000+05:30

Nothing happened the way it was supposed to happen. Nothing worked the way it was supposed to work- Robert Neville (I Am Legend)

The Americans decide not to pay their home loans, we get recession.
The Americans decide to eat pork, we get swine flu.
Period.

Day 1: Bored.
Day 2: Borred.

This is my first experience of being in a pandemic and to tell you the truth, I'm shit scared. And a whole lot of boredom has dawned unto us. The Maharashtra government has declared the educational institutions to close down. My college is closed. People ran off to their natives. There are some of us (survivors) who decided to stay back, not coz we are brave or something, but because we did not want to be the vectors of the deadly virus and take it back home.

It sometimes gives me chills when I think about movies like I Am Legend. In my ignorance, I made fun of the characters. But to live in an almost empty campus and roam about it is no fun.

Gawd forgive my sins for I made fun of a good movie!!!

The Bare truth.....

2009-08-10T02:15:00.000+05:30

The following lines are from Gulaal which aptly describe the current abyss into which we as a society are spiraling into. Couldn't find a better description of our times. The play of words intertwined with the soulful music is a must hear for every patriot.....

Yaara Maula,Yaara Maula
Haan Haan Yaadon Mein Hai Ab Bhi
Kya Surila Wo Jahan Tha
Hamare Haathon Mein Rangeen Gubaare The
Aur Dil Mein Mehekta Sama Tha, Yaara Maula..

Wo To Khwabo Ki Thi Duniya, Wo Kitabo Ki Thi Duniya
Saas Mein The Machalte Hue Zaljale
Aankh Mein Wo Suhana Nasha Tha, Yaara Maula..
Wo Zameen Thi, Aasmaan Tha,Hum Ko Lekin Kya Pata Tha
Hum Khade The Jahan Par
Ussi Ke Kinaare Pe Gehra Sa Andha Kua Tha

Phir Wo Aaye Bheed Ban Kar, Haath Mein The Unke Khanjhar
Bole Phenko Yeh Kitaabe, Aur Sambhalo Yeh Salakhein
Jo Gehra Sa Kua Hai, Haan Haan Andha To Nahi Hai
Iss Kue Mein Hai Khazana, Kal Ki Duniya To Yahi Hai
Kud Jao Leke Khanjhar , Kaat Daalo Jo Ho Andar
Tum Hi Kal Ke Ho Shivaji, Tum Hi Kal Ke Ho Sikander
Humne Wo Hi Kiya Jo Uhone Kaha, Kyunki Unki To Khawahish Yahi Thi
Hum Nahi Jaante Yeh Bhi Kyu Yeh Kiya? Kyunki Unki Farmaaish Yahi Thi
Ab Hamare Laga Zaayka Khoon Ka,Ab Batao Kare To Kare Kya?
Nahi Hai Koi Jo Hume Kuch Bataye,Batao Kare To Kare Kya?

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants- Thomas Jefferson

So does that mean that what happens in the name of patriotism is right?!!

Sample this- Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious- Oscar Wilde

Who do you trust??!!!

H1N1

2009-08-08T19:57:00.000+05:30

If we fear dying then we fear living - a fear that could cripple our joy, disable our imagination and imprison our spirit- Mark Kolke

The lines pretty much sums up the gloomy mood people are in, in Pune. Swine flu. A simple RNA structure making people jump up and down. Going crazy. Nuts. Fearing their guts out. Going underground even (as if the virus cannot penetrate the walls, pretty mighty huh?!).

The only point of conversation is swine flu. Heck if we chant god's name so many times in a single day, he'll grant us nirvana. Nirvana will be ours, but after dying a thousand deaths a thousand times in a day. Mass hysteria. I'd only read about it. But now I'm experiencing it first sneeze, err hand. Come on junta, get hold of yourselves.

I'm not taking anything away from the H1N1 virus (hey viruses have code numbers, how cool is that!!!). It's deadly dangerous. But that does not mean we panic and make others jump around in panic too. The worst part- it has thrown up many 'self proclaimed doctors' who seem to know more about the virus than the pigs themselves. They'll tell you that your infected, heck even give you the medication. FTW!!!

Sample this- my entire college is now a fortress, a quarantine zone. One I've never experienced before. No one goes out. No one comes in (what about the air we breathe sirs, can you stop its flow?!). Much like prison break. Somebody get me outta here..... SOS.....

BTW, the swines (pigs for those who didn't knew) had their revenge, finally!!! Ever seen a pig being killed for some of us to savor pork and appreciate the culinary skills of the cook?! Looks like they've retaliated and how.....

But all this gibberish and brouhaha reminds me of two movies- I am Legend and V for Vendetta..... what if we're doomed in a similar manner? Who'll save us?? God! Fear's got hold of my free soul too..... hey I'm spiraling into the abyss of fear.....

Elephant v/s Dragon

2009-08-07T02:30:00.000+05:30

The title says it all. It gives away everything. Yes, its a no brainer. India v/s China. Neighbours. One time friends. Lack of trust. Enemies. Prodigal competitors. Et all. Did anyone say competitors?!! Well I don't think so.

The pretext first which made me sit up and spam the world wide web with yet another blog post. A discussion in my Retail & Services class prompted the professor to venture into the now much travelled and battered path which led to the inevitable- the Elephant v/s the Dragon. And since every other person is now an expert in Indo-China geopolitics and understands the dynamics of how trade is facilitated between two countries, head nodding was inevitable.

But there is no competition as such between the two countries. Here's why. China opened its market in 1978, the same time when the Morarji Desai government was busy driving IBM and Coke out of India. Capitalism is an evil. Or so we were made to believe. Deng Xiaoping gave this famous quote then- The color of the cat does not matter as long as it catches mice. And the cat did catch some mice and how. We opened our markets in 1991 and that too coz our forex reserves had hit an all time low. Well lowest to survive, to be precise. Maths says China has a head start of 13 years. Some gap there.

Also the Chinese model is that of cost arbitrage due to mass production. Quality can wait. Nothing hi-tech. We on the other hand specialize in quality production and hi-tech too in some areas. Infy, TCS, Bharat Forge, Aditya Birla and the numerous others have done us proud.

Their internal consumption is humongous unlike ours. The lesson we learnt the hard way during this current ongoing recession (argh).

So its pretty clear. Comparing the two is like comparing apples to pears. We have our own niche and they have theirs. Segmentation. And hence this post.

As such, dragons are mythical creatures but elephants can be touched and felt in flesh and blood.

Shahrukh or Amir.....

2009-08-03T12:32:00.000+05:30

Statutory Warning: Do not read the article if you are a Shahrukh or an Amir fan/ die-hard fan.

A few days ago a heated and intense debate ensued between my friends in which yours truly was involved. The subject of the discussion was not world peace or the American imperialism or even the current recession (phew! What a relief!!). It was something that may come across to you as trivial, but the implications of which has a bearing on all of us.

Of all the questions in this world, we set out on an ordeal to find out who is a better actor- Shahrukh or Amir! And suddenly the whole world was divided into two camps (much like the cold war era..... well not quite, but anyways.....). The allegiances were decided and the legions set off for a war of words, a war that left warriors bruised and battered (mentally though!). Both the camps tried their level best to convert the other camp into following and worshiping the actor/ hero that they like. But as is the case, loyals seldom change their stance. Eventually everyone retired for the night as sleep had overtaken their love for debating.

Here is my take on the things-

Matters related to stuff that appeals to one's aesthetic sense should not be subjected to debate. A person engrossed in Picasso's cubism may very well hate Van Gogh's realism and vice-versa. To each unto his own.....
To support one's claim, awards must not be the yardstick. We all know how Alfred the master of suspense Hitchcock never won an Oscar.
People also must not thrust their choices down someone's throat.
Popularity may not be the best yardstick. However we must learn to respect the choice that millions of other people have already made.

Shahrukh or Amir. The debate may go on endlessly without any possible or plausible outcome. What we can do though in the meantime is to confine matters relating to one's aesthetics to the choice that person had made and move on.....

Pictures speak a thousand words.....

2009-07-28T13:18:00.001+05:30

Serene. Tranquil. Placid. The pictures pretty much sum up the mood I'm in. Monsoons are great. Wish they could stay here forever and ever and ever..... Look at the life that they bring to the parched earth, the dying trees and our moods too.....

The clouds in the following pics..... seems like they all have a story to tell..... their mood changing with every passing second..... calm now, rage flowing a few seconds later.....

Presentations.....

2009-07-27T13:20:00.000+05:30

Numb. Comfortably numb. Estranged. Jeopardy. Double jeopardy. Good. Bad. Ugly. Butterflies in the stomach. Dumbfounded. Bored. Stuck. Damage. Collateral damage. Egos. Hurt egos.

No. I'm not just writing some incoherent set of words or pouring the psychotic blabbering of a frustrated mind (although I'm a bit frustrated, but you can blame it on the jet, err train lag). These have a very critical bearing on all of us who are in a presentation. Doesn't matter which side you belong to. These words suffice the mood in the room.

The presenter is too scared. The crowd is too bored or too anxious. But be rest assured, the 'too' tag is utterly (butterly) justified. All but extreme behaviour rules the roost during a presentation.

Your palms are sweating. You're playing with your ring/pen. Butterflies (big ones) are having a field day in your stomach. Helplessness has conquered your senses. You wish you weren't there. The audience is busy in their own chores. Some are listening, some even jotting down something. Some look simply unimpressed, bored, even yawning. And you are on the podium akin to the sacrificial lamb who will be sacrificed any moment now. The presentation is finally over but your tension is far from over. Now you'll have to face the volley of questions the audience has for you (provided if they were listening). Some of your friends use it as an opportunity to have their share of fun by making you uncomfortable. Your frenimies were waiting for this day and this day only for some time now. And at last its all over. Some claim victory, some are devastated, some disillusioned while some just laugh it over. Complete entertainment.

Many of us have been privy to this sick thing called presentation. Sometimes on the podium and sometimes in the audience. And most of you will concur with me that the vivid description that you just visualised (courtesy- your truly) is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Yet we have presentations galore.

Do we really need presentations??? I guess we do. It satisfies the hedonist inside us. Ponder over it.

Power point????? Far from it.

History......

2009-07-21T16:50:00.000+05:30

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

It is not "history" which uses men as a means of achieving -- as if it were an individual person -- its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.

History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.

-Karl Marx

VIP- Very Irritating Person

2009-07-19T13:38:00.000+05:30

VIP. Very 'Important' Person. It's a new species of humans altogether who are supposedly superior to all the other humans on the face of this earth who are, well, un-important. Or how else does one explain the 'important' tag that is fixed to a privileged few. I was told as a kid that India is a democracy. A few days ago, I checked the status of our country and it confirmed that we still are a democracy. Democracy you say? Well then what's up with this VIP crap???

As the case is with most of us in the school, I too was poor in a subject called civics. But I'd studied enough of the dreaded subject to know that our constitution assumes every citizen of India to be having the same set of fundamental rights, bound by the same set of duties and governed by the same set of laws. Yes, I've written the 'constitution assumes' because had everyone been equal, we wouldn't have a relic of the feudal past where some citizens would be important and others, well they'll be citizens who would be law abiding, who would be paying the taxes on time but still wouldn't be important.

The whole concept of VIP is highly contradictory to a democratic setup, its even blasphemous if you consider the constitution, the state and your freedom to be holy. As soon as you accept someone to be important and dole out the state's services to him/ her on a silver platter, you are doing dis-service to all the other citizens of the country who are and maybe more patriotic than your VIP.

What does a VIP in India do other than blocking the traffic for hours altogether, enjoying a state's hospitality for free, a police escort and a motorcade full with his/ her cronies, spouse, children and whatever else can be cramped in.

As a kid we all have seen movies where the now clichéd zamindaar (the feudal lord) would be greeted by people who would fall on his feet. The same scene is repeated now, even after 60 years of freedom when the state bends backwards to accommodate these so called important people.

Feudalism is not dead still.....

Gimme back my TV.....

2009-07-14T20:22:00.000+05:30

Couch potatoes of the world!!! Unite!!!

Such should be the war-cry of all the lesser organisms of the world who have been shunned, branded lazy and what not by this cruel world which cannot see the happy faces of all the channel surfing men and women who wield the remote, decide the TRP ratings and thus the advertisement revenues of the television channel. But even after taking on this thankless and arduous task of spending numerous hours before the television screen, what do we get??? Nothing!!! Absolutely nothing.....

Oh wait, we do get something. We get betrayed by these television channels. Why am I so serious and making such a hue and cry at a time when there seems to be no terror attack or an under-construction bridge falling or China attacking? Well there is a reason.

Switch on your TV sets. Come on do it! Switch to any news or music or sports or movie channel. Do you see something wrong? Ah! I forgot. How could you with all those long hours before the idiot box affecting your otherwise hawkish view.

What I'm talking about is the encroachment of the viewing area with all those flashes, logos, tickers & advertisements rolling while a programme is still on.

The news channels- well the anchor's pretty face is barely visible what with the screen being filled up from all sides.
Sports channels- we now have a ticker running at the bottom of the screen with a big logo of the channel. Couple it with ads running in between bowls being bowled. And yes, the hunger for more ad-revenue sometimes eats up a bowl or two during a cricket match.
Movie/ Music channels- they too suffer from this new bug called a ticker. Looks like it'll be a quintessential part of TV viewing now. Agreed when a film in wide screen format is being telecast, one can bear some. But something moving on your screen (other than the actors) while Captain Jack Sparrow fights off Davy Jones pisses me off big time.
Family Channels- well if you have the courage to sit and watch all those saas-bahu shows (for which you'll be nominated for a Red & White Bravery award), you'll find that they too have been pervaded by the same malice.

The part in all this is that the content quality of channels is progressively going down. The number of ads being taken is progressively rising up. And we are actually paying to watch all the crap being doled out along with reduced screen area and ads.

What the duck!!!

Power cuts not so bad after all.....

2009-07-12T12:38:00.000+05:30

"Oh! The power's gone!!!"

And with this starts our raving and ranting and cursing and bad-mouthing the utility companies, the government, the system and pretty much anything upon which we can take out our frustration on! With the advent of April till August (in some cases much beyond than this), the dreaded power cuts start to materialise. Like a Ginnie out of a bottle. A gift to us by the power companies. With the temperature soaring in these months, the frequency of power cuts also goes up, charting unprecedented heights as the power cut hours break new records each year. For some, it has become a way or a part of their lives. For some, it helps keep track of time coz whether or not we like it, the religious audacity which is followed in executing the cuts on time will put even the British Generals to shame. Maybe all of us who need a lesson in punctuality can take a leaf out of this!!! Indian Railways and many other government offices can learn from the power company executives.

But this is not quite the motive with which I sat down to write this blog. There is, well an ignored side to all the power cuts which we hate so much because we're so very engrossed in the worldly pleasures which require electricity to run. Here is a list which will try to list out the positives of cuts-

Save Money- what with all those long hours without electricity, your ACs and TVs and computers and what not of this world are dis-functional. The electricity bill which sends you those high voltage shocks are a bit benign. Thanks to those equipments not working.
Eco-friendly- seriously, with all those coal powered generators getting a breather due to the power cuts, you can proudly wear the badge of being eco-friendly!!!
Lesser spam- what do I do when I'm using my computer? I tweet or nudge or poke or scrap or blog (like right now) and spam the cyber space with all those terabytes of data. So do most of the people. So now with a power cut, all those over-worked servers can take a breather.
Quality time- with a power cut, we tend to point our verbal guns towards our family, friends (in short, whoever's around). It lets you connect to your near and dear ones. With a cut during night time, one can even enjoy a candle lit dinner.

See, a power cut isn't such a bad thing after all. It has so many inherent qualities which we choose to ignore and desperately want to become a developed nation with no power cuts. Shame on us. We should thank our planners in the executive with such visionary skills.

Long live, err continue the power cuts.....

Dry state bleeding.....

2009-07-09T16:39:00.000+05:30

We all know that Gujarat is a dry state. We all know this too well that assuming no one in Gujarat wants to booze is quixotic. Then why does the Chief Minister of Gujarat wants to ban the sale of liquor??? Why this moral policing on the state subjects??? This question becomes all too pertinent in the wake of the recent hooch tragedy wherein at least 76 people have succumbed to spurious liquor. Don't know how many more would be engulfed.

Liquor is bad. It breaks off families. It is the root cause of many a social evil. And much much more. We all have been taught this since time immemorial. Ministers galore have bashed boozing. Some have even walked the extra mile to even ban it. But they forget one important fact- that liquor alone fills the state coffers. Much like the sale of tobacco. Men are fallible. And many a men have fallen for it and wasted off their lives and the lives of even their loved ones.

But do these acts of some merit the reason for banning liquor and in turn be incomprehensibly indifferent to a section of society which enjoys it responsibly??? Utterly wrong. It would be like banning driving because some are rash drivers.

Also a dry state is a misnomer. An oxymoron. Look at Gujarat. Do you really think its dry as in dry??? Well you'll be wrong if you do. States like Rajasthan, MP and Maharashtra are the ones which harbour liquor smugglers. And hooch??? Well spurious liquor is a reality. The states may turn a blind eye to its existence but incidents like these surface every now and then killing many (http://ibnlive.in.com/news/dry-state-gujarat-reels-under-hooch-tragedy/96745-3.html?from=rssfeed).

Its better to let the subjects have what they want- liquor. Regulate its sale. And please please please curb the sale of hooch. Or else the hiccups will not be of the one's intoxicated but those of the chief minister.....

The Fourth Pillar of Democracy- RIP....

2009-07-05T17:39:00.000+05:30

The day of July 3rd. Times of India carrying almost half a page of coverage of section 377 of IPC being declared illegal by the Delhi High Court on the first page with more news and editorial material on the inside pages. What do I infer about the newspaper? That it supports a libertarian point of view and wants India to move forward without being souped up in trivial matters. The scene was totally different for Rajasthan Patrika, a vernacular newspaper which prides itself in being the most widely read newspaper in Rajasthan. The same news found space, but only on the 8th page and that too for a space of almost 2 square inches!!! Instead it carried the viewpoints of two distinguished personas condemning the ruling on the same page with more newsprint and ink devoted. Journalism and how???!!

Newspapers are called the fourth pillar of any democracy. Or so we thought. More and more newspapers have started to take sides and/ or publish news that they deem is correct and suitable for their readers. The editors, those intellectually superior beings, are happy towing the line the owners of the newspapers take. Not for one second thinking about their duty towards building a better society, their duty towards democracy. TV news channels had for long become victims of sensationalism, vulgarity and doling out trivial news. Their print cousins are simply following suit.

Gone are the days when one Mr. Ramnath Goenka decided to publish blank pages of The Indian Express to show his solitude towards the Indian Constitution and its people. And oppose the dictatorial emergency in India with Mrs. Indira Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi at the helm.

Its a sad state of affairs when newspapers are trying to push forward their morality on their readers without reporting the facts in an appropriate manner and letting the reader make an informed decision. This tendency is seen more in vernacular newspapers rather than their english cousins.

Journalism seems to be dead. The fourth pillar of democracy- Rest in Peace.....

Section 377- going going gone!!!

2009-07-02T14:15:00.000+05:30

I'm no gay or lesbian rights activist. I'm not interested in the sexual allegiances of people either. What happens in the bedroom, stays in the bedroom! But the erstwhile British Raj made it a point to wrap on the moral veil and tell the subjects how to behave in their bedrooms. Free India decided to ctrl+c and ctrl+v the draconian laws and hence Section 377 of the IPC was also carried forward as a raj hangover. We're in desperate need of customized laws that reflect the sensibilities of India and not that of some colonial ruler. The funniest part is that Britain has long done away with these inhuman and discriminatory laws.

The worst part of 377 is that it gives even the highly competent constables (due pun intended) of Indian Police to detain people of same sex on the charges of sodomy, even if they're holding hands in the public.

Being gay does not make anyone inhuman or straight people highly humane. On the contrary, people who consider themselves as straight are the one's discriminating, launching violent attacks against gay people.

And as I've already said, the government has no right to interfere into and encroach upon our privacy by peeking into our bedrooms. Sure, religious leaders and moral police will take their stand against this development calling it as unnatural and all but I hope that these developments are irreversible.

God made humans with free will everyone has the the right to exercise his own free will. Period.

Will the so called 'keepers of the society' please shut up???

Whose bike is it anyway???

2009-06-30T13:29:00.000+05:30

Sample this- you are standing in a shop and your bike is parked a few feet away. A wannabe dude passes your bike, stops, rotates its rear view mirror as if he's the next Bruce Lee, adjusts his mop like hair, admires his Tom Cruise look and walks away happily. The person who's unhappy is you when you return to your bike only to find that someone has fondled with it.

Now cut to this scene- you come back to your bike only to find someone sitting on its seat and all this while he has played with its instrumentation, its gears and what not as if he's the rightful owner. You frown, glare scornfully, utter a few bad words (you know what words I'm talking about!!!) and helplessly drive away.

All of us who own two wheelers have been privy to such situations all too frequently. Sometimes we're on the receiving end too (because we shamelessly emulate each other).

What does this tell? Following are my inferences (you may choose to disagree if you belong to the aggravating camp)-

People here have no civic sense.
We don't know how to respect someone's private property.
We just love to abuse someone else's property (maybe this is how we vent out our frustration).
Our teachers and parents have failed to sensitize us (oh I just love this blame game).
We've taken this Sanakrit mantra of Vasudhev Kutumbkam so very seriously and customized it in such a manner that we consider everything we lay our hands to be our property!!!

Please guys, give me a break!!! Respect someone's privacy. Or at-least try to.....

Charlie Wilson's War???

2009-06-29T12:02:00.000+05:30

Erstwhile USSR is to be blamed for the current security problem that we face called the Taliban. The Regan administration is to be blamed. Why? Go watch 'Charlie Wilson's War'. It tells the tale of how a congressman was instrumental in raising the CIA's covert operations fund in Afganistan from a meagre US$5 million to over a Billion US dollars. How Americans transformed Afgans into Mujahiddins equipping them with Stinger missiles and Kalashnikovs. The Mujahids were freedom fighters then. They are terrorists today. Period.

The same weapons which drew away the evil communists away are now being used to wage a jihad against the lone super-power today. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!!!

Part of the problem today could have been non existent today had the Americans invested a few more dollars rebuilding war torn Afganistan instead of reorganising Eastern Europe. As our protagonist in the movie says while the Russians were retreating from Afganistan, "More than half of the country's population is below 14 and when they come back to find their families dead, their cities destroyed, who are they gonna turn their guns to???".

The world, especially the Indian Subcontinent is bearing the brunt of the mistakes of the Cold war. I suppose the Russians are now happy. The Americans must be happy too. India is paying. Pakistan is paying. And more importantly, Afganistan is paying.....

Of Gods and queues

2009-06-27T22:02:00.000+05:30

Finding God was never easy. Meeting God was never easy. So we invented temples, the portals which would facilitate our connection with the Gods. But its turning out even they are finding it tough to handle the traffic of all the devotees. What with all those long queues that dot the temples today. Been to a temple lately? I'm sure you have and will empathise me on this. Whoever said that finding God isn't easy clearly had this premonotion.

Now comes the funnier part. Take care of your belongings, your wallets, your shoes and what not. If temples with the Gods overlooking all of us had to write all this, I'd have to write this- God save us all. If I don't have the peace of mind, in search of which I went to the temple in the first place, there is no point going to these places only to add to the headcount (sometimes to the count of all those injured due to stampedes and all).

Why? Because we all cannot wait for our turn to come to offer our prayers. After all we are busy human beings. We have all those important jobs to finish.

Still we all will continue to add to the queues in search for God......

Fill it. Shut it. Forget it.

2009-06-25T20:23:00.000+05:30

Fill it. Shut it. Forget it. Yes, this is the tag line Hero Honda chose when it launched its now legendary CD 100 25 years ago. It was supposed to target the mileage conscious Indian middle class. And the tag line is back once again. And there couldn't have been a more opportune time.

I feel the tag line cuts across all the segments that Kotler talks of. More so in today's day and age when crude prices are hovering around $70/ barrel and will shoot up once this recession thing is done and over with. Plus you have all those doomsday mongers who predict that the world crude reserves will hold only for the next 20 odd years at the current rate of consumption. Also with the world around realising that global warming is going to be the major concern going ahead and fossil fuel emissions are a major contributor, fill it, shut it, forget it never sounded sweeter.

It is also heartening to see the auto companies fighting to provide the consumer with options where he gets that extra mile for every drop of petrol. Auto companies the world over have understood the simple fact that even the consumer wants leaner machines. And those who haven't (General Motors to be precise), well oblivion is staring them right into their eyes.

So wanting to squeeze that extra mile out of every drop of gasoline is not so middle class now. Its supposed to be nature friendly (and in vogue). And thanks to recession, people now want leaner, more efficient vehicles. The companies are going back to the drawing board to survive.

And all this makes for a great sight. So fill it, shut it, forget it. Sit back and relax.....

Unemployed or unemployable.....

2009-06-25T11:38:00.000+05:30

We read news regarding unemployment all too much. Newspapers and news channels awash with unemployment related news. The sheer population of our country makes the absolute unemployment numbers look gargantuan. There's too much unrest in the country's youth and unemployment is to be blamed- is what we hear all too regularly. But are these assertions true? Let's put on a contrarian veil and try to look at the other picture. The picture which we all refuse to see 'cos we have a long history of not confronting the bitter truth.

Unemployable, simply unemployable.

Take a simple example of an average domestic help. You have to repeatedly tell the person how to execute a job. Still he/ she will be more than happy to give the job his/her own twist. Now one does not need to be a rocket scientist to take orders and do only that much as is told. Then they need all the holidays. Punctuality??? What's that? I'm not trying to paint all of them with the same brush but you'll have to concur with me that most domestic help available today suffers with these problems. Being illiterate cannot be an excuse.

Now lets come on to the millions who hold a diploma or a degree. The education that is imparted to us in most of the centers of higher education is simply outdated. Or else how would you explain this- companies recruiting people have to invest on their training for 3 to 4 months. We aren't equipped to work off the shelf!!!

The problem lies within. Finding a scapegoat is easy. Finding the root cause and then fixing the problem requires competence. And that is something that we simply don't have.

Unemployable, utterly unemployable.....

Of eclairs and change.....

2009-06-22T12:23:00.000+05:30

You go to a friendly neighborhood kirana store (also called the mom & pop store in retail jargon) and buy something which costs, say 24 bucks. You give the proprietor 30 bucks and in return he hands over a change of 5 bucks and an eclairs (or any other toffee). What's that? If you argue, he'll counter attack by saying sahab, khulle nahin hain. In the meantime if you happen to notice, all his friendliness is gone.

Fair enough. But since transactions are a two way traffic, I'll have my say too. Or so I thought before I was disillusioned.

The next time I went to his shop, I gave him 20 bucks and 4 eclairs for something that costs 24 bucks (again!). What's that, the guy retorted (with his friendliness disappearing into thin air, I might add). This is the type of situation we all have faced when we have been taken for a ride with a perfect excuse of unavailability of change. Ya, whatever.

Such is the extent of cartelisation in our country that this scene is replicated all over the country, even while I'm writing this post. And these kirana-wallas cry foul when big retailers enter our cities citing a cripple argument that their business will be hit. Survival of the fittest dude.

And yes, I want my change back.....

root@machine: ~$ sudo apt-get install sanity

2009-06-20T20:13:00.000+05:30

Salvation at last. From Microsoft Windows. From the legend that Vista is because it decided to hang, perpetually. RIP. Period.

I'm not much of a geek or a nerd but I am a fan of speed, of performance, of visual pleasantries. XP was fast but was a laggard when it came to graphics. Buying a Mac would require me to rob a bank. Vista tried (very hard) but failed miserably on the performance and graphics front. Then you had all those viruses and worms and trojans and what not. Then you had a piece of software called the antivirus which according to me is the biggest virus 'cos it hogs 1/3rd of your system's memory. Plus Microsoft considers you, the user so very dumb that it decided to hide as many system tools from you as possible. Then you have all those 3rd party apps which cost you a bomb. Combine all this and you have an ecosystem which perhaps aims at world domination (are you listening Google guys?)!!! No more.

Frustrated from all this and having an appetite for a little bit of experimentation, I set out on the road less travelled. I typed the magical link (http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download), and put the Ubuntu torrent on download. It took a painful four and a half long hours for the Ubuntu iso to download (thanks to the BSNL Broadband), but after that everything happened in a jiffy. Got the MD5 checksum done. The Ubuntu guys even suggested an open source image burning software which burned the iso pretty quickly.

But before we go ahead, its a good idea to have multiple partitions on your HDD and your data backup. Boot your system from the Ubuntu CD and select 'Try Ubuntu without making changes to your system'. See whether its playing the sounds, displaying the graphics and connecting to the net. If any of the them don't work, you'll probably need a driver for it.

Reboot.

Installation is guided!!! Select the 'Install Ubuntu' option this time. It takes seven steps to install. The trickiest part is the disk partitioning. Select the guided partitioning (the third option). Give 4 gigs to linux swap, as much as you want to filesystem (selecting ext3) and giving '/' to mount point.

Wallah. You have your Ubuntu ready to be installed. It took my system 20 mins flat to install Ubuntu. Pretty fast!!! Updates take upto an hour to install depending upon your net connection speed. But the results are pleasing. You have a system that's nifty, visually pleasing, no viruses, highly customizable, all the basic applications and complete support @ http://ubuntuforums.org/.

What else does a man (or a woman for that matter) need.

In a world with Linux, we don't need windows and gates!!!

Comfortbly dumb???

2009-06-17T13:26:00.000+05:30

Stumbled upon this piece of news a couple of days back (catch the full article @ http://www.hindu.com/mag/2009/06/07/stories/2009060750090300.htm) and was instantly alarmed, not because its titled in the name of national security, but because of the sheer importance this article holds. Because its about your privacy, my privacy. Because I've been watching too many films like Enemy of the state and their like. Because a senior babu can be privy to your emails, can block your URL, can round up your ISP to cough up your surfing data (yes, they'll know if you visited all those x-rated websites). So much so for the anonymity you longed for. All this in the name of national security.

Yes, whatever you read in the above paragraph is totally correct. An innocuous sounding The Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 seeks to give teeth to existing laws on information technology and cyberspace. And it was hastily passed in the wake of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. You and I were happily sleeping, our supposed vigilante(?) media, which creates a hue and cry when the Indian team gets out of the T-20 World Cup was sleeping. Everyone, was SLEEPING.

Privacy? What's that? More importantly who cares about privacy? True, national security is important. But providing your babus with absolute powers is quixotic. And all this while the laws remains open to interpretation by these people. And talking about ambiguity (intentional?), sample this- unavoidable circumstances are not defined, remote areas are not defined.

As the case already is with us people, we are not sensitive towards the privacy of other people, we are not aware of our privacy rights and all this clearly reflects in the draft. Looks like we are interested more in taking cue from China when it comes to freedom of expression on the net. We all bear testimony to the fact as to how (in)justice was served in The Pirate Bay case.

The net was the last bastion which offered some sort of anonymity and freedom but by the looks of it, those days are soon going to be over. Big Brother is watching. The gestapo is watching. All this while we are sleeping. Comfortably Dumb??? Yes!!!

Are you listening doctor???

2009-06-14T20:52:00.000+05:30

Yesterday I was sitting, happily sipping away on my evening tea when suddenly my phone rang. My friend on the other side sounded quite anxious. He had developed some sort of a bulging on his abdomen and needed to see a good surgeon.

We went to one, considered one of the best in my city. People there were apparently waiting for doctor saab. More than the patients, you had their concerned relatives. You also had an organism, rather organisms, all impeccably dressed, all loaded up with their bags. These organisms are also known as medical representatives. The scheduled time for saab to show up was 6, informed his assistant. We waited. 6.15. 6.30. 6.45. Finally saab decided to show up. Or better still, he took an avatar for the well being of us lesser mortals. The patients and their families (mostly from the villages) bowed (this reminded me of feudalism which still exists, but has metamorphosed).

As soon as saab entered his chamber, chaos ensued outside. Everyone wanted to get hold of saab first. Fair enough. But this reminded me of all those chaotic scenes wherein you have police too, ensuring orderliness. But somehow sanity prevailed and the assistant (no less than a superhero's sidekick) ensured some orderliness. Along with diagnosing, saab also had his chats going on with the medical reps.

I'm sure you too are familiar with such an experience. We see and feel it all too regularly. But it also raises some questions-

Why do we prefer to visit a doctor at his house rather than the hospital?
Does the sarkaari doctor saab diagnose better at home than hospital?
When the patient is paying him his fee, why doesn't he ensure an undivided and undiluted attention? Is talking to the medical rep so very important?
How is a poor person expected to pay 100 bucks as the consultation fee when the minimum wage rate in Rajasthan is 73 bucks?
How is he going to survive the aftershock of buying the supposedly superior patented medicines?
Is anybody listening?

All this simply points to one thing and one thing only. Our medical system is in rots and it has now become untreatable. Many of the doctors are a part of the nexus of some medical companies (with the goodies being delivered to them continuously). Even the private hospitals like Fortis, Apollo and all are not an answer, they're simply out of budget for most Indians. Surely we have tough times ahead.

Doctor, are you listening???

Superpowers???

2009-06-13T08:10:00.000+05:30

Two incidents yesterday made me sit up and ponder over what is happening in India.

Incident 1: The crowd at Lord's erupted at the instance of "Jai Hey" when our national anthem was being sung. I felt immensely proud and almost skipped a heartbeat sitting in front of the tv (even felt that England may very well be on its way to become the 29th Indian state).
Incident 2: While listening to the radio, a person was asked to choose between Brian Lara and another celebrity. Her choice- the other celebrity. The grounds- Lara is black. This incident becomes all the more pertinent in these times given that we are charging people down under as racists.

The two incidents may not be connected to each other, but deep down inside they do pose questions for us, as the citizens, as to how we perceive us in these times, how do we handle the tag of an emerging superpower. One does feel great to be a citizen of an emerging superpower but I feel overtly overwhelmed with all the problems that we have brushed under the carpet. Here are some of the points that trouble me:

It feels good when you are considered as a superpower but its disgusting when the jingoistic rhetoric compares us with China. I'd rather be in a developing country than in a totalitarian, iron fisted, soul-less country like china. Surely we've misplaced our priorities.
Accept it, we are a racist people. Calling people black, our brothers from the north east as chinkis and the list goes on.
I hardly find ourselves a sensitive nation. Handicapped people are still a butt of many a jokes, there are no special provisions like ramps and all for these people (a pattern highly unbecoming of a superpower).
Reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs is fine but talk about giving 1/3rd reservation to women in parliament and our MPs (the male ones) threaten to commit suicide. Some way of displaying male chauvinism.
Instead of sensitising the male youth and curbing eve teasing, girls are advised to carry themselves in a 'certain manner' or simply jeans are banned in colleges for girls!!!
Civic sense is something we can borrow from countries like Japan. Indiscriminate honking on the roads, not paying for our water utility bills to name a few.

Surely we are a better nation than this. We can either aspire to be a nation to be looked up to or with our immensely indifferent attitude be looked down upon. Our hour has come. Its been more than 60 years since we had a tryst with the destiny. We just cannot continue to live in the shadow of being a great assimilating civilization. Something more needs to be done. And by the looks of it, we aren't equipped.....

Of Mini Skirts and Global Warming.....

2009-06-12T13:43:00.000+05:30

The skewed logic is back after a hiatus of one day! And contrary to what you may like to infer from the heading of the blog, its not quite like that. Now coming back to the topic. Me and my friend were having a chat when suddenly at the mention of mini skirts (:D) this idea struck me. It may seem frivolous to you, but read on.

Here's what I propose- mini skirts to combat global warming. It may be contrary to the belief of some people (who think such attire is responsible for the rise in global temprature!). More mini skirts and spaghetti tops equates to lesser global warming. Here's how-

They need lesser cloth to tailor. Lesser cloth= lesser cotton or other synthetic stuff, lesser material needed, lesser wastage.
Lesser dyes, other chemicals and all= eco-friendly.
Lesser weight= lesser use of fossil fuel needed transport= lesser emissions.
Smaller size= smaller packaging= lesser plastic and paper= lesser wastage (yet again, :)).

We all are doing our bit to save our planet. The bitter, oh sorry I meant the better half of the world too should chip in with their effort. And besides all the above stated advantages, mini skirts and spaghetti tops have their inherent advantages too. And we're quite familiar with them, aren't we!!!

Whose morality is it anyway.....

2009-06-10T14:27:00.000+05:30

Statutory warning: The following piece of literature is not against parents and people who belong to the older generation.

Why did I just write the above warning? No, its not because of a legislation or a court order. You'll soon get to know.

How many of us are familiar with this scene- a kid being dragged to a satsang where he/she is subjected to confront a person babbling verses in language only the gods will understand (because its encrypted with a 1024 bit key!!!) and in a tone that hardly illicits devotion (rather it seems the pundit is going through the motions). I'm sure many have suffered (because we too have been at the recieving end). Watch this, don't watch that. Listen to this, don't listen that. Read this, don't read that. This is fine upto an extent (we don't want our youngsters watching, listening or reading all the wrong stuff, do we), but all this becomes too much after an extent. Its like our elders are puppeteering us. Why? In the name of morality. Juxtaposing their version of morality on our sensibilities is the favourite pastime in our nation.

Many of us have studied a dreaded and boring subject called moral science (or something like that) during our schooling. It taught us all that is good and morally correct and even politically correct in some cases. But try standing up for your rights in front of your teacher or parents or elders and surely more often than not, you'll be subjected to this- jaban ladata hai!!! Followed by some sort of punishment (corporal mostly). This is true even when we land up in colleges and post-grad courses.

Unclejis driving their vehicles in the wrong lane, spitting here and there, breaking rules blatantly would love to shower you with their wisdom(?) and more importantly their version of morality. Sanskaar is a buzz word these days for such people and by the looks of it, there is a dearth of it in youngsters. Sirs, would you please explain this to me- why do so many people from your generation get caught on charges of corruption and all? What does this signify? That your elders were pretty unable to discharge you with the right set of morals? Would it be right if I assume so?

Stop this moral onslaught on us. The best way a kid learns stuff is when he/she is exposed to information from all around and allowed to make an informed, unbiased view. If the morality that has been imparted to us is so lame as to keep us a developing nation in these 60 years, then I'm proud to wear this badge- MORALLY IMPAIRED.....

Kick the Butt!!!!! Oh really???

2009-06-09T09:21:00.000+05:30

Attacking tobacco users (misusers for some), especially the smoking kind is in vogue these days. With students to a former health minister (who had nothing better to do than try to stub the butt) to doctors to everyone who's a someone seem to point their energies (i'd rather dub it as frustration) towards cigarettes. I have a fundamental problem rather problems with all this brouhaha going on. Here are some of them (numbered to make it easier to read):

1. If I have the right to vote, I also have the right to smoke. Ban cigarettes if its such a bane. But the government wouldn't because it gets them truck loads of money in the form of taxes.

2. The people who oppose smoking should give up on consuming sweetened carbonated water (that's Coke and Pepsi for you) because they use precious ground water (and you thought I'd start jumping on the pesticide rhetoric!).

3. All of them should also give up on meat because its a proven fact that maintaining livestock increases output of green house gases.

4. Give up on your fossil fuel guzzling vehicles and take to public transport. Even all those vehicles that are not Bharat Stage IV compliant should be thrown out of the roads. After all its the environment you see!!!

5. Stop all the hybrid and electric vehicles propaganda. Batteries still need lead.

6. Discard all those CFL lamps. They've mercury and its tough to dispose.

What? Is it so tough? What makes your actions right and mine wrong? Don't I have the liberty to do as I please? No, I don't smoke around people and make them passive smokers (see I'm a responsible citizen).

Kick the butt??? Forget it.....

My failed attempts at putting a Web Filter

2009-06-07T21:00:00.000+05:30

I have my interns at one of the biggest government office in Rajasthan and my profile is that of a information security consultant (sounds good, doesn't it). The office like most government offices is terrified of the broadband bills that materialise at the beginning of every month. No one seems to use the net, no one seems to download anything but somehow due to some conspiracy the bills seem to get fatter and fatter and fatter.

In comes the consultant (i.e. me) and he's given the mandate of getting things under control. But we won't spend any money, he's told. Fair enough. I'm a great fan of open-source anyways and Untangled Web Server is the most logical answer. It filters the access, its free, its fast and its just what the doctor ordered.What does an office need? Access to mails, some sites, download extensions like .doc, .xls, .pdf and their ilk. You don't need access to porn sites, YouTube, social networking websites, torrents, mp3's, avi's and stuff, chats.

The proposal is made, the iso image (google it if you're new to this term) of Untangle is downloaded (at my own cost, I might add!!!) and everything is good to go. But the office forgot one thing- you need a harware to run a software on. This one required a stripped off P-4, 512 mb ram, 40 gigs of space on the HDD and 2 network cards. A pretty cheap affair for an office with budgets in crores.

But the required resource couldn't be gathered. The filter could not be installed and the fat bills could not be trimmed. Alas, when will we get over our short-sightedness!!!!!

Formals or Jail-clothes???

2009-06-06T12:58:00.000+05:30

Scene 1: "What's with the uniform???", I asked my teacher in primary. No answer. I asked my dad the same seemingly nondescript question. "Discipline son, discipline". "How come?", to which I had no satisfactory answer till date. Ma'am, dad, I'm still waiting for my answer!!!

Scene 2: I decide to go in for an MBA (the first choice of driven unemployed people) and land in Symbi. "Guys Nat Sem!!! Turn up in your college formals.", and I find myself outside the auditorium in formals and sweating in the Pune heat.

What's all this brouhaha with formals? Will someone please explain? Do I become more disciplined? Do I become intellectually superior to people in casuals? Do I become more productive? Take the example of IBM vis-a-vis Google. IBM has always been viewed as a company with executives as cold as steel dressed in blue. Cut to the Google environment where one can come in casuals. Its attracting the best brains too. Does IBM or other such iron-clad companies get the best talent?

And yes, how can I forget the impeccably dressed in three piece suit bankers of the Wall Street who have caused the recent recession (alongwith the junk bond scam they created in the late eighties). Does one become morally upright in a uniform/casuals? Why are the police forces around the world corrupt then? Why are the representatives on Capitol Hill, Sansad (in India) all dressed in casuals corrupt?

I simply cannot understand and people simply don't have answers to this!!!

Where's my Chocosutra.....

2009-06-05T08:15:00.000+05:30

First we had the Kamasutra on TV. Now we have the Aamsutra!!!!! No, I'm not going to go into the moral policing tizzy here. Its just that this ad of Slice had provoked me (not in that sense). It has been on TV for quite some time now and the actress in it, a certain Katrina Kaif displays with oomph why she is ruling the minds of most of the testosterone laden Indian men. Enough with the post mortem of this ad. Lets go back to why I sat down to write this blog. Am not pretty sure which segment of the market this ad targets (see I've read Kotler). But none the less, portraying a mango drink as a medium of foreplay is indeed revolutionary.

Extending this logic further along with my love for chocolates, lets have a sensuous ad for chocolates too. A Chocosutra. Sounds good? Well it should. Chocolates are known aphrodisiacs anyways. And we all know uses of chocolates other than just eating it, don't we!!! Whenever I hear words like temptations for a chocolate brand, it just leaves me pondering why don't we have a good ad for them. If mangos can have Miss Kaif vouching and cringing for them, chocolates surely pose a better proposition.

Any Indian ad agency listening??!!!

US goes Socialistic. Or is it.....

2009-06-03T13:35:00.000+05:30

Breaking news: The US goes socialistic. Well its a stale news actually because their intent should have been clear for people right when Obama announced the $800 billion bailout package. But the latest news in the series i.e. GM going bankrupt (well we all knew GM was a sinking ship, didn't we) should seal the debate once and for all, that the US is showing underpinnings of a socialistic state. The country which long stood as the supporter for free trade and unabashedly supported Adam Smith's laissez faire has to go ahead and interfere in the free functioning of the markets. What now? The markets have given their verdict loud and clear- GM was functioning as a lethargic leviathan and its own actions led to its downfall.

Obama’s speeches and the terms and conditions that followed the bailout package once again ripped off the mask, behind which the US tries to conceal its protectionist nature. There was a time in the US just after the Second World War that many people (including Charlie Chaplin) had to appear before commissions on the charges of being communists. The US had for a long time lambasted the communists and touted the fall of the USSR as the victory of capitalism.

Maybe the US can take a leaf out of a developing country like India which for long has embraced the concept of a welfare state with the leeway for capitalists to create a hybrid- socialism. And this model too has been under attack from the capitalists and they’ve tried their bit to bring in their model of development. Maybe their propagation i.e. spend spend spend will stop now. Not a single bank in India has filed for bankruptcy. The reason? Strong regulation.

Maybe the US will now realise that being a socialist state is not such a bad thing. Maybe they’ll stop wasting. Maybe the US will follow the lean model (due pun intended). Or maybe I’m expecting too much from a spendthrift country where the CEOs fly to Washington in private jets to beg.

What a shame.....

Railway Ministry @ Kolkata???

2009-06-01T22:08:00.000+05:30

A view which has been disturbing me lately has been that of Miss Mamta Bannerjee handling the all important Railway Ministry from Kolkata. When I last checked, the ministry was housed in New Delhi. Agreed ma'am that your love and care for the people of Kolkata has overwhelmed you and that your short term goal is to defeat the communists, but that does not change the facts. You took the oath of a cabinet minister and vowed to serve the people of India and not that of Kolkata only. If you find it so very tough to toggle between your priorities, better leave the burden. Many people will be more than happy to fill into your shoes. And as such, the ministry has been provided to Miss Bannerjee as a reward for helping the UPA. We've already seen how the Trinamool Congress has used Singur for its own advantage only to make the state of Gujarat the beneficiaries. Whiping out controversies and milching out problems from them and not providing solutions has long been the forte of Trinamool.

Don't just look at the people of West Bengal only ma'am, think about the rest of India too. Please don't make your term in the office seem a repeat of Nitish Kumar's.

Freedom of speech!!! Really???

2009-05-27T22:01:00.000+05:30

Jana Gann Mana Rann hai
…is Rann mein
Zakhmi hua hai Bhaarat ka Bhaagya Vidhaata
Punjab Sindh Gujrat Maratha
Ek doosre se ladd ke mar rahein hain
Is desh ne humko ek kiya
Hum desh ke tukdey kar rahein hain
Dravid Utkal Banga
Khoon bahaa ker, ek rang ka kar diya humne tiranga
Sarhadon pe jung aur
Galiyon mein fasaad danga
Vindh Himachal Yamuna Ganga
Mein tezaab ubal raha hai
Mar gaya sab ka zameer
Jaane kab zinda ho aagey
Phir bhi Tava shubh naame jaage
Tava shubh aashish maange
Aag mein jal kar cheekh raha hai
Phir bhi koi nahi sach ko bachaata
Gaahe tava jaya gaatha
Desh ka aisa haal hai lekin
Aapas mein ladd rahein Neta
Jana Gann Mangal daayak jaya hai
Bhaarat ko bacha le Vidhaata!!!
Jaya hai – Ya yeh – Marann hai
Jana – Gann – Mana – Rann hai

These lines are from the forthcoming Ram Gopal Verma movie 'Rann'. The lyrics couldn't have come at a more opportune time when sectarian politics in India is on a rise and people are trying to differentiate between the civilians on the basis of their linguistic allegiances. But what does our executive do when someone tries to point out the obvious? They go ahead and ban it. Or demand moderation on the part of the filmmaker. And what does our judiciary do? They pat the executive's back and say- we won't tolerate tampering with the national anthem.

But what use is a national anthem to its citizens if it cannot bind them into a nation? It is a classic case of high handedness of the executive and the judiciary. The nation is burning and we turn a blind eye to it. Pretty shameful. Secondly, whatever happened to our 'freedom of expression'? It seems like we are still living under the 'Raj'. The very bastions it created still exist and they hinder the very freedom of expression we yearn for.

Agreed the song very crudely portrays how the Indian union is degenerating into a mess of selfish states, crude enough to make you stand up and take notice. Because sometimes you need to shout to be heard. Churchill once said- desperate times call for desperate measures. These surely are desperate times.

We fought for the same freedom and what do we get? We have a relic of the past called the Censor Board which with its handful of members decides what is suitable for a billion people. And according to it, we aren't supposed to call a spade a spade. People spewing venom against religions go scott free. Even linguistic chauvinism goes scott-free in our country but when someone tries to raise his/her voice against it, they try to muffle it.

So much so for freedom of speech. I’m disillusioned!!!

Punjab needs to settle down

2009-05-26T08:40:00.000+05:30

An old Communist adage goes like this- religion is akin to opium. And the 'rioters' in Punjab seem hell bent to prove this true. People there seem to be under the influence of some narcotics or else how do you explain all the damage to the public property inflicted by rioters. A religious leader is fired upon in Vienna and how do his supporters react to it? By going berserk and destroying 'easy targets' like buses, trains. The situation got so tense that even the army had to be called in. The police had to fire upon the same people which it swore to protect. What a sight- the state has to protect a set of civilians from another!!!

And such incidents are rising as India is 'developing' (?).

Gandhi once said that religion and politics need to be separate. But Punjab seems to believe in contradicting it. The political establishment there would not do anything to contravene the SGPC. Guru Nanak did not belong to any political establishment nor did he have any political aspirations. The things against which he founded the Sikh community such as the oppression by the clergy is precisely what is happening as of now. The SGPC calls all the shots.

There is no place for violence and vigilante justice in a society. If the public takes laws into its hands, it becomes a mob and there is only one way to curtail mob violence.

We cannot let our country become a 'banana republic'.....

Are You Nuts?!!!

2009-05-24T10:15:00.000+05:30

Modi mulls two IPLs every year (http://ipl.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4569624.cms)!!! You must be joking, right?! No?! Then sir I'm sorry to say you're in some opium eater's paradise. IPL was a success, IPL 2 seems to be a bigger one (even after being hosted overseas). But now things are getting too far. Already the cricketing schedules of countries are jam packed and you want to slip in one more IPL?! Sir the players are still humans when I last checked and not bots.

This move, if successful will kill test cricket and will take the sheen away from one day cricket. This proposal is blatantly outrageous and for people like me for whom cricket is like a religion, its blasphemous! This is a classic case of killing the golden egg laying goose. Some may argue that T-20 is a young man's game and that having two IPL's in a year will not affect them much, but consider these facts- the Orange cap holder this time around is Matthew Hayden, who was an excellent test player and is in his late thirties. Remember the innings Gilchrist palyed in the semis (85 off 35 bowls), who just like his fellow countryman Hayden is in his late thirties.

T-20 is not quite the slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am kind of version of cricket. Rather IPL 2 has clearly shown that it has place for test veterans too alongwith the young blood.

Mr. Modi, an advice- don't overdo it, its only going to kill test cricket!!!

Kudos to Indian Public :)

2009-05-16T12:12:00.000+05:30

The Indian Public has once again proved how intelligent and uncanny it can be! Just when all the smaller regional parties were salivating at the prospect of a hung assembly wherein they can play the role of kingmakers and demand lucrative ATM ministries (remember some of the netas who are eternal ministers irrespective of who forms the government), the Indian voter turned their dreams upside down. Consider this- two national parties together getting 300+ seats. The verdict is clear- we want stable government at the center.

This should also act as an eye opener for all those contestants who did not have a control over their language and lashed out against each other using vocabulary which is highly unbecoming of aspiring national leaders. Such people have been rejected outright by the masses.

A note of caution to the Left parties too- consider your 2004 Loksabha performance to be a fluke. You guys have been flushed away from states like West Bengal and Kerela which have since long been their bastion. Development pays, oppose it and you pay!!!

And my best wishes to all those Prime Ministerial candidates- better luck next time. Maybe in five years time, you guys will acquire all those skills which make the people vote.

Finally for UPA, you guys have been given a powerful mandate by the people to carry on the reforms. Don't fiddle away the advantage.

Long live the democracy, long live the Indian voter.....

Should we have elections more frequently during recessions???

2009-05-14T07:29:00.000+05:30

A piece of article on Wall Street Journal goes like this- "India's month-long federal elections may have an unintended beneficiary -- the economy, as political parties boost spending at a time when the government's own finances are stretched". Catch the entire article @ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124221399629814801.html

The slowdown isn't going anywhere in the near future, the exit polls show that there is no single largest coalition. Extending the logic given in the article, we ought to benefit from an indecisive and unstable government at the center. Not only will it ensure a re-election in the near future, but it'll help stimulating the economy. And people say that our beloved (?) netas are good for nothing!

The US should particularly take a leaf out of this Indian experience because there the money flows in the light during the elections (in the name of lobbying, but its a different story altogether). A sagging US economy is not a good news for anyone. So the politicians there should pass a resolution wherein they would conduct elections on a yearly basis, so long as its required to drive the recession away! The bailout package isn't showing much stimulus anyways, maybe this idea will work.

India shows the way, once again.....

I won't vote!!!!!

2009-05-05T14:09:00.000+05:30

The television news channels, newspapers and other media sources are rife with the great Indian tamasha called the General Elections. This time around everyone wants us- the general public to vote. Even the Bollywood stars are calling us out on the election day to vote! You are a 'pappu' if you don't vote- they want us to believe. Yes, whatever!!!

But I won't vote. The reason is simple. The candidates are just not good enough. Sample this- there are two candidates in your area- one has been convicted for 3 murders and the other has been convicted for 8 rapes. Who do I vote for? The murderer or the rapist. But vote I must. So they say. Should I vote for the lesser evil out of the two then? But who decides what is the lesser evil?

Hence the decision. I WON'T VOTE!!!

IPL 2: Are you enjoying

2009-04-21T21:46:00.000+05:30

Cricket is a religion in India. It’s a battered cliché. But as is the case with religions, they are hijacked by the pundits, the clergy and their ilk and are milked until it starts to bleed. Getting back to the religion that unites a rather divided India, cricket and IPL in particular proves just this point. IPL 1 was a success, no doubt about it. It proved comprehensively that the cricketing moolah emanates out of the Indian subcontinent. The fans had a good time, the players minted money, the franchisees and the sponsors had a roll and our very own BCCI filled up its coffers to overflowing levels apart from accomplishing world domination.
Fair enough. As an aspiring superpower we ought to have a heavy hand, at least in some aspects (no pun intended). But IPL 2 is a classic example of how ‘money is the worst servant’. Agreed that the BCCI was hard-pressed to move IPL out of India due to the democratic drama that will take place, but they should have at least thought of the millions of Indians who would watch the advertisement laden cricketing extravaganza. Point? Well barring the first two matches, all the other matches till date have been spoiled by the intervention of the rain gods. Duckworth Lewis in a T-20 match, pretty shameful. In this instalment of IPL, it has become a norm rather than an exception. Ladbrokes and other betting sites would be overflowing with bets wherein instead of betting for a team, people are betting on when will the rains start (due pun intended). The choice of venue couldn’t have been worse.
As if this was not enough, we now have ‘strategy breaks’ of 7.5 minutes in each innings. Brainchild of Mr. Modi, they are supposed to facilitate fabulous strategies. If a team is getting hit all around the park, take wickets. If you are not high on the run rate, start hitting the ball all over the place. It’s that simple in T-20. Pretty elementary Mr. Modi, wouldn’t you say!!!!
Sorry to disappoint the BCCI, but till now IPL 2 isn’t half as good as its predecessor. You guys are killing the golden goose. Or should I say ‘exploiting’. Heck, don’t be surprised if you wake up tomorrow only to find out that the goose is in the court of law charging the BCCI for ‘harassment’.

The Shoe.....

2009-04-17T21:09:00.000+05:30

We've had a recent spate of events wherein the Common Man has taken up a stand. A stand wherein he has taken off his shoes and hurled it at our beloved (?) political leaders. Yes the same leaders who blatantly abuse each other at public forums without an iota of shame on their battle hardened faces, the same leaders who would not think twice before throwing mikes at each other, the same leaders who would field in Prime Ministerial candidates who are in their 80's in a country where the median age is around 32 years, the same leaders who will field in a certain candidate who is ready to pay money to anyone who gets him the head of a certain Danish cartoonist.

Is the Common Man wrong in taking such a stand?! Probably yes, probably no.

I'd say he isn't wrong. Cause and Effect, yes this theory is my best bet to defend myself on this count. You may say that we are a democracy and this is not how we should express ourselves. Agreed. But try and ask what democracy means to a person who is working in an Anganwadi (National Scheme) earning a measly Rs. 3.33 per day if the number of students is less than 20. Ask yourself- are you proud of the fact that you live in a country which wants to call itself a 'super-power' and where malaria still exists, where infant mortality rates would put a third world African nation to shame.

Consider all these facts and then ask yourself whether hurling a shoe is worthwhile or not. It works for me if a person blamed for evoking Anti-Sikh emotions in Delhi leading to the 1984 Delhi Riots is not given a ticket for contesting the Lok Sabha elections because a 'flying shoe' woke up 'the grand old party of India'.

Long live the shoe.....