Tadka!!!!!!!!!!! It sizzles!!!!!!!!!!

Shiva Trilogy.

2011-09-17T22:54:00.006+05:30

I am itching to write again, which I have to admit hasn't happened for some time now.

So I have decided to review Immortals of Meluha and Secret of the Nagas. Infact, it is more than just a review, in the sense that I want to also discuss the philosophies Amish Tripathi has mentioned in the two of the three now-released books, which are a part of the trilogy.

I read Immortals of Meluha pretty late, as in long after it had been released and had already gone on to become a best-seller, but when I read it, I felt it was a brilliant justification for the mythology which I have otherwise come to disbelieve.

The books are based on the life of Shiva, not the Lord Shiva but a common man who takes the form of a lord only because of a belief among the people that the Neelkanth or the person who has a blue throat would turn up to be their savior. And so the Suryavanshis are perpetually in search of such a man and come across a person named Shiva who heads a tribe near the Mount Kailasa.

The Suryavanshis already possess excellent medicinal skills and also the Sanjeevni which is known to cure most illnesses. One effect of taking this medicine is that the blue throat of Shiva becomes highly visible. The people believe that he is their Lord who has been sent to 'save' them and help them fight the 'evil' that the Nagas and the Chandravanshis are spreading. Also, he meets his Sati.

At this point, I'd like to quote from the Immortals of Meluha:

Whether a man is a legend or not is decided by history, not by fortune tellers.

I found a few pretty profound statements in the book. And this is definitely one of them!

In the Immortals, Shiva goes on to believe everything the Suryavanshis tell him at face value about 'good' and 'evil' and helps them defeat the 'evil' Chandravanshis in a full blown war. He also comes to believe that the Nagas are the most evil.

What Amish says in the Secret of the Nagas can be summed up in a couple of lines.

There are two ways of life: Masculine and Feminine.

Masculine way of life is "life by laws". People live by Truth, Duty and Honour, rigidly following all rules and laws with no exceptions and hence it is a predictable way of life. Change is difficult for the masculine, therefore when a masculine civilisation declines it causes a lot of turmoil, violence and chaos. Suryavanshis strictly follow this way of life.

Feminine way of life is "life by probabilities". There are no absolutes, and the same laws can be interpreted differently at different times. Change is the only constant, and people live by Passion, Beauty and Freedom. But with too much freedom it can decline into decadence, corruption and debauchery. Chandravanshis prefer this way of life.

At an individual level also, both masculine and feminine traits exist within every man and woman. But most people have a dominant trait of the two.

Err.. okay not a couple of lines! But I guess you get the point. So the part about 'good' and 'evil' is where it gets a lot more philosophical.

First, it is all about perception, about which side of the fence you're facing. Second, one can simply not exist without another!

Evil cannot and should not be destroyed completely. That is, it only needs to be taken out of the equation at the right time, the time when it rises to cause total annihilation. Because the same evil may serve the purpose of Good in another time.

For most of the time, I found myself nodding to the philosophy stated in the books. Right from depicting 'GOD' as not somebody on a pedestal but as a human being who has his fallacies to marrying fiction with mythology! Shiva has been depicted as a 'cool dude' as one of my friends puts it, with a chillum in his hand, smoking marijuana, behaving like a college-guy in love, making mistakes and being unsure, and actually wondering why being not-materialistic is so overrated; and not as what we have been made to believe what God is.

This entire blend has made these books what they are. There is one more quote which is so applicable especially in our society.

If the entire society was conscious of its duties, nobody would need to fight for their individual rights. Since everybody's rights would be automatically taken care of through someone else's duties.

These books are more than just mythology or just fiction, because they're not Amar Chitra Katha, they're not bed-time stories, but they're definitely a refreshing point of view, a very different perspective and a fresher way of expression. It is not even as if we're unaware of all these things, or haven't thought about them, but seeing everything bound together with sheer brilliance is amazing!

I'll leave you with another something from the book.

Believe the theory that gives you peace and reject the one that causes you pain.

So, to each his own I guess.

P.S. Just out of curiosity, I am wondering if someone will land here through a search on marijuana ;)

Aivei...

2011-09-04T23:17:00.002+05:30

After quite a long time, I am looking at this interface... and this time not coz I was busy, it is coz I was toooo free :P Do I crib... or DO I crib!!?

22 April as the day of my previous post seems so long back! And not that I haven't written anything, just that nothing ended up on the blog...

And at the moment I am out of topics to write about. And I have anyway been instructed to write about myself, and not some book or movie or political issue. *points at Mads aka Madhuri Iyer*

So... I have been cooped up for like, fifteen days now, and that is enough to make me go crazy... because I hate sitting and doing nothing! And now, finally with the German classes starting tomorrow, I have something to look forward to.

But... the upshot is, I got to connect and re-connect with a few people on so many levels! :D Funny how the dynamics of relations change!

And... I finally finished reading Fault Lines by Raghuram Rajan, a little high level economics as had been duly conveyed to me before I started reading, but well, with a few terms still unexplained, I did manage to finish it. Also, I finished Immortals of Meluha by Amish Tripathi and according to me, it is a 'bloody brilliant book in which he has managed to philosophize, blend fiction with mythology and create a thriller all at the same time', and it has resulted in me ordering the second part of the trilogy, which will be be delivered in a day or two I suppose.

For those of you yet unfamiliar with the concept of 'book delivery', go to flipkart.com ;) And now they should pay me for advertising :P

There are some really awesome sitcoms I have gotten hooked to... The Big Bang Theory and White Collar, both of which won't start airing further episodes for another month or so I guess. :-s So another 'something' I have to wait for... like a lot of other things. It is a pretty frustrating period!

And especially for the Nagpur junta... if you come to know of some really interesting workshops, keep me posted please. :) :)

This is as much I can write about myself without going on to being narcissistic.

So I suppose I am going to return with some issue or review. Sooner or later... :-w

Before you circulate that petition...

2011-04-22T09:37:00.003+05:30

A few days back on twitter, a conversation with @corruptupa took place, initiated by them, tweeting to me the same thing they've tweeted to a thousand others.

Here's how it goes:

corruptupa

@akansha_89 85+ people have signed petition against @bdutt of @ndtv. Have you? read & support @YKSHEETAL .Petition@ http://goo.gl/CvuRH

@corruptupa and what will you do with the petition? frame it on my wall? huh!

corruptupa

@akansha_89 How ignorant can you be?

@corruptupa I'm not ignorant.I'm tired of signing petitions which go nowhere.Put your name on a piece of paper and your responsibility ends?

They haven't replied yet. I didn't expect one either.

But that is not my point. My point is simply what I mention in my last tweet. You issue a petition for what you call a national cause, and maybe you believe it too. I do not contest the belief, but what I do object to, is the fact that you issue no credible reasons for the same when you're asking me to share that belief.

It's not just about this one, signing the petition to support Hazare was a fashion rage, everybody was rushing to do it, because everybody else was doing it. Every second link on my facebook page showed the massive support Hazare and his campaign were getting! Why is it that people don't stop to read, understand, form an opinion, and consider opinions of people who are qualified enough to give them?

How many of them actually knew that there were two bills, one proposed by the government and the other by the Hazare people? What is the guarantee that the head of the Lokpal Committee will be above corruption? Will the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha actually let the bill pass, given the fact that it goes against themselves!? Doesn't it look like a lot of politics? Gimmicks? Hasn't Hazare's biggest supporter Ramdev baba publicly aired his intention of entering politics and creating a new party for himself? Questions galore, questions to which you had to demand proven answers, before you could even think about signing that petition.

Also it brings me to the next factor, where is this petition going? To the President? I doubt she has an email address! PMO? but you're including him. SC judges? they aren't above the bill either. So call it trivial, but in all, all you ended up doing was increasing the load on the servers.

Now let's talk about the bill.

I am the last person on the earth who will defend the ministers on allegations of corruption, but understand that there is a difference between allegations and charges. You can't charge someone until you have proof, and if you have the proof, the gates of the courts are open! Contest it! Fight it! Prove it! And till you can't, you can be opinionated, you can be critical, but you still can't be the judge.

I don't have a solution to the problem, and there I see people going, well if you don't have a solution, why don't you at least support what someone else is trying to do in order to improve the situation...? But that is exactly my point!! When, in the wide world did you stop thinking for yourself? Just because it looks good does not mean it has to be? Whatever happened to reading, mulling it over, figuring it out, with facts, figures, statistics?

About corruption itself? Well, if you're so eager to see corrupt ministers leave politics, can you suggest some who are not? If you're given that post tomorrow, will you refuse the crore rupees? Won't you think that if you have made the future of your kids secure, you've done something with your life? Of course that does not justify corruption, nor should it! But at least at the lower rungs if you start offering better salaries and retirement benefits, would you not be removing that reason to accept the bribe?

In my opinion, bribes are taken for two reasons. One is to secure the future. Second is because everybody knows even if you're found out, nobody remembers it beyond a few days.

To conclude, I think that if everybody understood that one line from Spiderman (at least that's where I heard it first) for all that it stands for, the world, or at least the country would be an infinitely better place to live in.

With great power comes great responsibility.

Those with power, take the responsibility. And give the power to those who are responsible.

Enough Said!

Mask, Unmask...

2011-01-27T18:55:00.001+05:30

Look at her, so easy to err,

Calm writ on face, no breach on surface,

Twinkle in the eye, silences that sigh,

Ghost of a smile, once in a while.

The benign unwavering, a tranquility unnerving,

The ready ear, the false cheer,

The patient nod, a quiet prod,

The private barricade, a public facade.

Concern for opinion, renders a minion,

Once bitten twice shy, grins... they belie,

So tough to explore, so easy to ignore,

Fear of betray, that's the dossier.

Story untold, a barrage behold,

A storm building, the anger splashing,

The emotions frothing,the tears stinging,

The remarks scathing, the lips? Smiling....

Shadow Lines...

2011-01-25T23:07:00.003+05:30

I think it is time for a new post, and this is not so much a book review as a book summary. Erm... view it as something like a book club, because I am going to include excerpts from the book which particularly intrigued me and which I found very profound; and my interpretations of the same.

Now as the title must have revealed, this post revels around the book Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh, who has managed to spear-head his way into my list of favourite authors, both Indian and otherwise. Two other books which have held my attention are Hungry Tide and The Glass Palace.

Amitav has a way of depicting places in the North east, Burma and Bangladesh in a way that makes the story feel very grounded, which is what mesmerizes me.

Anyway, the area ahead is cordoned off for you, if you haven't read the book, or at least consider it a spoiler alert (I can't control your cursor obviously :P )

Well, first of all, I think the title itself is misleading or at least it intrigues you, because one can't readily figure out what Shadow Lines refers to. Shadow Lines refers to the boundaries of the countries, the supposed lines that divide the giant mass of water-free fraction of the globe.

The story is set in the era of the World War II, and the story jumps back and forth on the protagonist's lifetime's timeline. The protagonist lives in Calcutta with his parents and grandmother, and his grandmother's sister and her family also form an important part of the narrative. Tribid, one of her sons and his uncle, is very close to him, and once when Tribid was showing him photographs of the time he spent in London when his father was ill and they were staying with a kind lady whose husband was an acquaintance, he talks about the fact that they and their friends knew about the impending dangers of the war, the constant bombing and the destruction...

The realities of the bombs and torpedoes and the dying was easy enough to imagine- mere events, after all, recorded in thousands of films and photographs and comic books. But not that infinitely more important reality: the fact that they knew, that even walking down the street that evening, they knew what was coming- not the details or the timing perhaps, but they knew, all four of them, that their world, and in all probability they themselves, would not survive the war. What is the colour of that knowledge? Nobody knows, nobody can ever know, not even in memory, because there are moments in time that are not 'knowable': nobody can ever know what it was like to be young and intelligent in the summer of 1939 in London or Berlin.

Now, I find this very profound because although the author has emphasised upon the power of imagination, and has asserted that it is one of the most important qualities that one can possess, he says that knowledge is something intangible. One can visualise a lot of corporeal things, but what shall you do of that, whose only record can be in that stuff between the ears...

The author has a cousin named Ila, who chooses to stay in London, and once when she is confronted as to why she chooses to stay not in her own country but that of the foreigners, she answers that she wants to be free, free of the bloody culture, and free of all people she feels are hypocrites because even though they (her uncle who is the same age as the author and not much older to her) would like their freedom, and are not in the least disturbed when they consume alcohol or go to parties, they want the women (Ila) to not do the same... A book written in 1988, speaks volumes for two decades (and counting) into the future.

His grandmother has a different opinion though:

Ila has no right to live there. She doesn't belong there. It took those people a long time to build their country; hundreds of years, years and years of war and bloodshed. Everyone who lives there has earned his right to be there with blood: with their brother's blood, with their father's blood, with their son's blood. They will know they're a nation because they have drawn their borders with blood. Regimental flags hang in their cathedrals and churches are lined with memorials to men who died in wars, all around the world. War is their religion. That's what it takes to make a country. Once that happens, people forget they were born this or that, Muslim or Hindu, Bengali or Punjabi; they become a family born of the same pool of blood. That is what you have to achieve for India.

When the author talks about the class of people, where education is considered to be one of the key ingredients of a youngster's life, he says:

The only weapon that people like us had was our brains, and if we didn't use them like claws to cling to what we'd got, that was where we'd end up, marooned in that landscape.

And when he talks about 'that landscape' he says:

I was already well schooled in looking away, the jungle craft of gentility.

The geographical reference is to a slum-like area that he happens to visit with his grandmother, to meet a distant impoverished relative. And the education-is-the-key is I believe, self explanatory.

When the author is talking about the mobs during a riot that takes place in Calcutta, when he is in school, his description goes thus:

There is a uniquely frightening note in the sound of those voices- not elemental, not powerful, like the roar of an angry crowd- rather, a torn, ragged quality; a crescendo of discords which you know, because of the slippery formlessness of the fear it creates within you, to be the authentic sound of chaos the moment you hear it.

This creates such a bang-on visualisation! Almost cinematic...

And at another instance:

The streets had turned themselves inside out: our city had turned against us.

It is this that sets apart the thousand million people who inhabit the subcontinent from the rest of the world- not language, not food, not music- it is the special quality of loneliness that grows out of the fear of war between oneself and one's image in the mirror.

The madness of riot is a pathological inversion, but also therefore a reminder, of that indivisible sanity that binds people to each other independently of their governments. And that prior, independent relationship is the natural enemy of government, for it is in the logic of states that to exist at all, they must claim monopoly of all relationships between people. The theatre of war, where generals meet, is the stage on which the states disport themselves: they have no use for the memories of riots.

A grown up author picks up old newspapers once to find out news reports about the riots which were held in his city, and which got reverberated in Bangladesh as well, where his grandmother and Tribid were, and in the event, Tribid became a victim of the mob, getting lynched by the anomie, one that had long forgone rationality. This was during the time when Bangladesh was struggling to lose its identity as East Pakistan.

There is nothing quite as evocative as an old newspaper. There is something in its urgent contemporaneity- the weather reports, the list of that day's engagement in the city, the advertisement for half remembered films, still crying out in bold print as though it were all happening now, today- and the feeling besides, that one may once have handled, if not that very paper, then it's exact likeness, its twin, which transports one in time as nothing else can.

The author finds himself very disturbed by these reports and all those memories of the riots and the death of Tridib. So he picks up an atlas and a compass and placing the sharp tip at Khulna (about a hundred miles from Calcutta) and the pencil end at Srinagar, he draws a circle on the map, and learns the meaning of distance.

The simple fact that there had never been a moment in the four-thousand-year-old history of that map, when the places we know as Dhaka and Calcutta were more closely bound to each other than after they had drawn their lines- so closely that I, in Calcutta, had only to look into the mirror to be in Dhaka; a moment when each city was the inverted image of the other, locked into an irreversible symmetry by the line that was to set us free- our looking glass-border.

And: How can anyone divide a memory...?

The book is well written, a very intense narrative and a spot on message.

P.S. I am really not jobless. But this post is equivalent to marking your favorite abstracts from the text so you can re-visit them.

How I got my girl back...

2010-12-28T17:47:00.003+05:30

Now don't you look at the title, and rush to check my bio. I am very much a girl, a straight one at that, and this is the title of the book written by one of my favourite humor bloggers Arshat Chaudhary who can be found at Time Pass of India. I've been trying to get my hands on this book for some time, and unfortunately Crossword didn't have it, and btw Flipkart is waaayyy better!!

As the name suggests, the book is about a guy who loves a girl, is parted, and wins her back. Typical Bollywood? maybe... but the better part about it is that, it is totally Indian!

Summary: Devdutt Rastogi likes a girl Pritha in his school, and thanks to his bus rides, also gets to spend some time with her. But then owing to her father's transfer, she moves away to Delhi, and there ends his err... tryst with girls. Cut to the present, and he is an engineer working with an electric company with the job of a Design Engineer.

As life would have it, he meets her again, in his own company, the company appointed doctor with an arranged boyfriend who happens to be his own boss. And the boss is a former schoolmate too, a bully. And then it is all about how he asks his khool friends to help him out in winning her back.

What I like: The cover is all nerdy, engineers will love it. Also, Arshat has used his own knowledge of Mechanical and Electrical engineering, not to forget the German connect. The humor that I have often appreciated at TPI, stays intact here too... some of them cracked me up.... like...

In the last few lines, I realise that I have defamed Jayasuriya for no reason!

when he is describing one of his flat mates as being darker, a foot shorter and losing hair faster than Jayasuriya.

Some truths too... like about doctors...

Most Indians visit doctors only when we can't take care of the sickness ourselves, which is sooo true!

I like the Indian setting, the typical songs we listen to, the language is simple, and there is no show shining, to borrow from Arshat. And I like the candor between the father and son, that bonding is unmistakable.

But, the story is a tad typical, sure you can't guess exactly how he's gonna get her back, but then you already know he is. But then that is what the title already says...

Verdict: Read it for its Indian-ness, for the humor which manages to pack a punch... *thumbs up*

P.S. Why do the girls have to always bow down to 'wishes of their parents'. Bah! it's high time you place yourself first man!

Religion, Menstruation, Frustration.

2010-11-19T17:54:00.006+05:30

So, what's your religion? Every social networking site gives you the option to flaunt your religious views. Facebook friends will post a religious scripture everyday, telling you what a commandment has to say. (At such times, I have to question myself, is he/she actually on my friend list... why!) Close friends would probably ask you, 'Are you religious?'

My answer is that I don't know.

Right from when you're very young, you're taken to a 'place of worship', you're taught a 'way of worship', you're taught a 'way of life'. Or you learn. Because you see others doing it. You see your mother or grandmother or aunts going to the temple, you see your father or grandfather or uncles sporting a vermilion mark (tilak i.e.) on their head, you see a room in your house where according to your religion, Hindu idols and Geeta or Quran or Bible or Guru Granth Sahib is kept.

And when someone asks your religion, you answer what you have been taught.

There are many people who will, to the end of their lives, answer this question the same way. Reason? They will never question what their elders tell them with respect to religion. They will never question why you have to worship a fixed number of times each day. They will never question why you have to wash your hands before appearing in front of an idol/touching a holy book, or why you cover your head. But these do not disturb me to a very large extent. Mostly, because I ignore them. No, not the questions, the supposed rituals.

But what does disturb me is the fact that they will never question why every month for four days their mothers/wives/daughters are made to keep away from kitchens and the so called 'places of worship'. That they will never question why the women folk in their lives undergo discrimination over something which, given a choice, they would never choose; and something which is natural, as natural as natural can get.

When I learned of these things, as every girl does, my first reaction was amazement. Amazement at how low some people can get. That they have the audacity to term me, for four days, unfit to worship at that altar, where otherwise I am supposed to bow and pray, and offer my servitude. That they have the audacity to instruct me on what I should do and what I should not do, because they think they know better; and because they are rules.

Rules: something I haven't been fond of, ever since I learnt how to break them.

But, ok, let me ask you a few questions, you know, not because you're going to change my attitude, but just to see, how much lower can you really get. Humor me.

Most religions suggest isolation during 'those days'. So, you mean that for 4 days, I should sit and stare at the ceiling? Like I am in prison, because I have committed a crime and I am a threat to the society; because your pea-size brain thinks I am impure and as a result whatever I come in contact with, I will contaminate it.

Anyway, we'll gloss over this one, because nobody gives a damn to it these days. Women work at all sorts of posts in every sphere, and there's no way they're wasting their 'leaves' for stupidity.

Next, most scriptures do not let you cook food. So, you mean, that I can control the economy of the world and I can control the crore employees that my company/organisation employs (Hillary Clinton, Indira Nooyi, Chanda Kochar) but I can't fix myself a plate of pasta? In the earlier days, in bigger households, where you had lot of housework to do, resting and not cooking during those times made sense. Today, all I have for you are expletives that I will not state here, because unlike you, I have been taught manners. Manners, you know the thing you require to build relations, the things which are the actual mirror to a personality, not the baseless ones like your hypocritical philosophies.

My folks do not believe in this. So I'm good.

Next, they don't let you enter places of worship. Now, not exactly the way to create fans, as I am sure you would agree. So you mean, while I am required to pray twice (five for Islam) a day normally, I am for four days, not eligible to touch that idol or that holy book, because my aura has a lot of negativity and dirt, and that would spoil your environment. Now had I been a cigarette, I could've agreed to this, because when I am burning on the inside uttering the choiciest expletives for you and your level of soch, I might've had a smelly aura, that could've spoilt your environment. But then I am not one, so we won't delve deeper into that.

My way of showing that I so don't care about what you believe in: I shun every religious place of worship in the world! Where you say you won't admit me for 4 days a month, honey, I say I won't admit you in my life for a single moment.

Having said that, let me add on. The earliest scriptures, the Vedas, (as far as my internet search revealed, i haven't read them... yet ) do not say anything about this. And I believe, that every so called religious book is a farce.

And did you know, there actually is a Menstruating Goddess in India. Want proof?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/savia/383442622/

When we're menstruating, the body is weaker because we're losing a lot of blood. Of course, the discomfit can't help. Obviously, it's not by choice. So when you see a PMS alert, it is the frustration of this lack of choice, that is causing that alert.

Another grouse I have is that people refuse to discuss these things. Because they should be in the closet, knowing fully well how stuffy it can get in there. So before you choke, unsolicited advice which is also common sense: get out of it. So when I put this as a topic for GDs, don't deride it because you think at 19-20, people are too young to have an opinion about it. Otherwise, because of you, they will never have one.

Coming back to my religion, I am disillusioned. I believe in The Secret, and try to follow it, because it is so free of anything that even remotely reeks of religion. I believe that what goes round will come round, but I know that YOU or your sorry rules, will have had no hand in it.

P.S. If this sounds acerbic... the reason is... it is.

P.P.S. I have been wanting to write this for the past 3-4 months, but because I wanted to do a bit of search, I had postponed it. And now that I have researched, every "rule" I have stated is true to the best of my knowledge.

P.P.P.S. If you're someone trying to make me change my point of view, my suggestion, don't bother...

Added later on her request: And oh, totally unrelated: Madhuri Iyer aka Mads's new URL is http://arienthoughts.blogspot.com

Mumble Jumble.. lots of it!

2010-11-15T15:33:00.003+05:30

I suppose there's really no point in my apologizing for the absence, first coz I am not sorry, and second coz there's nobody to apologize to :P

And FYI, I am writing this post for myself, and not for you. It is to get some things out of the system.

If I have to describe the past few months of my life in one word, it has to be busy. And now it is tired, fatigued, and with no end point in sight. It's just one thing right after the other. I'm not complaining... yet!

CAT is finally done with, not to my satisfaction, but anyway, it's not coming back. Up ahead are the other exams, campus placements and the remaining university exams... sigh!

The blogger in me has been forced to sleep, and mind you, not for the lack of topics, but for fear of spending too much of time researching, something I do tend to do. I actually laughed when I saw that the number of followers of my blog had increased. Who follows inactive zone, I wonder...

Am I sorry for not blogging for this long?

Frankly, no.

Do I need to justify my absence?

I don't know. Not to anybody else, I suppose. But just for me, I feel some things in life are more important than the others, and yes I resented the comment to the contrary.

And, inspite of being absent, I think I am a little chary now... sugar coated words, false praises, affectations... watching from the sidelines can be very advantageous sometimes.

And in the middle of things, maybe I am rediscovering some of the dormant creativity, with a new Cybershot, (Sony TX-1) jiska muhurat hua hai, 3 months after being bought! I plan to play around with it a bit... joined flickr to set the ball rolling, and I hope I'm going to keep at it.

And on the book reading front, things have been quiet, but I still managed to finish two, The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh and The Confession by John Grisham. The former again impresses with its details and after The Hungry Tide and this one, I think Amitav Ghosh is a must-read author on my list. For the latter, this was only the second John Grisham book I read, but it makes for a good read; a little saddening story, but then who said laws are flawless, of course it's the US law system he's talking about.

Movies, my to-see list grows by leaps and bounds... and I am missing some really good ones! :(

A huge advantage of having diligently prepared the word lists for CAT is... you can use heavy vocabulary without people realising upfront if it's a praise or an insult *evil grin* So keep that dictionary handy, you're gonna need it... *smug*

For the rest, check the pic, because the pic says it all...

The Journey of Om- a book review

2010-08-08T01:42:00.003+05:30

So this blog is finally getting an update and all credit goes to the writer Mr.Chandru Bhojwani who invited me to write a review for his book The Journey of Om... So here goes... :)

The Journey of Om is a book written by Chandru Bhojwani and before you conclude that it has some religious context, relax, Om is just the name of a guy and it his journey that we follow in this book.

Om is a New Yorker who has just discovered his girlfriend cheating on him with a guy to whom she got introduced through him, and has broken up with her, and the passionate lover in him finds himself broken too... What follows is the extremely difficult path to Recovery...

The protagonist is Om and some of his close friends are Mona, a 35- year old professional, single and his best friend; Arun who is another best friend; Rakhi who is Arun’s sweetheart, and Jim, his old buddy. The way the characters have been intertwined in the book, I liked the fact that as a book which is set in New York, LA and partly in Hong Kong, Chandru hasn’t ignored the people who live there, which I find is a problem with Bollywood movies... the good guys are always Indian and the foreigners are always the bad guys. Making people part if the background makes them a part of the setup, and not of the story... no such prejudice here, thankfully.

The book mainly focuses on relationships and I like the fact that Chandru gave Om the job of a writer cum columnist, something he himself is, which meant that he was able to cleverly incorporate things which weren’t a part of the central plot per se. The Desi Kryptonite can raise some eyebrows from the female readers though. The book is definitely all Indian, something most of the youngsters will identify with, and the language is simple.

The book has been narrated in a half flashback, half present scenario and sometimes the short length of the chapters frustrates you because you feel you’re jumping about from one scene to another. If you’re not an intense reader, used to such intensity, chances are you might lose track and as a result, interest.

The book has a lot of sexuality and complexities involved in it, which I why I feel it is definitely PG-16 material.

The ending is a little abrupt, though also fitting in a way, we Bollywood enthusiasts are so used to ‘and they lived happily ever after’ endings that some people may feel like something is missing. Though to me, in a sense it suggests that these ‘things’ are never-ending. By ‘things’ I mean emotions-the joy, the hatred, the anger, the pressure, the love, the insecurity, the lust, the et al which accompany life in relations and relationships.

Also, I feel that someone who has not been in Om’s or at least Mona’s shoes might not really be able to connect to it after a certain point, only someone who has either deeply loved and lost, or has seen someone close do that, will get the full blast of what happens to Om when he becomes an alcoholic. And guys will still be able to connect better than girls.

All in all, I won’t call it a must read for every body because this is one book that I think will be understood best by those who have been there, done that.

Bleh!

2010-07-04T00:26:00.002+05:30

I was just going through my old posts... feeling well, not exactly elated, coz my CAT prep doesn't seem to be going the right way exactly... yeah! i know you'll say this means I should plop down and study instead of blogging, but honestly I am a little tensed, a little saddened and have lost a bit of heart :( :-ss

I just hope things are gonna be a little better :-w

P.S. I know it's a sorry little update, but whatever!

Look who's back...

2010-06-17T20:52:00.002+05:30

Arrey don't look here and there... it's the Tadka girl... :) Back from Singapore and Malaysia... back after yet another WAD :x (which was in all probability my last) :( and back to the grueling college and TIME schedule... :-w

AIMCATs have started... with me still under-prepared and tension has been mounting up now... :-ss

And lost somewhere in the middle of group dynamics is me... We have this group for final year major project that has to be chosen by students among themselves... and uff... the politics that ensues... :O and nobody is worried about what project we should undertake... so time and mind consuming is the first phase... :-|

And I saw Rajneeti... one line about it, if ever in my life I forget how much I loathe politics, all I have to do is see that movie... the movie is well made though... and Katrina gets better and better in every movie :)

Handling GDs for WAD summer was wonderful... though some topics were shot down by the Censor (ahem!) and some last moment changes enforced against my wishes... but awesome experience apart from that! And knowing all the juniors, participants as well as organisers... once again... was smashing! :D

S'pore and Malaysia pics are in a lot of demand... but honestly, I got 6GB pics and this bloddy laptop took half an hour showing uploading.... only to inform me that upload failed... grrr... and I haven't had any more half hours free since then... :-w A detailed travelogue I'll update some time later... too much on the plate right now... with yet another test this Sunday...

Anyway... ciao everybody... I'll be back on RQ also soon... :) with another burning issue...

Headphones and a Tub of popcorn...

2010-05-14T11:57:00.002+05:30

And you're ready for movie marathon ;)

Hehe.. I watched three more movies, and reviews are right here...

The first I saw was Cindrella Man, don't let the name fool you! It is a fairytale of sorts, but not the kind the name suggests it is! It is about the life of James J. Braddock, an American boxer, which by the way is real. It is set in the Great Depression era between the years 1929-1935 when the boxer was all but out of the ring, after a spate of injuries and consequent losses, with his licence being revoked. He started doing some manual labour and jobs, but those were hard to come by owing to the recession and he had difficulty making ends meet. However his manager tried to do all he could for him, by getting him fights, convincing the federation each time!

The story goes on about how he wins the public sentiments; and the sports journos who criticised him once, nicknamed him the Cindrella Man, because from his story of grit and pure determination to fight against the odds, a lot of people took inspiration to fight the Depression.

The boxing action shown is really nice, and although it warns of some boxing 'violence' I think it is very watchable and people who enjoy seeing wrestling and boxing are going to simply love it! Russel Crowe as James was I feel effective and played the role to perfection. Renee Zellweger, who plays the wife who's always scared for her husband's life because of his profession, has done a good job too... All in all, if you think you're gonna like the boxing action, get hold of it! :)

The second one was Yes Man. (Now, if you're wondering why it has to be 'Man' all the time,

I am wondering the same :P ) Anyway, this is a movie about a guy who's pretty depressed after divorce with his wife, and started putting himself in a cocoon. He ignores friends, watching DVDs alone, works at the bank and leads a boring life. Oh btw Jim Carrey plays this guy Carl. One day an old colleague of his suggests he attend a seminar called Yes! Very reluctantly and because he has nothing else to do on Friday night, he goes.

There he meets a philosopher Terrence who professes that you should say Yes! to everything in life. And when questioned, he says that saying No would cause bad things to happen. Carl takes this advice too seriously and says Yes! to everything, as a result, his life does improve a great deal as he ends up doing crazy night outs, learning Korean, getting promoted and meeting a nice young vivacious lady. But then, it also gets him in some tight situations. Ultimately, the lesson he learns is that it is not about never saying No! it is about saying Yes! to life...

I could connect with the plot of this one, because I have read The Secret,and call me a fool if you will, but I actually do believe in the concept, though I don't end up practicing it too often... :-s It's about being positive, and simply repeating the positive, even if it's just in your thoughts because positive attracts positive. Ok, I know science people are going to disagree on that one, but you'll have to think philosphy guys!

I am not a huge fan of philosophy and from the depths of my heart, I hate those pravachan people as I call them, but this one sounds realistic. The Secret is by Rhonda Bryne and there's a movie based on it too. I have the movie, yet to see it though! And there was a new book Beyond the Secret, which I purchased on a recent visit to Crossword, but haven't started yet. The book is by a different author, but largely on the same concept, a guide to using The Secret as she calls it! Anyway, you can watch this movie, if you need some motivation in life. Everybody goes through bad patches at some or the other time, and these would probably help.

The third I saw is The Silence of the Lambs.OK, this can be grotesque. DO NOT watch without

knowing what you're going to see... This one starts with Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling who is training to be a part of the Behavioural Sciences Unit of the police, being pulled out and given an assignment to study the case of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, who is a brilliant psychiatrist but a cannibal. He is kept in a special cell without any contact with the outside world. A spate of serial killings by someone who calls themselves Buffalo Bill forces the police to seek help from Hannibal, and hence Clarice is

engaged. Buffalo Bill after killing his victims, who are all girls, peels away parts of their skin, which baffles the Behavioural Science Dept. because they can't figure out the reason.

Clarice talks to Hannibal, and manages to get some help from him, in return for the story of her own life, which she was advised against, but has to do it, to gain his help. In return, Hannibal does help her out, using his knowledge of psychiatry, but he escapes. Clarice is able to track down Buffalo Bill who had kidnapped a Senator's daughter, and discovers that he is actually an unsettled mind who believes himself to be a woman and hence is trying to make a stitched suit, using the skin of these women. He wants to cross dress using this suit.

This movie can be disturbing on several levels, though honestly, I was better prepared as compared to Butterfly Effect so was able to concentrate on the psychology part of it! It has a lot of, well, scenes which could unnerve some people, so watch it only if they don't bother you. Apart from that, for those interested in psychiatry, oh you're gonna love it if you like to study the human mind, which can be manipulative and vulnerable and twisted!

Be-spectacled?

2010-05-05T20:03:00.007+05:30

I have been thinking about this... aiwehi, just some incidents and then some thoughts popped up, and I felt I should put the question to you all...

A few people I know (girls) have recently undergone laser surgeries, in order to get rid of the necessity to wear specs... and some of them have admitted that shaadi had a role to play in it... I mean, yeah a lot of people would want to get rid of specs coz well, it's kind of a burden or they wanna look good and feel that putting on specs spoils their 'beauty' or looks or whatever... but somewhere I felt that, that old Indian mindset still lives... particularly in the ladki dekhne types scenario. :-?

And now, I can't decide if specs really 'repel' guys, or is it just a mindset... I mean on a personal level, as far as I can recall, I haven't yet seen a couple where the girl had specs, and the guy didn't... (or maybe I just walk around with my eyes closed) and on the other hand, well, specs is such a non-entity when you're talking about the whole being together thing... :-s

My aunts refused to put on specs for years, just because of this stupid stereotype and now the situation is that they just can't see, esp long distance without specs. I thought we lived in an age where people had enough sense to realise that specs have got nothing to do with being geeky... or looking studious or making you feel like you don't look good :-B

A lot of people also go in for lenses as a substitute for specs...

Now there are 2 reasons to do all this... one is that you don't like to wear specs, or you feel you don't look good with specs... which is not a crime... but! if you're doing it just coz someone else doesn't want you to wear them... well, that may not be a crime either, but it is definitely an unhealthy stereotype... :|

Sounds weird no, in this age? But I had to recheck too... after I noticed too many people putting on specs only when necessary, like attending lectures or visiting a movie theater, in the latter particularly, the specs go on the nose only when lights are dimmed and are removed before lights are fully on... I mean, What The Heck! What are you so scared of? :-O Normally, doctors advise constant use of specs so that your eyes do not get strained...

*sigh!* I don't know what to conclude of it... I was kinda hoping someone could shed some light on it... :-/

Btw, I have specs, and I love wearing them, as of now, there's no way I'm going in for any surgery or lenses either... too much jhamela with lenses...

P.S. Thank you Amrita and Mads for your views... >:D<

A sweet, traumatic affair

2010-05-03T10:45:00.003+05:30

Yesterday I decided to quit being lazy and watching some of the pending movies I had in my hard drive (did I tell you I bought a 1TB external hard drive B-) ), even though my room looks like a jungle of wires, after the entire set-up, it's probably worth it... :-w

And so... the first movie I chose was, America's Sweethearts, a very sweet movie, essentially kinda chick flick... The story revolves around actors (i.e. they play actors in the movie) Gwen and Eddie, who were once together and the audience simply loves the couple, and the media loves blowing their togetherness out of proportion, and together, they both achieve new career heights... and then they break up and Gwen has another Spanish guy in her life, and Eddie can't get over Gwen and goes to some guru for help... but a production company, which had made a movie with both of them, wants them back together for some time and the tactics they use is what the movie is all about, and there's a twist at the end btw ;)

All in all, a feel-good, nicely made movie, a lovely light watch... :)

BUT, the second movie I chose, well I am not going to even try to conceal the plot, and I wish I had known it before seeing it... :-s

The second one I chose was The Butterfly Effect, yaar name se it seems so cute, and I was in a nice lovely mood esp after seeing the first movie... BUT it is nothing what it sounds like... it is one goddamn disturbing movie, esp at 2am!

The opening scores should've been indications of what was gonna come... it said the flutter of the wings of a butterfly could cause a typhoon across half the world... of course,I didn't really get it then... incidentally, I found out Butterfly Effect is actually a kinda well defined effect, courtesy Google of course!

The story starts with a young kid, about seven years old, who has periodic blackouts, wherein he just can't remember what he did in those durations, he has a single mother, and his father is deemed crazy and kept in a psychiatric hospital. There are numerous situations in the movie, where he simply can't remember what happened! His mom takes him to a psychiatrist, who asks him to keep a daily journal but is also unable to figure out the problem... and ultimately his mom decides to move from there...

Cut to when he's a grown up kid, and a psychology student, and pretty normal, no blackouts... and then one day when he picks up his old journals, he finds that every instance that he ever had a blackout, he was able to go back to exactly that location and situation, and change what happened over there... makes a lot of sense on some levels, for instance I got reminded of the time-turners in Harry Potter and what Dumbledore says about not interfering with Time coz it could leave the most sanest, insane...

But what is disturbing about the movie was, well, every second scene was either in the psychiatric hospital, or someone killing someone else, or a girl whom the boy liked, ending up as a prostitute, or someone else going crazy or ending up in jail... whoa! I am not scared of movies normally, but this one actually surprised me, coz I didn't think any movie had the potential to disturb me to this extent... :-ss

I actually found myself sleepless, and thoughts kept wandering to gross memories of my own... and those from the movie too... brr... I just wish I had a warning before seeing it...

But on the whole, well, if you once leave aside this, I suppose the movie does make a bit of sense... though I would recommend it only when you can handle it.... :-w

Imagining India

2010-04-26T13:44:00.002+05:30

B-) I finally finished this demon of a book, a hard copy for a change...

And it has been a fascinating read. Though because this time I decided to integrate it with CAT studies, I had to keep pausing for 'exact' meaning of words in dictionaries, and synonyms and so on... but nevertheless, it has helped hugely in understanding political and economic policies up to this point that have been brought into force by the various ministers of the country...

The book travails through the times when India was under the Imperial rule, and the effect the laws and regulations enforced by the regime have had in shaping India as we see it now. Nilekani repeatedly points out the unique place that India is situated in, in terms of taking advantage economically. The workforce and the population explosion that was once touted as destructive, Nilekani points out that this young population is all set to begin its career and gives this young democracy a real chance to become a true world leader.

He touches upon policies that deepened caste divisions in India, and what keeps it still rampant in a supposedly developed India. The best part is that Nilekani, not being affiliated to any political party or adhering to any strict party ideology has equally abashed and accredited both Congress and BJP, as and when deemed essential. He has praised the good policies and has been apathetic while bashing the wrong ones, for instance pointing out the unconstitutional nasbandi and abortion drives under Sanjay Gandhi when Indira Gandhi was the PM.

Nilekani has pointed out the immediate problems that we face, and has been very candid about admitting that some of the politicians are far far behind the times that we are living in, and are not open to new ideas, besides playing on the emotions of the people esp during the elections, which is why we get all the wrong people at the right posts!

Nilekani who has been invited by Manmohan Singh for implementation of the extremely ambitious UID project also explains how some of the problems of taxes and reaching out of the masses can be solved effectively through this... and just today TOI reports that the project has been renamed Aadhaar and has been assigned a symbol of a sun with a fingerprint in the middle. The details of this project have been very meticulously put up in articles I came across, which is why I think you should read them here, rather than me writing them again... part 1 and part 2.

Nilekani has his job cut out, and the deadline for this project has been set at Feb next year, but as he himself says we're bad at keeping deadlines, so what remains to be seen is if Nilekani can change it...

All in all, the book is an excellent read for anybody who's interested in polity... :)

Awards

2010-04-24T17:56:00.004+05:30

I've tried to make the blog lighter still.... Thanks Nidhi for the links to slide share site >:D<

The thing they call love...

2010-04-18T10:09:00.006+05:30

What do you do when someone loves you... when maybe you haven't thought of them that way...? :-w

But then isn't 'being loved' the most wonderful feeling in the world...? Isn't the knowledge that you mean the world to someone the most beautiful, the most romantic in the world? 8-> Isn't the thought that you might up spending your entire life with a person who would think the world of you, a lot more enticing than the thought that you might end up spending your entire life with a person who would give you 'financial' security (particularly when you could earn too!)? :-s

Isn't knowing that someone thinks of you every moment of the day, that you occupy their thoughts no matter what they're doing, that all their actions would simply lead them to you, the most powerful thing you could know...? :x

How then could one reject someone's love for them? And why should it have to remain one-sided? Isn't it every girl's fantasy to be with the guy who would just be for them?

Wouldn't you then give them at least a chance, the relationship a try? Wouldn't you at least respect what they feel for you?

Or would you?

Too many questions, none of which I have an answer to... do you?

I would like it if you could give me some answers... simply coz I don't have any....!

Disclaimer: This could be a girls-only perspective at places...

P.S. This has got nothing to do with me or my love life... it's just some incidents that made me wonder...

Tag...

2010-04-11T10:43:00.003+05:30

Ah, well I suppose you must be wondering where I have disappeared to after promising reviews of movies... :-s Well... I am not done with both yet :( Yeah, pracs and an incomplete project are keeping me busy :-w

Anyway, Ramit tagged me and rules are...

RULE 1- You can only say Guilty or Innocent.

RULE 2- You are not allowed to explain anything unless someone messages you and asks!

RULE 3- Copy and paste this into your notes, delete my answers, type in your answers and tag to your friends to answer this.

Asked someone to marry you? Innocent
Ever kissed someone of the same sex? Guilty
Danced on a table in a bar? Innocent
Ever told a lie? Guilty
Had feelings for someone whom you can’t have back? Guilty
Kissed a picture? Guilty
Slept in until 5 PM? Innocent
Fallen asleep at work/school? Innocent
Held a snake? Innocent
Been suspended from school? Innocent
Worked at a fast food restaurant? Innocent
Stolen from a store? Innocent
Been fired from a job? Innocent
Done something you regret? Guilty
Laughed until something you were drinking came out your nose? Guilty
Caught a snowflake on your tongue? Innocent
Kissed in the rain? Innocent
Sat on a roof top? Guilty
Kissed someone you should'nt? Innocent
Sang in the shower? Guilty
Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on? Innocent
Shaved your head? Innocent
Had a boxing membership? Innocent
Made a boyfriend cry? Innocent
Been in a band? Innocent
Shot a gun? Innocent
Donated Blood? Innocent
Eaten alligator meat? Innocent
Eaten cheesecake? Innocent
Still love someone you should'nt? Innocent
Have/had a tattoo? Innocent
Liked someone, but will never tell who? Guilty
Been too honest? Guilty
Ruined a surprise? Innocent
Ate in a restaurant and got really bloated that you couldn’t walk afterward? Innocent
Erased someone in your friends list? Guilty
Dressed in a woman’s clothes (if you’re a guy) or man’s clothes (if you’re a girl)? Err... what are a 'woman's' and 'man's' clothes?
Joined a pageant? Innocent
Been told that you’re handsome or beautiful by someone who totally meant what they said? Guilty, or atleast I think so!
Had communication with your ex? Innocent
Got totally drunk on the night before exam? Innocent
Got totally angry that you cried so hard? Guilty

I don't want to tag anybody... coz whoever wants can take it up... :D

That makes it 28 innocent and 13 guilty... and yet people don't believe me when I say I am innocent [-( :P

I am getting kinda bored... and of course tonsillitis helps in putting you in the dumps... no cold water allowed when mercury is at 45 degree Celsius, no ice creams, no cold drinks, no cool juices, no sherbets... :( whatte life!!! Of course, not that I am following it ;) but then that makes it all the more difficult to bear inflamed tonsils... and running nose. :-w

My Feedjit Live seems to have disappeared from my blog page... :-s

I removed the widgets of Black Box and P.G.Wodehouse insult generator to try to make the blog a little lighter (to make loading faster on slow connections esp). Sorry, Amrita Roy , but if you want the html codes, I saved them for you... you can add them to your blog if you want. :) I tried to make a slide show of the awards' pics, but it's not working out... :| Do let me know if you want the blog still lighter, I'll think of some way... :-s

Nobody noticed I changed my description about me(blogger waala?) [-(

Anyway, don't really have much to add...

Au revoir! See you when I see you... :)

Khatam...

2010-04-05T21:33:00.003+05:30

Before you ask wha...? my written exams are over, and I am still left with pracs, and yes I am still alive, thank you... yes inspite of the last post I wrote...

So as you sit and wonder what new issue is she gonna bring to the table today... chill... coz that's what is the agenda for tonight! \:D/ I have lined up two movies err... actually they're more of documentaries, called Zeitgeist and Zeitgeist- Addendum... and let's see how they turn out to be...

In other news, I finally became an insaan today, called parlour waali auntie who insisted I look nothing like what I did the last time she saw me (which was three months back incidentally!)

Madzie... I am missing talking to you, so kindly hurry up and be back, and smash your server centre meri taraf se :| atleast whatever new one they make will be better than this... :-w

I am looking forward to burying myself in a sea of books and movies.... 8-> oh oh... yeah! I shall have to emerge to take CAT breaths ;)

I broke my nail today, ok which idiot does that! my foot nail got broken today... result of open ended sandals... :( yes it was long, no it did not look ugly, yes I was careless... and yes it HURT! :(

I have been whiling my time away online, yes I have been online, just stopped reminding everybody of my existence through err.. facebook quizzes, I have been bloghopping and have come across two nice new ones... http://desigheeandcoffee.blogspot.com and http://themundanespace.blogspot.com

Aur kya... chalo will probably see you tom with a review of Zeitgeist... chao!

Frustration rant...

2010-03-25T18:13:00.003+05:30

This is a very very ranty post coz I have nothing to say, nothing to do (yeah, in between exams too!). So this is almost a status update except I refuse to adhere to 140 word limit!

I am verry bored, gave an exam today, have 4 days before next exam, no mood to study, have completed sleep I missed last night, won't pick up books before late night today, nobody I'd like to chat with seems to be online right now, and frankly not in a mood to chat... :| My best phone buddy is sleeping, and some have exam tomorrow, so they're studying... :-s

I received a mail in the morning from CARE whose subject line read Say No to female genital cutting which had me pretty shocked because I always knew male circumcision was a part of some religious groups viz Islam and among Jews, but I had never known about this being prevalent, and as the mail says, the practice is rampant in Africa, where girls, are forced to undergo it. As far as I could figure out from whatever I googled, I found that the only significance of this practice is in the religion and there aren't any benefits, though some people do argue that this can help in prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and could be a potential cure for HIV. But what is particularly irking is the fact that Islam believes that it should be done so as to reduce 'sexual desire' among women!!! And it does lead to a number of medical problems if not done properly. Given the fact that the practice is banned in so many countries, the women don't come forward for medical treatments for fear that their parents would be charged, and in the first place, since doctors won't do it, it is done at home!!!

Uff! the problem is a lot deeper I suppose and would take a pretty long time to go through... something I can't invest right now in midst of exams, but I would like your opinion on the same, not that too many people will comment, but anyway... And it seemed particularly gruesome by the way, scrolling down the Wiki pages! :-s

In other news, the Mango season is back!!! I love mangoes \:D/

Ok, that was only a breezer, coz I have another issue to bring forth, the Nuclear Liability bill that has been proposed... the bill wasn't brought forth in the Parliament in this session simply because there weren't enough UPA MLAs in the House to ensure that the bill gets passed. But the real issue is that the bill practically lets other foreign countries get off without paying anything in case of a nuclear accidents. Exactly WHAT were those idiots of my country thinking when they even thought of introducing the bill for passing!!! The electricity that would get generated after setting up the nuclear reactors would also be subsidised by GOI and not those other countries, majority of setting up cost is also being borne by India and it is our Indian lives which are this cheap!!! If there is no liability on those countries, don't you think they won't really bother with maintenance of safety standards?? And... the clever ruse, which absolutely takes the cake is that... if India does not agree to all this, and decides to cancel the deal or something, they won't even provide India with the fuel, which is what is the major requirement of India... Again it is an extensive issue that would take pretty long to go through all aspects, another job I line up for myself!

And for those who are going to ask me to go get a life, then I have only one thing to say... Dude, this is my country, and I care... and I care more than just observing an hour of Earth Hour! [-(

Ok, enough of frustration dumping I suppose... issues don't end here though... nor do they stop... *sigh!*

P.S. Considering the fact that I had nothing to say... it was a pretty long post no? :P

P.P.S. Looks like nobody bought the claim in the previous post that I ogle and drool at hawt dudes! Hah! the power of having an image... ;)

UP-date

2010-03-19T20:41:00.005+05:30

So the author of this blog has decided to act before the Government of India declares a drought. (Not that they would be able to do it... no attendance in the Parliament you see! In India we can have a drought only when we have abundance in the House)

Anyway, she has always stated that she blogs most during the exams, and true, coz that is the only time she sits still long enough without drooling at that oh-so-hawt dude, or ogling at those half naked men in NT (Nagpur Times). No the men are not from Nagpur...

And also, she has had no time coz of TIME...

[Blog author intervenes despite best efforts to keep her away!]

And now I am sick of this PJ, coz every single person who knows me insists on cracking it (apart!) when they get to know that... well, I have no time coz of TIME. :-w

[Blog author has been successfully gagged and shushed!]

In other news, she has been missed by the billis of the blog-world. And she was very happy to see Amrita (meri truthful waali >:D< on FB)

In other news, Peter (of course he would like to give the credit to S4T lest they do a Chetan Bhagat!) has dedicated a few lines to her:

AKANSHA : Busy busy main hoo busy ittefaak se..

engineering clg main hoke bhi busy ittefak se..

MBA abhi shuru bhi nahi ittefak se..

fir bhi main hu busy ittefak se..

shushh.. go study.. who will update ur blog next? Pappu?

which made her cry (inspiration se yaar!)

And crying reminded her of My Name is Khan, no jokes to be cracked on this one, Go See...

In yet another bit of scintillating news, she discovered that a blogger turned out to be her neighbour. Sugar Cube and Akansha Agrawal- the neighbour story series, starting soon.

And she has rediscovered the power of her cell phone. Yes! she has now dropped and tested her new handset, so you can now go and buy Nokia 6303, oh, black please! silver is ewww...

P.S. I never thought this update would come... neither did my chrome incidentally, when I typed in 'b' in the address bar (to open blogger.com), Chrome suggested bit.ly (the URL shortener site for those who are interested, others don't bother!) Incidentally again, this happens to be my 150th post \:D/

P.P.S. Still can't promise to be regular guys... Sowwie :( and as you may have noticed, no links or pictures... time crunch you see!

And I better be off.. Au Revoir!

2010

2010-01-05T21:36:00.003+05:30

Nahi ji, don't worry, this time it's not microprocessors or binary language we're talking about... this is plain and simple... Twenty-ten or Two thousand and ten, if you prefer... :-s

It's a new day... it's a new world... it's also a new year, and I, am late as usual... nothing's changed you see ;)

Looking back at '09, I don't think I have any regrets, I have sweet sweet memories to cherish, especially at year end, in of course, the easily most awaited part of the year... the month of November... :) My birthday :D and then there was WAD... 8->

I've always said... that I would explain WAD later... but my later never came... :-w

It has so now...

WAD actually stands for Workshop on Aptitude Development, one of the only two bright spots in an otherwise facility-deprived, reputation-starved college... the other being our seniors... ^:)^ Hail! A place where you enter as a delegate (a participant), a workshop that was started by one of the professors who has now left college, but is still one of the most respected esp among our seniors. The organisers of this workshop are third year students working under fourth year students, and the pre-condition is that, they should've been delegates themselves... All organisers are selected through interviews, the third years by the fourth years, and the fourth years by the teacher-in-charge and the three post holders who are appointed by the teacher. Long list, it sounds, right?

But the feel of having 40 odd people working in one room, the WAD Control Room, is just... well I don't have words for it... it is beyond imagination. Where else will you find cricket, GD discussions, extempore topic selection, four systems running together with half busy on Mafia Wars :P all at the same time.... Add to it, two gadde(mattresses) and people resting, sitting, working on them; work for files preparation and material arrangement going on at an army scale..., everybody busy stitching the cloths placed on the tables in the auditorium, and preparing the placards for delegates and speakers as also invitations and schedule to be sent to them..., samosas and wada-sambar treat everyday on WAD account ;) PJs hanging in the air, external affairs people flitting in and out, carrying mementos and stationary stuff and T-shirts (yep, we have WAD T-shirts too... a new design every year, thanks to Systems Committee :D ), and most importantly, the bonding between all of us... :)

The brain gets trained to think of extempore topics, GD topics and new ideas and products for Mad-Ad (Advertising competition) all at one go... the file cover design, the Materials to be put into the file, the flex design... and test papers... loads of work! But it goes like a breeze... My online friends would probably vouch for the kind of life I had those seven days the workshop was going on... but our preparation starts a lot before... about 10 days before workshop actually begins... :-w

You have seniors as mentors at every step, to guide you, help you, and just be there for you... :) You'll be pushed around to go and have breakfast, lunch, tea, snacks, coffee by Food Committee incharges... and there's always a cam clicking away ;) yes, the Photography Committee is at work, esp if you're a delegate and you happen to be yawning ;)

The highlight of WAD is always my birthday for me... :) Birthdays of both participants and organisers are celebrated with cakes and fun :D >:D<

But WAD is not just all fun, it is learning with fun, coz the delegates are divided into groups for Ad-making competition and assigned impossible sounding items to advertise... comb,wig,straw and the likes... but the ads that the groups come up with are amazing... complete with presentations, street plays, radio jingles, video ads and replete with laughter... =D>

And also... there are sessions on DILR, Quants and English and tips for GDs and PIs by some of the eminent speakers (ok frankly... ek baar sunne layak hai :-s ) and then there are actual GDs that take place... For the benefit of those who still don't know... GD=Group Discussion and PI=Personal Interview... :-w We choose four-five different styles of GDs that are also taken during the admission procedure of MBA B-schools and IIMs to provide the delegates with enough exposure... and on the last day of WAD, there is a Personal Interview for which our professors and other people are invited as panelists. Also, there are tests taken on Quants, DILR and English and GK and one Comprehensive Test comprising all these, plus a session on Creative Writing. Sounds boring, eh? :-w

Trust me, boring is the last word you'd think of! We don't give topics like 'An apple a day keeps the doctor away' types for Extempore... Our topics go on the lines of... 'Bend it like Priyanka' ;) :P and 'My Bohemian Wedding' 8-> To top it all, there is also a WAD Cultural Day on the second last day of WAD, and the people who are performing are the delegates, so it is an opportunity for them to showcase their dancing or singing or guitaring or some other skill and also to let their hair down... Even compeering is left to them... ;)

Now if your question is, how can sooo much be achieved in seven days... :-w Well, the WAD week has 12*7=84 hours (for delegates) and 15*7=105 hours for organisers and we use every minute... :) (Yes sitting and lazing around after lunch or snoring on the mattresses counts as work :-w )My parents are of the opinion that if I had studied for Engineering Entrances with this much of dedication, I would've easily cleared it... :-s

On the final day, there is a final GD taken by professors and the PI by the panelists, and based on marks secured in the GD and PI and Comprehensive Test, the delegates are given marksheets with their ranks on them. Also, they get a photograph of participants+organisers and a directory with numbers and email ids of all participants and organisers... which ensures that WAD family stays a family for ever... which it truly does... :)

P.S. Together we've had a WAD dinner, WAD lunches, a WAD picnic and a WAD movie... any more reasons needed to be a part of all of it??

P.P.S I keep forgetting to add this... I had reviewed a book 'The Only Alien on the Planet' which is infact my most most favourite book. I had searched for its author Kristen Randle on the net and hadn't found much information on her... but I have reason to be absolutely elated, as she has commented on my review post... :D :D >:D<

This is the conversation...

K said

Akansha - I have only just found your review of my book. Thank you for the kind words, and I am very happy that the book has touched you so strongly. I wish you the best. And I'm glad you were brave enough to start it again, after that slow beginning!

I said

@K
I can't tell you how honoured and touched I am... :) :) It is still my favourite book, and I don't think anything is ever going to change that... :D

K said

Perhaps someday I will write another one that you can love just as much. I hope very much that it's so.

I hope it is so too K... thank you so much for replying. It honestly means a lot to me... :) Though I was a little sad to find that I cannot contact you in any way... but I respect it, and I still love the book... :x

Result's out!

2009-12-25T18:21:00.003+05:30

Arrey no, I am not talking about my sem results... (the day those are out, I will be not just invisible, but offline permanently :-ss ) But right now, we're focusing on the Swayamwar results...

BUT, the grouse is that even here people don't use their Right to Vote... is it really a surprise the turn out in our elections is so low... :P

So the results are.... *Please note that tareef also counts as a vote...* :-w

Tarkan-6

Daniel-4

Shahid-1

Err... baaki accounts mein hadtaal hi rahi... :-s

So Tarkan has won this Swayamwar, \:D/ but wait! I am going to do not just a Rakhi Sawant, but something worse... :-s

*whispers* Guys, I am still blissfully single... :)

The swayamwar was simply ek humor element, something to signify ki main badi ho gayi hoon... :) *lagta nahi na? yahi toh problem hai!* :-w

Gauri, you can have Daniel... :) and Priti can try for Tarkan... :-s No, this does not mean I am going to give away the guys in my life too :-|

But for me, abhi manzilein aur bhi hain... :D

Kid, no more!

2009-12-03T21:35:00.001+05:30

Main badi ho gayi :D \:D/

Second reaction: I have grown up :O :-s

Realisation hits: I am a grown up... :-ss

That's when it hit me... twenty years old... today, and koi boyfriend hi nahi... :-w Not fair, and not accepted [-(

So I have decided... the second round of Akansha's swayamwar is going to take place. The honours of the first round were performed by Mads... >:D<>

So candidates from first round proceeding to the second round include.... *drumroll*

John Abraham

Imran Khan

Hugh Jackman

Daniel Vettori

Congratulations... \:D/ These guys have made it to the second round of Akansha's swayamwar... but what is a reality show without twists and a few turns ;) So we have wild card entries as well :D And they are...

Karan Oberoi... yes the dude from Band of Boys...

Orlando Bloom

Shahid Kapoor

Tarkan... he's a hot dude, an Arabic singer :-x

So now... I have to choose one... :-ss And I hand over the ball in your court... :) Vote karo, and tell me, which one of these is the best suitor.... ;;)

Idea achha hai na... ;))

I wanted to post this on my birthday... 24th of November, but could not coz I was damnnn busy... in college from morning 7 to night 10... for 7 full days... when people ask what I did on my birthday, this is what I reply... and I get tut tuts... but people, you have not experienced what I have, you have not lived the days I have, you have not shared the memories I have, you have not smiled as I have, worked as I have, laughed as I have, and cried as I have... The BIG workshop is over... and what is left... is just memories... of all the good times... I still end up with dreamy eyes as I reminisce those days... tears well up and voice goes all throaty, when I think... that we will never get to re-live the same days with the same people... our seniors would be scattered all over the globe the next year at this time... some would visit, some might not be able to, and we'll miss each one of them.... :(( *damn! I am actually crying again!*

And btw, I celebrated the BEST birthday of my life, sharing it with 2 more people, and cutting 2 huge b'day cakes... \:D/ with some of the people I love the most... >:D<>

ACK=1, coz u deserve it...

2009-11-09T17:00:00.009+05:30

Disclaimer: The title is a result of overdose of microprocessors and the author is not responsible for the *rolling eyes* she's getting :P

Vaise it simply means... You're worth 'it', and I acknowledge it :)

It=Awards... \:D/

Haan ji, meri taraf se... But I did not want to give the standard awards, that bloggers pass on... So these are my awards B-) and the only rule that applies is... You're worth it! >:D<

Toh sabse pehle hai...

Friends Forever... Coz you just know... when some relations are never gonna end... :)

And it goes to... =D>

The next one says...

Explicit, sometimes silence,

Present in my absence,

Comment, sometimes not,

Yet the reader you sought,

Sometimes only a quick hi!

But... I'll always drop by...

Hoping you'll let me in... :)

And it goes to...

Mads ,Peter ,Abhinav,Priti,Aseem,Dhanya , Vidhupriya , Harshita , Arjun , Annie , Divsi , Sugar Cube , Karthik , Tharangni , Chitwan , Deeps , Mith ,hullabaloo24x7 , Anurag ,Prachi , Amith , Amrita(truthful), Shaunak , deluded , Varun ,Amrita~AMS, Gargi ,Ashritha,Ashish, Devashish ,TPI,Moi,Dewdrop, Samadrita,Leo

Making me laugh is a very tough job... But some people have the ability to make me go :))

For them...

And those getting the award are...

Mads ,Peter ,Abhinav,Arjun,Mith ,hullabaloo24x7,TPI

But for us dudettes, blog ville would not have been the place it is... O:-) so I pass on...

This goes to...

Mads,Priti,Dhanya , Vidhupriya , Harshita , Annie , Divsi , Sugar Cube , Tharangni, Deeps , Mith , Prachi, Amrita(truthful), Amrita~AMS, Gargi ,Ashritha, Dewdrop, Samadrita

Finally, the Circle of Friends...

goes to...

Mads ,Peter ,Abhinav,Priti,Aseem,Dhanya , Vidhupriya , Harshita , Arjun , Annie , Divsi , Sugar Cube , Karthik , Tharangni , Chitwan , Deeps , Mith ,hullabaloo24x7 , Anurag ,Prachi , Amith ,

Amrita(truthful), Shaunak , deluded , Varun ,Amrita~AMS, Gargi ,Ashritha,Ashish, Devashish,

TPI,Moi,Dewdrop, Samadrita,Leo

But there's one still left... one that is all awards ka baap... coz it incorporates upar waale saare awards... :D

The Na-Real Award... *drumroll*.... 8->

This award has been specially designed for Stephan...

Ye tera b'day gift hai... advance mein... :D

S/w engineers.... this contains a hidden message... ;) Socho Socho... ;))

And now... I got tagged by Priti... and have to write 5 things I'd like to do before I turn 30... So here goes...

1. Learn guitar B-)

2. Climb atleast few steps of career ladder :-s

3. Visit France... 8->

4. Meet Blogger Buddies at least once... :)

5. Go all geek :-B awehi...

Phew, don't expect any more awards from me in this lifetime... #:-s

I put emoticons on the blog... \:D/ (Ok, don't give me those 'duh!' #-0 looks, I know you can see... :-w ) I have become so used to them, that I debated for a full minute on whether to put :) after a particularly satisfactory first answer in the first exam... of course, I didn't get a chance to smile for the rest of the exams after that... :|

This post contains contributions from Mads, Peter, Aseem, Priti, Abhinav.... Can you see something? :)

Psst... Iss blog par... jaldi hi... 'koi'... ;;) aane waala hai... ;))

2 States-Not Just the book...

2009-11-01T19:04:00.009+05:30

It's not just about the book... Even I seem to be in 2 states right now...

*Liquid ala tears...

My tonsillitis just got a lot worse with my doc suggesting I should get them removed surgically :-ss which does not curry any favour with me... :( Koi experience ho toh batao bhai...

Our Aviator got stolen! that too from the building parking... under the nose, sorry snores of the watchman... worse! nobody remembered the full number on the number plate along with series, I mean only dad drives it, but then when you sit on it, you obviously look only at the roads no... and I didn't have a single photo of the scooter wherein the number plate was visible... Don't worry number mil gaya hai vaise and FIR toh ho gayi hai... lets see kya hota hai... :-w

Moral of the story: Photo khincho apne vehicles ki...

*Solid bole toh happy...

I got a new mobile... Nokia 6303... ossum cam... rest of the features wahi hai jo aajkal ke saare cells mein hote hain... but I <3>

Justine is back...and it is official, she's training for the further tournaments \:D/ Finally... women's tennis will regain its lost glory... :D

_______________________________________________________________

This probably contains endless spoilers. DO NOT read further if you prefer your reads not spoiled by some book-loving idiot who has to judge them after reading them...

About the book:

Love marriages around the world are simple... In India, there are a few more steps....

As true as true can get! The book is about a Punju(Punjabi) and a Tam Brahm (Tamilian Brahmin) who meet at... where

else, but IIM A. They like each other and then comes the falling in love part... then living together, and then leaving together, after grad i.e. Then comes the part where the guy woos the girl's family, and the girl woos the guy's... Simple, too normal, isn't it? Don't we keep hearing about it all the time... how the girl's or the guy's families refuse to accept the relation, about how the lovers are forced to probably go in for court marriages... But these two, call them idiots if you want, wanted a wedding involving both families...

So then starts the quest, guy loves girl, guy learns to love her geek IIT-pursuing brother by tutoring him and thus gaining access to her house, and getting tutored in return; her strict Kanjivaram-clad mom by fueling her desire to be a Carnatic music singer; her conservative always-behind-the-Hindu(newspaper) dad by helping him out with his presentation at an otherwise-boring job at Bank of Baroda; her strictly Tamil-loving, alcohol-and-non-veg hating city of Chennai with long winding addresses and looting autowaalas.... Girl learns to like his hi-fi, surrounded by rich brothers and sisters, seemingly blinded by the worldly possessions... mom. Both families learn to tolerate each other.... Of course, it's a happy ending!

What I think:

Chetan Bhagat just loves his IIT and his IIM, but then he also gets all the vibes perfectly! I suppose spending time at both the places, he knows the pulse of both these institutions so well... But I'd like to see him move out of these two places now!

He has carried forward a few ideas, or rather borrowed heavily from 5 Point Someone when he talks about Krish(THE guy) not being on the best of terms with his dad, his army background and a broken relationship at IIT with a professor's daughter, it is Hari all over again...

I love his attention to detail in the book... at one point, when he's talking about relatives having flown in from all parts of the world to attend the wedding, he says... They were sitting in the traditional Tamil attire, clutching their mineral water bottles. I mean, it brought back countless memories for me, except the Tamil attire part of course, but traditional Indian definitely.

The part about his Mickey Mouse covered underwear appearing through the translucent silk veshti he has to wear for the wedding is just ROFLsome...

He really knows Tam Brahms... I was reminded of a friend all through the book as I read it! Infact, the very first page set the tone of the book, my friend would most probably have acted in exactly the manner, frowning and making a face at the kind of rasam served.

I like the way he's put humour in the book at places, the way he talks about the need for the country to be one and not separated on the basis of whether a person is a North Indian or a South Indian without actually being pedagogic or didactic (sorry I had been dying to use these words on the blog ever since I learnt them B-)

The way he puts illa-something something-ille when he's talking about those Tam dialogues being uttered which are beyond his comprehension, is exactly the way I put those Marathi conversations when the language starts going beyond me ;)

All in all, I love the book for what it is... A must read book, one of those rare ones that get the tone of the country as you know it correctly, without bothering to go in for explanation of smells and their beauty lasting two pages (read book!), the bride-hunting and the groom-hunting that starts as soon as beta bada ho gaya or beti badi ho gayi..., the irritating domineering relatives who's lives sole purpose is to point out your mistakes... it is like... real!!!

Grab a copy people....

Ciggy-Wiggy...

2009-10-13T10:56:00.002+05:30

Arrey nahi nahi, we're not making a Gujju version of I wanna Chiggy wiggy with you boy....(Can I hear sighs... saxy song :P)

We're talking of asli cigar...

Smoking shoking nikle re dhuaan....

Dhuaan dhuaan dekho chaaro taraf hai... dhuaan dhuaan....

*Chalo chalo Antakshari nahi chal rahi hai.... * topic par aate hain...

We're talking about the ciggy ka dhuaan. I have an acute problem with it, almost choking when someone smokes in the same room, ciggy ya beedi ya uske na-na prakaar jitne bhi hote hain...

Maybe it has to do with the fact that my respiratory system stays clogged 24 hrs, 7days and 52 weeks (ek din ka holiday toh banta hai na!) *ab calculator nikaal kar calculate karne mat baithna :P * thanks to my tonsillitis...

Once at EDI, we (Roomie Nirja and I) had invited the entire group to our room for discussion about the dramatic events, and two guys came to our room after smoking and the entire room was reeking of their smoke breath :( The door had to stay closed coz AC was on, and AC wasn't helping any... and anybody who's seen Ahmadabad ka summer will not dare suggest- Band kar dete!!! My bottle of fav Chris Adams deo got almost empty that day, room ko insanon ke layak banane mein! Nirja and I just sprayed and showered both of them with it... *chuckles*

Abhi, I had attended the school reunion party of our batch, informal of course! And one of the guys came and asked... 'Do you mind if we smoke?' (Usne poocha :O ) Idiot me said, 'Nahi, carry on!' *Bewakoof* I spent more time outside than in... Vaise party badi bore thi... but we'll crib about that some other day.

Abhi, ,mere paas un smokers ke liye ye hai...

When smoke's all that can be seen,

I cringe from within...

A voice says,'Don't u want to try?'

Pat comes the reply... Why???

I don't understand its charisma,

I got two best friends suffering from asthama :((

I don't wanna see another,

It's something you gotta stop going after!

Puffing your problems in rings,

May I ask what solution it brings...

If you're aiming for a short life,

I suggest you try a WIFE!!!

Hehe... ladkiyon maarna mat!

P.S. I am going to Indore, hamesha ki tarah... for Diwali... and uske just baad exams hai... but don't worry ji! We'll find a way to be online, alive and kicking... itni asaani se peecha nahi chootega! :P

Maximum City

2009-10-07T21:27:00.005+05:30

Truly Maximum a city... Bombay, the city MNS (Motive Nuisance Sena) claims to be Mumbai...

Suketu Mehta has written the book brilliantly... focusing on every aspect we recognise as complete Bambaiyaa... be it the Shiv Sena and its overwhelming embarrassing influence on every Bombayite, the underworld and the constant fear the entire city lives in, the glitz and glamour of the film city, the finance capital of India, its post-riot-brutal injuries, the best-after-Scotland Yard police fo(a)rce of Bombay, the slums, the vadapao, the lack of even foot-space and yet the thousands disembarking in the city every single day, they call it sapno ka shahar...

The book is non-fiction, and we embark on the discovery of this city as the Amrikkan Desi babu lands from New York to the city he spent a part of his childhood in. The used-to-New-York author finds it difficult to face the No-city, as he describes it. Then he learns to pull strings, Bombay-style!

Suketu visits plenty of bigwigs... from Bal Thackrey to Vinod Chopra to Sanjay Dutt and even seeks audience with the Chotta Shakeel, and finally gets a phone conversation with the don after travelling to Dubai. Suketu meets gang boys, hears professional killers recounting murders, meets a girl who dances in the bars... and another,who dresses up as one... Suketu crudely observes sentiments of the injured communities of Hindus and Muslims, post '93 riots. Shiv Sainiks who claim to be saviors of the Hindus and Muslims who claim they were innocent! And Muslims who still seek revenge...

Suketu meets a police officer, Ajay, one of the only honest men left in the police force... a tough cop, tossed around like a ball at whims of seniors. He witnesses third-degree, first hand; watches the bomb blasts rocking the city, sees the police force struggling to prevent another set of major riots, watches the city that never sleeps, and even ends up co-writing the script for Mission Kashmir...

The entire description is breathtaking, the book unputdownable, the events ibid, and most importantly, confirm every impression the city has ever had on me...

The only thing that struck me as odd, was that Suketu is able to seek and obtain interviews with a huge variety of people, from small thugs to professional shooters, to politicians and even the don himself. How many strings did he have to pull to achieve it, or is it that the lure of an American writer putting their story in a Bollywood flick (as he promised them) is so strong that they're ready to move out into the open and share their lives with him...

Whatever the means, the end is an absolutely fascinating book about the city, I call Bombay... to hell with MNS!

Alone in the crowd...

2009-09-28T20:31:00.006+05:30

There are times when you watch,

The world just zips by,

You sit with cupped hands,

Feeling wry.

You sit on the ledge,

And watch the people move on,

With you, yet sans you,

And then they're gone...

Everybody's busy,

Just find something to do...

Doing what you should,

It's just you who's blue...

A shoulder to rest upon,

An ear to put sweet-nothings into,

A hand to hold,

Some words to hang on to...

For all this you crave,

But there's no-one,

Nobody out there,

To whom you could run....

P.S. I'm just kinda bored... *sitting with hands cupped*

Thank you Samadrita for the beautiful awards you've bestowed upon me... :) I will pass them on... just not today... :D

Guantanamo Bay...

2009-09-20T20:08:00.001+05:30

Guantanamo Bay... I am sure every person who has even a vague idea about politics knows what it is... It is a detention centre, basically prisoners who are accused of being dangerous terrorists are held there, indefinitely! During Bush presidency and Iraq wars, the tortures these people go through in there had come into the limelight and Bush had been heavily criticised for it. Obama had taken steps to close it down but...
This is a chat between Anurag and me reagrding the issue... isko pado...

me:wht do u kno about guantanamo bay?
:-w
10:40 AManurag: ye kahaan se aaya :P
me: woh chod ans de
10:41 AManurag: okk... I know that it was a center where all the so called criminals were kept and tortured by the american officials....it was recently closed by B.O to end all the atrocities there :)
me: wrong...
yahi toh prob hai
10:42 AMeven u tht it got closed
americans
anurag: ??
me: when obama sugned an order to close it... it gt publicized world wide
and when SC turned ovr the ruling... kisi ko kano kaan khabar nahi hui
10:43 AM*signed
anurag: so it's still open
me: xactly
and only 6 detainees hv been released so far
anurag: teko kaise maloom ..tu spy kar rahi hain kya :P ...tune kaheen ye padha hogaa...but woh cheez wrong bhi toh ho sakti hain
10:44 AMme: wikipedia
n i m scourging news articles now
anurag: dekho bhai aisa hain
10:45 AMjab bhi koi kaam kiya jaata by any government official or any reform is implemented..there are bound to be some loopholes in it...so this could be one such loophole ...
me: 100%sahi hai point is..... the formew gt publicized so obv ppl tht oh obama is a grt man and stopped following the news story.. the latter at the most got published in some corner chota sa... so majority don kno about it
10:46 AM*former
i agree he can't go against SC or US Congress... but news mein prominent hona chahiye tha na
10:48 AManurag: well if u ask me honestly I don't agree with the relevance of the news...atleast a decision was made to close it....woh toh kiya naa...abhi kuch ho, naa ho ...woh uske haath me thodi naa hain ...give the guy a break ...kya kya karegaa bechara :D
10:49 AMme: oh shut up u r nt his lawyer, he is a well qualified lawyer anyway, and i m nt pointing fingers at him... i m pointing at US
woh bhi Harvard se
lawyer hai
anurag: hmm..waise any plans to go to U.S...u r so anti ..U.S :P
10:50 AMme: i m anti US politics... as a country US has a lot of things which are more than just admirable
esp the fact that i could prob sit in their country n criticize the govt and i can still do it... coz i have a right to speak my mind
10:51 AM
anurag: lol
me: :P
why r u so pro US anyway?
anurag: yeah u should criticize our govt ..why theirs haan?
10:52 AMme: coz it is US which claims to be championing human rights, lashes out at CHina n Korea... apne girebaan mein jhaak kar dekho
10:53 AMIndia does nt run a Guantanamo and so has a right to say that to other countries
anurag: well tu apne jagah pe sahin hain ...but when I look at the other side of the coin ...ur argument falls short
me: explain the other side of coin to me
10:54 AManurag: well dekh abhi srk ko hee dekhle...u believe it was wrong to interrogate him like that right? ..I read ur comment on fb ??
me: well read the blog also then
usme bhi i hv writeen bout it
anurag: lol...haan maine sirf bo hee padha :P
me: pad woh bhi
10:55 AManurag: well see abhi it's only srk who his getting interrogated like that ..it's others too...so why make such noise abt the same....
10:56 AMme: arrey my prob was nt with SRK getting detained it was with "ppl" normal ppl trying to go about their work, getting detained and better read wht i hv written on blog to get a clearer idea
10:57 AManurag: k wait
me: k
anurag: give ur blog link re...
me: offo... yehhaitadka.blogspot.com
10:58 AManurag: arre kuch toh prob. hain mere chrome ke saath ...u better say kya likha tha :P
me: In the wake of what happened with SRK, I wanted to write a post but couldn't decide where my commitments lay coz arguments from both the sides sound extremely convincing. Infact, if someone asked me to participate in a debate on it, I might speak for the motion i.e. for the justification of the detaining, but somewhere deep, my heart tries to point out Iraq and its jail incidents, it tries to point out to New York(the movie) and how the innocent too suffer, it points out the sham America pretends to be when it champions the cause of human rights, lecturing other nations about it, when time and again there have been allegations that the US has always always acted in its own political interest and I can't say I have found all of them to be false!!!
10:59 AManurag: hmmm
that's true
me: good... nw explain other side of coin
:-w
11:01 AManurag: abbe it's just that the checking and customs and the "rukes" are all in our interest
Rules*
me: weak argument, as I m sure you also realise :P
anurag: /;D
11:02 AMme: yeh kya smiley hai?
anurag: :D
me: i never disagreed upon that... wy do u think i say both sides are convincing...
it is obv security that favors detenion
11:03 AMwhat opposes it wht i m trying to point to...
anurag: I get it re...
me: good
11:04 AMwhich means u can xpect a post soon... on this... n i m thinking of puttin this conversation
anurag: U.S should not dictate terms is what u saying right
me: yup... or if it wants to... better keep their noses clean
11:05 AManurag: yeah ..with all the swine flu around :D
me: abbey
11:06 AM
anurag: but don't u agree with this akansha that
me: that
11:07 AManurag: U.S is a super power and the world needs a country to u know ..hv a say to all the things ..take decisions to issues like environment and others
me: i agree completely...
having a super power to whom others listen is always gonna be good
11:08 AMbut why does it have to keep organisations that r supposed to be international in nature and for the good of the entire world, in its own pockets
take UN, take World Bank, take IMF
anurag: org's like ?
11:09 AMwell those do good to the world...can't deny that...
me: on US orders...
do u kno... US very conveniently overlooked Pak and Afghan activities
11:10 AMwhen it wanted to remove RUssians frm Afghanistan
it was only after RUssians left and Taliban came into power in Afghanistan that US came to "supposedly" its senses and started banning nuke tests n developments
11:11 AManurag: well u know ...If that being the case...why u think others contries don't protest against this "So called dominating force" do u think ?? ...It's coz they see no wrong in that obv.
11:13 AMme: oh right... they see no wrong... dear.. just coz they don publically speak against US doesn;t mean they support US. Japan, CHina, Korea all hv to be given just one single opportunity to get back at the US... all these are itching to be world powers tho Japan is doing it more thru tech n less thru war
11:14 AMchina tries to create problems between countries n Korea unfortunately is too weak at present being embroiled in its internal wars.. communism n stuff
11:15 AManurag: Well jo bhi ho ....I believe ur argument holds fort....but not a strong one....It's anti U.S completely :P
me: it is supposed to be anti US... bewakoof...
:P
and if this is not strong... give me stronger counter arguments then...
11:16 AM:-w
11:17 AManurag: Well u know ....there so many multi cultural ppl living in the U.S..and plus thr hasn't been a terror attack thr since 9/11 ...so the Afganistan and all plicies seem justifiable
11:19 AMme: multi-cultural... read dreams from my father... and the others r nt w/o discrimination... and more so coz the americans fear getting bangalored
terror attacks... yes I give them credit for it...
11:20 AMbut the price innocents r paying... is it so small...
11:21 AManurag: It's not but U can't deny the fact that the U.S is doing other good things for the humanity ..i.e for Global Warming and other environmental issues...the problem with u is u don't seem to give credit when it's due
*where it's due
11:22 AMme: I don giv credit coz I kno more about inside stories dude
Environmental issues... wht do u kno about Kyoto Protocol?
or carbon trading?
11:23 AMor IPCC?
anurag: errr..nothing
me: read up dear...
and try reading between the lines also
11:24 AManurag: how does one do that :P
me: hmm.. WTO ke rules n regulations pata hai?
anurag: btw any plans of giving gre dear...M.S in EE ??
naa
11:25 AMme: nope.. GRE mere bas ki bat nahi...
hmm... yeh toh pata hoga ki they r against benefit of India
anurag: haan
me: ohk.. now obv yeh explicitly toh likha nahi hai... but u kno that n=by reading between the lines
11:27 AManurag: I bought up the gre talk..so that I wanted u to go to the U.S and see how things are ..I hate those kinda ppl who write about things only by7 reading things which could all be baseless...and rumoured
11:28 AMme: hmm... oye chinta mat kar... i'll go to US atleast once in my lifetime
anurag: haha
good
me: lekin
US jaakar bhi...
mujhko wahan ki politics dikhai nahi dene waali hai
coz politics goes on behind closed dooors
11:29 AMhawa mein lehraati nahi hai
anurag: jaise dupatta lehraata hain :P
11:31 AMme: :P
come to the point
sahi hai ki nahi?
anurag: haan true
11:32 AMme: gud
triumphant look
anurag: that doesn't mean u won this "Debate"
11:33 AMme: hmm.. unless you have more legitimate points to add... I have won!
11:34 AManurag: main pakk gayaa yaar :D :D
me: then I win!
\:D/
anurag: and I am off
11:35 AMI want to read ur article though ..to understand it more...and then may be we can debate more competitively
me: ohk
cool with me

OK, let me clarify a few things here... I am not anti US and I am not saying this because some people may conclude so from the post...

I have this habit, especially during one-to-one debates and discussions.... I hold one and only one end of the rope very very strongly, and tug and tug and tug... In short, I pretend to beforsomething to the levels of extreme, just to gauge how the other person will react... ye baat kisi ko pata nahi hai vaise... this is the very first time I am accepting it... ;)

But... all facts stated in the conversation are true as known to me, and their sources are scattered all over the net... this conversation took place quite a few days back and hadn't been put up here up to this point, coz I wanted to discuss this with some more people one-to-one, but I never got around to doing it...

But over the days, I have never stopped following the issue, and there was a story in the Indian Express about a guy who had been taken in there when he was 12 or 14 and he had come out at something like 20... He was released after it was established that he was not-guilty... Imagine... the numbers that are still INSIDE... getting tortured for crimes they did not commit... getting punishments for wrongs they did not do... Obama promised he would ensure these got closed byFeb 2010... and so far steps have been taken for release of only a handful and there are around 200 people in there... And that is not all, there have been allegations that a second Guantanamo is coming up in Afghanistan... the only thing different about it is... its name... that is IT!!!

I would like opinions from others... as to what you all think about the issue...

If someone is further interested in the issue, all you have to do is go and type Guantanamo Bay in Google and there's a plethora of info available... check out Wiki as well...

A Fall and a Rise...

2009-09-16T21:01:00.003+05:30

So the US Open is over again, without me being able to watch a single match (blame my not-so-keen-on-sports-family for not taking those channels on Tata Sky... and exams for not letting me watch 'em on the net!) :(

And yet you wouldn't find a more religious follower... I always open the newspaper from the back page... I followed the triumphs of the injured Nadal surely and slowly making his way through to the Semis... looking pretty relaxed and not very troubled by his abdominal injury, I followed the FedEx rolling on at full speed, crushing people with his sheer grace... I followed every match of Kim Clijsters hoping and praying with crossed fingers that a new champion would emerge in the Women's Tennis... I am extremely bored of watching the Williams...

And then it happens... Kim Clijsters does the impossible, a mum, (Jada is sooo cute... ), a wildcard retruning after two years, triumphs over both Williams sisters amidst loads of setbacks and upsets in the tournaments with top seeds getting usurped... and goes on to win the WOMEN'S TENNIS U.S. OPEN GRAND SLAM... *bows to her* She was my second fav player even back then, when two Belgians, Justine Henin-Hardene and Kim Clijsters ruled the roost... the fav was but of course Justin Henin-Hardene, the fact that she was all of 5'2'' probably helped ;) Seeing Kim back... it would be just toooo great to see Justine back too, nahi?

FedEx... ah, the man so many people bow to, and yet there are people who complain about the lack of humility.... well, not me! I say, you cannot deny the fact that the guy has the right to be a narcissist... (Even his twin daughters are sooo cute...) And yet being outclassed and outplayed by a relatively young and inexperienced guy... it saddened me a bit to see him lose... even though the fact is, that I support Nadal against FedEx... ye partiality kyun... coz I see FedEx as THE Champion and Rafael is THE Challenger... but the records set by Federer are yet unmatched and will remain so till we see a player of his class, his elegance, his grace with a natural ability to do all he does... and I don't mind the narcissism part of it... ;) Till then, he may lose some and he may win some... but to me, he will always remain The King of it all... :D

P.S. The FedEx Nadal pic is just wow!

There's no protract...

2009-09-14T11:35:00.005+05:30

It wasn't glitz,showbiz

No firework, erk!

It wasn't infatuation,sedation,

No attraction,fascination.

It was liking, a striking,

Shoulda spoken on time, prime,

Woulda made sense, hence,

Life is good, misunderstood.

There's no backing, tacking,

It's exposed, predisposed,

It ain't supposition, preposition,

But it's needed, gotta be weeded.

How long would it last,ghast,

I gotta move, remove,

Step out, about,

Speak out, shout.

Gotta ask, unmask,

Find, rewind,

Accept, be tacet,

React, there's no protract...

ME... right now...

2009-09-07T20:47:00.004+05:30

OK, I warn you.. this is pure cribbing, please run away if you don't want to read crib!

I am grumpy,

I am moody,

Feeling a nobody,

Warning everybody,

DND anybody...

Feeling low,

Dealing with blow after blow,

Dunno what's the woe!!!

Looking like the Junky Joe,

This is for everybody who wants my status quo!

My head is swimming,

Cauldron of emotions brimming,

Brains gone wandering,

Lights dimming...

The ME... meandering....

I am hurt,

Doesn't raise any red alert,

Makes me inert,

Proves me a subvert,

A pervert!

I need a life,

That doesn't cut like a knife,

Isn't at a strife,

My wounds are rife...

I need a revive...

Utter disgrace,

In nobody's life a place,

A product you easily replace,

Man!!! Gimme some space....

I rest my case.

P.S. :'( :'( :'(

I don't have anything to say... please don't leave crappy comments that don't help!

Cuts like a knife is a Bryan Adams song... Not copying.... it just po(o)pped up!!!

Dreams...

2009-08-19T21:16:00.002+05:30

Oh rest assured, I am not going to talk about nightmares or sweet dreams I enjoy in my night sleep, and not even about the ones I might be seeing da(y)ily... and for that matter it isn't my dreams we are talking about...

I just finished a book by Barrack Obama, (ok I have to admit I got it right after US elections got over!) but didn't get around to reading it then. It's called Dreams From My Father, a book that mirrors the American dream, a lot of Indians will actually connect to it.

It is the life of Barrack Obama. Life as a black, life as a child who was a result of miscegenation: an American mom and an African father, an Afro-American... with separated parents. A single mother taking care of the child with just memories as a means of recalling the father, who had returned back to where he came from... Africa. It is the life of a young boy confused by apartheid, struggling to see why he was different from others' perspective, a brilliant child who they say inherited his father's brains, his father a sort of a leader of the Luo tribe back home in Africa. The book speaks at length about the racial discrimination of the blacks, right there in the heart of America, the America that stood as a symbol of world power even back then... (the book was written when he was in Harvard Law School and republished when he became a senator).

Obama, as a priviliged kid felt that he should be giving back to the black community, been brought up mostly by his grandparents, he hasn't seen the days most young kids get exposed to and fall into the trap of a world that leads nowhere... drugs,booze,fag! Yet he did experiment, he did fall and he did get up back on his feet... The rest of the book tells the story of how he traced back his roots, went to Africa to see the relatives he had never met, to meet the cousins he hadn't heard of, and to visit the lands that somewhere he knew were never going to be his...

I would be the last person to glorify Obama as a President, because as far as I am concerned, he still has a lot to live up to, if he has to be great in my eyes. But as an author, and as a person who has endured so much, who has been given so much agony and who has but triumphed over them, he deserves a lot of respect.

The book deals with a lot of stuff that I, as an Indian would probably never understand, because whatever else we've seen, we haven't seen apartheid, we haven't seen a lot of these things... or maybe I live a life toooo protected... I dunno...

In the wake of what happened with SRK, I wanted to write a post but couldn't decide where my commitments lay coz arguments from both the sides sound extremely convincing. Infact, if someone asked me to participate in a debate on it, I might speak for the motion i.e. for the justification of the detaining, but somewhere deep, my heart tries to point out Iraq and its jail incidents, it tries to point out to New York(the movie) and how the innocent too suffer, it points out the sham America pretends to be when it champions the cause of human rights, lecturing other nations about it, when time and again there have been allegations that the US has always always acted in its own political interest and I can't say I have found all of them to be false!!!

But ladies and gentlemen, the House is open for the debate, and lets pray the attendance here is better than what Indian Parliament witnesses...

Family+Friend+LAK+Planet Food=Perfect Evening

2009-08-02T20:30:00.005+05:30

OK, discard that look of disbelief from your faces please... and close your mouth!!!

You read it right... Tadka just got updated...

Coz the Tadka gal had a perfect evening after a looong loong time... No I am not going to start about some emotional trauma that may have bound my hands together and stopped me from updating the blog... It was just... lack of time, lack of good topics (or maybe I can't think!)...

But this perfect evening gave me a good laugh, a good dinner (nahi nahi I don't starve myself normally, my mom is an extremely good cook); and a nice topic...

The friend is Priti ,who had come over to my place, the family is... well family, and LAK is Love Aaj Kal (the movie, not in my life.... My life is pretty deprived of it... >:P)

The movie is good. Summing it up would be... sweet,short and practical for most part. Saif and Deepika are good. The girl who plays Rishi Kapoor's young love interest is sooo cute and beautiful.... She reminded of the actress who was the main female lead in Bobby Deol's debut movie Baarish. I don't know either of their names, but both look naturally so beautiful... Rishi Kapoor is good, the situation, fliming and picturisation is all perfect... Verdit: go watch! and book tickets in advance please...

For dinnering, Planet Food, the normally quiet place (the Poonam Mall branch) had been revved up for Frienship's Day. When we asked for the menu, what we were served with was this...

[click to open and see]

The Menu was...

Ek Dooje Ke Liye (On Friendship's Day.... *sigh!*)

Chandni Chowk to China (Why?)

Love Aaj Kal (Dude, it's FRIENDship's Day...)

Luck (Finally ek correct)

New York (Kyun, you can't find friends here???)

Aashiq Banaya Apne (Dangerous proposition, that!)

Kambakkht Ishq (I will not repeat!)

Jodha Akbar (Do I even need to say anything...) :| :| :| :|

By these standards, we had just eaten Love Aaj Kal... it even qualified as sweet... hehe...

Anyway, we were discussing what to take... Listen to the conversation... Let's have Ek Dooje Ke Liye... nahi let's try eating Luck... Finally we ate Kambakkht Ishq (too much of Love and ishq in one day ;;) if you ask me, but who will ask me... so read ahead) Mom and Dad opted for Jodha Akbar...

Planet Food has this system where you take the receipt, you get an order no. and you are supposed to wait till the order no. is flashed on the screens and then go collect it category wise like Indian, Continental and so on. When we went to the counter to order and take the receipts, I said... I want one Kambakkht Ishq and one Jodha Akbar, and the poor dude looked so uncomfortable with the sitution, we started giggling... It would've been a full blown laughter riot had it not been soooooo damn unfunny when we were supposed to collect all items...

Since every erm... should I call it a movie??? contains so many eatables, we had to keep running to collect things one after the other... Kambakkht Ishq had a pasta with cheese that looked like it had been stuck using fevicol... two people had to pull it apart... ek dooje ke liye in the real sense, you see... ;) We then had to go back for the fruit punch (which wasn't Frooti) and the Badam Thandai, and the pastry, and Mom and Dad's Nawabi platter, and the Paneer Tikka. The poor souls took pity on us and got the garlic bread served at our table themselves... *phew* So a nice movie dinner we had... and then Mads asked me...

Madhuri: i'll go for dinner :-w

what did u hv for dinner waise

:-s

8:47 PM me: kambakht ishq

=))

Madhuri: :O

Hahaha.... :))

Lyf at EDI... part II

2009-06-19T20:41:00.003+05:30

Moving on to the staff involved in the organisation of the EDI Youth Summer Camp, there were three main professors involved, and my grievance with this, is, that all three of them are PhD. in Psychology, and most people who know me, know that I ask too many questions, and psycho never has answers cause I find, it contradicts itself all the time! Now if you see the faculty (use the EDI schedule waali link), you'll find that there are a lot of professors who are economists and teach things like finance and marketting and stuff, so I feel that things can be taken a notch up, and instead of droning about psychology, let's see something more... Also, it seemed like a one-man show throughout... I mean there were people who came to address us and all, but maybe it's because I'm used to seeing an organising team of atleast 20-25 students at any smallest college event that we organise, but I felt participation of a few more faculty members would have been appreciated.

Another shortcoming of the course was that it's not very well publicized, so as a result, majority of the participants were from Ahmedabad, which though not a drawback, does limit the diversity of the group. Though I must admit that we did have participants from quite a few places...

Moving on to the dramatic presentation that we were supposed to give, we had ours on the last day, on 18th actually (supposed to be a compensation for early thematic ppt). So we sat back and enjoyed watching others struggle with their thematics. The dramatic presentations brought forth a lot of talents in people we were hithero unaware about.... We had a guy who gave the entire Naseeruddin Shah waala dialogue from Wednesday, the one that takes place at the end between him and Anupam Kher, and the imitation of their voices was ultimate. If you closed your eyes, it would seem as if someone had put on the movie...

Apart from that, we had guys who regularly performed in drama groups, and gave standing ovation deserving performances. We had guitar players, we had singers, we had a tabla player who had trained since an extremely young age... it was really nice to see all the talent coming to the fore... and it was good to unwind in the evening, after a long day...

But I am moving to the best part of the entire Camp.... we visited the IIM A campus, a place where I dream to be... a place I still see, not with closed eyes, but with open ones... as I struggle at the moment with all my decisions regarding CAT, I see the marvellous brick structure, and I reiterate my promise... that I will be there... no matter what... It's a sprawling campus, and has a typical brick structure, if you see the EDI campus also, it seems a little similar to the IIM... And the Vikram Sarabhai library.... whoa! words fail me... even the classrooms look good... I wish with all my heart to be there... *fingers crossed*

We also visited the NID, and the designs we saw there, gave an idea about the kind of creativity it takes to make those T-shirts we wear with funky designs and quotes... Even this was good, though for me, IIM easily took the cake...

Apart from that, we visited the Akshardham Temple, and I mostly went simply out of curiosity, to see what exactly the temple contained. We saw the entire presentation on Swaminarayan, which I found was okay-ish, but I had no strength left to bear another one hour show, and since most people felt the same way in the melting sweltering heat of Ahmedabad summer, we just went on a few rides(yeah there are rides and all within the campus though you have to pay separately), and then all we wanted to do was to get back to the air-conditioned rooms... Frankly, this has become an industry, and that is what irritates me more than anything else... but fine, as long as we're getting for-ex... I am cool... just don't expect me to be there...

We also went to see the Gandhi Ashram and the National Museum. We saw a 3-D movie at the Museum, and I have to admit, that graphics wise it was one of the best India made 3-D movie I have seen... Then we went to a few shopping places... but since malls are always the same everywhere, we decided to give it a skip, three of us hard-core bookaholics decided to spend the time checking out the Crossword collection, and a few went for bowling. After Crossword, we decided to try a swanky looking place next to it... Crazy noodles, the ambience and the arrangement and everything was actually Crazy... we had these glasses the waiters called the Crazy glasses (yeah we asked), and the menu card was picture perfect... Sorry I don't have any pics... (yeah you guessed it right, thanks to a camera devoid phone), but the glasses were something like... well they didn't have a steady base, they kept rotating, and the way those people put them down for you, giving it a twirl and a spin... it's cool... Ahmedabadis, do check it out if you still haven't... (Even google images doesn't have pics of it... :O)

One of the most horrible things to happen to me... I wanted sooooo badly to meet Mads, yeah the one who makes a Mess... :P and was sooo looking forward to it, but the EDI authorities, hey bhagwaan kuch karo inka... we were not allowed to go out of the campus at all, and even after that, we decided to meet on our Shopping Day, and freak and bizzare situations emerged, forcing us to cancel it... :'( :'( :'( :'( and we could not meet... :(

Anyway, these were the highs and lows of the entire EDI Youth Summer Camp, and all of us are in regular touch with each other... a close group of 57 students and a teacher (who was technically not a teacher, and a very good friend of the entire group) . The facebook community lives, the MSN chats, the Yahoo Messengers, the gtalk chats, FB chats, skype talks, and what-nots... social networking makes it so simple, it's on a platter, and I'll repeat what I have often said... the most important thing you take from there, is not the knowledge, it is the network of friends... and in certain cases, you might ahem ahem... also find somebody... as we had a chance to see... ;) Budding relationships... you know... :P

If someone asks me sometime in life, should I go for the EDI Youth Summer Camp, my answer would be most emphatically yes... go if not for the lectures, go for the amount of fun you'll have... and the basic purpose of writing this two part series is not to fill in the blog space... it is so, because when I google searched before deciding if I should go ahead and attend it, there was very little information about it, practically zilch. I had to turn to one of my elder sisters who happened to know about the college and said that there was no harm in going,and nothing to lose. And that is what I would say for it... loss is nil and gain overflows...

P.S. Some of you may have noticed, and yeah I've been trying to bring this page to the fore, so that when somebody types EDI Youth Summer Camp, and hits, I'm feeling lucky! I get to feel lucky too :P ;)

Lyf at EDI...

2009-06-18T19:46:00.002+05:30

OK, so finally I get down to writing about the awesome time we had at EDI...

Priti (yeah, I'm linking... gimme my commission after you're back! I'm almost broke after footing my clearance for the library card ;) )and I left together after hell lot of problems (to say the least). We took a flight on the morning of the 10th and consequently reached late and missed the very first session. Though we were provided with a pick-up facility from the airport and EDI, being pretty close to the airport, it didn't take us very long to reach. The driver showed us the various industries and the river which flows through the city. I remember his statement... 'Gujaratis are very polite people' and this got confirmed at every stage I can recall.

Being newcomers always feels a little awkward, as in reaching after everybody else has, and then entering in the middle of a lecture and being made to sit in the first row, when you don't know what it is exactly about.... phew! And when the very first session is supposed to be Micro lab and familiarisation... don't get fooled by the high class Angreji... it was just a session on ice-breaking and helping people in getting to know each other...

So after we missed the first session, we knew that thawing the ice would take a little longer for us... We hoped we would be in the same room, but it turned out that they had been alloted in an alphabetical order, and in retrospection, it was a good thing that we were not together. So right after the first session, we caught up with a group of girls during lunch, most of whom were just tenth pass students (ok technically just given their xams, their results weren't out yet!) I felt like I might be easily among the eldest people out there... even though the age group was 16-22.

After lunch, we got to meet our respective room-mates... my room-mate was Nirja Acharya, a med student studying in the US. A striking factor was that a lot of them were Gujjus and majority among them from Ahmedabad.

An overview of the schedule of the workshop can be found here.

Though a lot of things are missing from over here... like the fact that we were made to get up at 5.30 in the morning, yeah for yoga... which was followed with some free time wherein people who wanted to read newspapers could do so... or play TT... (There were two tables)... or just while around... By 8 we were supposed to be ready and attend morning prayers... though a staunch agnostic, and not exactly a believer of prayers, I did like sitting there, and listening to the people chanting hymns and all...

8.15 was the time we got served our breakfast, and the Gujju food was mind-blowing... simply too good... I heard a lot of "bottom-line" *wink wink* problems taking place in the 10 days we were there... The rooms are heaven for someone descending from the IIMs or any other normal college hostel room... fully furnished with paintings (yes!) and air conditioned... (yes!) and spatious, on twin sharing basis... wow! The library at EDI looks like a palace compared to the one at my college, and I am not talking about the size. The collection of books on varied topics is really good. Add to it the availability of Wi-fi anywhere in the campus, who wouldn't want to be there?

Apart from that, we i.e. the total 57 participants were divided into 6 groups and each group had to give a thematic presentation and a dramatic presentation. Priti and I both ended up as leaders of our respective groups (yeah again we were not together... why do people always have to arrange things alphabetically????) and the horrible luck that I possessed, it turned out that we had our thematic ppt the very next day! Yeah, here I was, leader of a group I didn't know anything about, and less than 2 hrs left before we were forcefully herded back to out rooms... no Wi-fi on the first day (coz you have to get laptops configured first and we got to know this at around 9pm and we had our ppt at 7 pm the next day!) The tragedy!

So in one hour we garnered as much info as we could, (from the computer centres, thankfully I did have my pendrive!) and there being only one laptop in the entire group (mine), I had to take the responsibility of making the entire ppt, but that still didn't leave any of the members with any time to practice... Nirja and I still managed to put up a ppt after being awake till almost 2.30am, and Nirja was looking like near-drugged, coz she anyway had a jetlag... (she'd travelled from the US the same morning)

And these people had a problem with even girls going to each others' rooms after 10pm *banging head on the wall * WHAT were they expecting??? I mean, you couldn't even sit out on the lawns, and there were actually guards sitting outside the rooms, and WTF, the guards sat near where our rooms were, which meant the guys could do anything they liked!!! Some of them even shifted their beds to other rooms! I mean, even we people wanna do masti! We were there for only 10 days!

So Nirja and I somehow got the ppt near completion, though she had to give up before me, coz of the jetlag... and the next day, we didn't have any time till the evening to do anything about it. The Wi-fi was still for some reason not working... nobody was prepared, and it looked like a sure doom, and to top it all, some of the members of the group were not willing to go on the stage and speak, coz they had stage fear... but adamant as I can be, I forced everybody to go... No I am not trying to be apne muh miyan mithu, (and I don't care if that's what you think it is!) what I am trying to say is... it was chance for them, to remove their stage fear, and I wanted them to take it... not everybody gets the same opportunities in life...

So boring as the ppt may be, the slides were text heavy (how could I expect anybody to be able to learn anything in 2 hrs!!! from 5pm when the day session ended to 7pm when we were supposed to present it...), I could not put in the small pics that I usually put for a bit of light touch (no internet!), it was boring... yeah I know it was... just history of famous entrepreneurs, (now when has that ever solicited a non sleepy response from anybody?) But I was happy about one thing.... everybody spoke... however dragon-like the audience may have seemed to be, they did speak... and speak well they did!

We had this thing called MILLY, Most Important Lessons Learnt Yesterday, when we were supposed to sum up the previous day's lessons, as the name itself says... and that too was an effort simply to make people come up and speak... there too, like a shepherd's dogs nudge the sheep to be on the right path, I was after their (yeah my group members must have sworn at me like anything) lives to go and speak on the stage... (actually technically it wasn't even a stage, I mean it was just a conference room and there was no elevation or anything that qualifies as "stage" )

My biggest achievement- when a group member came to me and asked me for feedback each day after having spoken during the MILLY and when he said... Thank You..., introduced me to his cousin sister (who had come to meet him) as the one who made him go and speak on the stage, the pride in his eyes, and consequently mine, was unmistakable.

OK, I believe you've had enough of the narcissist me and are probably about to grunt and groan and hit that X button on the tab... so before you do that... I am ending the first part here... Yeah this will have to be in parts... there's such a lot to share... so watch this space...

Back, invisible and hiding...

2009-06-10T19:35:00.004+05:30

OK guys... I am damn sorry... this blog has been inactive for a month, and for months there hasn't been anything worth reading on it (was there ever anything???)

Yet I have been bestowed upon with awards... thanks to Mads (I am not linking... I am extremely lazy! Find her in my comments section!) To Mads, Thank You... \:D/

I haven't been bloghopping either (sorry... ), yet I got the shock of my life, when I saw that all blogs from my I Read... list were missing, thankfully I follow almost all blogs so I was able to recover almost all of them again... if there's any missing and was there earlier, I'd be glad if you point it out...

As you have probably seen, this blog has got a complete facelift, something that was long promised and has been extremely late in coming... *hiding her face* As the header says... if there's something you'd rather be changed... you're welcome to point it out...

Now apart from all this news, I have some more... I had a rocking time at EDI and I'll write about it in complete detail... *you're allowed to bug me over this*

My college starts on 16th... :( yes, of this very month... where did my holidays go??? So I can't even say... I promise to be regular in posting henceforth...

Gosh! I think I sound like those newsreaders we used to have in the school assembly... Good Morning, I am so and so... lets begin with the news... First in brief...

Yeah, I know...sickening sense of humor I've got at this moment... wait, did I say humor?

Oh enough of the torture... bbye!

A.T.T.E.N.T.I.O.N

2009-04-28T12:02:00.002+05:30

Behno aur unke bhaiyon...

Krupya dhyaan de...

There are some important announcements...

1. I have joined a workshop conducted by EDI at Ahmedabad. Check out this link and if anybody has anything to share about it, kindly do so.

2. Now for the bloggers... Many of you have joined the Blogger Buddies community on orkut and are extremely inactive... Now neither Peter nor I (or any of the mods) get a commission for it! X-( so kindly be active on the threads! And yeah, there's a similar group on Facebook too, join and be interact with everybody guys... okay okay gals too!

And if my bashing is not good enough, check out Peter's too. He anyway bashes better than I do. :D

Chaddi...

2009-04-17T20:26:00.002+05:30

Jangal Jangal baat chali hai pata chala hai...

Arrey Chaddi pehen ke phool khila hai phool khila hai...

Most of us are of the generation that has heard this song atleast once in their lifetime...

But I have seen so many modern Mowglis lately...

Example:

Yeah, this is why I say men's underwear companies don't need to advertise... What is the point in showing females ogling at a male decked in underwear only and facing the wrath of the censor board and then facing PILs by jobless people... and spending so much money on the shooting... enjoy free ki publicity!

Now I know soo many men's underwear brands! Toh khaasa effective bhi hai... 'cheap' bhi... and PILs ka koi tension bhi nahi! Everybody happy! Except the people who have to bear the smell...

P.S. I have to apologise to a lot of guys... Actually, thanks to my camera deprived mobile, yeh haseen real life shots hamesha ke liye frame nahi ho paaye... bada khed hai... :P

If you're thinking I am a feminist coz I wrote only about guys... I am actually straight! ;)

Did Levi's always have the tagline... Live Unbuttoned... or did it come about after the Akshay-Twinkle haadsa???

Chriz's underwear fad is infectious!!!

Did the title attract you? ;)

I found it... I found it... \:D/

2009-03-29T20:27:00.006+05:30

Hmm.... I went down the nostalgic path.... thanks to Chriz and Aseem who asked for that 'cute bachhon waala article' (For the uninitiated, read this first, my taggy (did I just say 'Taggie'??? I'll have to check my temperature!!!) by Ste.)

Anyway, feeling thoda normal... I fished out the school magazine amongst my entire book collection, and finally found it! Yay! And then, when I was just surfing through the articles people had written back in 1995... I felt... like, soooo damn nostalgic! As in, I knew very few of these people personally... I was in KG II, and they were like, BIG people! :P But I almost laughed on reading the headings of the articles... they were on how sports infrastructure needs development... on how technology changes so rapidly... on how someone spent a day at home ala Home Alone... I mean, some things Never change!!!

But coming back to where I started from, no not the madness streak :P but to my article... I still remember I had written this for an exam or an excercise or something... and then my teacher asked me to copy it for the magazine... The topic was 10 lines about me... as in 'Myself', and I am uploading the pics...

This was the Declaration at the beginning of the magazine... the tiny tots that is, us, were never featured in the magazine before this... It reads...

In Mother's Pet Kindergarten section of the magazine, to retain the originality, the creative compositions of the tinytots have not been corrected, nor spellings checked. The aspect to be appreciated should be their inherent talent and literary endeavour!

How cool is that?

And what I wrote...

It reads...

My name is Akansha. I study in Mother's Pet School. I am pretty and smart. [See I was a narcissist even then!! ;) ] I am five years old. My birthday is on 24th November. My favourite colours are pink and yellow. I live in Nagpur. I have one brother and no sister. My favourite flower is a pink rose. My best friend is Sakshi.

I don't remember who did those drawings but... whether it was me or someone else, I sincerely don't remember...

But enough of nostalgia, I also have something to crib about... all memories around me seem to be getting FULL!!!

My phone- None (doesn't have any... except for contacts :D )

My ipod- FULL... 4 GB...625 songs and 20 odd photos...

My Lappy- 138 GB of total 140GB is FULL.... I can't d/l anything... and I have SIX torrents lined up, and I don't have ONE good movie to watch!!! hmphf!!! yeah yeah portable hard drive is an option... but you have to GO and buy it!!!

Mine- Trying to cram... but it keeps falling off!

AND courtesy, my Beep Beep BEEP University, ONE exam has been postponed by a month... I have already been giving exams the entire March... now April and NOW half the May too... arrgghh!!!!

Huh!

AND I have been dubbed as the diplomatic seedhi saadhi gal!!! Sigh! I told my mom I should've been allowed to spoil myself... :-(

100 Truths...

2009-03-27T18:15:00.004+05:30

Ste tagged me... and here I am... doing this instead of studying...

1. Last beverage: Kesar Milk
2. Last phone call: Received-Reliance Telemarketing!, Dialled- Neha S.
3. Last text message: Neha Sadavarte... to inform that no one was planning to go for the parent teachers' meet ;)
4. Last song you listened to: Behka Main Behka...
5. Last time you cried: Whenever I must've seen a movie last...

HAVE YOU EVER...
6. Dated someone twice: Hehe... not even once!
7. Been cheated on? No
8. Kissed someone & regretted it? Haven't done either...
9. Lost someone special? Yes
10. Been depressed? Yes. Many a times...
11. Been drunk and threw up? No, neither

LIST FOUR FAVORITE COLORS:
12.Sky Blue
13.Baby pink
14.Black

HAVE YOU:
15. Made new friends: Yes
16. Fallen out of love: No
17. Laughed until you cried: Yes, been a long time though I think... since I did that!
18. Met someone who changed you: Yes, for the better and for the worse...
19. Found out who your true friends were: Yes, some...
20. Found out someone was talking about you: Positive... hardly any. Negative-plenty
21. Kissed anyone on your friend's list: No
22. How many people on your friends list do you know in real life: There are very few whom I don't know...
23. How many kids do you want to have: Maybe none... maybe four... minimum ;)
24. Do you have any pets: No, don't even want one...
25. Do you want to change your name: No, I'm fine with it...
26. What did you do for your last birthday: Was attending a FULL day workshop from morning 8 to evening 8...(WAD) did go out for dinner though...
27. What time did you wake up today: Awake at 8.30AM, under the covers till 9AM
28. What were you doing at midnight last night: Syncing my ipod... added new songs... and now it's memory is full...
29. Name something you CANNOT wait for : My exams to get over... first of all...
30. Last time you saw your father: I can see him in the hall...
31. What is one thing you wish you could change about your life: Hehe... uncountable number of things...
32. Most visited web page: Gmail

Whats your:
33. Name: Akansha Agrawal
34. Nicknames: Aks... in the blogging world
35. Zodiac sign: Saggitarius
36. Male or female or transgendered: Female.
37. Elementary: Mother's Pet Kindergarten
38. School: Centre Point School
39. Colleges: SRKNEC
40. Hair color: Black with a brownish tinge...
41. Long or short: A li'l long
42. Height: 5'2''-5'3''
43. Do you have a crush on someone? Yep... he doesn't know though...
44. Ever been in love? I don't know what love is... but if "That" was love... then yes
45. Piercings? pierced ears
46. Tattoos? Nope
47. Righty or lefty: Righty

FIRSTS :
48. First surgery: None
49. First piercing: and last... ears
50. First best friend: I wrote a cute bacchon waala article in KG II on this... Sakshi
51. First sport you loved: Watching... Lawn Tennis and Cricket
52. First pet : never had any... not keen on one either...
53. First vacation: Dunno... must've been Indore, but then I was born there, so does that count as a vacation then?
54. First concert: school concert KG I or KG II, don't remember which...
55. First crush: Can't tell you... :D

RIGHT NOW:
56. Eating: Nothing
57. Drinking: Nothing
58. I'm about to: Go crazy coz of EMF
59. Listening to: Something on TV, water flowing somewhere, modem's humming noise
60. Waiting for: Something... wish I knew what...

YOUR FUTURE :
61. Want kids? Yes
62. Want to get married? Yes, eventually...
63. Careers in mind? Entrepreneurship...

WHICH IS BETTER WITH THE OPPOSITE SEX?
64. Lips or eyes: Eyes
65. Hugs or kisses: Both
66. Shorter or taller: Doesn't matter
67. Older or Younger: Doesn't matter
68. Romantic or spontaneous: Both.
69. Nice stomach or nice arms: Nice arms
70. Sensitive or loud: Not too loud...
71. Hook-up or relationship: Relationship.
72. Trouble maker or hesitant: Neither... normal

HAVE YOU EVER :
73. Kissed a stranger: Nope
74. Lost glasses/contacts: No
75. Sex on first date: You have to go on a date first! :P
76. Broken someone's heart: No,Well not consciously... atleast
77. Had your own heart broken: I dunno...
78. Been arrested: No
79. Turned someone down: As in?
80. Cried when someone died: Yes
81. Liked a friend that is a guy? Yes

DO YOU BELIEVE IN:
81. Yourself: Yes, a lot...
82. Miracles: Guess yes...
83. God: Not sure...
84. Love at first sight: No, infatuation is not equal to love., and first impression may not be the last impression...

85. Heaven: Depends on what is heaven...
86. Santa Clause: Yes...
87. Kiss on the first date? Won't mind... ;)
88. Angels: God's- no... human ones yes
89. Devils: Same as above

ANSWER TRUTHFULLY:
90. Is there one person you want to be with right now? Yes
91. Had more than one boyfriend/girlfriend at one time? Nope
92. Wanted to kill someone ever? Yes
93. Among you blog mates, whom would you like to kiss? Dunno...
94. Committed a blunder and regretted later? Many
95. Wanted to steal you friend's boyfriend / girlfriend? Nope

Associate with someone you know:
96. White: Peter... he's got this white shirt in his blog photo
97. Black: Me
98. Pink: Kajal... The Pink Orchid
99. Red: Satans Darling (Ashritha) (Satan somehow always remind me of a face with red horns...)

100. Posting this as 100 Truths? YES

Here comes the update...

2009-03-15T16:53:00.003+05:30

OK I talked about 23something in my previous post, and this post is purely all about that.

23something is looking for people who can contribute. Now I encountered a small misconception about this site being a social networking place. But if there is one thing this place is not, it is this!

23something is like an online magazine. We want people to come up and share their views about all that is happening around us. Also, 23something may become a financial venture pretty soon, so get ready to join in the groove...

If you have an opinion, voice it! I know a lot of people reading this post are people who already do it through their blogs but this is a common platform for everybody.

Don't like a news story? Feel unhappy about the way elections are proceeding? Political hypocricy irritates you? Blast it here!

Hate telly? Vent it out here!

Want to tell people about a book you thought was awesome? Do it here!

Have an artistic bent of mind? Showcase your drawings, your paintings and your photography here!

Have a movie review to share? Do it here!

So you think you have a funny bone? Or short stories to share? Prove it in 'Fcuking Awesome' here!

A music freak? Share your likes here!

So you think you know someone who's a real life hero? Inspire others too here!

Sports freak? Forever engaged in a fight between United and Liverpool? Mad about IPL? Love Fed-EX and Nadal's power pumps? Share it all here!

So you think you are the ultimate fashion diva? Love shopping and gorging? Or are you the quiet sit-at-home and garden types? There's a space for everybody! Give fashion tips, opinons about the latest eat-joint and how to nurture chrysanthemums here!

But you think you're different? Are you one of those people with a technical piece in your head? Or you think you have knowledge about business and markets, or are you a gadget lover? Share it all here!

The platform is open for everybody! So if you're interested, do drop me a line at akanshaak@gmail.com

P.S. The different links are just part of the same site, if it's inconvenient, just go browse...

On the personal front...

2009-03-09T16:53:00.004+05:30

It's raining exams... and stress and tension, coz I don't know anything in atleast two of the subjects [out of total five... :( ]

But this post is not about the exams, this post is about...

1. Yays! I just got interviewed... by Ghazala Khan from The Pakistan Spectator. Check out the interview here.But don't forget to come back...

There's more good news!

2. I just joined a budd(y)ing team of people to start a new hang-out place... 23something
This place is all about... nah... check it out yourself... go ahead! Although this thing is still in the Beta version as in all of us authors, [I am an editor... supposedly ;) ] I am sure we are going to go great guns!!!

So, as you can see, I have completely prepared myself to screw up the exams... :D

Tring trrring...

2009-02-22T10:25:00.006+05:30

Okay I know this is not how cell phones ring these days... but since I can't emulate the thousands of ring tones on cell... well this should do...

And by now, I guess you know I am talking about...

We see people bragging about their high-end sleek slim 'latesht' mobiles... well I am not going to do that...

My handset looks like a purane zamaane ka dabba, but ironically... it still gets used more than the latesht pieces of my friends, because more often than not... their phones are balance-less. Like owner, like... :D

Mine is post-paid!

You find people clicking pictures all over the place...(yeah, you get the idea...) I can proudly say that I never do that....

(My cell doesn't have a camera... :D )

You find people on their two wheelers, oblivious to the car honking at ear-cracking noise levels with earphones and music blaring in their ears (yeah Linkin Park fans!). Well I never do that either...

(Hehe... my cell doesn't have any songs, or FM either :D )

The favourite pass time of my friends seems to be Bluetoothing...

(Yeah mine isn't...)

Flowers and hearts adore the cell screen of their cells...

(I hate those...)

People live in constant worry... about their precious ones...

(My cell doesn't have a SIM and nobody would want it even if I were to gift it for free... so no worries... and bina tension ke aadmi zyada jeeta hai na... :D )

And my cell can do modelling too...

See... toh behtar kaun???

P.S. I seem to have lost my voice... thanks to inflated tonsils, as it is I have such a 'surili' awaaz... it sounds like crockery crashing right now... ;)

Twenty five 25...

2009-02-14T17:07:00.010+05:30

I've seen this tag doing the rounds... and now I've got tagged too... and this is I think my first tag... after 122 odd posts :P

So thanks to Arjun...

And your time starts now... [this is the result of hosting the Rapid Fire round in the Quiz... ;) ]

1. Reading is a passion... give me a book to read, and then expect me to forget all about you... till the book and I are together...

2. Writing is a hobby...

3. Never sit next to me in a movie... you could find yourself next to a noisy hosepipe...

4. I am a good student... (my teachers would probably vouch for this... ) [***No fluttering eyebrows***]

5. I work hard... I work damn hard! but only for something I really really want...

6. I get disappointed with failures easily... BUT the upshot is I still learn... (but I do get bored of just learning! )

7. I believe People with hardest exterior are the ones with the softest hearts...

8. I hate being compared to someone else... anyone else...

9. I love to learn but I do not always want to be taught... BUT there are times when I have everything that I should learn, but no one to learn with me...

10. I love discussing politics... even though I hate politicians...

11. I love learning more about economy and economics...

12. I lose my temper very easily... even though I don't flaunt it on my forehead...

13. I like people who can make me laugh... :D

14. I tend to be unliberal with compliments... sorry but that's me...

15. I am an agnostic... bordering on atheism...

16. I hate people whom I classify as 'Dumb!'... they are the prime reason for the rising average blood pressures...

17. People who meet me for the first time may call me 'high-and-mighty'... truth is I am uncomfortable... and shy...

18. I am scared of driving...

19. I hate cluttered (and closed) spaces...

20. I am good at hiding emotions... (too good, if you ask me!) but I am good with sarcasm... ;)

21. I wanna move out... and see the world...

22. I am a good listener... [Don't ever come and see me in a GD pls... ;) ]

23. There are about 1001 things that I can think of, that I want to do before I die... learn French, learn to play a guitar, learn salsa and jiving (the fact that I have two left feet notwithstanding!), learn HTML and XML (the closest goal!) blah blah blah...

24. I love kids... [I'm missing my sisters... :( ]

25. I believe in myself... I blame myself for my own failures... and I praise myself for my successes... (even though it's been a long time now since I've done this one... )

OK, I'm done with 25... finally!

And now, I am tagging... VJ Sophie, Satan's Darling, i am what i am, kish, anurag, unknown!!!, charmed one, moi, Ashish, AJ, Riya, I Walk Alone, Animesh, Tushar Mangal, aZoed... and if I have left out some one... sorry! Anybody's free to do this tag though... do drop me a line so I can hop over...

P.S. Have left out some names who I know have already done it...

Simply for you...

2009-02-02T17:17:00.009+05:30

To the biggest source of my inspiration...

My teachers...

When for the first time I sat on my place....

Completely lost, shy...

It was you who came to me,

Welcomed me with an embrace...

When for the first time I hurt myself and couldn't find my parents around,

With tears rolling down my cheeks,

It was you who came to me,

Lovingly you tended and it was bound...

When for the first time I stood on the stage,

Facing the crowd and sensing the impending doom,

It was you who came to me,

Gave me the courage...

When for the first time I won a prize,

And came to you, feeling ecstatic...

You were there for me,

All prasie...

Today, when I head unknown destinations,

Without any hesitation,

I remember you...

Today, when I fall down and hurt myself,

Without feeling bruised,

I remember you...

Today, when I face the world,

Without any dread,

I remember you...

Every little award I acquire,

I remember you...

For I have a lot to thank you for...

P.S. This has been written for a poetry contest being held at the Writer's Lounge, where the theme is inspiration... It may seem a little cliched to be writing this for teachers, but I honestly feel indebted to them... Please do leave your comments...

Girl Talk...

2009-01-24T17:55:00.005+05:30

OK, I know everybody read the title and I know guys will be the first ones to turn up their noses at it (supposedly) and will also go right ahead with reading the post (I caught you, hahaha....) Now I know you're embarrased, and thinking about leaving... but pray, go forth! [No I'm not begging, I'm locking you in...]

Well, that I'm being dragged to shopping must be common knowledge by now (I know it isn't, that's exactly why I put it there... ah, it's confusing!). Anyway, moving on with the story... I got a wedding coming up in Feb (not mine, my cousin sis') and I had to go shop for a decent dress (suit or ghaghra, whatever I preferred) [and guys, no raised eyebrows please, I know there's one full one month to go for the wedding, but I'm the last one among the entire sis gang.... (to go shopping) and I'm being mobbed!!!!Help!]

SO I went shopping a total 4 times, no 5, and....

1.) I first checked out the biggies i.e. the malls which are great for getting casual wear stuff, but horrible if you want a dress for wedding and stuff.

2.) Next I entered Poonam Sarees (No I wasn't planning to buy a saree, they also keep cloth material for suits) and one of the attendants very enthusiastically came forward to greet us (me, my mom and my dad) and started showing off one after the other, but the insatiable soul that I was, I kept asking him to get more and more stuff with 'better' designs. Finally the fellow got tired and asked me to choose some to be kept aside... I picked up each one and started forming two piles:- could-be and rejected, and when I reached the end of the pile, I was surprised to know that all I had done was shifting the entire pile from my left hand to my right hand... Shit!

3.) Then I entered a shop which had been recommended to my mom by her friend... (Women!) The guy very politely started showing off his 'unique' 'boutique' collection single pieces that you won't get anywhere else ma'am... he kept placing them one after the other in front of me..... till... finally, 'this is it ma'am! this is ALL we have...' Another shit!

4.) The next destination was chosen by me as I had actually heard (read overheard) of this shop from my friends(????) who were discussing these things... I stepped in, and it was a huge two storey shop. We (me and mom) had to leave our footwear outside and proceed to the second floor. We sat down majestically on the gaddis and told them to go ahead with their job... one of them started, brought out dress after dress after dress after dress after.... okay, you got the picture! Then he went to get pieces that had been finalised by his previous customers in order to prove that these were the latest trends... He called two helpers (guys) and made them drape the material in order to provide the 'look' and 'feel' and then looked at my face hoping I would shake my head vertically, but poor him, I kept on doing it horizontally... the poor guys started looking at me helplessly and then I realised the collection was exhausted... Shit! The guy gave me a either-she-is-crazy-or-i-should-go-out-of-business look and we left... I announced that I'd had enough shopping for a day!

5.) By this time, even my mom was getting irritated with me even though she completely agreed with my choice... I had been refusing shopping expeditions, making her postpone them every time she planned one (thank my college-exams and annual fest and WAD-PG [will explain it some other time]). So she went with her friend (the same one) and tested out the next recommendation herself first. Since she got a saree for herself and I liked it, I was encouraged and went with her after postponing it only twice... So we entered this fully Air-conditioned shop with a very professional looking person at the counter, and I stepped on my back foot (from my previous experinces, all that shines isn't gold!)........

[This gap is for the shopping time which lasted 45 min]

and finally I ended up choosing not one, but two dress materials.... yay! no more shopping anymore... hehe... my mom will not dare to suggest one for the next one full year... ;) that is, if none of my cousins decide to get married till then... my fingers are crossed!!!!

Next time when you can't see them...

2009-01-21T18:54:00.003+05:30

Well this is something typically Indian...

My driver was among the swarm of four wheeler drivers who decided that the wait at the traffic light was getting a little too long and they should be on the move now. According to the plan, they stepped on the clutch, shifted the gears, pressed the accelerator and were about to leave, when like the late entry hero, a traffic cop steps in, in the middle of the road, and wham! there's my driver caught by the traffic cop.

Now as the routine goes, this cop asks for licence. But my driver being one helluva smart guy, informs him that he doesn't have one on his person, nor does he have any money. Then ensued the long routine of discussion back and forth...

The cop came with the driver right upto the doorstep of our house in order to get money in the end!!!

So, next time round when you can't see the traffic cop standing in his position, kindly say a small prayer... someone might be suffering!

Slumdog Millionaire

2009-01-17T13:20:00.003+05:30

Slumdog Miliionaire is basically the rags to riches story of a slum boy who serves tea in a call centre and is ridiculed as a chaiwala by Anil Kapoor, who plays the host of Who wants to be a millionaire? For the uninitiated, Kaun Banega Crorepati was a copy of this show.

The movie has ample of masala with the introduction of a love angle in the movie. It is the story of Jamal Malik, a boy who wins a huge amount on the show and is arrested as he is suspested of cheating... Irrfan Khan plays the police inspector who arrests him and tries to make him accept his guilt. What happens further forms the essence of the movie.

As Jamal explains every correct answer he gave, a new chapter of his life unfolds... and so does the story of India, which every Indian knows and conveniently forgets... No it is not the history we're talking about, that is exploited well enough by the politicians (the "Gandhi" link being milked, as a reminder for anyone who needs their memory refreshed!) What is being referred to is the story of the parallel India, the India which people like Amitabh Bachhan don't really get a chance to come to, face to face.

Big B slammed the movie on his blog criticising the fact that it portrays India in a bad light.

"It's just that the SM (Slumdog Millionaire) idea authored by an Indian and conceived and cinematically put together by a Westerner, gets creative Globe recognition. The other would perhaps not," Bachchan wrote on his blog.

If the movie projects “India as a third world dirty underbelly developing nation and causes pain and disgust among nationalists and patriots, let it be known that a murky underbelly exists and thrives even in the most developed nations.”

Read the entire article here .Well, this is what I have to say to him.

There's no point denying the existance of this parallel world. I do agree with him on certain issues like the fact that India has always been subjected to a biased treatment by international award committees, but let's forget about any awards for a while, national or international. Making these type of movies is extremely essential... how else is one to be reminded that all is not hunky-dory in the country and we have miles to go before we can even think about getting complacent and satisfied... and satisfied with what? With this kind of place?

In the movie, Jamal is shown having a protective brother but one who seems a lot more aggressive, a fighter... jealous of his brother sometimes envying him also because he gets the admiration of the girl Latika. The two brothers lose their mother in a riot that breaks out in the slum area where they live, the two brothers find themselves all alone with another girl Latika who survives. The boys are around six years old and start collecting scrap to survive... They're picked up by a guy called Maman, along with other kids who turns out be someone who disables kids physically and leaves them to beg on the streets for him! Jamal and his brother escape in a running train when they're about to be subjected to the same treatment, but Latika gets left behind... they start going places, commiting petty crimes like stealing chappals(footwear basically) from outside the Taj Mahal and selling them in the chor bazaar. Or when a tourist mistakes Jamal for a guide, and shows him the money to take him on a quick tour, Jamal agrees without any hesitation inspite of not knowing anything about the place... So they are the partners in crime, with his brother Salim doing the dirtier job of stealing while Jamal engages the people... They are pretty ok with their life, when Jamal makes Salim go back with him to where they came from... to find Latika. They go back on Jamal's insistence and come face to face with Maman, there Salim commits his first major crime by killing Maman, and then later joins the gang of Javed who leads the opposite gang, believing that only Javed's men could save him now...

How many of us haven't encountered those kids at the traffic signals??? Almost all of us have... We keep hearing about the stories of all those gangsters with fear... Isn't this exactly the way it starts for them? Even what Saddam Hussain eventually became, started this way... you don't have to believe me... google it!

I feel it's the type of movie that would make one think... and wonder too... It is no doubt a powerful movie, but criticising it because it portrays the India that normally gets left behind, is taking it afar! I would recommend watching it atleast once... for every Indian, atleast!

Satyam-The Truth

2009-01-16T19:41:00.002+05:30

Well I may not have done extensive research on it, but a fellow blogger has done so... Read the Satyam story on Ankit's blog .

The next part, the remaining stuff will be posted soon, so I am informed...

Have you ever felt...

2009-01-14T10:17:00.007+05:30

Have you ever felt...

So lonely,

Have you ever felt...

Like you had nobody to share your life with...

Have you ever felt...

So disappointed that you wanted to cry your heart out...

[And yet you couldn't...]

Have you ever felt...

So insignificant that you might not have been...

Have you ever felt...

Like nobody had a ear to lend you, nor a shoulder to cry upon...

Have you ever felt...

Like you were all alone...

Have you ever felt...

The entire world against you...

Have you ever felt...

Like you were nothing in a crowd...

Have you ever felt...

Helpless...

Have you ever felt...

A failure...

P.S. I am no poet and this is no poem... It's just the feeling...

Btw, I published two posts almost simultaneously, this poem and the last part of my rain story series When I look at the rain...-V . So please check out that as well. To go directly, click here.

When I look at the rain...-V

2009-01-13T20:23:00.008+05:30

[Read first , second , third and fourth part before you proceed to understand better. This is the fifth and the last part...]

As I lay on my bed thinking about our meeting today, I realise that we'd never veered towards the topic of love or romance... It just felt like two friends had caught up with each other after a long long time and were reminiscing the past... talking about our school days that we'd shared, about our school buddies and how we'd planned our futures and how everybody had eventually gone into unprecedented fields... The dreams that we had... and how we had achieved some and some... lay unfulfilled yet...

I fell asleep, still lost in my wonder land...

I spent the next day and night wondering what he was doing, whenever my ears caught the chime of the clock that announced the time every hour in its sing song tone...

And when I woke up today in the morning, the first thought that crossed my mind was that today was the day...

I was waiting for him to call and whiling my time away by pretending to be busy, but ah, who was I trying to fool? Every bit of my soul was aware of the electric effect that his presence had on me...

Should I just live with this beautiful feeling without telling anybody lest it be shattered???

No, my resolve needs to be strong, for it is essential I know...

My cell let out a wail to inform me that I had an SMS. I just let it be, for I was sure that it would be some idiot telemarketting some product or my mobile company trying to make me subscribe to ring-tones @ Rs.30/month.

But when I finally picked up my phone, there was an SMS from him. I wondered why he hadn't called... I opened it and it read,

Sry can't call, low battery... Am @ an hr away, hw bout meetin at 1 2day?Barista? :-)

I sent a one line reply, Sure, c ya! :-)

And I went to get ready... luckily there was nobody at home, so nobody could see how nervous, excited and scared I was...

I reached at 1, and there was no sign of him... As usual!

Barista also, as usual was deserted!

But hardly a few moments had passed when he apparated right beside me...

Him: Hey!

Me: Hi! Finally on time!

Him: I never thought a day would come when I would have to hear that from a girl...

Me: Well, the day is right here, for sure!

We both laughed out and sipped our coffee...

Me: Hey! Will you laugh if I told you something?

Him: Yes!

Me: I'm serious...

Him: Oh, do you need a doctor?

Me: Grow up, and listen to me...

Him: Ok, ok go ahead!

Me: (in mock anger)Thank you! All I want to tell you, is that I'm in love with you...

Him: You're kidding me, right?

Me: Do I look like I am?

Him: No, I'm sorry, I mean, you just took me by surprise...

There was a long pause in which I just sat and wondered, doesn't it normally happen the other way round...

Then he spoke, slowly, stressing every word, as he did,

(I've never seen him looking this serious...)

I want you to know something too...

I've been in love with you... from when I met you first, I knew I had fallen for you the first time I heard you speak...

I never believed in physical beauty... (Was that a compliment, I'm still confused!)

What I've always loved about you is that I've always seen you as an extremely strong person, as someone who could always hold her own, as someone who seemed so professional all the time...

but I loved what you were! You were the only girl who I knew to be so head-strong, but you were the only girl who I ever felt really attracted to...

Today, you just took me by surprise because I had resigned to the fact that guys like me weren't fated to be yours... I've always admired you, but was always afraid to be laughed at... I'm sorry!

And I love you too...

I just looked at him deep into his eyes, hoping it wouldn't turn out to be a dream...

But it wasn't...

I had really found my love... That was the first time I realised the truth of the statement:

"When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires, to help you achieve it... "

We're together, and will soon announce our engagement... Never again would I have to look at the rains and feel lonely... May the further rains just shower our lives with more love...

P.S. This story marks my return into the world of fiction... I say return, because before I lost it, I possessed a passion for writing fiction. And to all those who said they could predict what lay ahead, tell me if this was it, and if no, then what did you feel would be the end...