Just Between The Two of Us

ITIL Framework and Corp Ladder

2009-07-27T22:16:00.006+08:00

A conversation on a typical cloudy day in the life of an IT engineer.Replace this with your own IT platform (we the IT engineers and railway beggars are very terretorial when it comes to his/her platform) and your techno-jargons.

IT Engineer : We have a problem with our system...the Websphere connection pool...it's reaching the maximum number of cursors that can be opened for the CRM database that we just upgraded to the latest version supplied by the vendor. Users are complaining on slowness of the system and some are unable to login.

IT Boss : Oh ok...so the pool issue ummm...ummm...get someone to look into it. I gotta rush for the problem management meeting. Get me the ETA in mail (waving his blackberry ) ...say in the next 30 mins. And make sure you raise the problem ticket.

Chances are in the next 30 mins, the IT engineer will be surfing his surf-board across the treachorous waves of IBM Manual, IT Toolbox groups, blogpages rendered via google.Then at the magical moment he will hit upon some page written by someone who had banged his/her head on the wall in a similar fashion. The dimaag-ki-batti will shine with the glory of a thousand sun. The websphere connection pool settings optimum parameter values will present themselves as if leggy female models strutting across the fashion ramp.

Chances are in the next 30 mins,the IT boss will be blabbering his higher management on the 33 point structured approach methodology. In all comming meeting this methodology will be used to measure the data quality and availability. That very data which will be collected across 43 non-structured approach of calculating something that need not be calculated at all.

Chances are in the next 30 mins,the IT Managment feel very bored and ask the manager to add 44-th,45-th and 46-th data trend and decide the date for the next meeting.

The funny part is higher you climb,the more detached you get from the real world and the real problems.Sitting below the alter of the great board-president and his cohorts, the high priests religously track excel sheets hoping the issues get sorted out themselves.

Long live the ITIL framework and its holy practioners. Jai ho.

Sankat City : Almost there

2009-07-26T04:58:00.006+08:00

Immediate first reactions first
-------------------------------------
1."Ekdum bheja-fry...paar fultu solid boss", that's how the Mumbaiya lingo would describe this phillum.
2. After a long long time,there's a Hindi movie( Rajashri pics not counted in ) that got hordes of characters. And every one of them is relevant to the plot.
3. Situational comedy that gets surreal at times. And oh boy, what a level of never seen before surreality.
4. The sincerity of the entire team is captured in frame to frame.
Not a single character is extra soft or extra loud than the scripts demands.
Chunkey Pandey excluded, but then again since when did you watch Chunkey Pandey for his acting skills.

But...but...but...after so many decades we could have had a worthy successor to Jane Bhi Do Yaroon ...sadly we didn't.

Handling so many characters with so much details is the biggest strength and weakness of this movie. Trying to establish each and every character's traits in the shortest possible time, as the story unfolds, the director seemed to have lost it midway.

To prove the point ask a simple question : Which of the characters do you feel for across the reels ?

Personally I didn't feel for anyone in the movie. Neither love, nor hatred. And it's either one of the two emotions that pulls you for the second viewing. As for me there was no attachment or connection to the characters, so not sure whether there will be a planned second viewing.

Having said all these, let me repeat again and again there are scenes and dialogues in this movie that'll be treasured in my grey cells for a long time to come.

Like the mermaid dream sequence,
like the moon and the bubblegum scene,
like the Manoj Pawa's description of Sikandar Khan's body,
like the Ash without Abhishek request

And for these gems, Pankaj Advani aap ke liye A VERY BIG SALUTE. Saar next time there's no escape...it's got to be even crazier than this.

Flogging the dead blog

2009-07-20T02:32:00.005+08:00

From now on this blog will try to rise out of the ashes successfully like the Phoneix or as unsucessfully as Mr. Ricky Ponting.

Any thing blog-worthy like

1. The U,V,W,X,Y or Z turns of the econonic downturn which is as cyclical as Yahoo Shammi Kapoor's pelvic thrusts while gyrating to "Aao Twist Kaare". Seriously yaar ! I keep on hearing that there's been the biggest recession since 1920s but no banker yet to committed suicide by jumping from the Wall Street sky-scrapers. Is something fishy-fishy going under the water. Somebody needs to do a deep-dive.

2. Slippery oil prices slipping up and down as if a monkey climbing an oiled bamboo. Up it goes three centimeters and down it comes two centimeters, so Bablu tell me how long will it be till the bandaar stops the pole dancing and be content eating the banana.

3. Manmohona UPA goberment and Pranab-babu's bujet which was even less colorful than Mannu-ji "you can have it in any color so long as it is buloo" paagdi. On a related note I cannot think of any Kangress politician with a colorful wardrobe. Sonia-ji's favorite color is white,Rahul like it white... and take others A.K. Anthony,S.M.Krishna,Pranab Mukherji it's a "Kyun chaunk gaaye Tide" ad. Now realising what a pivotal role Shivraaj Patil played in the last ministry.

4. Budhdo-babu whose only difference with his Russian counterpart Gorbachev would be that after the left are left no-where,the poor guy won't get a teaching job at the Kolkata University Bangla Dept. Sooner or later Momota didi who is her unique way is a Lady Yell-It-Queen would take over the reigns. As Nokur-mama would've said with a disapproving nod "Ghor Koli..Ghor Koli !!"

5. Brain dead Hollywood flicks where New York will be ravaged one more time by
A)Aliens
B)Natural Disaster
C)Robots
D)Zombies
or a combination of two or more of the above mentioned forces.
While the Bollywood director saab will watch and rewatch these flicks and cut-copy-paste with
A) Heavy dosage Kiron Kher as the loud Punjaabi Maa
B) A Fibreless zero calorie heroine
C) Heavy Moral Fibre ( Compensating on the fibre department where the hero won't sleep or kiss the heroine without the saat-phere)
D) lil bit of SRK hamming + Bachchan Sr voiceover
= Lo kaar lo baat baan gaya nah hit phillum formula

will be followed like a paparazzi, stripped like a LA lap-dancer and then blogged like umm whatelse a worthless blogger.

In short nothing will be spared, including reader's sanity. So keep on following at your own peril.

Basically Blah

2008-06-07T17:38:00.002+08:00

From the BBC article "Who knows why oil prices are high"

So what is it that moves oil prices up and down?
"It's the fundamentals, stupid," says Mark Lewis from Energy Market Consultants.
The fundamentals are factors that influence the supply of, and demand for, oil.

"We really don't know what the fundamentals are doing at any point in time," Mr Lewis says.
"The markets are looking for signals from the fundamentals. Some of them are irrelevant, some of them are wrong, some of them are meaningless, but they affect prices nevertheless."

Believe me this two paragraphs are from the same article which finally says no body has any clue why the oil-prices have gone high. Another case of a confidently confused analyst. Wish I got a job like Mr. Lewis that pays me for uttering gibberish.

Olympia : Gods' Abode

2008-06-07T11:07:00.002+08:00

Oly beef steak --- Just ask any true-blue Kolkatan about it and if he/she doesn't get misty eyed with nostalgia there's definitely a problem with that bugger's lineage.

Did you know Ritwik Ghatak had his last drink with Uttam Kumar in this pub discussing about their next film. Ghatak had a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital where he took his last breath. There are so many such stories associated with the stalwarts of Bong-heartland and this pub. I wish someone comes up with a book on the known and unknown stories of this legendary pub on the Park Street.

Long live Oly pub and its steaks -- HIC

[ pic courtesy : Oly pub group on Facebook ]

It's all becoz of the software bug

2008-05-22T21:21:00.001+08:00

If you've seen the movie Office Space, you must remember the priceless expression on the faces of the 3 software programmers, when they found out that their money swindling virus that was supposed to deduct a few pennies only, has amassed a whooping $305,326.13 only a day after it was introduced. And this was followed by the declaration from Micheal Bolton with a dead-pan humor that it must've been a bug in the code that he overlooked.

Phew...sometimes real life follows the reel life!!!

The estimated 500+ billion dollar losses in sub-prime will now be attributed to a software glitch that apparently caused wrong AAA+ ratings for these stinky investments.

Somewhere in some corner of this zaleem IT world, entrapped in a cubicle, a computer programmer is scanning through lines and lines of if-else loops and is sweating a lot. Don't worry bro, pretty soon to save their own skin and regain the investor's faith in this "your guess is as good or as bad as mine" type silly economics, they'll implement another mandatory auditing like SOX or BASEL2.

So wipe those beads of sweat and hang on there.... you'll be back in action in no time adding more else-s to the ifs.

The Outsider

2008-04-27T16:38:00.001+08:00

The Outsider has always been my favourite novel. My admiration started in the early pages where the main character Meursault informs his boss about his mother's death and adds "I am sorry", before realising he needn't have said that. Since opposite attracts, that was the moment the hypocrite in me feel in love with the urtmost honest Meursault -- an outsider to anything and everything surrounding him.

As they say, life really moves in circles. Last Friday morning I got a SMS from a colleague saying that he has to fly back home as his dad has passed away and he sincerely apologizes for any inconviniences caused. In my ideal deja-vu WTF moment I realised we all have become the Outsider from our own surroundings. And then I typed in "Take care...sorry to hear abt ur father.."

Sub-prime Crisis and Silence of the Liberal Bloggers

2008-02-03T13:31:00.001+08:00

Around U.S. $200 billions went down the drains.

Around U.S. $135 billions were written off by taking loans from Mid East and China.

Around 10 biggies in Wallstreet laid off their CEOs or if the CEO was spared then who-ever he/she found to take the blame.

And all because of this ?

We can be either sprititual and blame that human greed is the cause all the woes.
Or try be pragmatic and pin-point that the major cause was the lack of regulations.

The proponents of free market solutions to anything and everything from child-education to saving extinct species - the leading liberal bloggers of desi blogosphere are suspisiously silent on the issue.

But knowing their shortsightedness [1] it's neither suprising nor amusing.

[1] Almost all the subprime SIVs had AAA ratings by all leading rating agencies. How do you apply caveat emptor in these situations.

DEJA VU

2007-12-05T02:49:00.000+08:00

The landscape is a trapestry of dried yellow grass and brown patches of rocky infertile soil. The only touch of greenery are the weeds that thrive even on these desperate conditions. The sole remains of anything remotely human is the broken shack at the extreme left-hand corner of the picture I am trying to paint. The cracked walls with missing bricks here-n-there complement the torn down roof . The large rectangular voids outside and inside are the reminders that once upon a time there was a door to this house and some windows as well. There should be a broken bath-tub lying outside to depict that someone someday had a nice bath here under the sun.

A twisted tree without any leaves throwing its branches in an angry retort stands against the backdrop of the sky. The dead bark fills up the empty right-hand corner with the mighty emptyness of its presence. What shall we colour the sky ? Dusky Orange ? Murky noonish yellow ? Nah...I'll make it the morning reddish tinge on the light blue background. And there shall be no clouds. Drawing the clouds is making promise of rain and out here the promises have been carried to the grave and whispered by the spirits. Human ears are deaf to such alien pronounciation of dead hopes from the never to be falling raindrops.

To complete my picture and the story there shall be an unceremonious grave at the foot of the dead tree. Engraved on the tomb-stone will be the words "DEJA -VU".

We all have one such picture stored somewhere in our grey cells. What's your picture look like ?

Rukawat ke liye khed hain

2007-10-29T02:23:00.000+08:00

As I keyed in my username/password into blogger login pages, my request was immediately heard by the ever alert login process. Wasting not even a nano-second it immediately forked a thread to probe into the blogger database and returned with the details of my user profile. The log-in process made no error to remind me that my last post was on Mar 27-th.

Had it been attached to the code snippet to handle emotions,it surely would've added the extra words "Lazy bum your last login was May 27-th". But last heard Google labs haven't had met with success in doing so --- so mercifully I was spared of the humiliations.

Coming back to the topic of long absence between the period of India booted out of 50 overs WC to India lifting T20 WC --- it's really been a long time since my browser has opened the blogger URL. Frankly speaking blogging was replaced by slogging at the office after a job change in May.
But that's not an excuse for there are hell lot of blogger --who work 26 hours a day yet continues to churn out posts with nearly the same regularity as the toiling obstetricians in the maternity wards around the country continues to show the light of the day to newer babies.

So the real excuse is my inability to prioritize the fine splits of minutes spent in deciding which topping and which bread to choose from the Subway offering to something more creative like writing a blog. But then again the moment I try to write a blog the question arise what topic to write about. Usually the easiest to pick up is the nautanki provided by politicos both desi and videsi variety. Sadly by the time I scourge through my RSS subscriptions to find a news and do a google search for the finer details all it returns is 50000 links by more alert bloggers.

So next in list cometh the movie reviews --- infact everytime I see a movie I mentally write a blog post about it. But then again the moment I come to print about it I see another 600000 techorati tags showing the same content. Baffled by the stiff competiton I am forced for a change of marketing strategy -- tread in the least treaded paths ---switch to personal experiences.

As soon as this proposal is placed in the shareholders meeting of grey-cells in my brain who are responsible for maintaining this blog , the pluses and minuses are being weighed by the legal team. Any De-saad esque escapades are a strict no-no, else as the great Baburao Apte said "Raat ko Ramlaal ke saath sona padega". So what remains is still a dangling question mark pf what's left whose curve is no joy to look at.

Till I straighten out the "kutte ki teri doom" types question mark, my regularity of posts will be comparable to the times Fardeen Khan gets the best actor of the year award. On second thoughts make it the number of times CPM threatens to withdraw support from UPA . That'll ensure atleast 3 posts a quarter.

ps: To all the kind hearted souls that kept asking online in blog/orkut or offline about what happened to this blog, this post thanks u all for reminding me to blog while I slog. Otherwise living is all about just inhaling O2 and exhaling CO2...not much fun it that.

Off-Stumped Vision

2007-03-27T18:54:00.000+08:00

It was the worst of times and it was the worst of times. Of the two firangi coaches in Indian subcontinent, one was left murdered after an un-predictable defeat and the other was seen hiding behind a bullet-proof glass while his team was getting booted out of world cup. That, in short, was how cricketing fate of two neighbors had been over the last one week.

While Bob Woolmer's yet to be solved murder mystery throws a light on the criminalization of the gentleman's game, India's defeat and the aftermath surely shows the huge scale of commercialization of the game. The only thing common between legitimate and illegitimate businessmen sitting on the two sides of the fence is the exorbitant amount of money they throw in.

But the glaring difference lies in the fact that while betting rings can hedge their investments, the corporate world doesn't have much cushion when their logo displaying players flop. So likewise the hype is created before the tournaments, the media thrashing is largely driven by interests of those who have invested into this circus. That's probably I'm ranting my investment of S$100/- that allowed me to watch only 3 matches played by India.

I'm now curious how the corporate world will implement the hedging concept when they will sign the next contracts with these walking bill-boards. Would there be penalty clause for every catches dropped, every ball misjudged and every extras bowled? If that be the case then the cricketers could hedge their earnings by secret tie-ups with the betting association for each of these penalties. So the thrill will be in speculating for every ball bowled whether the sponsor paid more for the batsman to hit a six or the better paid more to give a lolly catch to a pre-determined fielder. Just like stocks and bonds, the game of cricket will again enjoy the odds of uncertainty making the matches worthwhile watches. Also if you have access to inside information, you can make some hay while the sun shines.

And those of you complain about Krish Srikant's nonsensical analysis – there’s good news for you as well. In future you might see these ex-cricketers replaced with market analysts and conmen who’ll be much more knowledgeable on the odds and evens of the game than those who have wielded the willow. Add a lil dash of Rakhi Sawant and Mandira Bedi to this cocktail and what you get will be total entertainment.

Till all these goodies come to the cricketing world, left with much less option, I'll be cheering for Sri Lanka in this world cup, for their obvious Bong Connection.

Amar Naam-Tomar Naam, Nandigram-Nandigram !!

2007-03-19T18:36:00.000+08:00

"Amar Naam-Tomar Naam, Vietnam-Vietnam" [ English: My name-Your name is Vietnam-Vietnam]

This was the slogan that as a young leader Budhadev had been shouting his lungs out across the streets of Kolkata. Because then Vietnam was merely not a country located somewhere in SE Asia - it was an ideology that defined what fighting spirit meant. It was an ideology that took side of the David against the Goliath - the ill-equipped Vietkongs against the mighty American Imperialism.

But that was long-long time ago – more than three-four decades ago. During these dull times of sinking WB economy, Buddhadev rose from his student leadership days to become the C.M. of West Bengal. From the day one he made one point clear - he was a no-nonsense C.M. whose motto was to bring back the long-lost economic glory of W.B. Everyone was glad to see a communist leader who earnestly speaks of foreign investments, disinvestments, importance of private sectors and so on.

After sometime his efforts paid off – investors started coming in. We were beginning to shred off our usual skeptical "Kissu hobe nah" attitude and start dreaming with Brand Buddha. Of course the distracters were there - a group of disgruntled intellectuals, bunch of disillusioned Naxalites and a crazy opposition who kept on saying this was not the way towards prosperity. We didn't pay any heed to these barking dogs and prayed for the caravan to pick up the gears.

Then came the Singur SEZ controversy - so far we were told industrialization meant heavy investments, creation of a lot of new jobs, improved lifestyle for all - in short Sonar Bangla at your doorsteps. But why do the farmers and share-croppers disapproved the idea of sacrificing their lands for our bright future. We were initially assured they are only a handful; the majority has already willingly given their share of land to this noble purpose.

The problem was in an age where information is accessible like never before, the claims of the government were very short-lived. We saw faces of hopeless farmers, whose sole means of livelihood were getting snatched, telling their side of the story on our television. We were shaken but not stirred - we thought these people need to be explained the importance of industrialization. Only then they will happily jump in the party.

Meanwhile the opposition leader Mamnta Bannerji started her brand of gimmick politics and a series of bandhs ensued. The govt. responded in its usual arrogant manner. Still we were waiting for good sense to prevail and open the windows to the dawn of prosperity. Contrary to our hope, things worsened to the extent of fencing the proposed factory side and declaring curfew to prevent people from bringing down those fences.

While Singur was creating the waves, the next proposed area for SEZ or rather a part of it, Nandigram was feeling the tremors. Without much surprises the villagers at Nandigram retorted back, saying a “BIG NO” to land acquisition for the proposed SEZ. But where the surprise came was the intensity with which they fought back. Such was the furore that local party cadres of CPI-M had to flee their houses - this was something never seen before incident in rural Bengal - the strongest hold of CPI-M support in Bengal.

Meanwhile back at Kolkata Writers Building, the government was chalking out its next plan of action - how to win the confidence of the denizens of Nandigram. To restore orders back at Nandigram[read to reinstate CPI-M ], a 4000 strong police force marched their way towards the villages. What followed next was the biggest bloodshed that Midnapore ever witnessed since the days when Matangini Hazra unfurled the Indian tri-color in Tamluk.

The acquisition of fertile land, the figures for a just compensation, the SEZ way of industrialization - were no longer a matter of political debate over a cup of tea. The intensity of the terror was more than enough for us to be both shaken and stirred. In fact for the first time since these movements have started, there was a strike that received support from the general public. But what were we protesting against the brutal tactics of LF government or supporting the plight of the farmers?

Were we protesting against the neo-liberal economy that as opposed to classical capitalism doesn't create its own infrastructure? Neither does it ensure equal growth for all the people. Or were we showing our disapproval of SEZ which in itself a declaration of our handicap to ensure that investments can happen anywhere without providing additional carrots for the investor. May be it was a little bit of all of it, which at the end of the day, brought us face to face with the ruthless reality of the neo-liberal economy.

With govt declaring that no land will be acquired for SEZ over there, Nandigram might return to normalcy, may be over a period of time people will forget about the deaths, but the debate over which is the correct avenue to prosperity needs to happen. Do we really need the SEZs - where labor laws are relaxed (ie. easier exploitation), where the govt indirectly use my tax money to support Mr. Money-Bag Investor? Do we need to revisit our decadent land laws - does the right to own property or even more the right to livelihood qualify for a rethinking? Another aspect is with more stress of heavy/medium industries what role agriculture play in WB economics ? Will it co-exist with industrial cities in and around the fertile Gangetic Delta or will be dispensed away.

Until these questions are answered the brand Buddha might have the halo - but it will fail to illuminate us in these times of darkness. Until then Nandigram will signify the indomitable spirit of freedom - the freedom to live with head held high. And who knows may be today’s youth who'll be tomorrow's leaders are already shouting on the streets of Kolkata "Amar Naam-Tomar Naam, Nandigram-Nandigram".

ps: Sunil Ganguly, possibly the biggest name among living Bengali writers and also an ardent Buddhadev fan said that for a C.M, Buddha is remarkable in terms of the number of Sunil's poems he recites from memory. There was also a poem penned by the C.M's uncle Sukanta Bhattacharya about how the stairs that you climb in an effort to reach heights have their own revenge by toppling you down in Emperor Humayun style. I hope with his photographic memory Buddhababu still remembers those lines while planning for the next course of action.

Update: Hypocrisy takes a new meaning when the CPI-M will hold protests against the Reliance-promoted SEZ of Navi Mumbai on Friday.

India Uncut : Dude Where Does My Magazine Subscription Go ?

2007-03-08T22:02:00.000+08:00

Amit ~~Verma~~Varma, undoubtedly India's most-read blogger, had crossposted an article from Mint about the how the dumb-headed babus at GoI offices are chanelling our tax money for purposes that ulimately serve no-one. To prove his case, he cites our FM's allocation of "Rs. 563.88 crores for the Department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy" in 07 budget.

These days we are getting so much used to read these kinda news. I even developed a natural reflex action - Read the story, then take a deep sigh and if the figures are too high nodd your head heavily in disapprovement. If the figures are not too high, nodd my head less vehmently, while chucking out a Tsk-tsk sound out of my tounge. When all these steps are over, I finally get back to my life and forget about the misuse of my tax-money. Somehow today I went beyond my natural reflex action and instead of a deeper sigh, took the deeper googling route to this piece of news item. A little probe lead me to this particular government department's (also known by sweet acronym AYUSH) website.

What I gathered from this website that folks in this department are supporting:

753 Ayurvedic hospitals with a total bed-capacity of 35182
223 Homoeopathy hospitals with a total bed-capacity of 11205
15193 Ayurvedic dispensaries and 5634 Homoeopathy dispensaries
450 UG Colleges with an admission capacity of 24880
57 PG Colleges with an admission capacity of 2128
9493 manufacturing units of which 7997 are producing Ayurvedic medicines.

If these figures don't carry any meaning, let me share another fact from their Citizen's Charter [link in pdf] - Among this list, there is the Advanced Ayurvedic Centre for Mental Health in none-other than the renowned medical institute NIMHANS. Now if NIMHANS can be claimed as a center for psuedo-science, then probably Freud was a voodo magician too.

Asides from all these figures AYUSH is responsible for enforcing the quality control for all Ayurvedic, Homeopathic and natural medicines. In other words they are responsible that we are not sold cow-urine in the name of natural medicines. Not sure if that pisses off Amit or not.

Also if you want to know more about what happens to your tax money at AYUSH, here's one more info - AYUSH also manages the company known as Indian Medicines Pharmacutical Corporation Ltd. This is one of those sarkaari units that, to the joy of the libertarians around blogging world, the GoI hope to disinvest. Incidentally this company's net worth is Rs. 316 crore and made a profit Rs.0.77 crore in 2003 as per the last figure Google could obtain for me from the net.

So does the allocation of Rs.563.88 crores to AYUSH sounds money going to drains? After browsing through all these figures, even my most skeptic avatar also fails to agree that AYUSH is something similar to moustache allowance of Lucknauwi Havaldar.

Before making my point about Amit's nearly research-less work, let me put the disclaimer I am in no way a fan of our FM, neither I say GoI is the best when it comes to plan the crores of tax-payers' money. In fact if somebody decides to rank the governments around globe for planning their expenses, I've no doubt India's position in the list might be even worse than its FIFA ranking.

Having said that let me come back to the point I'm trying to make. Unlike any other fukat-main-blog-likhnewala blogger, Amit is a journalist who's paid by the paper that publishes his articles. Being paid for these articles makes him even more responsible for checking the facts and figures before making it to print. As far his blogging is concerned, it's his blog - his own space in this big WWW. He is fully entitled to write whatever he feels like. Heck, I wouldn't mind even if he cook-up gossips about the Bollywood nymphets without backing them up with hard evidence.

But Amit dude, when it comes to serious journalism, please do make it a point to do your research work (it took me only 10-15 minutes of surfing time ) just to see if any single paisa of the enormous Rs. 563.88 crore has been put to any good use or not. Otherwise your articles are no different from those extra-imaginative journos at HT Tabloid who get paid to update us about Bipasha Bose and Celina Jaitley's sex life at regular intervals that you keep on cribbing about. Atleast I don't have sources to verify their stories and also I don't hear the nymphets protesting about misquotes.

Looking at the state of things, may be I should to start a series of posts on "Where does your Magazine Subscription fees Go?". The first in the series would definitely touch upon aspects of "Funding the Cow-Lover" to pay for his broadband connection which happens to be a prime requirement for his bovine Google Search.

ps: Bongopondit's take on the same AYUSH fund allocation in the lines of why bio-technology gets only a fraction more to natural medicine was much more sensible than Amit's take. Then again, he's not paid a single cent to write about it. May be that is where the difference between passion and profession kicks in.

The Q-Factor

2007-02-27T21:09:00.000+08:00

The Q factor for Physics
The Wikipedia defines :

The Q factor or quality factor compares the time constant for decay of an oscillating physical system's amplitude to its oscillation period. Equivalently, it compares the frequency at which a system oscillates to the rate at which it dissipates its energy. A higher Q indicates a lower rate of energy dissipation relative to the oscillation frequency. For example, a pendulum suspended from a high-quality bearing, oscillating in air, would have a high Q, while a pendulum immersed in oil would have a low one.

A higher Q indicates a lower rate of energy dissipation relative to the oscillation frequency. For example, a pendulum suspended from a high-quality bearing, oscillating in air, would have a high Q, while a pendulum immersed in oil would have a low one.

The Q factor is particularly useful in determining the qualitative behavior of a system. For example, a system with Q less than or equal to 1/2 cannot be described as oscillating at all, instead the system is said to be in an overdamped (Q < q =" 1/2)"> 1/2, the system's amplitude oscillates, while simultaneously decaying exponentially. This regime is referred to as underdamped.

The Q factor for Indian Politics
The Wickedopedia defines :

The Q factor or the Quattrocchi factor compares the time constant for decay of an oscillating Indian political system's amplitude to its swinging periods.

A higher Q indicates lower rate of political energy dissipation relative to the parliamentarian hungama frequency. For example, when the skeletons at the Congress closet start rattling, the parliament would have a high Q factor. While when the closet is well guarded by CBI (Central Bureau of Indulgence), the Q factor would be a low one.

The Q factor is particularly useful in determining the qualitative behavior of a political system. For example, a regime that tends to undermine the Q factor to vanshing values, cannot be described as vacillating at all, instead the government is called an overthumped Congress government. However, if Q goes on higher values, the benches in the parliament shake, while simultaneously creaking and cracking exponentially, that opposition is definitely an underhumped non-Congress one.

Can You Feel The Love Tonite ?

2007-02-13T22:29:00.000+08:00

Tomorrow is Feb 14-th a day marked on the calender with a Nerolac shade of mera-wallah pink to celebrate the love and other contagious viruses in the air - for tommorow's the Valentine's Day.

After a trend-analysis of previous few years graph that showed no ups-and-downs, the predictions are that we will be witnessing these incidents across our nation :

1. The cupid at Hallmark will have its arrow aimed right on target at the growing purchasing power of emerging Indian middle class.
2. Tommorrow will record the highest sales of roses, greeting cards, soft toys and multiplex tickets all at pricest of prices.
3. The left out singles will hide inside the deepest dungeons just after declaring the futility of this date as a commercial ploy by the multinational gift-selling corporations.
4. There would be a steep rise in liquor sale to quench the thirsty Devdas-es who've lost their Paro-s to circumstances beyond their control.
5. Shiv Sena and Bajrang Dal will let out fumes of anger at the moral degradation of traditional Indian values.

As usual they have decided not to sit idle and let their energys spent in the worthwhile cause of maintaining the neighbourhood's Basanti's Izzat-N-Abru in a brand new showroom condition. In case you missed out the last years agenda or the years before that, here is the re-freshed/re-phrased plan of action for this year:

We request young couples not to visit parks and restaurants or organize parties on Valentine's Day. Those who do not listen to us will be beaten up," Ved Prakash Sachchan, the convener of the militant Hindu group Bajrang Dal, told The Associated Press in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state.

"In the name of Valentine's Day, there is an attempt to westernize Indian culture and we will not allow this to happen," he added.

Hindu activists also have put up billboards across Lucknow asking young lovers not to hold hands in public.

Traditional Indian society does not approve of public displays of affection between the sexes, including hand-holding and kissing.

Another Hindu hardline organization, the Shiv Sena, has said it will photograph couples caught in supposed compromising positions and hand over the pictures to their parents. Volunteers will stake out public parks, cinemas and shopping malls to "keep an eye on young people," Vijay Tiwari of the Shiv Sena said.

Certain things will never change, although I might find myself growing from 16 to 32. And in this 16 years, BSE might have rose and fall unpredictably, but the Bajrangis and Sainiks have always lived upto my expectations. Thanks to their tireless efforts to warn me that today is when the firangi St. Valentines wishes to corrupt an innocent Indian like me, tonight I am feeling again like my 16 year old wide-eyed avatar - who earnestly longed to be corrupted just by holding hands and kissing in public.

I am quite liking the way I'm feeling young at heart. And all those well-wishers spamming my inbox with on online prescriptions for promised Fountain of Youth - you can now go to cyber-hell. As a token of gratitude towards my militant Hindu brothers, I am now determined to give a befitting reply to all those spammers. How about sending each of them a mail with a subject-line of "Jai Bajrangbali" and a body-text of "Hanuman Chalisa" typed in Monotype Corsiva font size of 48 ?

A Bullet for a Bullet

2007-02-12T23:33:00.000+08:00

According to this Reuters report the U.N. is pretty serious in its business of supervision of arms agreement between the Maoists and Nepalese government. As a part of the exercise, the U.N officials are visiting the Maoist camps to evaluate the sanitory conditions. Being a member of tissue wiping Western society, Ian Martin, the represntative of the U.N. secretary general, had found the standards quite unsatisfactory. Which is not surprising as he's quite alien to the concept of answering the nature's call amidst nature. But what intrigues me is not his apathy towards the Indian sub-continental practice of the shortest route to human waste recycling. Rather the interesting part of the news is the way that this particular arms agreement is being carried out.

The arms will be locked in containers watched by U.N. monitors. The Maoists will keep the keys, and the army will also store an equal number of weapons before the election set for June.

I'm imagining the clerk in charge of maintaining the stocks at the army warehouse asking his supervisor, "Could you approve this purchase order for new kookris. At the last count we fell short by twenty-three pieces against the Maoists' stocks."

The proverbial expression of "a bullet for a bullet" suddenly makes much more sense !!

Naseem: The Morning Breeze

2007-02-07T15:27:00.000+08:00

[cross-posted at PassionForCinema.com]

With the release of Parzania and the surrounding controversies I'm reminded of another movie that dealt with the same subject.

Dadaji, yeh ashmaan neela kyun hain
Kyun ki mere ko peela raang pasand nahin, toh maine ise neela rang se paint kiya

This is one of those several memorable dialogue exchanges that characterize the Syed Mirza’s 1995 film Naseem. The story is about a typical Muslim middle-class family at the back-drop of communal tension prior to the Babri Masjid demolition. The movie follows their day-to-day life about a few months before the Dec 6-th events takes place. The initial few reels are spent on strong character built-up based upon the interaction between the two of the main actors. Naseem, played by Mayuri Kango, is a teenage girl who needs answer to a thousand questions. The Grand-pa, played by Kaifi Aazmi, who is living his last few days amongst his memories. As the tremor of the events at Ayodhya casts its shadows, a simple teenage girl goes through the confusion of trying to understand it all.

The brilliance of this movie lays in the amazing simplicity with which director handles the whole script. Nowhere in the movie we have flashing scenes of ravaging communal riots, nor we have high-pitched melodramatic dialouge sparked between the actors. Yet it strongly brings out the terror and anger in the eyes of an average Muslim guy, as the writings on the wall becomes clearer. The different blends of the reactions to this communal tension are aptly given dimension by the different members of the family.

While on one end, lies Kaifi Aazmi’s representation of old-school of tolerance, on the other end lies the elder brother’s (played by Salim Shah) hot-headedness that wants eye-for-an-eye revenge. And in between is torned the mom and dad (played by Uttara Baokar and Khulbhusan Kharbanda) who play the indecisive passive roles in the whole chain of events surrounding their daily lives. The whole spectrum is brought forth through the eyes of the teenager Naseem, superbly under acted by a de-glamorized Mayuri Kango.

The movie ends with the death of the grand-father’s death on 6-th of Dec, the very day that history will remember for an entirely different reason. Perhaps the death signifies the end of the tolerance of an earlier generation that is steadfastly loosing its value amongst the turbulent times.

Sadly this was a last movie for all the three: Syed Mirza as a director, Kaifi Aazmi as an actor and perhaps Mayuri Kango in a lead role. In his last effort of simple yet touching story telling technique involving real life characters, Syed Mirza does leave a mark on his viewer. And maybe simplicity is the sole reason that makes this mark special to last for a lifetime. And therein lays the success of any creativity and its creator.

Baby Producing Machines ?

2007-01-29T23:49:00.000+08:00

Japan has always topped the list of countries with the least of back problems among its inhibitants.This is indeed remarkable considering the robotic amount of time an average Japanese spends at the workplace. The clue to this remarkable mystery lies in the hierarchical structure of the Japanese society.

The Japanese son always bows in front of the Japanese father everytime they meet. The Japanese father in turn always bows in front of the Japanese grand-father everytime they meet. The Japanese grand-father in turn always bows in front of the Japanese great-grandpa's photograph everytime he looks at the wall.

In short, to maintain the hierarchy the Japanese folks require to bow at each other everytime their paths crossed. Since the Japanese are also known to be very courteous, the person bowed at also bows back, except for the great grand-pa from the pictures. For this reason the "The Land of the Rising Sun" also earned the name of "The Land of the Bowing Sans".

It's no medical wonder that the constant exercise of tilting at 45 degrees angle around 20 times a day, keeps the back-pain far-far away. On an average a Japanese male spends a quarter of his life-time in bowing. Another half is spent at workplace inventing and perfecting the Sony TVs, Honda Cars for the benefit of the lazy US population. A half of the remaining quarter is spent in sleeping, eating, excreting and other essential routine jobs of a human life which Sony or Honda is still trying to automate without much success.

So overall there is hardly anytime left for reproducing future "Bowing Sans" who will carry on the traditional pyramidal hierarchy. Not to be daunted by the lack of time among the people the Japanese health minister Mr. Yanagisawa has devised the concept of the "baby producing machines". Despite the brilliant design, his baby churning assembly-line didn't meet the Kaizan standards of quality control and is sadly getting scrapped.

In a speech discussing Japan's falling birthrate, Yanagisawa on Jan. 27 said "the number of machines that produce babies is fixed, so each woman has to have more babies," according to the Asahi newspaper. [source]

Now whether the female population of Japan co-operates with Yanagisawa's grand scheme to work overtime in raising the sagging birthrates needs to be seen. But if they fail to agree with Yanagisawa san plans, I'm sure the scientists toiling days-n-nights across the Japanese labs will come up with the perfect baby producing machines that'll even put the Toyota assembly line to shame. Maybe in the coming years we see more of toddlers bowing at each-other across the length and width of all of the Nippon land.

Time for me to take a bow before signing off.

Long Time No See...Well here I am!!

2007-01-23T17:17:00.000+08:00

Phew...it's been a long time since I logged onto blogger. In case any kind soul is interested of what kept me away, the process of cleaning up the gathered pizza crumbs, ketchup stains and empty beer bottles while trying to untangle the cobwebs from a year gone by is never easy. And on top of it, I've been busy surfing the waves of lethargy that kept on crashing at my otherwise hectic work-shores. Overall life is good except for the recently acquirred habit of punching keys in the air.

When you need to reply to 800 odd sms-es from people known and unknown to counter-express your festive greetings of the season, you develop a habit of keying sms-es even in your sleep. But now I'm happy that Steve Jobbs must've heard of my symptoms and decided to gift humanity the keyless wonder-gadget called iPhone. Only problem is now my amazing skills of typing sms-es blindfold with one hand tied at the back will be lost. But since it's all about the progress of mankind, like a true benefactor of mankind I'll let my skills be trumpled under the wheels of civilization.

Speaking of the progress of mankind, we saw quite a few gaint strides in all spheres of life, especially politics and filmdom. Afterall when it comes to keep the TRP ratings of news channels soaring, there's no competition to the Neta-Abhineta pairs. So the year began by the extravagenza of Saddam Hussain's swan-song at the noose. Apparently George W. Bush who had never approved anything of Saddam, without any surprises expressed his dislike on the manner of the execution.

I guess he was expecting a couple of dancing cheerleaders over there. But as usual life is always unfair, all the aesthetically deprived Iraqi authorities could come up with is masked hangmen. So I hear Bush has unveiled a grand plan of sending more and more troops to impart the Iraqis with finer sense of doing things. However it came with a disclaimer that said the side effects might include missed missile, aeral bombing and mortar shells, all hitting the wrong targets.

About targets, the latest bull-eye that the journos hit recently is the marriage announcement of Jr. Bachchan with Ms. Rai. It took long and it took a few crore losses from benovalent producers before Ash was finally confirmed that her movie career is going no-where. As soon as that fact was established, all that the journos did was to fill up the dates in the final published version of their drafts. No wonder given the amount of time these drafts of were lying in the hard-disks of all major media offices, the coverage was such instantneous and such a hit.

Let me wish the couple make a more successful pair in their real life than what it had been in their reel life. And one more word of gratitude to the Bachchans when they persuaded the Chopras to pull out the kiss scence from Dhoom2. Now if they can shelve the prints of all her plastic doll potrayal that would be pure nirvana. But since keeping in tradition of Adarsh Bharatiya Naari busy managing her kitchen, Ash might spare the movie lovers from her wodden acting skills I will remain content with that.

Another recent spark of an Adarsh Bharatiya Naari who grabbed the world media bytes was our Churake-dil-mera girl Shilpa Shetty. Since the media and experts from Uzbeckistan to Uganda, Bolivia to Borivelli have already spoken about this issue, lemme not delve into it any further. However, in an age where the routine of trivialities being hyped and encashed was becoming stale, it's raises a lot of hope for the entrepreneur in me to see there are still takers for carefully manufactured baits.

Well that was whatever blog-worthy happenings during my absence here. With the waves of lethargy calling once again, time for me to catch my surf-board and run.

Before We Rejoice Jessica Laal Verdict

2006-12-19T23:07:00.000+08:00

Excerpts from BBC report on "India's elite feel courts' heat"

Supreme Court lawyer Bharat Sangal cautions, however, that "two swallows do not make a summer".

He says in the Shibu Soren and Navjot Sidhu cases, the convictions are based on direct evidence, but in the Jessica Lal and Priyadarshini Mattoo cases, the high court depended on a lot on circumstantial evidence.

"The crucial test will come when the cases go into the Supreme Court as appeal. The Supreme Court generally does not give much importance to circumstantial evidence. The important thing then will be whether the highest court upholds these convictions or not," he said.

Interesting to know that the battle is half-won. Does the red-turban theory still stand a chance ? My bet is Jethmalani is already preparing for the final showdown.

Youth Curry to Miss Its Spice

2006-12-11T22:20:00.000+08:00

We, the Hindus, are the most creative people on this goddamn earth and heaven. Even before the population of the earth reached this figure, we created the whole set of 33 crores gods just to make the lives of future mythologists miserable.

To celebrate our penchant for creativity we worship the biggest symbol of creativity : The Divine Phallus fornicating with the Divine Vagina. This image is otherwise known as Shiva-Lingam and seen in many mandirs across the length and breadth of the country.

Some creative smart-ass in JAM magazine had used the image of a Shiva-Lingam to pass on the following message on The World Aids Day : "Khada ho to Condom Chahiye" [ie. If it's erect you need a condom].

You must be smiling that muchki (mischevious for non-Bongs) smile and thinking to yourself what's so offensive about it. Allow me list down the top reasons that hit my creative mind immediately.

1. You are trying to choke up the very essence of creativity with a wrapping of latex. Have you ever wondered what will happen if the pressure building up inside ever burst out ? That's more than enough to bring the world to perils, you silly non-believer.

2. Where is the sensivity towards the erection-challenged folks you creative moron ? After all Manmohan and Arjun that tries their best not to chuck-off the minorities from any of national activities. Next time try to keep the entire population in mind while sending out anti-aids message or be prepared to face the minority wrath.

3. For a moment leave aside national pride and try to consider the report on exported latex malfunction in Indian sub-continent conditions to be true. Then this seems to be another hatched conspiracy to demean the length and breath of our much worshipped divine phallus.

4. Don't preach something that is not 100% statiscally accurate without accompanying fine print to detail out the exceptions. Ask any guy who has vented his carnal desires with his own hands(ie. musterbated). You'll come to know only an erection doesnot gaurantee usage of the rubber.

Sadly these pearls of creative wisdom were not present in the jewellery set of the JAM editor. In a light-hearted humor she allowed the ad to be printed that offended people belonging to the above categories. Pretty soon someone took this matter to higher authorities saying that their precious fragile sentiments have been hurt.

When sentiments are hurt, it's a No-Mercy policy in India. Afterall we are a sentimental nation yaar...try playing with our sentiments and we'll burn the trains, pull down the statues until you do something to get our sentiments back to its intact state. Hardly left with any other choices, facing a non-bailable warrant, all Rashmi Bansal could do is to go under-the-ground in a Sita like effort to prove her innocence.

I'm hoping sooner or later she will be unearthed to her innocent glory. Whatever be the case, JAM has surely lost the "Just Another" epithet. Now it's more of a "Trust Another" Magazine till the editor returns back to her editing desk. Waiting for the spice in the Youth Curry to come back.

Update: She's back and blogging with a vengence while we Indians continue to appreciate our creativity by bowing in front of the Divine Phallus and doing our share of what is required to become the most populous country in the whole world.

Singur : Who will answer the unanswered questions

2006-12-05T19:06:00.000+08:00

With heavyweights like Medha Patkar and her ilk joining the protest against land acquisition at Singur, Mamta Bannerji's movement seems to be gaining momentum. However as expected, what's missing from the movement is the agenda itself. After the Didi joined the movement and took it to bench-breaking heights with her grand show at the West Bengal Vidhansabha, we haven't heard anything as to what the farmers at Singur wanted.

No-one from her camp talked about what were the alternates that the opposition wants the government to consider. In fact there were hardly any dialogues between them about the issue other than news bytes thrown at eachother. All that is left of the movement now is Didi and her personal vendetta against the Left Front.

All that Mamta wants is to gain back her lost foothold in West Bengal politics. To do that all she needs to portray herself as the savior for the down-trodden. The draconian manner with which the government was acquiring agricultural land provided her the right opportunity for her to jump her guns. As the political battle-lines were drawn and swords are crossed, the major questions wherein lies the cause-remedy of the whole issue are receiving little or no attention.

How the entry of newer industry into the West Bengal will take place?
No answer yet.
Will a total back-bending posture ensure the flow of capital or shall we try to weigh the benefits and drawbacks of the proposals in the long term?
No answer yet.
Are the SEZ(Special Economic Zone)s the only way to go or there are alternatives ?
No answer yet.
How were the compensation package determined ? Why it was below the market price for these lands ?
No answer yet.
How will the balance between this newer industry and the people displaced take place?
No answer yet.

One of the reasons we need government machinery is to strike the balance between the capitalist greed and the welfare of the people. Left to them, capitalists would bend every rule in the book to boost the profits and outdo the competitors. That's where the checks and regulations by government are brought in so that in the long run it's a win-win situation of all.

The pro-people CPI-M seems to overlook some of these basic reasons that they justified their parliamentarian struggle as opposed to a revolutionary communist fight against the state. In their willingness to make the Sonar Bangla dream come true they are loosing the perspective of the bigger picture and its responsibility towards the people.

There's no point in denying that at its present economic scenario, West Bengal cannot afford to loose any capital that comes in. The state has lost its credentials a long time back and every effort spent now in regaining that should be applauded. It’s high time to shed away the dogmatism and militant protests and try to join the economic boom that the rest of India is enjoying.

Still what remains unchanged is that the government cannot turn back its face from those who will be displaced due to setting up of newer industrial zones. As the citizens of the state, we ought to know that why the fertile multi-corp yielding land in Singur was the only choice for this Tata factory. The government needs to reveal whether there were other alternative plots considered and what were the reasons for discarding them. Government also needs to disclose if there are any plans that it has to help the displaced farmers to resettle and find means of livelihood.

Unfortunately Buddha-babu and his fellow ministers have left an aura of mystery over these unanswered questions. That's the main reason why Mamta has able to hijack the movement and use it for her own welfare. Going by her past records of how she stood beside the evicted hawkers or the jute-mill workers, it won't be long she'll resort to even more violent tactics to attract more news byte. CPI-M will do what it does best - find an equally befitting answer with its cadres going on a rampage.

Lost amongst the logger-heads of the black-n-white of politics, the very reason for the movement the fate of the displaced farmers will hang on a thread that'll snap the moment Mamta sees another greater news-grabbing opportunity elsewhere. That's where it hurts the most and that's where concerned people dedicated to the cause should apply the balm. Sadly none of our present day politicians seem to fit the bill.

Update: It seems good sense is prevailing in Buddha camp over the compensation to those left jobless. Let's hope for a win-win situation for all, but as the sceptic part of me reminds its optimistic counterpart "If wishes were horses....."

Theory of Circular Eventuality

2006-11-30T23:49:00.000+08:00

Do you remember the circular conundrum of one hypothetical snake biting another hypothetical snake's tail and vice-versa. The frillion dollar question was as they continue their circular journey eating each-other what'll be left over at the end ? Unlike the case with Schrodinger's Cat where the choices were only the living and dead cat or both here the possibilities are like blend of different flavours that you can mix-n-match at your neighbourhood ice-cream parlour.

Considering that both the snakes are not consuming at the same rate it could either be parts of the first snake that remains or may be the second one. But if both has same rate of metabolism, then both of them could devour each-other leaving a big NULLness to be pondered upon. Or it would be also possible that the two snake-heads keep on playing catch-me-if-you-can along the circumference of their non-existant bodies for eternity till the entropy of the universe cools down a bit.

The same circular chain of events marks a year of blogging by yours truly. When I wrote my first blog post nearly about a year ago, the signs that made me feel "Oh Boy! it's been soooo long" kind of grumpy mood were :

1. Frailing Amitabh Bachchan carried away in a strecher
2. Lalu Yadav booted out of his sort of baap-ka-jagir Bihar
3. Ganguly unceremoniously thrown out of Team India

So with a grain or rather the whole pack of Tata Namak I sulked into my approaching middle years and started declaring at the drop of hat "You know in our times.....blah..blah..blah!!!"

But now that 06 is coming to an end and 07 lurking around the corners, I see that the tables are turned upside down.

1. Amitabh completed 23 scenes in five hours setting a world record and making me wonder has the human cloning already started.
2. Lalu Yadav is invited by IIM-A as a guest lecturer to share his insights into how Indian railways proved again that Elephants Can Dance.
3. Ganguly makes a come-back into the national squad. Surprisingly this time it's not because of closed door meeting with Sharad Power or mambo-jambo by family tantrik, but because he is performing and is needed by the team.

May be as the hypothetical snakes continue to devour each other and the planet continues it's annual journies round the sun, we might find an answer to the conundrum. Till then these are the scoops of possibilities that my ice-cream cone would be filled with :

1. Amitabh continues setting up of newer acting records as the age-gap between him and the actress playing the heroine crosses the threshold of the age of his grand-daughter. In the meanwhile since there wouldn't be any more product left for him to endorse, the scientists will be encouraged to invent newer products. Afterall advertising is the mother of all un-necessary inventions.

2. Future economists and CBI sleuths under the stricter survillence of a non-UPA government will dig out that Lalu Yadav choreographed Elephant Dance was inspired more by Enorn's Ken Lay than IBM's Louis Gerstner. In a daring act to dream beyond IIM, another prestigious management institute that puts a phoney P between the initials of it's so-called rival would confer a honorary doctorate degree on Mr. Yadav for his P-skills.

3. With the correct proportion of gold and silver crushed with 52 rare herbs grown in Emami's greenhouse, adequte dosages of the Sona-Chandi Chawanprash will help Saurav Ganguly to display enough immunity against Proteas pace attack. But since scoring is all about offence rather than defence, the score-board will be brought to a stand-still. Suckers for conspiracy theory amongst Bong-biradari will come up with something really innovative and beyond Wisden's cricketing wisdom. To put things into perspective Mamta Banerjee will declare a strike in Kolkata as a protest and demand the CPI-M to take remedial action.

4. I would continue to blog about co-relation about relavent matters like exhaust of greenhouse gases after too much Rajma-Chawal consumption by Delhi's South Block residents and as a consequence the plight of the poor penguins at Antarctika.

Mid-Day Siesta And Bad Dreams

2006-11-21T16:00:00.000+08:00

Middle of the day is the time when usually the unemployed can afford siesta in the comfort of their bed and the employed tries to duck behind their computers or other gadgets of convenience to catch a nap while pretending to work. Since one newspaper in Mumbai has been encouraging its army of reporters to sleep while they work, they call their paper "Mid Day". Only problem is that the sleeping @ Mid-Day after a typical Indian spicy lunch sometimes causes indigestion with acidic hiccups.

So what happens when you like a somnambulist with an acute case of indigestion walk err type while sleeping- your perspectives are all screwed up and you fart the loudest and filthiest. That's why if two persons sneeze in succession the reporter assume that since the first person sneezed first, the second person is merely a copy-cat and following the nasal cue from the first. In his sleep reporting style the bugger fails to realise that both of them might be suffering from the cold and having the same kind of irritation to a varied degree to sneeze first and second.

Both Anurag Kashyap and Pavan Kaul as their writings on PFC tells me are more than 100% dedicated in their passion towards movies. Read their posts and you can judge for yourself that both are equally in love with their creative sides. And nothing is more joyous to passionate film-makers than to be in touch with other folks who share the warmth about the celluloid world in the same way they do. That's the reason both of them are now writing regular posts on the new-found adda of filmdom ie. PFC. Only difference was Anurag came on-board much earlier to Pavan.

But what signal Mr. Somnambulist @Mid-Day gets from these chain of events ? His reading that Pavan is merely xeroxing Mr. Kashyap and justifies that too with his own medical diagnosis.

"Kashyap is a self-proclaimed blogger and shares his personal accounts of moviemaking with others because it's therapeutic. We wonder what kind of illness Kaul needs therapy for. Could it possibly have anything to do with that disastrous flick, Shhhh….? "

Its high time someone slaps the reporter tightly and wakes him up from his slumber @Mid Day. Will someone please do the honours.

Research work Ornithology Dept,JU

2006-10-26T08:34:00.000+08:00

A very well documented research work from the Ornithology department of my alma-mater. Hope avid bird-watchers like me will enjoy it as much I did.

Only two points of criticism to satisfy the Taran Adarsh in me :
1. Wouldn't a Bengali number been more suitable in the background ?
2. Why the Satyam-Sivam-Sundarm bit at the end ?
Reminds only of the DD logo . Or was it a subtle reference to the RK banner movie of the same name that was overflowing with the OOOMPH factor. Huh!!

ps: In case the embedded video-player doesn't open, try clicking the link instead.Worth a dekho.

Update: The link is not working. Possible speculated reason could be the video might have been removed as it was filmed without the consent of the girls. Gimme some more time...will try to find something else to entertain my dear readers.

Diary of Anurag Kashyap

2006-10-17T15:30:00.000+08:00

If you are a movie fanatic who eat-drink-sleep movies then leave aside whatever you are doing and click on this photo to your left .

It's Anurag Kashyap , the angry young man of movie-making writing his experiences of making his next movie "NO SMOKING".

Go and find out what the Bollywood looks from inside out and what a director goes through in making of a movie.

Bye bye Pundit-Moshai.

2006-10-16T21:10:00.000+08:00

A part of my daily routine, checking for newer blogs with newer topics have been centered around DesiPundit, the one-stop-shop for desi blogs. Day in, Day out Patrix, Kaps,Vulturo, Ash, Neha and others had been bringing us links to the latest and maybe the greatest of the desi blog activities of the day across the globe. Just like an old Bong habit of reading Anandabazar for better secretion of digestive juices, DP had also become a routine, missing which meant something hasn't been done today.

But now I have to discard that and need to look for alternatives. Because Patrix and company have decided to pull the plug on DP. It's very always sad to see someone go, but just like all others aspects of life we will learn to live with it. A BIG THANK YOU to all the DP editors for taking time out of your busy schedules to entertain us for so long. Desi Blogosphere will miss you and so will I.

Wish you guys all the best.

ps: Now that bloglines will be clogged with subscriptions from desi blogger does anyone know of any other alternatives ?

Singur : Early Symptoms of the Disesase

2006-10-11T01:41:00.000+08:00

The early symptoms of the uneven growth have started at Singur. It's like snatching the box of chocolates from the child and give it to the bully. To compensate the child do get a lollipop to suck at. What happens next, child keeps on sucking the lollipop till it finishes and then starts crying while looking for another box of chocolates. Knowing the chocolate-boxes don't come free, the child learns to steals them. Mr. Bully keeps on bullying as usual....nothing changes except for the fact that we taught the child to steal.

Long long time ago there used to be fisheries across the vast expanse of land, what now is known as Salt Lake, the most coveted piece in Kolkata's real estate map. All the lands were accquired by displacing the fisherman and other related professionals in that area. They were pushed back to nearby villages like Bantala, Chingrighata and likes.

In due course of time these villages became the one of the most crime-prone areas nearby Kolkata when the displaced villagers took up to petty crimes and then went onto bigger things. Does the name of Anita Dewan, a health worker raped and murdered in broad daylight on the streets of Bantala ring a bell ? Such was the crime rate in those areas, that I remember a friend of mine who happened to an US citizen staying in Kolkata got a letter from US embassy advising him to avoid going to those places.

And what happened to the female folks who had excelled in handicrafts like knitting the fishing nets and such-alike? Left with no other option, they became the major source of constant supply to the domestic help required in the Salt Lake's posh colonies. But so long as the real estate prices in Salt Lake kept on shooting up, we placed garlands after garlands on the statue of Dr. B.C.Roy.

As they correctly say all that glitters is not gold!!

How Green Was My...Err Their(?) Valley

2006-10-04T14:16:00.000+08:00

The guy masterminds an attack on the Parliament. The guy is tried and is sentenced to death. The public life is brought to a standstill by protests demanding mercy for the sentenced. If this all sounds familiar, no I am not talking about Mohammed Afzal Guru but Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh. The irony of the similarity between the two situations makes us once again stand in front of the mirror to have a second thought.

Personally I have little reason to believe that the same court that had dismissed charges against S A R Geelani, another suspect in the attack, had some jaati-dushmani with Md. Afzal Guru to award him life sentence. The charges and evidences were strong enough for the Judge saab to pronounce such a sentence. But leaving aside the merits-demerits of the case the greater question is why the major part Kashmiris are all rallying behind the cause of Guru's pardon?

The act of attacking the parliament which happens to be the central institution of Indian democracy can be broadly equated to an attack on the democracy itself. So why do the people of Kashmir that happens to be an integral part of India is protesting against the sentence of someone who tried to smash the foremost institution of democracy ? The CM of Kashmir, not be overdone by his opposition's grand show of support for Afzal, joins the bandwagon. The man who had takem the oath to upheld the Indian constitutional democracy and the country's sovereignity goes on to pleads clemency for someone who tried to attack the very symbol of Indian democracy. This is happening only and only because this issue is closer to the hearts of the Kashmiri people. To sway aside this sentiment of the Kasmiri common public as a part of cheap political gimmick will be the bluntest argument.

On the other hand pardoning Afzal Guru's death sentence might have dire consequences. We might see a deja-vu of the compelling situation that led to Masood Azhar's liberation and subsequent creation of JeM and then loss of further lives. To let this guy remain in prison will bring nothing more than further attempts from his jihadi comrades, who need his planning capability for their own cause of destruction. And who knows already plans are being chalked out for the next AI plane hijack.

To show mercy to the killer of the guards at the parliament who died fighting would be an insult to their brave sacrifices. Knowing the Catch 22 situation Congress is facing from UPA partners and oppostion in this issue they might do something very very silly. Whatever they do, they cannot evade the greater task at hand, that is to bring back the majority of Kashmiris to Indian mainstream. The terrorists don't constitute the entire population of Kashmir. They are as we are to believe only a small fraction of people funded by hostile foreign power(s). We truly need to find out why the other sections of people in Kashmir, the ones not supporting terrorism, are displaying in this un-patriotic(!) behaviour?

The valley that the poetic Mughal emperor once described as the Heaven on Earth has been painted with blood with bullets from terrorists, Indian army, Pakistan army all having nearly equal share. It’s high time for the netas at Delhi Durbar to put on their thinking caps and rethink on Kashmir policies. If and only if we succeed in cultivating the strong nationality feeling among Kashmiris in contrast to allienating them with our high-handedness, then only we can claim that Kashmir is an integral part of India.

Otherwise what has started with the movement for pardoning Md. Azfal Guru's sentence will grow on onto something greater and graver that might threaten to redraw the border-lines of India. Need to act now and need to act fast.

Can You hear the Dhaks beating Dhang-kur-kur ?

2006-09-27T16:41:00.000+08:00

With every other Bong bloggers blogging about Dugga-Pujo, my blog yesterday came out of my screen and threatened me with these exact words "You lazy bum, get up and type a 1000 words about Pujos. You know how much my click rates have gone down in recent time .Earlier at least I used to get hits from your home computer IP. Even that has stopped. Life is so pathetic to be stuck with you...if was not for the older posts I would have given up hanging to this URL"

Before I could ask my blog whether it's been listening to my wife's enlightening words of wisdom missiled at me, it simply crept back to the cyber world to cling onto its sole cyber possession the blogspot URL. So to make a truce I'm finally typing about Durga Puja, the Mardi Gras of Bong heartland.

I first thought of writing the Standard X type essays soaked with nostalgia that'll make you buy the next air-ticket to Kolkata. And the next moment you'll be clicking on my Google Ad sense ads for cheap fares to Kolkata bringing me money. But since I don't have ads at the moment I decided to drop the idea. Instead lemme share you some trivia about Durga Puja.

Did you know that the clay required for building the idol has to be mixed with bit of mud procured from prostitute's house. Oh you already knew that!! Sala Bhan-saali, you had to show that in that when-will-it-end movie Devdas. And then just with the name of Devdas a chord strikes my brain (yeah it can be painful when it strikes).Let me tell you about one of the colorful characters among the many in Calcutta's Pujo circuit. And before you ask what Devdas has got to do with these people, the answer is well on these festive days this guy let's call him PD( Pooja Devdas) was just as sober as Devdas was.

PD lived in the some distant suburbs of Kolkata. To reach those places you had to travel in those fully packed local passenger trains from Sealdah. And to stand inside the train compartments you need to do some really flexible feats that might have made the Elastic Man proud. The reason I am saying all these things just to imply PD was a simpleton and was not so accquinated to the ways of life in a big city.

So one Durga Puja PD comes to Kolkata, get drunk with none-else but me and together we go out for Pandel hopping. For those who are from Kolkata they might know during the Durgapujas the Ekdalia Road has a No-Entry sign for vehicles to make it easy for the pedestrians. We had reached this place when I suddenly remembered that I need to buy cigarettes.

I went to the trusted Oriya paan-ka-dukandar opposite to Laxmi Sweets leaving PC there alone. Even I was drunk too and swayed by my camaraderie I spent around 8-10 minutes asking about how this guy’s family is doing in Orissa. I enquired whether they suffered in the last cyclone and did they receive the relief from the government and if they are not they should start a movement and send a petition to the PM himself. The guy was patient enough not to kick me out from his shop at that busy hour.

Suddenly I hear an angry authoritative voice shouting "Aare sala I told you hundred times this is not for the pedestrians...only for cars...you can go". I look back and see PC is in a heated argument with the police constable about the NO-ENTRY placard placed in the middle of the road. His point of view was that sign is quite misleading as thousands of people walking to the pandels might think that sign meant for them and take a detour creating more chaos. I had to employ all my strength to pull PD from that place just moments before the constable lost his cool and charged at PD with his only armor : his well oiled cane-stick.

PD was quite moved by my attempt to help him to escape the arms of the law. So as we were approaching Maddox Square he told me "Bishu you my true friend....for you I can do anything....even place my bogol (ie. armpit in Bengali) on the tram-tracks....errr I mean my neck !!". His intention showing his comradeship by laying down arm-pit before the tram wheels nearly brought tears to my eyes.

Just as I was searching for my hankerchief to wipe my eyes, three things happend :
1. Heard a "Tong" sound as if some body had a bang on collision with something metallic
2. Saw PD lying at the foot of the lamp-post nursing his forehead which had immedietly swelled.
3. A group of girls standing nearby broke out into maddening fit of laughter.

I looked at PD. He had a pitiful smile on his face. "It's not really my fault.With so many beautiful girls around I didn't see the lamp-post in front", was his defence.

PD is now well settled some place Mid West in US. I hope he doesn't debate a traffic cop out there about another traffic sign. They might confiscate his license. And PD please don't crash into a lamp-post while checking out some hot blondes around. Your insurance plan might not cover the damages. But I know that would never happen.

Because US Mid-west is no Kolkata at Durgapujas.These things can only happen only in that enchanted city in that enchanted time. Only then you find friends willing to sacrifice their armpits for you at the drop of the hat. Only then people loose sight of the lamp-post in front, because the surrounding is so provocative that it jams your sensible sense organs. Only then even the otherwise authoratative cop also finds ten minutes worth of patience explaining an un-initiated the meaning of NO-ENTRY sign-board. That's what Durgapuja means in the heart of Bongland. Wear the best clothes, Have the best food, Be at your best, And never forget to get crazier at times. Insanity sometimes becomes a virtue in an otherwise painstakingly black-n-white sane world.

Enjoy the Durgapujas to the beating of the dhaks (Bengali version of drums). Can you hear them beating "Dhang-kur-kur...Dhang-kur-kur" !!

A Hypothetical Question Or A Hypothetical Idiot?

2006-09-18T18:03:00.000+08:00

The PM of India seemed to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome when he was bowled over at Havana by his Pakistani counterpart's strong-willed gesture of fighting terrorism.

Speaking to reporters who accompanied him on his visit to Brazil and Cuba aboard Air-India One on Sunday night, Dr Singh said, "General Musharraf has assured me that Pakistan has no hand in perpetuating terrorist acts in India. He asked me not to go into the past, to forget whatever has happened in the past and to let us work together in the future." [source]

Is General's assurance is truer than your own intellegence reports ? Or did Mush waved his magic wand to sweep all the terrorist churning factories whose sole aim is to create furore in India. Forgetting the past will be easier but are we going to forget the lessons from the past as well.

Asked if future terrorist attacks on Indian soil would endanger the peace process, Dr Singh said, "Let us not deal with such hypothetical questions. I cannot say we have got security for our country forever. Life is much more complicated, it is not black and white. We have made an attempt to solve the problem, therefore let us not get into hypothetical questions." [source]

If the PM considers future terrorist attacks on Indian soil as something hypothetical then why was he alerting the nation about future possible attacks a couple of weeks back. Sirjee, you seem to catch up your predecessor Bajpeyi's forgetfulness but somehow this time it looks more of a concious effort rather than effect of old age and alcohol that had taken a toll on the most non-eligible batchelor of Indian politics. Everyone knows that the next attackers are lurking somewhere and only waiting for the right oppurtunity.Even the naivest of all wouldn't rule out that situation as hypothetical. But in naivity you seem to defeat us all.

On dismantling the terror structure in Pakistan, Dr Singh said, "We will discuss all the issues. Let us not jump the gun. Let this mechanism be in place. We will explore all the ways with which we can rid the subcontinent of the scourge of terrorism." [source]

As they say it was clear as mud.If you are not jumping the gun now after two simultaneous blasts at Mumbai and Malegaon when will you do that. What is the mechanism you are thinking about putting in place other than strongly asking our neighbours to hand over the wanted ones and shut down the terrorist churning factories. If you are not already in the process of exploring the ways then when are going to do that? Are we still waiting for the next blast ? Or will that be a hypothetical situation ?

"We had a very sincere, frank discussion on all issues," the prime minister said, speaking for the first time about his latest encounter with the Pakistani leader. "President Musharraf recalled what I had stated -- that the borders cannot be redrawn -- and his statement that they (Pakistan) cannot accept the Line of Control as a permanent solution. I believe that we should work in all sincerity out of the box, to deal with the situation.". [source]

Seemed to be too impressed that Gen. Mush has a memory of an elephant recalling what you stated last time to the exact words. Time for you to take some lessons at memory games from the General but then again you are also the one who urges us to forget the past and may be its lessons as well.

At the end of the day your speech conveyed nothing except weasel words just like the captain addressing the crew in a sinking boat. It's just the right kind of script for a leader who either has no clue about the depth of the situation or is simply trying to pass the buck. Only at these times we hear cliches like "Thinking out of the box" while the time-bombs inside the Pandora's box keeps on ticking.

Gadget Tag

2006-09-09T05:40:00.000+08:00

Twisted DNA, in his twisted witty style ended his last post by passing the Gadget tag at yours truly. Rules of the game are simple enough : I got to come up with three gadgets that I dream of even when I am wide awake. Regular readers of this blogs ( yes I know you are even rarer than the pink unicorn and is yet to be classified in animal kingdom) will know that me and gadgets are not the best of pals. But anyway since that was an archived blog post tucked historically somewhere after Salman Khan spent two days in chakki pissing the jail-ki-atta and before Krissh marked the advent of superheroes in Indian screen, I wouldn’t start my dukh-bhari-kahani again.

Instead let me tell you what I think is the purpose of gadgets in general. It is a device operated by mechanical force or electricity aimed at becoming an extension to the human capability of performing tasks otherwise restricted by limitations of human anatomy. Now that’s what I call Bullshit Bingo. Ok coming back to plain Angrezi : gadgets are supposed to help me in my struggling lifestyle in an otherwise zaalim duniyah. In short help me to elongate my abilities to overcome my short-comings in every possible way.

My prime short coming is forgetting the door keys. Believe me I vouch upon Mallika Sherwat’s non-existent pallu that it’s been three times I had been locked out of doors. First time I spend a night on a sofa at a colleague’s place. Next time I borrowed a hack-saw to cut through the Godrej tala.I had to do a lot of explaining to the new security guard in the complex until a kind hearted neighbor identified me as the rightful tenant of the flat. Third time I didn’t take any chance so I spend a night in a Rs. 500 hotel room with attached bath.

Not to be caught in similar locha fourth time I made 4 copies of my house key. I gave one to my neighbor , one I left with the shopkeeper in the stationary shop opposite to my house , one was locked inside my office drawer and the other attached to the key ring of my bike keys. Later in job life when somebody appreciated a disaster recovery plan I prepared, I surely knew where I learnt my lessons from.

So my first fancy gadget would be a door that opens to only at my command. For anyone else who can remember the exact date Babur invaded India and thereby by the virtue of his memory not loose his keys single time it will act different. Impressed by memory retention capacity it might even allow its hole to be probed by steel key belonging to such a guy.But for me it should never ask for mere earthly possesions like a key.

To add to security from my voice-alike I would program it to open the doors to me only and only if it recognize me singing “O(NNNNN)h Huuuuuuu(NNNN)zur……ter(NNNNN)aa suroooo(NNN)r “ in my nearly perfect imitation of Reshmiya’s nasal effort. Surely the imposters cannot beat me in that. And yes I admit in front of all of practicing this song every time I sit on the comode seat. The passage of strong air current in nasal cavity really helps in the morning traffic and believe me you can download at zooming broadband speeds.

My second fancy gadget would also compliment my another skill at loosing : Umbrella. Since you know umbrellas are meant to be lost I don’t feel that guilty. But once in a while it is worth bringing back home. That however reminds me the story of a gentleman who had similar traits of character.Every time he took the umbrella outside he would loose it somewhere. Upon returning home he would be shouted at by the other half for his forgetfulness. So one fine day he is determined and finally comes home with the umbrella in his hand held up high in full glory like a trophy won. But to his utter surprise he still gets the same amount of daily rebuke. On asking “But why” the wife replies “You hadn’t taken in umbrella from the house in the morning…and may I know whose ladies umbrella are you holding in your hand now?”

My second fancy gadget is an umbrella that never lets itself go from your hand. The way it would work is every time I leave it back somewhere it would sing to me in the same dard-naak tone as Lata sang “Na jao re saiyaan…churake baiyaan”. And I guess I am not so cold-hearted to leave such a longing companion behind.

My third gadget would certainly have to be a way of restricting my over-spending. Even if I go to a 7-11 in the night to buy a bottle of beer and a pack of cigarettes some how I fail to restrict myself to the charm of articles assorted on the shelves or freezer. Now if a tiny 7-11 shop can have this effect on me think how helpless I am when left between alleys and alleys of unwanted articles in a super-market.

I desperately need something that can at the same time check my saving account balance, check at the ration stock at my house, can communicate with my better half and obtain her approval before allowing me to grab that Buy 1 Get 1Free scented matchstick box with a free WWF card. In case it fails any one of the above mentioned checks it would simply sing to me “Naahi naahi abhi nahi….abhi karo intezer”.In case my determination doesnot succumb to the lyrical advice the machine should cling to my wallet covers with its teeth. That would certainly make it qualify as a Blue-tooth gadget.

Of Mumbo-Jumbos and Dumbos

2006-08-22T15:25:00.000+08:00

Just when the samples of salty sea-water turned sweet were undergoing chemical analysis at the labs, somebody decided to play a time-tested trick of milky miracle. And before you could utter "deja-vu", hordes of idiots are thronging at the temples to witness vanishing milk inside the mouth of the idols.

"It is amazing; Lord Ganesha drank milk from my hands. Now he will answer all my prayers," said Surama Dasgupta, a middle-aged woman in Kolkata" [source]

What a wonderful philosophy we have infused amongst Indians who inhibit a country that runs not on petrol nor coal nor nuclear energy but the silver-tonic fuel otherwise known as bribe. Now you can directly feed the gods to fulfill your wish-list and if you don't the divine one wouldn't lend an ear to your utmost prayer. Doesn't this version of God is in close resemblance with other makers-n-breakers of your fate like the clerk at the government office ?

Personally I have no problem with these moronic creatures who masquerade as human beings crowding the places of worship and holding a spoon of sudh-taaza-dudh as offering. But a waste of precious gallons of milk and even more rarer common-sense down the drains do incite a little bit of Tch-Tch from me.

Monday Evening Blues

2006-08-21T16:16:00.000+08:00

Finally after requests from good friends I joined Orkut and decided to add some realistic shock by putting my own photograph instead of the Bolly Khans. Ever since I am being bombarded with scraps expressing their astonishment at my accumulation of blubber over years of gym-boycotted leisurely life. I guess my journey across mouth savouring Bengali-Marathi-English-Continental-Chinese-Malay cusine over the years and refusing to burn-off the fatty part has finally paid off. From a 55 kg college kid I can now throw all the 75 kgs of my middle-aged weight on weighted matters such as foreign policy of Togo and its impact on global politics.

Speaking of weighted issues the most pressing one catching the present MSM buzz seems to be marital infedility. It all started with Koffee vendor KJo decided about his venture of depicting true life problems in his down-to-earth helicopter landing signature style. This time it was all about loving other peoples' spouses, a glycerine soaked saga of unhappy married folks finding solace in a lil bit of EMA(extra-marital-affiar). And when you team up all the crore plus pay-cheque drawing Bolly biggies whose histronics range from hamming of the tongue to jamming of the neurones, people are bound to shake up.

So now we have the simple minded folks from Kashmir to Kanyakumarika debating about the eye-opening epic depiction of new-found love. As reported one of the converts even took his other half to the theatre hoping for a change of heart over his EMA efforts. Unfortunately the other half was not so convinced and the poor hubby was forced to use bullets to make her see the holy Karan teachings.

Actually other peoples' spouses are just like the food on the other person's plate in a resturant.In fact one of the best compliments that a hubby came up while describing his wife was "You look so much like someone else's wife". Unfortunately the wife failed to appreciate this gem of a compliment in the story I read. So as I was telling the food always looks more delicious when it is on the other side. And other people's spouse looks equally dazzling in the arm-candy of the legally married one.

Do a switch over, take them home and you will soon discover that when it comes to maintainance problems the new ones have all the past records that compelled you in the first place.In fact the upgrade might introduce some newer additions to the list of ever-growing complications to be tackled in your life time. I guess all these words of wisdom will be aptly zoomed to you in another down-to-earth speeding Ferrari in the sequel to the epicsique KANK. I hope that the story-line is already being scripted in the talented Ms. Bhatija's mind. My bet is with KJo's K fixation (does he and Ekta Kapoor goes to the same numerologist ?) the name will be Kabhi Interchange Na Karna or KINK. Surely that would mark the growing up of Kandyfloss Karan Kid.

ps: On a weekend wasted by partly office work, partly by Corporate watching whose main protagonist should've been named Fishi-gandha instead of Nishi-gandha, I was quite impressed by watching The Gangster. Were there any other Sherlock Holmes like me who read between the scenes when Emraan Hashmi leisurely opened his leather jacket before diving from the boat to save a drowning Kagna.No wonder in the end a man who surely loves his leather jacket more than a drowning Ms.Raut would turn out to be traitor. Hopefully next weekend my faith in Hindi movie directors would be savoured by a deserved Omkara watch. Have to check Hindi movie stores in little India for the CDs.

A nation's journey through 59 years : What next ?

2006-08-16T03:06:00.000+08:00

For an individual 59 years would mean a lifetime experience of love, friendship, betrayal , death and the other shades of the spectrum of life. For an organization 59 years would mean the mature time when it sees itself propelling towards future based on the momentum gained during the growing past years. But what would 59 years mean for a nation ? It’s too short time in the pages of history where a decade is dedicated at the most a chapter or two.

As a nation we carry historical baggage dating from the Gupta era when Hinduism shaped itself distinct from the prevailing Sanatan religion of the Aryans, absorbing incessant attacks from Western frontiers and ultimately absorbing its attackers into its fold that reached its peak in the glory of the Mughals to the last 200 years of colonial rule. So even before 1947 when India declared itself to be an independent nation its characteristics traits were shaped long back in history. Only thing that was in suspense was how we would carry our heavy luggage down the lanes of future.

Looking back at the last 59 years as a nation we seem to see almost all. As they say in detective stories follow the money , if we see the nations economic history it has seen the Nehuruvian socio-economics, the license raj of Indira to an IMF scripted turnaround by opening itself to the world and suddenly finding itself amongst one of the largest growing economies. Indian IT industry pioneered the emergence of Indian companies which was reflected in the manufacturing and service sector as well. Some of it was an outcome of a conscious effort and some of it happened because it was destined to happen.

In our growing years of democracy we saw the fading importance of rule by a political party with a national base. We saw the black emergency years when Indian democracy choked itself in the same hands it was supposed to be freed. Luckily the situation didn’t prevail for long. Slowly the emergence of regional parties brought about the concept of coalition government. In an utopian situation this scenario would have been applauded as regional agendas would be weighted with the same importance as the national one. Unfortunately in India politics is meant to be largely vote bank based. And if the largest section of the voters are illiterates then democracy is dragged down to be a mere comedy of arm-twisting and ass kissing.

During these journey we saw ourselves engaged in war too with our neighbors. Fortunately nearly every time we were able to maintain our sovereignty although the costs were sometimes too high. But the in-depth analysis of the weaknesses and preventive as well as remedial actions are still in the to be done list.

The 59 years is also marked with partionist and communal movements ranging from demand for separate states to separation from the state as well. Most of them started within the foray of parliamentarian politics and later emerged as a battle against the state. Gradually they lost the very essence of their cause and everybody interpreted the cause with their own understanding and resorted to terror tactics. A part of the fuel to the fire was supplied by international war-mongers in pursuit of future of weapon business. The net result is that till date India has been the biggest sufferer in the era of global terrorism. What started from neglected north-eastern backyards to the over-protected valleys of Kashmir reached the heart of the nation. Now we are used to the fact that the next big bomb blast could happen anytime.

Each of the last six decades of our national life had its own flavor, unique aspiration, characteristic problems and their solutions. The next decade could be marked with the undomitable aspiration of being big. But that aspiration would be hindered with fighting terrorism home and abroad and the growing disparity of the rich and poor , the gap which will be widened day by day of these non-uniform progress. All these will go parallel with the obvious degeneration of the politicos until someday somebody decides to do something very very drastic.

But one thing will never change. What started as a dream to reach for the skies and was minimized to a mere survival was able to turn around and is now being looked by the remaining world as the probable next big thing. The promises the nation holds to its future citizens will manifest themselves in reality is still the big question. But the momentum has already given the extra push in the inertia. Only if we could ride on and propel the acceleration in the right direction another decade from now on another prouder Indian will be writing about even glorious seventh decade of the nations history.

Not a drop to drink....

2006-08-04T20:49:00.000+08:00

I always failed to comprehend the fact why the authorities always say that pesticide found in colas are beyond allowed limits. Does that mean if pesticide quantity is within limits cola then that give the cola companies enough rights to sell their stuff? Is it necessary to add the pesticide in colas to get the extra fizz ?

The cause of worry in colas is a chemical known as Lindane. This chemical used as a pesticide "is volatile with roughly 90% entering the atmosphere and ultimately being deposited in rain."[Wikipedia source]

"CSE experts claimed to have found that the levels of Lindane, a confirmed carcinogen, were more than 54 times above the BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards-ed.) limit." [source]

So the main source of Lindane in colas is nothing else but the water used. But ain't the tap water in plants undergo any purification process ?
Despite spending shit-load of money on advertisements, signing new contracts with a new film-star every year, the cola companies are yet to come up with decent water treatment plants.

Net result is:

"Pepsi contains 30 times more pesticides, and there is a 27 times increase in pesticides in Coke compared to 2003" [source]

That is even more disturbing as if the amount of carcinogen has increased in colas by 30 times, how much more it has increased in our normal tap water ?

Our health minister who seem to be tackling Indian health problems via the silver-screen rather than in real life had appealed to the film-stars not to act in cola ads. Shall he now focus his attention back to where it is more needed.Reminds me of the scence in "Main Azad Hoon" where Azad tells the minister "Even after 40 years of independance you failed to give us clean drinking water.What can you give us now ?"

A year from now we will be celebrating 60-th anniversary of our freedom.Could Dr. Anbumani ensure us clean aerated water devoid of cancer causing chemicals and cleaner drinking water too.

Victory of Evil Over Good : The Show Must Go On

2006-08-03T14:40:00.000+08:00

One of the yardsticks for a successful politician is how easily you can hide your emotions behind the umpteenth rehearsed smiling face. Every time George Bush embraces Tony Blair he must be thinking "Dammit, this guy has a real funny accent. I better ask Condi for a translator". Blair on the other hand must be thinking "Jolly good heavens, how long I will have to bear with this nutty bloke who keeps smiling at whatever I say". But if you look at their faces all you see is a gleaming grin running from the left ear to the right symbolizing their strong bond of friendship. In short to be a good Neta you got to be an equally good Abhineta.

But our WB CM has always miserably failed in the emotion control department.Take that Dushomoy (Bad Times) incident in the mid 90-s. He was disillusioned by the functioning of the party and he put down his papers. Then like all literary aspiring Bengali he takes up the pen and writes a script criticizing the government called Dushomoy.If I am not wrong some CPI-M big-shots were even present in the opening show also.May be because the box office returns were not very encouraging or CPI-M think-tank was able to brainwash him the second time, finally Buddha brat returned back to Allimuddin Street.

Ever since he has been quite vocal about his dislikes despite of the strong discipline practiced within CPI-M. But he has always been the ideal portrayal of a middle class intellectual Bengali who reads Kafka, listens to Robindro-songit, watches Truffaut and smokes his cigarettes, all just the right way any average Bengali would do. Also he is honest to the core and is not afraid to do things differently, brains at Alimuddin Street always want to project him as the leader of the Bengalis.

Like all Bengali bhodroloks Budha-babu is passionate about the game of cricket and Saurav Ganguly's cricketing career. And when a Bengali gets passionate about anything , there is no stopping him except for hot rosogullas or smoked hilsa marinated in mustard sauce. So he sets himself on a jihad against the biggest kaafir of cricket who happens to be none else than the crafty CAB head our own Jaggu-dada.

CMs mission and vision narrowed down to save the CAB from the clutches of power hungry Jagmohan Dal-main-bahut-kuch-kaala-miya. He asks his trusted candidate Prasun Mukherjee, Kolkata Police Commissioner to send Dalmiya packing for his tirth-yatra from cricket administration. The battle plans are laid and swords are drawn at each other. The Calcutta media is the happiest to find day-to-day updates filling up news print or TV slots in otherwise a dull moment for news across the state.

To add to the twist, veteran Jyoti Basu and sport minister Subhas Chakraborty (whose contribution to Bengal sports has been organizing pop shows on sports ground) openly backed Dalmiya instead of the CMs candidate. Dialectics between old CPI-M and new CPI-M added more masala to the event. And when things are related to cricket can Kolkata's cricket price Sourav be left behind.

From the day he was dropped from the national team he had been trying to make a comeback by doing anything and everything other than scoring runs. From closed door meetings with Sharad Pawar to hiring tantrik for performing voodo magic he did anything that is written or yet to be written in the book. They say when you are facing bad times your judgement gets clouded. It's happening with Sourav too. His version of writing on the wall was that the chain of events would ensure Dalmiya's vanaprastha.

He immediately jumps his guns and issues a statement against Dalmiya, saying that among the things Dalmiya destroyed during his tenure at BCCI one was Sourav's cricketing career. I am not sure how it happened but may be Dalmiya as BCCI president must've assured that so long as he is in power Dada didn't need to concentrate on his cricketing skills to be in the team. Sourav must've since then stopped practicing to improve widely known and even widely exploited cricketing weaknesses. But immediately after Dalmiya was shown the way from BCCI HQ, Sourav was dropped from the team too. Thus the crafty cricket administrator destroyed the illustrious career of perhaps the greatest of Indian captains till date.

Although Budhadev literally left no stones unturned, Dalmiya, whom his predecessor ICC chief Malcolm Gray has described once as the man to be careful about, still had the trump card carefully concealed inside his sleeves(although most of the times he wears a sleeveless shirt). The night before the elections he pays a visit to the most colorful man of Indian politics, our rail minister Lallu P Yadav.

Lallu's cricket love starts from his chaddi-main-gilli-danda days in Bihar. Couple of years back his son was selected as the best player in the state by Bihar's cricket association headed by pappa Lallu. No eyebrows were raised because the award was presented by the then Bihar's CM herself, Ms Rabri Yadav. Since everything was in the family, I'm not sure whether the celebration took place in the family cow shed.

On that fatal night some deal must have been signed between these two cricket administrators, which is beyond my speculation and the fate of CAB was sealed. In the vote next day Dalmiya won a cut-throat finish leading by 5 votes of which 3 might've been from the different clubs owned by Indian railways.

Next day a disgruntled Buddha meets the press and declares this win as "Victory of evil over good" and vows that his agenda of the jihad would continue. A seasoned Dalmiya smiles and calls Sourav a "bachcha" (kid) and says he will do whatever he can to help the ex-captian's comeback. This could only mean in the game of cricket politics Sourav is yet to come out of his diapers and Dalmiya will get his revenge in due time. So to summarize the curtains of the drama is yet to be drawn and the plot assures of new twist and turns ahead.

Our worthy opposition at the parliament NDA who are yet to save their face from the yet to learn tol-mole-ke-bol Yaswant Singh's failed detective aspirations promises to present their share of the event. As if all the problems in the country are over NDA does a walk-out from the Loksabha asking Budhadev to be apologetic about his jihadi comments against Dalmiya.

Surely Indian politicians can any day beat the talented scriptwriters at Balaji Production up hail the motto of "The Show Must Go On".

Next Time Ban the Pigeons Too

2006-07-19T19:37:00.000+08:00

Just a few days after the pyre smokes in Bombay died out,the Indian government suddenly jumped into action to counter the jihadi terrorists. So far the items in the list that had been actioned upon are :
1. Releasing those very very similar identity toolkit pictures of the suspects.
2. A morose speech full of usual jibberish from a puppet PM.
3. Pointing fingers at our Islamic neighbours
4. Banning a couple of blogging sites like blogspot.com and typepad.com.

The official reasoning for implementing this blog-sites ban is still not very clear but has been speculated as something like this:
SIMI activists are using these sites for checking each-others health and welfare apart from spreading hate and anti-national sentiments.

The next question that jumps to mind is whether blogs were the prime mode of communication between the jihadi khalnayaks and would this ban cripple them. Considering this report not to be a figment of the reporter's imagination, it seems the khalnayaks are more dependant on the traditional methods like PCOs.

So my proposal to the Indian government is closing down all the phone lines in the country.Lacking their usual mode of communication the jihadis will resort to parchments concealed in talisman tied to gutar-gutar pigeons' feet.

While the terrorists will be shooing the feathered couriers by singing "Kabutar jah jah", our specially trained snipers can bring down the pigeons to decode the next bomb-blast location.

Pretty soon the skies of India will be free from jihadi kabutars and we will win our war against terrorism on the information front.

Mera Bharat Mahan !!

Biscuit Sneaker

2006-07-13T19:04:00.000+08:00

The pantry of the office I work has these nice dabbas full of biscuits of various shapes and sizes. To make things even better they keep on recycling the brands every two or three days. I am told that empirical studies conducted at the Britania labs has shown that chewing biscuits leads to groundbreaking ideas and increase productivity. So everyday at around 6:30 pm I go the pantry armed with my coffee mug to fill it with the addictive steaming black liquid and grab a couple of biscuits to munch upon as I commence to solve the unsolved riddles of computing industry like how many browser windows can be simultaneously opened before my Win XP is stoned immaculate. Incidentally that is also the time when most of the mere mortals who are either much more competent than me in time-management skills or doesn't dare to realm into the unknown territories of complex task-solving pack their bags and leave for home to vote for the next Indian/Singapore/US idol. But today's visit was unique enough to feature in this coveted blog. As I am busy measuring that my creamer doesnot exceed from the prescribed amount by the last nano-gram there enters a Wally look-alike. Wally opens the biscuit tin, picks up an assorted collection of his favourite shapes and sizes. So far so good, nothing blog-worthy happens and I am engrossed in preparation of my concoction. Then he wraps them with a kitchen tissue and tucks them inside his bag and walks out whistling a tune that could have been from the Hindi number "Chori Chori Chupke Chupke".

I stand there with a cup of coffee and a dumb expression trying to figure out whether an IT engineer doesn't make enough money to buy a pack of biscuit ? Or is it that stolen biscuits send a soothing vibe across your neurones every time you take the bite? Or it is to do with the motto Free ka maal...dariya main daal.

Mumbai blasts : Why ?

2006-07-12T14:39:00.000+08:00

Why did these people in Bombay had to die ?
What was their fault ?

Is it because they lived a peaceful live ?

Is it because they are Indians ?

Why ? Why ? Why ?

Please go to out http://mumbaihelp.blogspot.com/ if you could be of some help.
And pray for their souls and take a vow that their deaths shouldn't go unpunished.

Rip Van Winkle Wakes Up

2006-07-05T17:29:00.000+08:00

There was this story of a real life Rip Van Winkle who got out of his coma after 20 long years. After reading the news I was thinking what must be that guy’s reaction to see the world around him. Personally I don’t remember much about the world 20 years back except for a few facts like climbing trees and breaking neighbour’s windowpanes with my cricketing ambitions. So let me cut the story short by another 10 years and try to figure out the conversation between Mr. Winkle and his attending doctor.

RVW: What's the latest going on in politics?
DOC: Not much, it’s pretty much same old stuff for the last few years. George Bush is still fighting war in Iraq with the English PM by his side.
RVW: OMG, that old fart-head is still the president and is still after Saddam's ass.
DOC: Err...no dude actually it's his son who's the president now.

RVW: Ok leave politics, tell me what's latest in fashion now ?
DOC: A lot has changed since you went to sleep. See the last trend was metro sexual. Now that's out, uber-sexual is in.
RVW: WTF what happened to the good old heterosexual fellas? Are they dead?
DOC: No they are still out there but not much in demand.

RVW: Tell me about the movies ...which film made it big at the Oscars last year?
DOC: Hmmm...it definitely was The Brokeback Mountain.
RVW: Who was the heroine? Is she hot?
DOC: No heroine in that movie...it was a story of two cowboys madly in love with each other.
RVW: Holy shit!!! Even the cowboys in bloody westerns have turned to faggots. Good that John Wayne died long before seeing all this crap.

RVW: Are the IT jobs still hot? Is Bill Gates still sucking millions out of the consumers?
DOC: All the IT jobs have now shifted to India and China while US is concentrating on what it does the best, fighting wars in Middle East. Bill Gates has joined hands with Warren Buffet. Together they are the two most celebrated philanthropists in the planet.
RVW: Are you kidding?
DOC: I seriously hope that I was kidding.But sorry dude,that's how it is nowadays.

RVW: It's much much crazier world than last time I saw. The human beings have lost their appetites for both sex and greed. I rather prefer to get back to my sleep. If you are still around wake me up in 2016.Hopefully the world will be a saner place by that time.

Sin at Sabarimala

2006-06-30T11:56:00.000+08:00

Everytime a movie plot gets twisted and tangled beyond the scriptwriter's ability to untie the knots, Bollywood has always looked upwards for a divine intervention. An andhi-toofan-wali raat is brought to life by pedestal fans blowing mighty air accompanied by the same lifted footage of thunder tearing apart the black screen. The mother of all Hindi filmi mothers, the one and only Ms. Nirupa Roy runs to the temple to cry for justice at the lord's feet. She hits the bells and unleashes her dukh-bhari kahani soaked in adequate glycerine before falling down unconscious in front the idol. Even the zooming camera gets sentimental and jerks up and down adding to the dramatic effect as the temple bells go tong-tong-tong. I love these chiming bells, as they are a harbinger of the impeding doom for the villain, whose balls are soon to be crushed.

But sadly the censor board have decided to dig up the national film archives to run a scissor on all these scenes citing that the temple authorities had realised that this violates our age-old tradition of not allowing women in temple. And a reliable source from I-n-B ministry said that the Mr. Priyaranjan Dasmunshi will be issuing soon a dictate to all the filmmakers not to depict any woman inside the temple as it might hurt our deep-rooted religious sentiments.

The minister who is currently on an official visit to Germany for upliftment of Indian soccer standards by importing samba dancers to boost sagging confidence of national football heroes could not be contacted for a comment.

UPDATE: After a thorough study of script and scriptures the Film Association have argued that the roles portrayed by Nirupa Roy was well past the age where a woman has no use of mere earthly possesion like tampons. The temple authorities were happy to know that their holiness stands intact and the censor board decided to give the scissors a rest. All's well that ends well.

Umrao Jaan: Is the Remake necessary ?

2006-06-26T22:03:00.000+08:00

While flipping between Beckham-Rooney's efforts at the goal between Ecuador defense at Stutgart and Saif-Preity's gyrating stunts amidst fire-breating extras at Dubai I caught a glimpse of J.P. Dutta's forthcoming Umrao Jaan. Needless to say the over-hyped Ms. Rai lives upto her expectation of perfecting the wooden looks while delivering the opening lines. The male lead Abhisek Bachchan decided not to be outdone by his beloved and decided to take the race to the looks department by sporting a doped rockstar hairdo. The end product of this idiocracy is a deadly combo of a wooden ballerina and a bad wigged scare-crow trying to recreate one of the finest movies of Indian film history.

Having all the time in this universe to ponder upon the unsolved mystries of Bollywood my latest puzzle is : Why today's screwed up dumbos need to recreate the classics of yesterday ? Is it because they feel the treatment of the script could be more justified by the advanced new movie making technologies available to them ?

But nobody wants to rewrite Othello just because Mr.Scott Adams added the word "humongous" to the English vocabulary.

And nobody also wants to repaint the Mona Lisa becase Da Vinci didn't have photoshop software to lift Naomi Campbell's arched eyebrows on his creation's face.

Then why do the brain-dead directors want to have a go at yester years blockbusters with their new found technologies ?

A remake of special effects based King Kong could justify the use of new technologies. Sci-fi movies are the visual form human imagination and enhancing that experience with newer technologies is always welcome. I wouldn't mind in future if a 3-D holographic projector bring the image of shark in JAWS to life right in my drawing room provided they don't wet my house-owner's carpet with the obvious splashes.

Going by the same logic an armless Thakursaab kicking Gabbar mid-air in a gravity defying jump would certainly be a welcome from the usual Hindi stunts. And we can still hope in a remake of Qurbani, Firoze Khan will employ all his graphic designers to bring out the perfect facial expressions in otherwise a dead-pan lookalike Fardeen Khan. Or going by his past records he might infuse some extra digital flesh to the bust of the leading actress without the usual ~~Sushmita~~ silicon route.

But of all movies Umrao Jaan doesnot have its share of magical aliens like ET, outsized primates like King Kong or ~~wired~~ stunts like Matrix. How Mr Dutta and his creative team will render the Muzaffar Ali classic to newer heights of viewing pleasure is something as mysterious as the leading lady's acting talent.

But as one of the Hindi movie villian taught me the truest of all truths is "Paisa bolta hain", there are always enough suckers like you and me who will crowd at the theatres to compare the copy to the original. And remakers like RGV, J.P. Dutta and Feroze Khan will laugh all the way to their banks with a remixed Gabbar laughter.

SuperMan's Friday Outing

2006-06-20T20:49:00.000+08:00

Since the super-heroes are rampantly hitting the movie theaters every alternate Friday thought of posting a long read Superman joke.

Superman feels sad on a Friday evening as he has no villian to thrash around. To cheer up he calls Spiderman and asks him to accompany him for a drink. Spidey politely denies saying that he has a date planned with Mary Jane. So Superman calls Batman who says Robin is having a fever and he's busy nursing his side-kick. Couple of calls to other superheroes ends up with the same result. Dejected he decides to fly alone. While passing by Wonder Woman's pad his X-ray vision finds her lying naked on her bed. He thinks of paying her a visit. But thinking about all his other experiences with the super community tonight, he decides against it. And then his dimmag ki batti does a flash. He thinks since I am able to fly like a bullet lemme just have a quickie with her and even before she'll realise I will be off to the moons. So he shoots like a rocket and whoosh he goes out finishing whatever he wanted to. Ahh another fruitful Friday he thinks while dodging a NASA satellite in the sky.

Back at the Wonderwoman's bedroom she asks the Invisible Man lying on her top "Darling what was that whooshing sound I heard just now ?".
The Invisible Man replies "Dunno...but I felt something was inside my butt for a second"!!

The Rights To Look Towards The Lefts

2006-06-19T20:00:00.000+08:00

Atal Vihari occasionally wakes up from his slumber to distribute the pearls of wisdom among his camaraderie. This time he had asked his party-men to look towards the lefts to set things right.That way they might be able to learn a lesson or two about how to stay in power years and years to come. Atal-ji might have hit it at the right spot at the right time. One of the weird puzzles in present Indian politics is who is the principal opposition party of the nation. Is it the BJP sitting on the Opposition benches or the lefts who contribute the biggest chunk of MPs supporting the ruling government ?

Take any goddamned issue under the sun that UPA lays its hands on the lefts are ever-ready to fire their salvos much before BJP spokesperson can even jot down their press statements. Footage of Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechuri delivering the gibberish beams across every alternate news channel at every alternate political intrigue. The principal opposition party sadly is missing in all these actions. It might be high time for the lotus worshippers to take a diet of the leftist crash course before they are lost into obscurity.

But however strong BJP tries to fight back unless they shift their priorities on their agenda list they will go down the lane. The reason lies in the very way that any other democracy works to protect the driving force of the respective nation : it's economy.

In every democracy there are different shades of politics for the people to rally their idealogies. While the rightists define the gripping conservative hardliners, the lefts are supposed to be the liberal, anti-establishment edge of the spectrum. In an hour of crisis either of these two shades of the political palette strikes as the exhaust passage to let the steam off the cookpot.

BJP rise to power was primarily fuelled by the economic crisis that marked the early years of the last decade. India was opening its economy to the world under the guidance of the then finance minister Manmohan Singh. The results would not be showing immediately but surely something was needed to instil the national pride, to make people believe that India also can do it. Who other than the rightists suited this role to bring back the order out the randomness of the whims and fancies of the Gandhi topi.

But once the economy stabilised and the sensex started leaping northwards, the hardliners might prove to be a threat to the investments. The Swadeshi essence always carried the potential reverse gear danger to a closed-door economy and was weighed as a too high risk to be taken. Logically the moderates will be best bet in the scenario when the boom of the economy surpasses expectations of the greatest of all sceptics. And thus we had the return of the Congress back to Delhi's corridors of power.

Even with the moderates running the country the economy does face hindrance. It faces blockades in the exasperation arising out of disparity that characterizes any free market-based economy. These angry voices can be best channelled across the intellectual leftist movement. They perfectly fit the role of maintaining the rebellious zeal with a promise of a volte-face as and when required.

The moderates and the leftists will mark the collaboration that will characterize the next few years of Indian political canvass till another economic factor changes this balance. Till then the lefts will be right and the rights might be left out.

Flick a horrrror

2006-06-13T14:05:00.000+08:00

Many many moons ago the predator was on the prowl amdist the dark alleys of the out-skirts of the City of Botham to infuse the innocent virgin with the blood-thirst that will create the situations for a 3 hour odd movie. Yes clever readers, as depicted in the mother of all horror movies, “Purani Haveli”, the background score was complete the obvious howls lifted from the original Ramsay sound-track.The municipal authorities had been kind enough not to repair the leaking pipes that added the dripping water effect to the chill and suspense. Although it might be summer time but the set designer was resourceful enough to find truckload of dried leaves to be blown all over the set by the big pedestral fan. Being restricted by the meagre budget and not at their creativity the designer team had hung tar-coated gunny bags as the back-drop to be completed with flickering tiny bulbs that would create the vision of a starry night. The stench from the tar was strongly nauseous, but the intellegent director realised that due to limitations of the medium the viewers won't be rewarded with the sensation of this smell. So he asked the scriptwriters to add enough dialogues to make the audience puke their guts out. After immense satisfaction on the couch during the casting priliminaries the producer had made it clear to the costume department that the upcoming item number girl would get enough exposure to show her silicon talents before being killed on the screen. So the dress designer [famous for her eye for details] was herself scruntinising the blade-works by her two assitants on the skimpy tank-top were deep enough or not. Satisfied with her ingenuity the director finally rested his creative fat ass on the chair to call the shots only to realise minutes later that the missing part that was bothering him for so long was actually the sanity of the script itself. Brooding over for a moment he smiled at the conclusion that all great artwork dazzle the viewers of the inherent mere flaws. Did anyone notice the missing eyebrows on the smiling Mona Lisa ?

And then he shouted "LIGHTS...CAMERA...ACTION".

Headlines From Kashmir to Kanyakumarika

2006-06-09T13:39:00.000+08:00

Headlines of the day via www.Samachar.com

Vinay Katiyaar, BJP's Mr. Scape-Goat grabs the headlines once again in Jammu-n-Kashmir [1]. This time he promises Rs 1 Lakh reward to any civilian who will kill a terrorist in JK. The last time Vinay Katiyar was in headlines was when he failed to save his deposit money at the Rae Baerli by-eletions. And before that it was when Vinay Katiyar tried to stirr up the Hindu sentiment after Varanasi bomb-blast and sadly realised the old communal tune is not catching up these days. Me thinks that all the three Kaityar headlines describes the route to the loony state of his mental affairs. Because of his deranged mood he seemed to be inspired by Kajol's fanatic role in Faana ? Time for Mr. Katiyar to see Dr. Modi for a thorough check-up.

Meanwhile before going to Tihar jail Rahul Mahajan claims that he is innocent and very ill [2] (hmm..still suffering from the hang-over I guess). Surely Mahanjan Jr. in all his innocence had only sniffed some white powder..... innocent toddlers do sometimes sniff Ponds Talcum powder or whatever they get in front of them as replacement. In case you are still confused of his innocence Mr. Naqvi assures us he is not like a terrorist whom you might want to kill to claim your lakh. Rahul dude there is nothing to be ashamed of . Just have a nice trip and get-over the hang-over. Daddy's colleagues are still confident that "one incident cannot be the yardstick for a person's dynamism and capability."

Another man claiming his innocence is Mr. Natwar Laal err Singh. He has sent a letter to the PM saying that "higher ups" in the government is trying to nail him and his son Jagat[3]. Were these the same "higher ups" responsible for putting his untinted name on the Volker report too ? Give him some more time and some more kicks in his butt I'm pretty sure Mr Natwarlaal will change his tone start singing "Pardeshiya yeh saach hain priya....saab kehte hain ke maine ghoos le liya....main kahta hoon ke tune ghoos de diya"

Further down in the heart of cow-belt, Lucknow, a tantrik allegedly appointed by Ganguly's family had performed some mumbo-jumbo that will ensure the former captian's comeback to the team[4]. Maybe since Godfather Dalmiya is himself in deep daal (soup) of controversies only hope that remains is blessings from the Saturn after 6/6/6. Well Mr. More and Mr. Chappel do you feel the needles pinched on your vodoo avatars ?

Down south in Hyderabad Prakash Karat urged that UPA should learn from the election in Bengal and Kerala about people oriented policies [5]. Good show Mr. Karat, can we now have privatisation of the airports in other parts of the country just like Kolkata ? Or like every other stone hurled at UPA this advice was only for the other members of UPA and doesn't apply to the leftist residents of the glass house ?

In the same meeting while WB Chief Minister, Buddadev Bhattacharjee, attributed the election success to the farmers his Kerala counterpart V S Achuthanandan claimed the support of women for the party had done the trick. Ahh, that's what I call a Ladies' Man !!

Reservation battlefield extends to Judicial Fronts

2006-05-30T18:55:00.000+08:00

The Gandhi Topi finally meets the Judges' Wig. The Supreme Court had asked the government to explain the rationale behind the 27% reservations for the OBC. Without giving an oppurtunity for the protesters to cheer the SC sternly asked the medicos to end their stir or be prepared to face the consequences of contempt of the court. As the reservation battlefield extends to judicial fronts speculations about the fate of this movement rolls into mind.

In an utopian world the taking a cue from their mumbling client (when facing the hard hitting facts from Karan Thapar), the government lawyers will stammer when trying to establish the logic of reservation. It's not easy to package the logic of increase my vote-bank amidst the weasel words unless you have the canine cunnigness of Mr. Dogbert. But fortunately our legislators don't take the pain of hiding their malicious intentions behind nationality stirring jargons . Their approach is more direct and more blunt. So as is inscribed below the national emblem the motto of "Satyemeva Jayete" [ie.Truth Alone Triumphs] will prevail the fate of the nation. Admist the deafening claps and cheers the judge will thrash his hammer and say "Tamman bayanat ko madd-e-nazar rakhte huwe adalat isi natize pain aa paunche ke srif voto ke liye arakshan rashtra ke unnati ke khilaf hain. Arjun Singh ko is ghinone zurm ke liye umaar kaed ka saza sunai jaati hain" [translation : Reservation only for the sake of votes is against the development of the nation and Arjun Singh is sentenced to life time prison for this heinous crime.]

In the real world within the eight weeks period granted by the court the government clerks will be collecting and manufacturing data to support the reservation theory. In the same span of time without guidance and directions from thoughtful leaders the zeal of the youthful rebellion will die an untimely death without entering the foray of a revolution. By this time all the political parties will be reaching the enlightening unanimity that reservation will ultimately benefit all of their vote-bank. All the future political programs will be chartered to meet this single objective. The traffic at all the Indian streets and gallis will be stopped by the rallies in support of the reservation. Party sponsered intelligensia will reveal to the media the deep insights into how Manu's wrongfully implemented caste system would be nullified by the rightfully implemented reservation dawai. Time tested methods of Goebbels will once again see success in Indian politics. Finally the day will come when India will be torned into one separate General Pradesh and another separate OBC Pradesh.

In the heaven above the Goddess of Learning will ask the Goddess of Law to lend her blind-folds.

Abhineta and Neta Quotes of the day

2006-05-24T18:12:00.000+08:00

Viviek Oberoi was the only one from Bollywood delegation to Cannes to sport an Indian outfit. But apparently he got carried away with the whole Desi looks idea or had too much of French wine. While commenting on his forth-coming film "Omkara" which happens to be a Vishal Bharadwaj's adaptation of the Bard's Othello he said, "I think Vishalbhai’s Omkara is even better than the original version"[1]. Someone should declare that Viviek shouldn't be allowed to give any public interview in 200 mile proximity of his lost love Aishwarya Rai. The old flames seems to have a dull effect on his brains.

Our politicians are getting techno-savvy day by day. Lalu P. Yadav recently stunned his other colleagues of the cabinet with a MS Power Point presentation in Hindi. To break the silence among awe-struck audience Jaipal Reddy was the first to comment "This is the beauty of the Mandal Commission. Nobody thought a person like Lalu Prasad could make a power point presentation."[2]. Rumour has it that Uma Bharati was spotted listening to her daily evening Bhajan doses with an Ipod hooked to her ears and Rabri Devi is evaluating between SAP and Oracle Applications for keeping a track of her fodder reserves.

Fanaa : Will Kajol break the comeback jinx ?

2006-05-23T18:09:00.000+08:00

After the disastrous Neal-n-Nikki the Chopras realised it's high time to make up the losses before lil bro Udai starts pestering Pappa Yash and elder Bro Aditya to script another movie in his quest for impossible stardom. So this Friday coming at a theatre near you is "Fanaa...Destroyed in Love" . Apart from the fact that this a Yash Chopra banner film, "Fanaa" will still be a movie to watch out for a number of reasons.

Critics will be sharpening their pen-nibs to check out what Kunal Kohli cooks up this time after his successful adaptation of "When Harry met Sally" in "Hum-Tum".The Fanaa story-line revealed so far looks fresh from the oven and after indigestion from a staple diet of Hollywood to Koreawood copies this one might bring some freshness to the menu.

As for the aam-jaanta they will be waiting for another inspiring performance from the Haatke actor Aamir. Unlike his stereo-typed colleagues he is the only one who tries to get into the skin of the character instead of playing himself. Think of it how many mimic artists can you remember mimicking Aamir Khan. And this itself is quite a big achievement by Bollywood standands.

Finally this movie will mark Kajol's second innings in Bollywood after her marriage. Will Ms. Devgan be able to achieve what she did before her marriage ? Till date none of the top-rated heroines had been able to regain their numero uno position after their honeymoon trip. The same fan following that whistled loud at her jhatkas-n-latkas becomes silent once the mangal-sutra dangles from the heroine’s neck. In a country where the audience doesn't mind a 50+ actor portraying a college kid this is even more surprising.

Does this trace back to ancient India when because of non-existance of Bollywood dream merchants the show business was strictly state-sponsored. It used to be the king or the elected statesmen who appointed the Nartakis ( dancers ) to entertain the public. Just like today's silver-screen heroines the Nartakis had their share of Page 3 limelight, their own fan clubs, access to the corridors of power and were bedded by high fliers of the society.

But all this rich and famous goodies came at one heavy price: They were never allowed to marry. The logic was when a woman is coveted so much it would be a very big injustice to the entire population if this treasure is hooked up with a single man. Now that the times have changed, old traditions have given way to the new ones, still deep down our sub-consciousness we have the same hypocrisy running strong.

I hope Kajol will break this jinx and prove me wrong.

Krissh : First Mutant invasion in Bollywood !!

2006-05-19T20:14:00.000+08:00

In pursuit of contradictions between the treatment towards the opposite sexes, Bollywood has always seemed to me to be the treasure trove. As a true reflection of the male-chauvinist Indian society, in reel life it is always the hero who tastes the fleshy Aam (Mango) leaving the the stony Gutli (seed) for the heroine to suck. And why I say that ? Try closing your eyes and remember any one of the Bollywood songs that tried to reach the peaks. Ok now that you can see the hero and heroine dancing amidst the white snow laden background what diffrences do you see between them ?

Did you notice the truly amazing display of endurance that the heroine smilingly brings to the screen. Behold her in the skimpiest of all outfits atop the peaks of all the mountains you had read in your high-school geography course. Be it the Himalayas at our own backyard or the Yash Chopra favourite European Alps or even the distant Latin Andes from our home-planet to the even more distant Olympus Mons on Mars, our desi femme fatales had braved the sub-zero temparature to conquer them all in string bikini suits.

On the other hand when it came to dancing at heights, our hero seemed to be a walking billboard for woollen apparels. Barring the monkey-caps their wadrobe seem to have all the weapons that you can think of to protect from the snow. Geared with the snow-goggles, hand gloves, well-knit mufflers and a thick-set sweater, they wrap around anything and everything that could get them the closest resemblence to an intoxicated leaping Yeti. Rishi Kapoor who had perfected this look had single handedly boosted the sales of Monte Carlo sweaters to 100 times than what it normally would have been.

But to the delight of bra-burning feminists that'll be not be case anymore. Applaud the birth of the first Hindi super-natural hero "Krissh". The preview of the movie showed Hrithik who is playing the role of a mutant (hmm that explains his extra finger and the elastic moves) dancing with his lady love Priyanka to the tune of his uncle Rajesh Roshan's song atop another snow-clad mountain peak. And to my surprise I saw the roles are reversed entirely. Priyanka is wearing a wollen cap , a jacket and even her hands are folded inside to find that extra warmth. And in sharp contrast our mutant boy is donning a dhoti and a banyan and outdoing Priyanka in all the dance steps.

SUPER-NATURAL indeed !!

Gotta see this movie for the other twists-n-turns that Papa Rakesh Roshan will entertain us with.

Truck load of Uranium !!!

2006-05-18T15:30:00.000+08:00

BBC claims this is Uranium mined at Jadugoda that is being carried in this open lorry. But then again this is B.B.C who are known in Sri Lanka as Biased BrainWash Corporation.
Can anyone from the Indian media check out the story ?

A-B-C-D of Reservation Politics

2006-05-17T20:55:00.000+08:00

Here is the A-B-C-D guide of How to Handle Indian Political Issues

A : Agitation
B : Bandh
C : Committee
D : Delay

Now that the agitation and strikes by the pro and the anti reservation camps have had their share of newsprints and blog-bytes time has come to jump for the step C . So just at the right time (read Sonia's comeback at Parliament) Manmohan Singh waking up from his slumber has announced the formation of a four member committee to evaluate the valid points from both sides".

Without any surprises the committee consists of four veteran Congressmen all of whom are present cabinet ministers. Alphabetically the names are :
HRD Minister Arjun Singh
Law Minister Hansraj Bharadwaj
Finance Minister P.Chidambaram
Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee

If you are done with clicking the Wiki version let me give you the wicked version of the recent and past achievements of the above mentioned gentlemen :

Bharadwaj's recent claim to fame was trying to stop the solicitor general to freeze of a certain Mr. Quattrocchi's certain UK bank accounts. The law minister has also ignored the two cases pending in Indian courts against the same Mr Q. After all Mr. Q is late Rahul Gandhi's sasural-ke-side-se-mehman. And we Indians are famous for our mehman-nawazi. Hansraj happens to be the most cunning of the lot.Mark my words he'd the guy to watch for.

Arjun Singh has been a long time player and a true master batsman in this game . His epic innings have been Churhat lottery case and the building of the Karwa Dam palace. The palace seems to cost somewhere between 10 to 20 crore although Arjun's claim is it cost him only forty lakhs. Holy Cow!!What was he trying to build ? A second Taj Mahal ? But what more can you say of the rhino-skinned politician who held tight to his CM-ki-kursi even when the Bhopal tragedy Gas had struck. No points in guessing which side of the debate is favoured by Arjun Uncle.

Pranab Mukherjee has been the faithful YES-MAN through decades. From Indira to Rajiv then to Narasimha Rao and finally Sonia this Bengali lawyer had been the laage-raho side-kick character with all the Congress supremos. So his presence in the committee can be translated only as Sonia's rubber-stamp. Nothing more than that but nothing less either.

Chidambaram is the most educated of the lot with a Harvard law degree. Till date he has been doing a good job with India's wallet and had stayed kroso-meel-dur from any corruption. But then again I'm that sceptic who greets the dish of world's best meat with a "The taste would've ruined if one more grain of salt was added" kind of compliment. So who was our FM trying to please when in the Budget 06 the exercise duty on Pasta was reduced from 16% to a big Zero ? Was it the Italian job ? Rumoured to be a supporter of anti-reservation Chidambaram will be perhaps the only guy other than Arjun who'll speak his mind.

Now time for the ek-crore-ka-sawal : What happens next ?

Simple ....just like any other issues the four members of the Committee will now commence on the Step D (ie. the Delay phase). And we, the people of India, will resume our daily normal routine of eating-n-shitting. By the time the Committee come to E-for-ENDING the chances are quite high that I will be rolling in my grave while my great-great-grandson will be walking on this planet.

One film is powerful than a thousand words ?

2006-05-17T16:44:00.000+08:00

The release of the film Da Vinci Code in India has been postponed. The Information Ministry has decided to let the ministry pundits, censor board mullahs and the holy bishops to sit down with their well-trained scissors and have a watch at the film before they decide whether the dudh-peete (milk-fed) Indians can have their share of the reel version of Dan Brown's novel. Ever since the book was published in May 03, buying the original copies from racks of Cross-Word (and making Mr. Brown richer) or the pirated ones at the traffic signal (and making Mr. Brown poorer) the voracious Indian readers have already read and digested the contents without any acidic hiccups. Has the attendance at the Sunday masses in the churches across the nation shown any decline after that?

Or is that kala-akshar-vainsh-barabar members of the Indian population forms the largest part of the Church's followers in India? And the padres are afraid that if these ignorant masses are allowed to come across the idea that when it came to love and sex The Son of God also acted like a mere mortal then their customer base might suffer a drastic reduction.

If that be the case why don't the padres address the greater issue of illiteracy and leave us to decide which movie to go for. After all it's my money that buys me the ticket and I have my own right to choose the films I want to watch.

Mr. DasMunshi and Ms. Pataudi are you listening?

Rahul-Baba:Making of the Chote Sarkaar

2006-05-15T14:52:00.000+08:00

As predicted by Nostra-Dumb-Ass Sonia-ji is all set to adorn her throne back at Loksabha. Out of the total 5.9 lakh votes polled, Ms Gandhi got 4.74 lakh votes. The two other candidates SP's Raj Kumar Chowdhury managed to secure 57,000 votes, while BJP's scapegoat Vinay Katiyar failed to save his deposit money by securing 20,000 votes only.

The only note-worthy event in this whole fiasco was the Chote Sarkaar Rahul-baba seen organizing his mamma's campaign. If you go by the results Rahul-baba is emerging as the next leader in the making. And time for another Nostra-Dumb-Ass prediction : The Gandhi worshippers at Kangress HQ is waiting for a good time to coronate Rahul on his hereditary throne of the Prime Ministership of India. But the more is Rahul projected as the gen-next messiah more the question of his ability gets raised.

If we are to judge a book by it's cover only the readers are far from impressed. Looking at his designer khadi kurta he seems to me the conventional neta whose motto is to follow the tradition as it is. Why does a young guy have to wear an attire like kurta with which none of the urban or rural youth identifies to? Maybe the Kangress think-tank is afraid if Rahul-baba wears his comfortable Armani or Gucci T-shirts the Rae Berelli or Amethi's aam janta would not be able to identify him as the saviour. Has the Hindi movies potrayal of the neta in white kurta in penetrated so deep amidst the aan-paad ganwar that changing this image is too much of a risk worth taking.

But learning the proverbial lesson as I am try to look beyond the covers and read between the lines of the great Rahul epic, the mere lack of impression turns into utter disgust. So far the Chote Sarkaar's only contribution to the Indian political news has been his occasional pot-shots at Mulayam. Maybe this is a part of the greater plan of establishing Rahul-baba as the voice of Kangress in UP and the rest of the cow-belt. And if the cow-belt is won can the rest of India be left behind. But before he dons that mettle our hero is yet to do anything (other than being born into the Gandhi dynasty) to justify his share of fame.

For example when asked on his views on a hot potato like reservation the Chote-Sarkaar played a bil-cool copybook style safe shot which perhaps even Dravid would be proud of. He simply avoided the debate saying that "It's a complex issue" . And then to the awestruck speechless reporters he added a thoughtful insight that "Both sides have valid points". As if the learned political pundits and the not-so-learned Indian janta both had failed to grasp the "Complex"-ity of the reservation issue before Rahul-baba revealed the true nature of the issue.Tut-tut, Chote Sarkaar can't your speechwriters come up with something better? Or is the lil Gandhi still waiting to find out which side the wind is blowing strong. And then in a convenient time make the jump to that boat which will sail further.

Rahul-baba you seem to have inherited your father's looks and your mamma's dilemma. Your stance reminds me of your mom who said that she would rather have Manmohan as PM only after things were taking a nasty turn. Why couldn't she say that before fighting the election ? Or why did she wait so long before her resignation until EC was breathing on her neck ? Just like her you too are always waiting for the the last straw till the very last moment. Sadly we the people of India have had enough of political déjà vu. So we are not so apprehensive to see you being projected into our political horizon as our guiding star.

Rahul-baba if you are honest to yourself try to think out of the Gandhi topi and do something different. And for Neheru's sake fire those idiot speechwriters of yours and PLEEASE come up with your own lines. Or like another illustrious member from your alma mater Harvard the key to your success lies in INTERNALIZING ?

Freaky Gagdets/Gadgets Freaky

2006-05-11T20:13:00.000+08:00

Throughout my conscious existence on this planet I had been fighting the loosing battle against the strange behaviour of the gadgets around me. If am to record the history of this battle it started as early as my toddler days when I thought that that my father's new watch could do the bouncing trick which I discovered was not true along with a painful memory of dad twisting and turning of my ears.

But that was before I attained literacy and had been able to read the manual successfully. Now that I have read and known what the gadget is supposed to do, the correct combination of the buttons or keys then why come they behave the exact opposite baffles me the most. And when all the possible logical answers fails, an X-File script fits in perfectly. It must be a conspiracy to stop the me to utilize the best of gadgets to the fullest extent. Don't ask me who and why this conspiracy was hatched as Scully and Moulder are still working on it.

Take the strange behaviour of my home theatre system. It’s a nice piece of electronics with woofers, sub-woofers, remote with all possible buttons and a 200 pages thick manual of what all you can do and cannot do. For a father of a two year old nothing is most valuable than his home theatre especially when the cinema halls are a strict no-no until your child learns to stop crying and wake up everyone who are trying to catch a nap at the multiplex. So all my movie watching other than what the TV channel dishes out happens with this piece of gadget.

But two days before it simply refused to do what it is basically supposed to do, play a godamned movie. I had got a CD of the movie "Being Cyrus". I switch on the player and I was greeted with a screen full of frozen pixels. The technician in me immediately got into action. I put on a head cleaner and try again. No better results I am still seeing the frozen pixels. Tried running another CD works fine. Next day go to the shop and complain how can they sell me a CD that doesn’t work. The salesman tries on his system and it works fine. Frustrated I buy the same movie from another shop in another part of the town. Come back, try again and it’s the same frozen screen again.

My player plays all that I have my movie collection. From the ekdum original ones to the cheap pirated ones, the hot-hot XXX ones to the nasty-nasty XXXX ones. But when it comes to playing "Being Cyrus" it always greets me with a screen of frozen pixels. Why on the earth would someone not want me to watch a movie that too "Being Cyrus" is something I can never understand?

This is not the first time...we had this music system that my roomie and me used to share. A product of Ipswich Car Boot Sale it was an amazing piece of machinery for its price of 15 pounds. Be it Bangla folks or the African drums, Bappida's Disco beats or Death Metal Rock it played them all exactly the same way it as was recorded in the studio. But then my roomie went to a Bob Dylan's concert and returned a Convert. Wherever he could lay his hands on or click his mouse he'll buy Dylan's CDs. I personally remember collecting at least 5 times from the eBay delivery. After playing Dylan for two three months our CD player became a Convert too.

It stopped playing all other musicians except for Robert Allen Zimmerman. If you try playing Kishore Kumar it made him sound like a toad with a bad case of laryngitis. If you try Simon-Gurfunkel it made those sweet pair of voices sound like Gupi-Bagha before they got the boon from Bhooter Raja.But put one CD from Mr. Zimmerman, it played like the master singing himself in your living room. Till date I haven't deciphered what secret message my conspirators were trying to send through the lyrics of Subterranean Homesick Blues.

But the deadliest of all was the ATM machine in my first office. ATMs are always the simplest of all machines - easy to understand, easy to use. Just put your card, key in your pin and say how much you need. Like an obedient genie they will churn out the amount in fresh-minted currencies except for this one. I had tried all the other ATM kiosks from my bank across the city. They would behave like a well-groomed puppy that dutifully fetches his master’s newspaper without a single teeth mark. But this one behaved like a mangy old canine whose purpose of existence was to heckle me with its barks and bites.

Any time, any day, any night, any transaction I tried on this machine it invariably would gobble up my debit card. Be it cash withdrawal, changing ATM pin or even checking account balance I was always greeted with a screen “The transaction could not be completed. Your card has been withheld. Please contact our nearest branch”. I use to watch in despair all my colleagues coming out with wad of notes and smiling teeth but I was never able to join those happy faces.

So every time I would either bike 10 km to the next ATM kiosk or ask a trusted colleague to operate on my behalf. Once or twice he tried encouraging me to do it myself but it always ended with a trip to the bank to recover the card. I became quite a known face at the bank. Every time I stepped inside the banker lady in charge of cards would greet me with a "Oh no, Mr Som. Not again!!”

Now that I have relocated and have jumped 3 odd jobs in 3 different cities I still have dreams of visit to that ATM. In my dreams as soon as I try to put my card inside it sucks my hand and then my whole body. The dream always ends with me trying to pull myself back from the clutches of the devilish ATM with the emergency alarm ringing TRNNNNNNG… TRNNNNNNG. Breathing heavily I wake up with a heavy perspiration all over my forehead to find my alarm clock ringing.

Scully ... Moulder are you listening?

A Tale of Two Faces

2006-05-03T20:22:00.000+08:00

Today morning's peek-a-boo at Desipundit informed me that The Republic of India is alarmingly surrounded by "Failed States" on all sides.Being the avid Googler I looked into Google News for a deeper insight.It seems that someone came up with a 12 point rating system where the countries are evaluated.Higher your rating....lower is your country's state of affairs.Name any one of our neighbouring countries : Pakistan, Afghanistan, Burma, Bangladesh, Nepal....they all have scored almost a perfect 10 in all the indicators that characterises A Failed State.Our big neighbour across the Himalayas the Peoples' Republic of China came 54-th way ahead of India whose ranking was 93 among the 146 countries around the globe.Pauline Baker, president of the Fund for Peace, gave a generous certificate that India had greater social mobility and was more decentralised than its more populous neighbour. The true Indian in me immediately started singing the BAAP of all patriotic song ....yes the one-and-only-one Manoj Kumar starrer :

"O mere desh ki dharti ublhe sona, ublhe heere-mothi,
O mere desh ki dharteeeee..............................................."

Just when I had reached the patriotic momentum with the high-pitched EEs suddenly with a EEEEK my song came to a screecthing halt. Another news at the bottom of the screen reflected that India is the home for more than half of the world's under-nourished children.Yes we know that last time President Clinton had visited India both the nation had signed a secret deal.Since the North American landmass was tilting under the weight of its obese population we decided to maintain Earth's center of gravity at the center of the Earth India would balance the weight.There was a very fierce competition from the famine striken and war torn African nations who were also trying to do the same favour to their European counterparts.But at the end it was we the Indian's who were responsible for the Earth to still rotate at 23 degree axis.Of course our friendly neighbourhood Pakistanis and Bangladeshis did add to this 73 million figure but by far India remains to be the biggest contributer to the list.So puff goes my balloon of national pride and I sit at my desk with my head hanging down.

And then I realised that there is not one but two Indias that run parallely in the nation's lifestream.

In one India a business development manager courtiously advises his American clients "Since this is your first day in India I would suggest you rather avoid the currys ". And then with his homework done he suggests "If you like Italian there is a nice little resturant down the lane". The client thinks "Hmmm...thatz cool...but when do I get the free elephant ride".
And thus a successful million dollar outsourcing deal is signed.

In the other India transactions also happen with lunch suggestions. Look at those two gentlemen with one assuring the other "Don't worry whereever I am taking her,they will treat her like a queen".After a few moments of hesitation the father lets go off his daughter's hand and clinches onto the sack of rice.One smooth transaction and a girl is sold at the cost of a sack of rice.

In one India at 2:00 am in morning a call center executive putting on his best American accent is trying to help a frustated user in US : "Yes Ms. Thickhead next time you need to shut down the computer don't switch off the plug.I know it's a bit of irony but you need to press the start button to shut down.That way you wouldn't loose your data....Ok I will put a ticket to the design team suggesting a button name change in the next release.Is there anything else I can help you.Have a good day.Byee"

In another India at 2:00 am in the morning a farmer takes a last long look at his sleeping wife and children before turning to the hanging noose that awaits for him. After all this is the only way he can escape the sharp teeth of the money lending sharks.Too bad he doesn't have a helpline to call.And even if he had the nearest phone booth is 30 miles away.

In one India in the tinsel town of Mumbai inside a sound-proof studio the upcoming female model bares it all in the couch test.The next hour the progressive film-maker chats with his journo freind over a glass of beer "Aare dada ...she's the rawest talent I have ever seen.Just the kind of woman I wanted to potray in my historical Jhansi Ki Raani.Wait for the movie to complete and then you will realise that I got an eye for jewels".Journo friend makes a mental note to pass on this masala to Page 3 editor.

In another India not so far away city of Pune a 13 year Bulu from West Bengal is re-christianed as Chameli and is thrown to the highest bidder for her virginity. An hour later she's one more face in the crowds of Budhwarpet.If she's very lucky enough she might escape AIDS.

In one India the newspapers is carrying a photograph of the genius Indian-American boy collecting the first prize in the spelling bee competetion for correctly spelling the longest word in English dictionary "floccinaucinihilipilification" without the slightest hesitation.

In another India inside a shady joint in the coastal sea-beaches the visitng foreign tourist asks the manager to spell out the name of the boy he had chosen. After all calling the victim by the first name adds a new thrill to the pedophelic lust.

The list is endless,but with each battling contrasts of the two faces of India the dialectics between these two grows more acute than ever. So long these two shades of the fabric otherwise known as the Great Indian Society had been running parallel to each other. But what happens if they intersect ? What will they find when they look into each-others eyes ? Compassion or hatred ? Will they embrace in a brother hug or crush one-another to death ? Will India's growing population of the urban rich manage to pull up the rural down-trodden ? Will the poverty striken rural Indian crowd drag down their urban counterparts to darkness ? Most importantly will this duel take place in our times , in our share of history ? More and more questions keep on piling in the space that divides the two Indias.

The Zen Master told his pupil "The ten thousand questions are one question. If you cut through the one question, then the ten thousand questions disappear ". I am still searching for the ONE QUESTION.

Anyone got the answer ?

Opal Mehta : From Chic-lit Genius to Chic-Cheat Fraud

2006-04-28T14:20:00.000+08:00

"Churi-bidya mohabidya,
Jodi Na poro dhora"

Translated in English this Bengali proverb means "The Art of Theft is a very very fine art...Only If you don't get caught". And do you know what happens when you get caught. More than half of the blogging world comes crushing you from all sides. It started with the pony-tailed guru's phoney tales. Quizmaster Parnab was squeezed from all corners of the blog. And now the richest and the youngest entrant to this Hall of Shame is Kaavya Vishwanathan. To think of it she had it all : A teen with good looks, education at the best IVY league college, a six figure two book contract, another fat agreement with DreamWorks for the movie rights. But unfortunately just before copies of her book "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life" were to hit the stands a nosy reporter at the Harvard Crimson(Harvard’s student newspaper) discovered instances of similarity with other chic-lit (Wow a new word to my vocab) novels "Sloppy First" and "Second Helpings" both by the same writer Megan McCafferty. The storyline was identical with one of the books and the number of VERY VERY similar passage between these books was more than 40.With so many co-incidental matches very little room was left for doubt that Kaavya's literary genius was a sad case of Ctrl-C + Ctrl-V.

The best part was when questioned this literary celebrity came up with a brilliant defence line that would have made Grisham's lawyers go green with envy. All she said was that "I wasn’t aware of how much I may have internalized Ms. McCafferty’s words". It looked like just before the audience was to clap at the levitating magician the invisible rope snapped and with a heavy thud she fell flat on her face and said "Oh..Oh...the rope should have been stronger".After all who can guess there are suckers who reads books with weird titles like "Sloopy First" and "Second Helpings" other than budding writers trying to internalize the words, only to externalize later inside a new book cover with a new title.

Indeed it was a sad day for people like me who have a huge admiration for the masters of this greatest art form. In my book the finest master was Eduardo de Valfierno. He had got one idiot glass fitter Vincenzo Peruggia to steal Mona Lisa for him from the Louver. While the original was locked up with the idot, the master had sold 6 fake copies of Da Vinci's masterpiece and made a fortune for himself. He lived life to the fullest in the cosiest of the villas at the French Riviera, sailed in the best of yachts, drank the best of the wines and had the company of the best of the women folks. Before his death he called an American reporter Karl Decker and told him of his adventure, which instantly became a hot seller.

During my days at college I too met one master of this trade. For anonymity purpose let's call our hero Bluffmaster. Bluffmaster was the shrewdest artist when it came to cheating in the examination halls. From Harmonium (a rectangular sheet with all the answers written in microscopic handwriting and folded between two fingers) to Diagonal Scales ( a white piece of paper with answers scribbled was cut to the exact dimension of the scale and pasted to the back of the scale) he had excelled at these tiny feats during his kindergarten days. So he left the small tricks for us and went on to bigger things. But like all big players at one point of time he got carried over and one day was caught red handed while copying.

As the vigilant professors would have it, they made him write all the next exams sitting in the first bench right under the invigilator's nose. Those days we were all big worshippers of the concept of division of labour. So this is what we used to do,one guy would read one particular chapter, the other guy another and just one hour before the exams we would have a round table conference in the canteen were all our knowledge were dumped down. Loaded with common sharing we went into fill up the answer sheet with scribing of transferred knowledge. This phenomenon was called Pre-Hall Collection and was a sure shot way to cruise through the semesters. Surprisingly after they made him sit in the first bench our Bluffmaster used to be missing from these life-n-death discussions. He used to come just 10 minutes before the exam halls were opened...used to sit quietly in the next room...walk quietly to the hall...write the exam and quietly go back home. Being the curious cat that I was,I got hold of him on the third day and asked him "Bluffmaster whatz the story man? So far as I know you there is some special trick going on".

He put on his trademark wicked-yet-lovable smile on his face and told me "Sshh..Don't tell anyone" and raised his shoes. And there it was,a paper cut to the exact shape of his shoe-soles containing all the formulas that were needed to wade through the exams. All these days he had come, gone to the other room and stuck those paper...and since couldn't afford to dirty his source of copying so he skipped the Pre-Hall Collection...sat in the exams with his legs crossed and all he needed to do is to turn over his shoes to see the formulas. Even the most vigilant of the professors could not imagine of what lies beneath the shoe.

On the last day of the exams the very same professor who had caught the Bluffmaster was on invigilation duty. From the time we got the question paper the Bluffmaster was all the time peeking into his shirt's pocket. After this happened fourth or fifth time our vigilant professor asked the Bluffmaster to empty his shirt pocket. There was only some blank papers and a few currency notes. Thinking that there might be some invisible ink scribblings on those blank papers and currency notes he confisticated the items and asked him to take back after the exams. Just 5 minutes before the exam ended Bluffmaster went to the teacher’s desk, submitted his answer sheet and took back his items. He went out only to come back minutes after with I-Am-Robbed kind of expression on his face.

The teacher asked him "Is there anything wrong?"

Bluffmaster replied in the politest yet loud enough for others to hear tone,"I don't know how to put it Sir...but it seems there is a 100 rupees note missing from the currency notes I gave you...just came back to check whether I dropped it here....no it is not here....must be lost when you took it from me...can you please check sir...actually I need to pay for my college dues today".

And then leaving the professor dumb-founded with the how-dare-you-say-that anger mixed with the loser’s sadness he walked out of the hall with the same wicked lovable smile of his.

Kiss-Naah : No kissing Please,We Are Indians

2006-04-20T17:23:00.000+08:00

In tradition with the recent historic movies made in Bollywood my current post stats with a voice-over narration :

"Saan unissoh-chathis : Bharat ka badsaah George V guzar ne ke baad unka beta Edward VIII se saar pe taaj charah.Paar Bharat paar unke hukumaat chala srif ek hi saal.Ek American talak-suda aurat Wallis ke pyaar main deewana Edward ne apna takht apna bhai Duke of York Prince Edward ke naam kaar diyah.Paar pure British Sultanat main pyar ke liye kimaat chukane wale Edward-Wallis akele nahin the...."

The next scene begins with a sub-title : India, New Delhi 1936, The Office of Morality, British Indian Civil Service.

The camera pans down the ceiling fan rotating at a speed where you can count there goes the 1st blade, 2nd blade, 3rd blade and so on.The office is well decorated with the Union Jack, a map of Indian sub-continent and on the wall backside hangs a oil potrait of His Highness Prince Edward VIII. In the chair behind the desk a grumpy old British officer is seen smoking his cigar. In front of him stands his Babu with a bundle of papers. Behind him a love struck couple staring each other with dreamy eyes is held captive firmly by two pandu hawildaars.

Officer mutters to himself "Oh god, I am missing London badly, Delli is hot as hell...2 more months before my transfer and I am stuck in this shit-hole !"
And then in a nasal British Hindi accent shouts at his babu :"Toh yeh dono khule sadak pain kiss kaar rahe the...Outrageous...only British logo ko openly kiss karne ka permission hain... tum ghulam logo ko nahin.... you need to be punished severely."

A bend-back Babu replies in the politest tone : "Huzur aap mai-baap aap rahete huwe inko saza to zarur milega...paar penal code main aise zurm ke liye kuch likhe nahin hain"

Officer : "You lazy Babu can't you read the goddam penal code properly...there must be something for this"

Babu dumping the whole volume of the penal code on the table : "Huzur aap samajdaar aap khud hi dekh lijiye"

Officer : "Ok...ok...the word of a British officer is as good as the law.Send these buggers to Anadaman...let them live there for 5 years ...after that forget about kissing they won't dare to look at each other." (followed by a cruel laughter)

Babu : "Huzur...Cellular Jail main aur kohi cell khali nahin"

Officer :"Goddamiit why can't the prison authorities plan anything in advance...faansi pain charado indonoh ko."

Babu : "Saarkaar peechle teen saalon se itne logo ko faansi pain charayah gaye ke rassi saare khatam ho gaya.Manchester se agla lot aate aate aur teen mahine.Taab taak agar in-donoh ko bachane ke liye kohi naya andolan suru ho gaya toh ?"

Officer : "Hmmm Babu you got a point here....we should act fast...let's fine these poor bastards heavily. Babu how much do you make a month ?"

Babu : "Saarkaar tankha se 50 rupiah....aur baaki ka hisab karna padega"

Officer : "Ok that's it.Fine them 50 rupees and put it down in writing that from now on any couple found kissing in public will be fined 50 rupees..panchaash rupiyaah jurmana.....now get out of my sight while I enjoy my cigar...oh boy I miss London."

That is how the penalty for kissing in public was valued at Rs 50.Ever since then if any duti-bound pandu hawildaars found any Indian couple lip-locked immediately they issued a parcha worth Rs. 50.But during the last 70 years India has seen lot of changes and today with this money you can buy only a cup of coffee. In recent years from Kashmir-to-Kanyakumarika Indian lovers inspired by Imran Hashmi are seen smooching each-other behind the bushes.And when the police comes without the slightest botheration they just flash out a half-patti and that's it.

So the economists at Delhi Police HQ sat down calculated the relative value of Rs 50 from 1936 to 2006 using all the 4 methods available ie. Consumer Purchase Index(CPI),GDP deflactor, Unskilled wage rate, GDP per capita and Relative share of GDP. Finally after much heated debate they came to a figure of Rs 477.50.To this they added 2.5% surcharge and 2% education sess and the penality for showing your affection intimately in public with your lips will now cost you Rs 500.

Next time you kiss in public make sure you have a Rs. 500 note in your wallet. Otherwise be prepared to spend the night in jail whose lavatory conditions is yet to improve before Salman Khan renovates them with marble flooring.

Kanoon ke lambe haath

2006-04-13T17:18:00.000+08:00

70% of the Bollywood movies of the 70s ended with the dutiful Iftekar dragging a regretful Ranjit in hand-cuffs and uttering "Kanoon ke haath bade lambe hain...isse banchke kahan jaoge".This was followed by a freezing pane potraying the budh-dhi maa,the separated-and-finally-thank-god-united twins with their heroines holding hands.The background music was always a song, which has to have the title of the film as the words. And then suddenly from no-where would zoom "THE END".Being fed on this diet for long I had always believed that "Kanoon ke lambe haath" was one of those SANDH-KA-GOBAR restricted to the celluloid world. But recent days incidents have given a shake to the very foundation of this belief. It is a shake much much stronger than Rakhi Sawant's hip movements that had my belief shattered into bits and pieces.

Justice in India seems to be on a fast track these days.Whether it is the girl foetus killer doctor or a rapist police hawildar no one is spared by the blind-folded Kanoon ki Devi. Even Bollywood celebrities are not beyond the reach of the ever stretching hands of the law. From my ignorant childhood till my know-it-all present googling days I cannot think of any similar incident like Mumbai Dance Bar Ban where court reversed government's silly idea that robbed people of their livelihood.Even the openly murdered and quickly forgotten Jessica Lal was remembered back and much to the astonishment of used-to-corruption Indian public, the red tapes on the files were re-opened again. In short the Indian justice system is sending strong message that amidst all the gloom that hovers over the Indian society there is still hope in the form of messiahs dressed in black gowns and armed with the wooden hammers.

But strangely the sceptic in me is far from satisfied. Why is it that all of a sudden headlines are bound to carry a justice delivered story each day?After all this is India yaar!!! We are used to seeing ministers come out clean like a SURF-KI-DHULAI even if the evidences of their corruption pile to Himalayan heights.We are used to look for the blacker in front of the movie theatres.... check for minister's quota while buying railway tickets.... run to the local MLA for admitting either ailing parents to the hospital or failing children to the school. Our basic survival depends on how good we are in finding the back doors to anywhere and everywhere. That's how we were brought up...that's how we had been.... till recent times. So what’s the story behind the story after all?

Is it that a new India emerging out of its corrupt past? Nah, I still find it difficult to digest even with the HAJMOLA SAAR. Living in Red Bengal during early years Marxist Dadas had taught us to conceive The State as a machinery consisting of the legislative body, the bureaucracy, the armed forces, the judiciary and the social bodies working in unison to ensure the smooth running of the economics. Unfortunately since the Independence we have had such bitter experiences with nearly all the arms of the state. Be it the local MP who is ready to take a bribe as low as Rs. 10000 or the Sarkaari Babu whose PAAN KA KHARCHA might purchase a paan shop itself or the Daroga-ji from the local police stations whose rate varies depending on what your needs are….if you can pay the price you can buy them all. The only pillar of the state that was left untouched by this distrust was The Judiciary. And India suddenly finding itself among the economic boom needs somebody to clean the Aegean stable or at least give the impression of Cleaning in Progress.So shall we call it the last attempt of the Indian state to convince its people that "Ram-rajya" is not far away?

Let's wait and watch while the lawyers fight it out...maybe "Ram-rajya" is not that far away.

Maine Shikar Kyun Kiya

2006-04-10T20:15:00.000+08:00

Indian Justice strikes its thunder at the right spot again.This time it's the naughty boy from Bollywood our own Main-To-Expose-Karunga-Censor-Se-Nahin-Darunga Sallu who gets a five years imprisonment sentence for killing a black buck.Incidentally this case which started from 1998 had a list of 43 witnesses of which 38 came for their testimony in the court.

Since I was following the proceedings of the case with all the attention of the world lemme give you the horse's (err deer's ) mouth account of what really happened inside the Jodhpur court :

Sarkaari wakil started his logic,"Your honor...yeh ekdum paani ke tarah saaf hain ke mulzim Salman Khan ne hi us lachar baad kismaat janwaar ko maara tha. Hamare pass 43 gawah hain jinhone jhadiwon ke peeche apne ankhon se mulzim ko trigger dabate dekha hain."

The defence counsel being from Mumbai and ignorant of rural ways of life argued : "Your honor ,it's a conspiracy against my client ...nahin to jhadiwon ke beech itne saare gao-waalon usi time main kaar kya raha tha ?"

To which his learned friend said : "Mumbai ke alishan banglow main rahene wale mere dost ko sayed yeh malum nahin ke subah subah gaon main log jhadiwon ke peeche kya karte hain"

Defence Counsel grabbing the fact like Dhoni jumping on another Kumble off-break shouted: "I object your honor.....How can people in that postion confirm whether it was my client who killed the buck ?"

Then he calls one witness and asks him to tell the court of where and how he was s(h)itting on that fateful day and concludes ..."Your Honor saaf zahir hain s(h)itting at this posture you cannot see what is happening at 500 ft and that too with so less light of the morning that Rahul Dravid surely would have appealed for a bad light."

Sarkari wakil adjusting his specs gives a U-must-be-Silly look at his counterpart and says
"The usage of organ for excretion does not cause any temporary defect of vision.And as per the lights are concerned.I can prove that by bringing expert evidence of about 100 jhodpi-walas from Mumbai who by the virtue of their daily morning yoga routine by the railway track and not getting hit by a train for a single time have collected sufficient medical data about the non co-relation between these two organs even in the morning dim lights"

Judge-saab remembering the last time he went to Mumbai by train shudders at the thought of going through that ordeal once again and immediately hammers "OBJECTION OVER-RULED."

And after that it was an OPEN-AND-SHUT case which finally saw justice delivered at the death of the BLACK BUCK.

Incidentally the sceptics are asking "How come Salman gets 5 years for killing a deer and only 500 rupees for knocking down man ?"

Well,well my ignorant friends when will you realise that over the years due to Maneka Gandhi and PETA's Let Us Wear Bikinis Instead of Fur Coats protests the Indian justice system came to realise a long time back that footpath-wallahs are of little value when compared to the four legged ones.

On another note only 8 of these 38 witnesses turned hostile (means only 8 agreed to do a full paalti on receipt of a Salman Khan Dare-to-Bare poster autographed by the star himself and a good amount of money).

I wonder can't we have the same situation for Jessica Laal's case too ?

Gracias ...Carol u made me almost famous !!!

2006-04-05T17:20:00.000+08:00

Never believed the Sad-old-bong when he said it works .
But now a screenshot from my stats-counter confirms it really works.I guess when your site ends up in the google search you can call yourself a celebrity.

Autographs anyone ?

India Passion Week

2006-04-03T14:14:00.000+08:00

As a teen-ager in the sex-starved India me and many from my age-group ( excluding the impotent ones ) had been thrilled at the naughty wind blowing off the mal-maal ka laal dupatta and revealing heroine's half inch deep cleavage.Then were was other forces of nature like the rain pouring on the not too revealing transcluscent saaris changing its optical property to revealing transparent.And not to be left behind in this erosion of the saari the human forces join hands too -- remember the andhi tufaan-waali raat and the gajraati bijli when Gulshan Grover ripped apart the hero's andhi bahen's saari.

But those were the innocent times...before the advent of the compulsory item numbers,MMS clips (do I sound like a dinosaur here)...and now we have the Lick-Me Indian Passion Week and WADROBE MALFUNCTION.

According to copy-paste from Wikipedia :"Wardrobe malfunction is a euphemism used to describe the presumed accidental exposure,because of a defect attributed to an article or articles of clothing, of what would be considered an intimate part or parts of the body of their wearer."

Maatlaab sudh hindi main "Galti se mistake hoke aagar baadan se chunri sarak jaaye,taan-badan ka jhalak buri nazar-waalon ke nazar main aayen to use kahete hain VASTRAGAR ka LOCH yaane ki WADROBE MALFUNCTION".

Just when the moral police in the government ( and I thought Sushma Swaraj belonged to BJP and Congress were the ruling party) decided to stop airing of the "Babu-ji dhire chalo" we immediately found a new way of entertaining ourselves.

So we have the zippers getting zapped, the halter neck top halting before sliding all the way down and OF-COURSE the camera cell-phones going click..click..click and the very next moment Hutch-Airtel seeing a steep rise both in their MMS traffic and their profits.

It could have been deliberate cheap publicity stunt (never heard of either Bennu Sehgall or Lascelles Symmons before today) or it could have been a genuine accident.
But frankly speaking who cares ? So long we have the raunchy MMS clips and the Item Numbers we probably wouldn't notice even if Gulshan Grover retires.

As a nation when are we going to grow up ?

Update: Thanks to the effort of Maharastra Deputy CM R.R. Patil the Mumbai cops after running the video for umpteenth time have confirmed it was a case of genuine ACCIDENT. Hopefully next thing Mr. Patil will come up is that the suicide of the Vidarbha farmers is an ACCIDENT too.....the only problem nobody has a footage of these un-glamourous ganwar folks.

Mathrubhumi -- A nation without women

2006-03-30T12:21:00.000+08:00

The news of a girl foetus killer doctor going behind the bars made me happy today morning.But like all shades of happiness this one too had its own pinch of salt - A person capable of doing such an act desevres 100 rotten years in hell....2 years of sentence is too less.

But who's the real culprit ? The person who has the beast for the feast or the butcher who killed it ?

The simple reason Dr Anil Sabhani had opened this business instead of just writing prescriptions for cold and head-ache is that there is good clientele....a big market full of people who wants to know the sex of their un-born child and make sure it is not a beti whose dehej is going to cost the family's purkho ka makan,kheti-baadi,cow,goat,lizards,cockroaches and what not.So kill it before it sees the light of the day,nip it in the bud.....and go to the mandir and pray that the next child is a SON whose marriage will bring so much wealth that the next seven generations can shower themselves in milk and honey.So the doctor saab put a neon sign over his clinic : "Pay 1,000 rupees now for a test, rather than 100,000 rupees later." and in a country where getting pregenant is even more common than catching cold the killer's business grows day by day.

Now time for some facts and figures :

The Indian Medical Association estimates that 5,00,00 girls are aborted each year.

In 1901 in India, there were 972 women to every 1,000 men.
By 2001 there were 933 women to every 1,000 men.
In Hariyana/Punjab there are only 861 women to every 1,000 men.

Long ago in 1890 Tagore wrote a short story called Dena-Paona about the death of a bride who died because of her father's inability to pay the dowry.Even after 116 years the moral of the story remains very very pertinent to our Indian society.

Now you tell me is that because of Tagore's dazzling brilliance or shameless failure of our society ?

Office of Profit

2006-03-24T15:38:00.000+08:00

For the last few days we the people of India were entertained by another nautanki titled "Office of Profit".
Looks like the script was penned down two years ago by Madan Mohan Shukla a petty Congress leader in UP. Shuklaji's nomination paper was thrown into waste basket as he forgot to mention his educational qualifaction in the form. No no don't confuse Shuklaji to be an angutha chaap...his next course of action proves otherwise. He went back to the library and pulled a copy of Indian Constitution,read between the lines and then struck the treasure
"Thou shalt not hold both office of profit and MPs seat together" said the commandment.
His opponent Jaya Bachchan was heading the UP Film Development Board who produce Bhojpuri phillums like "Sajan mora pahelwaan".So Shuklaji filed a case saying that Jaya-ji cannot be an MP when she is earning munafa after munafa by developing UP's phillum.
The lawyer wrote the petition....chaprasi took down the case....judge adjusted his wigs...drummed his kanun ka hathodi...two years flew by. Finally adalaat saari gawaon ko nazar rakhte huwe yeh natize paar paucha ke Jayaji aap phillum development board se itni munafa kamaya ke aap MP paad ke laayek nahin!!!
Jaya Bachchan cried---Amar Singh fried(the Congress)---Mulayam Singh tried (to prove in UP bidhansabha that Bhojpuri phillums are not so profitable)--- paar Kalam saab kisi ka nahin suna.Jayaji had to resign her MP post.
Now L.K. Advani who didnot throw any water filled balloons this holi suddenly saw an oppurtunity to throw this balloon at Sonia She was holding post of Chairman of National Advisory Council.This post even more profitable because they donot make bhojpuri phillums.So the Saffron brigade charges at the parliament...say "Sonia must go"...Congress replies "No no".
The argument continues 24x7 and media gets all the experts they can to comment on the matter. Finally Congress close down the parliament,ministers rush back to their offices...Union law minister calls all the lawyers he knows. They look up all the sections and sub-sections..but gives only one verdict : Kaanon ki devi andhaa hain and so fails to distinguish between 5 foot Indian Jaya Bachchan and the tall Italian Sonia Gandhi.
Way out : Let Sonia resign...she can always win another election from Rae Bareli whose people are happy to vote for even for a lamp-post whose surname is Gandhi. And so it was Sonia who heard her inner voice and said she never ever did any thing for her personal profit so to proove the point she is resigned.Congress and their allies clap as hard as they can....BJP camp says this is not Tyag but only maajburi.
Whats happens next ? Does Sonia's resignation change anything ? No it doesnot...she still remains the UPA chairperson and still can pull the strings attached to our puppet PM. The only loosers are the tax-payers whose tax money will see a new way of spending --- the re-elections.
But then again nothing comes for free...so being entertained by the political drama also has its price.

City of Joy in pics

2006-03-20T17:57:00.000+08:00

Howrah Bridge This bridge contains no nuts and bolts - all joins are through studs.

Vidyasagar Setu Copied from Golden Gate bridge SF ,this bridge took 15 years to build from 1978 - 93 !!!

Victoria Memorial This was built between 1906-1921 in an architectural style similar to Taj Mahal as a memorial for Queen Victoria.Now it is famous for the nooks and corners where lovers get TOO intimate !!!

Eden Gardens The largest cricket stadium in the world.Watching a cricket match here sitting in the Ranji gallery is an experience of a lifetime. The venue is equally loved and hated by the cricketers depending on which side the passionate spectators had shown their passion!!!

St. Pauls Cathedral One of the finest cathedrals in India contains mural paintings depicting the life of St. Paul.

Rickshaw Made famous by the cover page on Dominique Lapierre's City of Joy this has become one of the trademarks of Kolkata.

Tram One of the other trademarks of Kolkata.If you have plenty of time a trip in the tram across Maidan is a worthwhile experience.

Bangalore looses again

2006-03-17T13:59:00.000+08:00

Bangalore oops Bengaluru’s fate suffers badly once again in the hands of the Gowda family. This time after Narayana Murthy it is the MRT (mass rapid transport) visionary of Bangalore IAS officer K N Srivastava who is given the boots. His fault --- he failed to invite honorary H.D Kumaraswamy to the function for changing the logo for Bangalore Metro rail project!!!! This brings us to the basic question:

How the Indian democracy is held hostage by a few thugs like Gowda family and we people have very little say in it.

The reason we score against China is that we have a democratic system in comparison to their autocratic Communist leadership. But this essence is losing its value as people like Gowda makes Indian democracy look like a farce and we the ordinary people have no say at all. By the time foreign customers of Indian IT will be sick of the infrastructure problems and be forced look beyond the Indian shores for their software vendor the Gowda family will have amassed a fortune and our children will suffer the joblessness caused. I can only dream that we somehow we can measure the damages beforehand and someone from us will overthrow these bunch of robbers and take on the leadership to steer the new India to its boom.

Ides of March

2006-03-15T14:11:00.000+08:00

Looking at the front page of Wikipedia today revealed that on 15-th March:

44 BC : Julius Ceaser uttered "Et tu Brute" (You too Brutus) before stabbed to death

It is debated that the Ceaser's last words were in Greek instead of Latin.

He is supposed to say "Kai su, teknon?" which means You too MY CHILD ?

Did you know that Ceaser had an affair with Brutus's mother ?

The Times They Are a-Changin

2006-03-13T10:09:00.000+08:00

When I read the news about the blast in Varanasi my first reaction was how many more will die in the riots to come. Good news is that the number is very very low : A BIG ZERO!!! And that's what makes me proud.........an economically strong new India gives a "stick it up your ass" salute to the terrorists who are trying to widen the communal gap. If the same trend continues terror will loose the battle without any bullets fired from our side. And that itself should be a lesson to the hard-liners of Indian politics - realise the call of the day ---MOVE ON. See the fate of Shiv Sena who are fading from political centre stage as they failed to realise how little regional sentiments are valued in present days' politics. An ordinary Mumbaiya hardly cares if someone from outside state/country is earning a living in Mumbai so long as jobs are plenty and well-paid too. Kudos to the BJP leader Vinay Katiyar
(check this link) who admitted that times have changed and the old slogans based to regional/communal pride/hatred don't work anymore. Hope it is reflected in their future political agendas as well.
Like Bob Dylan sang :

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

A VERY HAPPY HOLI TO ALL

Arrived in Singapore

2006-02-13T15:04:00.000+08:00

Finally arrived in Singapore in one piece and lot of pieces of luggage. Speaking of luggage reminds me of the ordeal that my wife and me went through before dumping our entire household into as many suitcases we had and as many we can buy. If you have had the opportunity of reading "Three Men in a Boat" by Jerome K Jerome you should know exactly what goes on. In case you haven't better buy the book and read instead. The only difference you will find with my case that it was not 3 men but a married couple so it other than having element of comedy …there was strong undercurrents of sentiments of a household drama…a missing Montgomery and a the presence of a very active toddler who was even more active than us during packing/unpacking/packing loops. The flight from Indian Airlines was surprisingly pleasant...all the airhostess below 30...I was bowled over not to see the 40+ aunties and seeing an IA airhostess smiling, asking you for a another round of drink for the first time made my day. Another first time on the flight was to see a group of students travelling who started playing cards on the plane across seats. Anyone who has travelled in Indian Railways must be well aware with this acrobatic feat of balancing on your feet against the rhythm of the moving train...but doing the same thing at 30000 ft above the ground I must say Indians and Indian habits are really reaching for the skies. Well that was about India, more on Singapore tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Of Festive season...and me

2005-12-19T18:57:00.000+08:00

Did it ever happen to you that you read about the symptoms of an ailment and realise that the small itch that you been having on your back for a week is a sure sign of the most dreaded disease you just read about.Well in my case it is not only the diseases but everything else. I am like the weather-cock that swings to almost all the possible directions that the wind can blow.
Just yesterday I was reading an article about people getting grumpy at the end of the year and WOW I diagonsed the symptom in me immediately. It immediately started of with a fight with the better half over the cup of tea being too hot. I like these domestic exchanges ....it can start with a cup of tea and extends to your character definition with obvious unfreindly suggestions that you should never pay heed. Anyway coming back to the co-relation of festive season and being grumpy --- first and foremost let's take the economist's angle. End of the year means Festive season and that means spending and spending and unlike the fairer sex , we always think it's unfair to spend (specially with taxman waitng for you around the corner) ..so it doesnot take Sherlock Holmes to say "My Dear Watson the man spends money and spends his happiness as well".But is it only the economy or the weather also plays its role as well. Of course I don't live in -10/15 degrees and is thankful not to shovel the snow from my backyard but still winter and me share a love-hate relation. Just to think that in summer you don't need to be under the blanket ...so early morning you are not so unhappy to jump up from the bed.But winter makes you feel good and then just take it back.First comes the pleasant cold and then it is the wretched chill. It's like giving a candy and taking it back. So obviously weather does have something to do about you being grumpy. Also there are other factors about looking back and realising what an unproductive year it has been....trying hard to build up the next year's resolution....and obvious end of year events that makes you feel older like seeing Ganguly dropped from team,seeing ailing Amitabh carried in strecher,Lalu Yadav thrown away from Bihar...etc etc. All these makes people in my age feel "Oh boy its been so long...or they are rapid paced about change!!!"

So my new year resolution stay away from all festivities and be happy about it.
You can give me a Xmas gift but do not expect return gifts. That will ruin my happiness.