Happiness and hardship of losing a smartphone

As my thoughts were getting entangled in the anger, disappointment and the
agony of losing my phone, I slowly opened my eyes into the realization that
my phone was getting smarter and smarter in the past years, while I was
heading exactly the opposite way. I couldn't remember any of the contact
numbers, my social media passwords, not even my bank account details. My
phone had it all. I could only sit and sulk in pain.

Cursing myself for getting into that crowded bus, which eventually led to
the pick pocketing of my phone, slowly gave way for the attempts to figure
the extent of my loss. No matter however hard I was trying to believe that
I could easily manage without it, my mind wouldn't just budge.

When I looked back, it was hard to believe that a small rectangular gadget
had a ubiquitous influence on my life. I was starting to feel disconnected
from the world, without it. The feeling that a whole lot of information was
evading me, kept on lingering in my mind. I terribly missed the
conversations in the group chatting applications, the frequent social media
updates, and the live bits of news and current affairs. The heinous
monsters from temple run made guest appearances in my nightmares.

Days passed by, and I recuperated from the emotional snub, gradually. Even
more importantly, I started not to miss my phone anymore and also, started
enjoying the extra little time that I had everyday, which, otherwise would
have been spent on poking the phone. I could watch TV, read for some time,
or even go for a jog in the morning. The tendency to look at the phone
while eating, died out slowly, and I started enjoying and appreciating the
food even more. Conversations never got interrupted with the sudden burst
of a ringtone, and life, altogether seemed better. I put brakes to my
research on which phone to buy, and started thinking, why I needed a
smartphone, in the first place.

All this, was not even the best part of having lost the phone. I discovered
how I could use it as an excuse on numerous occasions. I forgot friends'
birthdays and escaped the firing line, by giving a melancholy description
of how I lost the calendar events, with the phone.

I didn't have to remember anything anymore, I could always give an excuse
that I didn't have my reminder lists with me. Whenever I went out with
friends, I always got to be there in each of the photos taken, because I
didn't have a camera phone, and so I never had to take one myself.

The absurdity of my excuses crept up several levels and I started blaming
almost everything upon not having the phone. I hid my incompetence and
carelessness, and enthusiastically bluffed how a smartphone could solve all
of my issues. I vouched that I would get one very soon, while laughing
inside, thinking that I was never going to do it.

One day, when I was coming out of a movie hall in one of the prominent
shopping malls in the city, I saw one phone being displayed there. I had a
look at the specifications. Having a look was never going to hurt. It had
great a configuration, and some really cool features. It was then, that the
most enticing advantage of losing a smartphone, struck me. You could get a
new one!

From that day, it was all poking, and less of everything else, once again.

Culinary misadventures

Note :-  About the same topic as that of the last post. Might even have a couple of common points, what to do, that's all I felt writing about.


Being in your early or mid twenties and staying away from home, in a city, for work or for studies is probably one of the most decisive phases of your life. For most people, it’s the time when you start realizing, or at least start contemplating about where you want to head, and which waters you want to tread. Besides that, it could also be the time when you start having a serious stint in the kitchen. 

While I had started living in Chennai, eating out was a very convenient option. But later on, I started missing home food more and more, and trying out the different hotels and the roadside eateries, that Chennai is pretty abundant of, didn’t seem good enough. So I decided to test my culinary skills, in case there was any. Needless to mention, everything went catastrophically wrong, in the early days.

Cooking is an art. A unique vision on how the work of art will turn out to be in the end, is what separates an artist, from the others. Similarly, a good cook will have a vision on what kind of an experience the food is going to be, in the end; a quality that I completely lacked. My mind was always expectant of the impending doom, as I cooked. But the cooking maneuvers, or rather, misadventures, did teach me a few things.

During the early days, I used to order pizza, after I had messed things up in the kitchen. But soon enough, I learned that my cooking will never improve, and my confidence that I will never cook anything edible, grew manifold. So I would order pizza and then start cooking, so that by the time the disaster was complete, pizza would have got delivered.

As days passed by, I managed to develop a common procedure, to cook almost all of the vegetables, using only the essential ingredients. And by essential ingredients, I mean the things that are absolutely necessary to make it edible. For example, if you are going to prepare carrot fry, you can do without curry leaves or mustard seeds, but not without carrot, unless you are the people from my office cafeteria. There, they have these delicious meat rolls which, even if you dissect and examine, won’t be able to find any trace of meat. Also, I remember a hotel in my hometown, where you can consider yourself extremely lucky if your curd vada has either curd or vada. 

Sometimes, I used to call my mother, in order to ask for instructions. The conversation would go something like this.

“Amma, I have 350 grams of ladies finger, two onions and one tomato in the pan. How much salt should I add?”

“One and a half spoons”

“Okay”

I add one and a half spoons of salt, and later on, realize that the spoon that I am using is much larger than what we have at home, and probably I have added enough salt to shoot up my blood pressure to soaring levels.

“What about chili powder?”

“Which variety of Chili powder are you using? Is it Kashmiri?”

“I don’t know. Does it matter?”

“Yes. Can you check?”

I have already put the chili powder in a can and thrown the cover away, so I frantically search the trash to find the cover, while my dish continues to get cooked. I take out the trash once in a long while, so I am quite sure of finding the cover.  I find it finally, but by that time, whatever I had in the pan has already burnt, and there is no need to add anything to the lumps of carbon, anyway.  

As I try to gobble up whatever has been cooked, I think of my mother. I think of how she used to prepare breakfast, prepare lunch, pack it for my school, and then go to work by 10. That’s probably your story too. Remember how your mother used to cook something different and tasty, everyday. Have you ever thrown out the lunch that your mother had packed? Think of that.

 Try not to cry.

Now, cry all you want.

Food for thought

I swirled on the living room couch, listening to the pleasant sound of a heavy monsoon rain. The tiny water droplets that rushed in through the window and lingered in the air, made me shiver. I kept swapping between the sports channels in TV, not stopping with anything for too long.

The aroma of ghee melting on top of a frying Dosa, on the pan, spread in the air. My mother knew that I was too lazy, even to get up and have my breakfast.  So, after some time, she brought me a plate, with a golden brown color, crispy Dosa rolled and kept at one end, and some onion chutney, which is nothing but a well ground mixture of fried onion, red chilies and tomatoes, next to it. I began to drool, as she brought me the plate.  The first piece of Dosa, dipped in the spicy chutney, went into my mouth, soon enough. 

I settled onto a channel, where a live telecast of an old cricket match was going on. In between, I took a sip of the hot filter coffee that mother had placed on the small table, next to the couch.

Bliss.

But not anymore. The society brings upon hundreds of restrictions on you, some of which are, hardly even fair, and the most exasperating among them is that, nobody will pay you, unless you work.  So, eventually I had to move away from home, first for my education, and then, for a job. The food that mother used to cook, became something that I could enjoy, only once in a long while.

The first thing that I learned, after moving to a city was that, the food doesn’t cook on its own.  Looked like, it took a lot of effort to create something that is edible, let alone, tasty. Often, I would make phone calls, asking for instructions.

 'Amma, how many whistles does the cooker blow before the rice gets cooked?'
 
'Four. You have poured enough water with the rice, right?'
 
'Ugh.  Was I supposed to add water, with the rice? But anyways, water is not an essential 
ingredient, is it? I’m sure it’s not going to alter the taste, much. By the way, who the hell is smoking, in my room?'


Practice makes things better, if not perfect, and so did my cooking. I did a permutation and combination of the chilly, turmeric, coriander and masala powders, everyday. Random vegetables cut up and cooked with all these ingredients, I proudly called them dishes. I was always willing to gobble up almost anything.


After my brave maneuvers in the kitchen for more than a year, what I realized was that, cooking is more or less of an art. An artist possesses an inner vision of how the creation will look or feel like, once it is finished. The same is the quality that a good cook possesses, and of course, the same was what I completely lacked.


Cooking, whenever I do it, gives me a sense of independence. I don’t depend on anyone else, at least to cook my own food. We, as a modern society, always tend to slip into a consumer culture, and fall into the fallacy that everything that we need for consumption, will always be readily available for buying. Living in a country where the national food security bill didn’t escape from getting stranded in the political quagmire, ensuring our own food security is something that each individual should be concerned about. Cooking on our own, could be the first step to that.


The infrastructure development is going exponential, but, what we often forget is that, unless someone cultivates, we don’t eat. To have our own fruits and vegetables grown in our own yard, may be, that’s how we should see ourselves in the future.

Now, that is some free advice, to the world, from me.


It’s dinner time. I am hungry.


Where is the nearest pizza shop?

The final showdown

This was typed out after I watched the final of Euro cup 2012. 

More than three weeks of football extravaganza came to a conclusion with Sunday’s final, after which, Spain had the last laugh. They became the first team to retain the European champions title, and to win three major titles, consecutively. The final between Italy and Spain was not the best of games of Euro 2012, and it was one sided, but still, it was worth watching. And I had to watch it. How was the question.

Living in a rented house, without television, in Chennai, is very hard. Especially during the time of such sporting events. This is the place where televisions get given away for free, by politicians. When you think of that, you feel worse. So, I put a status message in facebook, hoping that someone with a huge LCD TV would invite me over to their room. The status message was as follows.

I am so desperate to watch the Euro cup final and I don’t have a television in my room. Anybody from Chennai OMR region, with a TV, ready to accommodate me for Sunday night? I am not as scary and ugly as the profile picture looks, I don’t make much noise, but I do utter very insightful coments during the match.

And it worked. One of my friends asked me to come over. There were a dozen of us, watching the match, there, which consisted of people with various degrees of football knowledge. So, we had lots of interesting comments pouring in, during the match. Someone suggested that Pirlo should have kicked the ball with ball with less power and more swing, someone else, commented on the technical errors in Spain’s strategy, and somebody, even wondered whether David Villa was named after the apartment that his parents were living in, while he was born.

The match started evenly, and in the first half, both teams had their chances. While Casillas stood like a rock in front of the Italians, Spain, netted the ball twice, to announce their supremacy. Second half started with both the teams unleashing a flurry of attacks, but soon enough, Italy got reduced to ten men, and the rest was just a formality. Spain’s game was not in their mellifluous best, but still, their deft passing was a treat to watch.

Certain degree of success can come with the help of luck, but to climb the mountain of success, and to be a there for a while, takes a lot of talent and effort. That’s what the Spaniards are doing, at the moment. Congratulations to the Spain football team, and all those who supported them. Especially to Gerard Pique’s girlfriend, whose hip never lies.

If you know what I mean.  

Review the reviews

Recently, two of my movie reviews got published in Hindu NXG. So the purpose of this post is, to share the links of those reviews, and also, to bore you to death, by praising myself, and by describing the appreciations  that I received from a large number of people. These people, even include, Aravind Adiga’s watchman’s uncle and one guy who has seen, Jaideep Sahni , once, from a distance of hundred meters. But besides all that, I also received an overwhelming lack of response from the mass readers, which was very encouraging. 

Find the links below.

Puss in Boots

Sherlock Homes : A Game of shadows

Moneyball

Due to the huge volume of appreciations, I am not able to share all of those here. Will just share two, in the form of conversations.  

Conversation #1

The following exchange of words took place between myself and my Dad. I would refuse to disclose what percentage of the following is truth, and what all things, I made up. 

D : What is that paper that you were showing to your Mom?

Me : Er.. I got a movie review published in ‘The Hindu’

D : Oh really? Good. Which movie did you review?

Me : ‘Puss in Boots’ and, um,..

D :  What? ‘Puss in Boots’? Is that the movie name?

Me :  Yea, It’s an animation movie, actually. A prequel to the ‘Shrek’ series.

D : You wrote the review for a cartoon movie? You still watch cartoon movies?

Me : Er.. not exactly a cartoon movie. This movie isn’t for kids.

I tried to explain how good a movie series Shrek was, how Puss accompanied Shrek in all the adventures, how Shrek could kill fishes with his fart and all that. But he didn’t seem very impressed.

D : Okay. Whatever. Did you get paid for it?

Me : Um, not exactly. But yea, I got this coupon to go to this Spa and salon.

D : Spa? Wow. Doesn’t that sound awesome! Don’t talk about this to anyone and embarrass yourself.

Me : Ugh. Umm.

Conversation #2

I decided get the response from one of my friends, and mailed him the link. I was sure that he wouldn’t have seen it, because him, reading a newspaper, was as rare as a sensible ShahRukh Khan movie.

Me : Dude, did you check that link?

Him : The one you had mailed? Yea, I did.

Me : yea, exactly. What do you say?

I held my breath and prepared myself to bask in the incessant flow of appreciations.

Him : The Chick isn’t so good, man. Why did you send that link?

Me : What? What the #@*% are you talking about?

In the Puss in Boots review page, there was an advertisement (which has changed now) which featured a good looking female model. And he thought that I sent the link for that. 

 I replied, in a calm voice. My reply, mostly, involved his ancestors.

There are some other, exciting reader responses as well. Can’t post them here, since blogger 
hasn’t got an option to upload physical objects, hurled with fairly good power.

That’s all, for now. Ciao!

The ultimate weekend bash

 Stop that. Don’t tell me. I have least interest in knowing how you spent your weekend. The movies that you watched, the delicious food that you had, the pubs where you spent your nights at, whatever it may be. I spent the whole weekend in my room, sulky and disheveled. I cooked, ate, and slept the rest of the time. I know you had a better time than me, but still, that wouldn’t give me the slightest temptation to go out, on weekends. All because of the one weekend celebration that me and my roomies had, couple of months back. 

It was during March, I think. Our training was still on. I stayed near to the training centre, with two roomies, S and V. A close friend of mine, A, who has already been mentioned in this blog before, would drop in, on all weekends. It was a time when all of us felt enticed with the mischievous and fun filled weekends that our friends used to have. So we too, planned one. We made a ‘to do’ list first, in which we listed out the different activities that we wanted to do during the coming weekend.

The list was very intelligently designed. We had plans A, B and C. And the first entry in the list was ‘Please remember that there is a ‘to-do’ list in place’ and that it is being kept between the 36^th  and 37^th pages of the playboy frontline magazine’. More entries resulted from our brain storming sessions together, and each entry was assigned a priority level.

And it was Friday. I went to office very early, so that I could finish my work and leave early, in a mood to enjoy the weekend. It was part of the plan.

I started my computer, and dug into work. Very few people were there on the floor, scattered here and there. After a few minutes, I heard an alarm sort of a sound. A beep sound, in high volume. I kept working, and just didn’t take my eyes off the monitor. After a while, when I looked around, nobody was there on the floor. Suddenly I started to panic and think that any hot female colleague in some other  floor might have come to office wearing a mini skirt. I got up and rushed to the elevator, and then, a watchman came running in, and started scolding me in Tamil. ‘Fire alarm’ was the only thing that I understood. 

Fire. God damn it. 

A thousand questions started to flood my mind. Why did I come to office early? Why the hell did I ignore the alarm? Will India ever win a cricket match against England? 

The last one being a deja vu for me now. 

What if I die now? I haven’t even married. Both are practically the same, but still I could have a life till that.

 

He pointed towards the fire exit and screamed something.  I galloped downstairs, in Usain Bolt-ish speed. And then, everything started to be in slow motion. Past moments of my life started to flash in my mind. In ultra slow motion. Perfect camera angles. Just like the scenes from Guy Ritchie movies. 

Hah! Not really. I ran and came out of the ground floor. A huge crowd was there. I stopped just when I was near to the compound wall, and looked back, at the building. I had already commenced to fantasize about the whole building collapsing under fire and the office being closed for an indefinite number of days, during which, all the employees get paid, as usual, and the Sodexho vouchers get couriered to the respective house addresses. 

I waited impatiently. But nothing happened. Couldn’t even see a wee bit of smoke.  Besides, none of the people gathered looked happy worried. All were relaxed, and talking to each other, as if nothing happened. Just then I overheard someone saying, fire exercise.

THIS WAS A DAMN FIRE EXERCISE!

And everybody except me seemed to know about it. And it happened right on that day when I went early to office. I walked back, with a depressed mind. 

A usual day at office passed by. I reached room late. And we had our weekend plans, waiting to be executed, the next day. 

Hopefully, this will continue in the next post.

Dosas and a couple of other things

The author of this blog currently lives in a rented house in Chennai, and cooks by himself. Insignificant.  Just saying.

Last week, I was talking to a friend of mine. She was telling me about her love, and the hurdles that she would have to cross, in order to manifest it. Things were hard for her, since she and her lover belonged to different castes. Not as hard as the dosas that I make, though. (Pointless reference. Sorry for that). But we just can’t love, taking all the other factors into consideration. Love just happens.

“What to do, I fell in love” -She said in a naive and funny way.

Her parents had already started the groom search for her. She didn’t show any sort of interest and her mother accused that something was wrong with this whole generation.

When I heard that, my immediate response was, “Every generation thinks that the previous one is outdated and the next one is immature”

After saying that, I felt highly overwhelmed by my own ability to say something like that, spontaneously. Or at least, I could pretend that way, till you find out the source from which I copied.

Later on, when I gave it a thought, I felt that there are a couple of things that I don’t like about our older generation.

First one is that, they are, tech retards, mostly. Sending a text message from a mobile is a huge task for them. Just like making a circle shaped dosa is for me. But technically speaking, all the dosas that I make are all circles. They are circles with different radii in different directions, I would say.  And besides, in the Wikipedia definition of dosa, it has not been mentioned that dosas should always be perfect circles. So, I assume, the cook can have the liberty of choosing any shape that he or she wants. You people should have seen the one dosa that I made last week. In the shape of Africa. It was awesome!  

Am I deviating from the topic here? Considering the kind of a ridiculous heap of sentences that this post is, I presume there is no such thing as deviation, mainly because there is no topic as such, to this post.  

The second thing is that, the older generation is way too conservative. They stick to their principles, just like the dosas that I make stick to the pan, and refuse to come off in proper shape.

I don’t know if I have given you people a bad picture of my cooking. Whatever that I told you so far, are just minor glitches, that come along the way, during my usual routine of cooking dosas in the morning. I have done some fairly good work so far, and have received a decent amount of appreciation also. Last week, I uploaded a picture of the dosas that I cooked, in Facebook. After seeing that, my sister immediately sent me a text message. ‘hey, very nice Idlis you have cooked, there. Good effort. Even though the thickness is just perfect, the overall size should reduce. Take care’.

Not quite the kind of appreciation that I would have wanted. But still. Sigh.

So, that’s all about my life, at the moment. Adios.

Between, is any of the institutes offering a short term dosa making course or something? TIME, may be? No, not that I need it. It’s for a friend’s friend you know. It’s ok, if there isn’t any. I myself will give the poor chap a couple of lessons when time permits. That’ll do. That’ll do.

Stepping into the cubicle

The infrequency of updates in this blog has crept up to the standards of Aamir Khan movies. There is a lot to write about, but the busy routine of idling around and sleeping takes away all the time. There is a blogging spree around the corner, but before that, let me just write one about the recent turnarounds. 

So, after the highly enlightening engineering course, (ie, B tech in er.. what was it? Fashion designing? Whatever. Oh, electronics, it was. Anyways, both are highly inter related no?) I prepared and wrote CAT. Quite unfortunately, I couldn't attend my IIM L and IIM K interviews, only because I didn't get an interview call from both of those institutes, very much like the rest of the IIMs also. Almost joined Mudra Institute of communications Ahmedabad, but it didn't work out in the end. I would say, the whole MBA thing got a little too much 'the greatest football player in the world' in the end. Now when I say that all I meant was it got a liitle messy, you would probably want to strangle me, or smack your own head on the wall. I strongly suggest the second option. The unexpected series of events forced me to join for a job. And yea, after my highly commendable efforts in engineering, my parents thought that it was no more a good idea to invest money in my education. Fair enough. So I landed up in the office where I am working now. But not as simple as that.

Getting employed as a software engineer is not easy. First, you have to clear an objective type exam which is, specially designed to check whether you can stare into a computer screen for a fair amount of time, and click on random options, without starting to play solitaire, or browsing the web. That is a little tough, but if you have attended atleast 50% of your engineering lectures, you probably are capable of even watching a race between tortoises, without getting bored. Once you clear that test, you get to attend technical and HR interviews. Now, that's a complicated process. But let me simplify it for you, with an example. Have you seen any of the mutual fund TV advertises? The interview process is very much similar to that. In the advertise, they try to convince you that the best possible way to invest money is their mutual funds. After the ad, they read a statement, as fast as a human being can possibly read. Nobody understands a single word. Not even Rajnikanth. But still, everybody knows what it was all about. If you invest in their mutual funds and lose money, they will not be responsible. Even though totally pointless, it's not possible to avoid that statement in the end of the ad. In the interview, the panel asks you programming questions. You are supposed to answer, or in some cases, write down, the programs that you have learned byheart, the previous night. They might also ask you questions like, 'Why you want to work for this particular company' etc. and you are supposed to praise the company as much as you can. If you are as over promising and under delivering as me, you might also have read the wikipedia page of your company, and might have plenty of facts and figures to state. The whole process is pointless, you know that, the panel knows that. But that's the way things are. It just can't be avoided. 

Getting through the whole process was a wonderful experience. Employed with a software MNC. Looks good on my profile. Marriage profile, of course. I felt that I have also got into this elite group of Information Technology people. But soon enough, I started to realize that nine out of ten people I see in Chennai are working in IT companies. Take a stone and throw it in a random direction, it will surely hit a software engineer. There were even rumors that IT companies have started to recruit stray dogs and cattle, after running out of people. I heard this very, very scary story, last week. A software engineer threw a stone at a stray dog, and that dog, later turned out to be his project manager. Shudder.                        

After I got selected, I had to undergo an online training process. It's objectives were like, to prepare us for the highly competitive work environment and equip ourselves with the essential software technologies. In my case, it served the purpose. After the training, I found myself being well versed with java. I had this profound insight that 'Marjawa' and 'Mitjawa' have actually nothing to do with Java, and the song writer wasn't actually describing his software coding experience, unlike as I thought earlier. I used to be a gifted one, with a natural flair for writing bugs. But things got better, later on. My coding skills improved a whole lot, and I learned two languages. Java and Tamil. Tamil, I can understand while java I can read and speak. That's good enough, I guess.

The only complaint that I have about the office is that I am not allowed to use any browser other than internet explorer. I used to think that IE was only for downloading Firefox.

Jokes apart, office life is so far, so good. Not that I am contented. But still, I am happy with the numerous possibilies that life is offering, at the moment. I have made some good friends and have had a few fun moments. Financial independence feels really nice. Wanderlust is taking over, so some weekend travelling will happen, soon. Looking forward to that. ;-)   

  



  

How to get over the Commonwealth Games snub: A guideline.

Dear reader, (Ahem.. I know that it’s me and me only, most of the times) before getting into the matter, let me ask you, what exactly are you looking for? A creative and innovative solution to the Commonwealth Games organizing woes? Suggestions for conducting the Games in a better way? Or lessons that we should learn from the bitter experiences? This post is, nothing of that sort.
I take great pride in being an Indian. I am a sports lover as well. If you also belong to both of these categories, there couldn’t be a tougher time for you. I am, like the most of us, embarrassed and hurt, with the controversies related with the CWG. But it is better to appreciate the positives, rather than being dejected at the negatives. The following is an attempt to implement that thinking strategy.

1.Withdrawal of athletes

CWG, is the biggest sporting event that India has ever witnessed. But many of the top class athletes have already withdrawn from it, pointing at the safety and hygiene reasons. That might look like a disappointing thing, in the first look. But, that increases our winning chances. If all the other countries pull out, we win! Commonwealth games champions! May be that was what the organizing committee had in their plans. Anyways, it didn’t work out that way, and many teams have already arrived. But still, the absence of some of the big names might help our athletes.

2.PM steps in!

You know what that means? Just when the organizing chaos was running high, our prime minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh intervened. Till then, Sheila Dikshit was announcing deadlines to announce the next deadline. Whether the PM made a change or not, I don’t know. But with all the due respect to our democracy, let me say, both our current president and prime minister are rubber stamps. Our PM is a good economist, but, never a good leader. If he was, he wouldn’t have let things go this bad.

A sardar says : I’ve been proud of the industrious nature of Sardars. I’ve never seen a Sardar begging. Alas! Just then, Dr. Manmohan Singh was made the prime minister of India.

You know what is the difference between Dr. Manmohan Singh and our local pizza store? Our local pizza store stops taking orders at 11 in the night.

These jokes sum up what I’ve got to say about our PM. But just then, the news headlines about the PM’s intervention at the CWG, gave me a feeling that he is doing something on his own. Just a feeling. But it’s better than nothing. Right?

3.DD sports in HD

Are you people aware of the fact that there is a sports channel called DD Sports? There is. Apna Doordarshan’s sports channel. The channel has been operating, very effectively, for around a decade. It has always brought high quality sporting action to us, with superb picture quality. Their programs included the live coverage of the highly exciting games like Billiards, Caroms, Kabadi etc. Inter district cricket tournament in the state of Madhya Pradesh, Three day practice match between Australia and the President’s eleven, Race between tortoises conducted in Bihar etc. were covered, enabling us to catch the nail biting action live.

Now, they are going to telecast the CWG events, that too in HD. Their obsolete equipments have been replaced, spending a huge sum of money. At least for a small period, they are going to telecast something, that people would actually watch. Thank God!

Hope these worked for you. You see more positives like these? Let me know.

P.S :- Both the jokes about Dr. Manmohan Singh were picked up from Twitter. Credit goes to the unknown authors. I, shamelessly, copied those and used them in my blog, as if they were my own creations, and hoped that no one would find out. Bad me.

Deciphering politics

Indian politics continues to be the one thing which incessantly amazes me. It is something that I would never fully understand, no matter how hard I try. Just like electronics, the subject that I took up for Engineering studies.

But being a responsible citizen of this country, I can't fully turn my face away from politics. I need to know how my country is being run, by the representatives who are chosen by the people of this country. So, this post is the beginning of my humble attempt to analyze, understand and extract the valuable politics lessons, using the current happenings as my reference. I would also try to know about the various qualities that a politician should necessarily possess in order to lead this country to prosperity. If you are a mortal in a similar confused state as mine, join in, be a part, learn these valuable lessons, and throw in your suggestions. Or if you already claim to understand politics, there.. take that envious look from me.

Lesson no.1 - Never ending fight against corruption


Yes. That's something that politicians are supposed to do and talk about, throughout their political careers. Sorry. both are same. Talking is mostly what they do. Right? You can see corruption allegations being hurled at ministers and prominent leaders very often, and never think that it's for ruining the image of the enemy or for any sort of political gains. It's all part of the selfless fight. Want to see an example? No need to look too far.

If you have been reading the newspapers, or watching any of the news channels, you would know. The Bihar government was alleged of certain financial irregularities in the recent past. The opposition is demanding chief minister Nitish Kumar's resignation. Now, if you ask me, whether the allegation has truth in it, I don't know. That is definitely out of the radar of this blog. My focus is, the fight. Have a look at a few glimpses of that.



Bihar Assembly was in utter chaos, during last week. Now, for us, no better example can be found. How to fight against corruption is just being illustrated in the picture. Still don't get it? Let me explain

You can see the picture of MLC Jyoti Kumari throwing flower pots around. Flower pots made of clay tend to break when thrown from a particular height. What an effective way to protest against the alleged financial irregularities! But this particular technique works well only if the flower pots are the taxpayer's money. That's probably the reason why the respected MLC Jyoti Kumari didn't bring her own flower pots to implement this sophisticated yet effective way of fighting corruption. A slipper was flung at the speaker by someone. You might be thinking that it was a bit of an undisciplined act and all, but that's all part of the fight. A microphone was removed and thrown away, and lot more. Read the full story here.

I have studied about our political system in Social science, during my primary school days. But I never knew the practical side of it. Neither did the school Parliament teach me anything like these. Being in the school parliament was so easy, actually. No body threw slippers at each other. But the reality seems to be different. Chaos has prevailed in many of the state legislatures recently.(Link). So the school Parliaments need to change as well. Physical training is essential for the students. Or shall we club the school parliament with, say, Sports day or something? Training in Hammer throw, Shot put etc. might turn out to be pretty handy in the parliament.

Watch out for the coming lessons. Soon.

Worldcup hangover : Things that I miss

FIFA WC 2010 has just come to it's conclusion, with Spain having the last laugh. well deserved, I would say.

For the last one month, on almost every day, I had one or two international football matches to look towards, and that was really nice, especially when the hectic time that I was having, almost jeopardized the sanity of my mind. But not anymore. Now, I am suffering from the post world cup hangover. Missing the vigor and passion of hard fought football matches. So, here comes a list of the things that I miss very badly after the exceedingly well organized one month football extravaganza in South Africa. Pardon the nonsense.

1. Shakira



Shakira and her theme song were really magical. The best thing (arguably, I know) about this world cup. There was a bit of a controversy regarding FIFA not approaching an African singer to perform the theme song. But who wants to see an African singer like Akon or K'naan perform? Not that they aren't good enough. But still, can they be as hot and sexy as Shakira? Not in my perspective(Em kinda straight, you know), and I don't know about the girls out there.

Just watched an interview of Shakira in Youtube where she talks about her WC theme song, football in general, and work that her foundation does to provide education to poor children. Find the video here. The interviewer appreciates all the philanthropic work that she does, or at least she claims to be doing. Even I appreciate the same too. But I've never seen anyone appreciating the philanthropic work of Vicente Ferrer Moncho or Jamini Bhushan Ray. The rule is quite simple. When you are an exceedingly hot female, the probability of your philanthropic/social work being appreciated is very very high.


I need to move on to the next item in the list. Let me conclude this one first.

Providing education to poor children is a great thing. Education helps us to live on this planet in a better way. Earth is such a beautiful planet and we need to conserve it. Because, earth is the only planet where Shakira exists. Damn.

2. Vuvuzela



Vuvuzela needs no introduction, for those who have been watching FIFA WC 2010 matches. Vuvuzela is the large blowing horn which produces a highly annoying buzzing sound. It is very commonly played during football matches in South Africa. The sound is so annoying that, certain television networks had to try to filter it out.

Google has even introduced a Vuvuzela button in Youtube. While watching football videos, you can blow a Vuvuzela. If you haven't seen that button yet, check out the highlights video of the Ghana Uruguay quarter final here. You can start blowing the Vuvuzela by clicking on the football shaped button seen near the pop out button.


3. Paul and his predictions

Paul is the psychic octopus who predicted the outcomes of several matches correctly. He is a maverick, indeed. He entered the field of astrology, and no other octopus has done it before.
If the Paul prediction thing had happened in India, won't the west have accused us Indians of being superstitious? Anyways, I enjoyed the buzz around his predictions, and all the lame jokes surrounding it. I miss Paul, and I am sure he is disappointed too. He hasn't got any more predictions to make. He has to live as an ordinary octopus now. What would have Paul said on the situation, if he could speak? Here comes the answer.

"Ahem.. Thanks for all your support. Now my future looks kinda empty, as the world cup is over. But on the other hand, er.. I mean, on any of the other eight hands, I have noticed certain opportunities in the form of Indian premier league. I could predict the results of those matches"

How about that? Shall we begin a campaign 'Paul in IPL'? Or shall we use him to predict the things that are likely to happen in our Indian politics, where the happening are unexpected and illogical most of the times? That could work out very well, considering the fact that Paul also doesn't have any logic or skill behind his predictions.

So, these are the things that I miss, mostly. The withdrawal symptoms are so strong that, despite not being a keen observer of club football, I have decided to keep track of all the English/Spanish premier league matches this year.

Nuggets of nonsense

I am enjoying the World cup football pretty well, especially because My fav team, Argentina is doing well. Premature exit of Italy and France was very sad. But this is not what I want to talk about.

The cleavage showing girl Mayanti Langer (Am I right?) who hosts the pre and post match show in espn/star sports freaks me out. Come on.. this is about football and all of us clearly know that she is not the best expert that we can have. She claims to have some knowledge about football, but she's far from the best. Isn't she?

Ok, men usually like cleavages and all, but why,why in a football related show?


***

Me : Do you have jeans of hip size *censored* ?
Salesman : Sorry sir, we don't.
Me : Sigh, but there in that shelf, I can see size *censored*
Salesman : That is ladies jeans, sir.
Bro chuckles. Immediately made silent with an angry stare.
Me : *^$$^%$@^#
Salesman : Sir, why don't you try the largest size in the kids section sir?
Me : (mutter) Fuck you (Normal voice)No. I'll gain some weight and come back.
Bro : (On the way back)Hey, don't walk near that dog. It might get tempted by the bones in your body. They all are too visible.
Me : Ohoho.. great joke.

Any short cuts to gain weight?

***

My bottom is on fire for the next ten days. But I can't reveal why. Being an anonymous blogger sounds like a better and better idea to me.

***

I always find facts which are contrary to the reasons when I follow reasons far enough. Do you think that it's logically possible? I need to get some sleep, I know, I know.

PS.1 - The author of this blog is not that lean as this post indicates. Actually, he is a muscle hunk, with these six, eight, I don't know how many packs and all.

PS.2 - I seriously wish if PS.1 was true

Why I want to be a Maoist

Note :- This post doesn't have any serious political/ideological implications. Most of the posts in my blog fall under one category, nonsense. This post isn't an exception.

Quick disposal of cases against them through fast-track courts. Surrendered Maoists will go through counseling and vocational training by an NGO nominated by the state government.

They will then be provided margin money up to Rs 2 lakhs and bank loans up to Rs 10 lakhs to start businesses

This appeared in the newspapers around a week ago. The rehabilitation package offered by the West Bengal Gov. to the surrendering Maoists.

I went through this thing again and again, scrutinized it several times, tweeted about it, pondered over it again and again, and now, I have reached the conclusion. What a tempting offer! You can't blame jobless people in this country, whose I am a representative of, if they think that this is the best beginning that they can have.

Why work for a corporate company? Work for yourself. Start a business of your own. And there, the Government is, to help you with the capital. You figure out what business you want to do.

Now that I have made up my mind and chosen the different and bold path, Got to move forward with the execution. I have to surrender. But in order to surrender, I have to be a Maoist first. I am pretty sure that I am qualified enough. I have plenty of experience in putting holes on the foreheads of my opponents and spraying their blood all over. Yea.. in first person shooter games, of course. That's the closest that I was able to get to that experience. Not my fault, you know. Oh wait.. I have hit balloon targets very accurately with an air gun. Now that makes me a potential candidate.

I'm not very sure about how the applications are to be submitted. Do the Maoists have a website or somethin, where I can upload my resume to their database? They must be having something like that. I can't go all the way to West Bengal for submitting the application.

I'll get selected for sure. Unless they have a minimum height-weight or a minimum GPA criteria. Come on.. you need not be a Salman Khan to shoot innocent people or remove the fishplates of railway tracks.

After the selection, do they have a training program? I'm a fresher, new in the field, right? So I need some training. Guns in computer games don't have weight. But in real, they are all very heavy. So I might take some time to adjust with it. Hopefully, the training program will add value to myself. I wouldn't mind being in their training campus for a couple of months, unless twitter is blocked there. Can't miss the controversies that Mr.Tharoor creates. They are priceless! They come out one per week, right? Or is it one in two weeks?

During my short term tenure as a Maoist, I would like to be interviewed by Arundhati Roy. She thinks that all Maoists are Gandhians. Did she really mean that? oh.. I got it. She might have compared Maoists with the politicians in our country. Killing people with a single bullet fire is a very benign act compared to making people rot in a corrupt country.

At the end of the interview, I would like to ask her something back. She has been telling that the mining industries are disrupting the lives of tribes and they are joining the Maoists because of the Government's negligence. So how come not even a single industry been attacked by the Maoists? Why all the attacks are directed towards civilians/Policemen/Jawans? Or may be I'll find out the answers myself when I'm a part of them. Fine.. That'll do.

The interview with Arundhati Roy will appear in a major magazine/newspaper, which will make me kind of a... celebrity, you know. I like that. One lakh followers in twitter. People discussing about me being gay/not gay. Marriage followed by an immediate divorce. So, I can sell the broadcast rights of my surrendering act to a TV channel and make some money that way also.

What awaits me after the surrendering act? I would have killed a dozen people and been a part of sabotages which might have taken a couple of hundreds of lives, by that time. So, they will put me in counseling. Now, if you've been through an Engg. college, and if you haven't been the 'teacher's pet - class topper types', I am sure you've experienced intense counseling, abuse, threats etc. So counseling and all related stuff is gonna be a cakewalk.

That's all. Right after that, I will be a businessman. What business will I do? I'll decide it later. Or considering the celebrity status that I would have acquired, I might be able to make a living, endorsing products, or judging reality shows. That ain't bad either..

P.S:-

The picture was added without any intention. But the girl standing next to the guy in white dress looks good. Yet another reason to be a Maoist.

The vishukkani that I had

I am angry. I am sad. And it's Vishu today. A very inappropriate day to be in a bad mood. But I think I have enough reasons.

I love Vishu! I always did. Much more than any other festival. During my childhood, all my relatives used to get together at my ancestral home, to celebrate Vishu. Each group of people would have their own departments to take care of. Me and my cousins would be in charge of the crackers. May be it's those memories that has made me love Vishu so much. Each and every year, I want to be back in my village and celebrate Vishu, the traditional way.

And where am I now? Bangalore. In my cousin's house. The more annoying fact is that my sister is back there in the village, celebrating Vishu, with a wonderful Vishukkani and all.*frown*

Now, if you are wondering what is the relevance of the dog's picture, I'll tell you.

Yesterday night, when I was going to sleep, I had certain plans in my mind. I thought that I would open my eyes in front of the idol of Lord Krishna. I wanted to have at least that much of a Vishukkani.

And what happened? Today morning, I woke up with a feeling of moisture on my face. When I opened my eyes, I saw the face of the bugger (whose picture you can see above) up close. He was licking my face. Yuk!! (It's my cousin's pet dog, Sandy.)

Idiot! What the hell have you done? You destroyed my Vishukkani! And I have told you a hundred times that I hate the smell of your saliva. Wouldn't have minded sharing your saliva if you were a beautiful girl. But you are not! bah!

What? Don't try to calm me down with that innocent look of yours. Looks can be very misleading. I, myself am an example of that.

How could you do that? huh? How could you? No wonder people call you a dog. Looking at my face, you felt that this is something worth licking? Oh.. fine. I do understand that it's your way of expressing love. But was it essential to lick my face? About 165 (I wish if I could say I80) centimetres away from that, my feet were there. Didn't you see those? Why didn't you lick it instead of my face? Oh.. leave that idea. Considering the kind of idiot that you are, you would have done that with your ass pointing towards my face and that would have been my Vishukkani. Perfect!

Come on.. To whom am I telling all these? You don't read my blog do you? But I got to give vent to my anger somehow. Try reading my blog sometimes Sandy. Too many human beings don't read it anyways.

Ok.. ok.. no fights over that. You are a very adorable dog. But, only when you are not licking my face.

Happy Vishu folks! Hope you all had a wonderful Vishukkani!!

Ahmedabad journey

Somehow, I have managed to get a B tech degree certificate. What next? Haven't decided on that. Still, when I got the interview call from MICA(Mudra institute of communication, Ahmedabad), I didn't have to think twice. Being a travel enthusiast, a trip to Ahmedabad sounded really nice. So I set out, on 5th night. The interview was on 8th.

***

Off to Mumbai, by a night train with an RAC ticket. The Gujrati gentleman, who shared the side lower birth with me, kept talking to me, about the unique features of the exhaust fans that the company he was working for, manufactured. I had no choice but to pretend to be listening. He also told me that the full form of RAC is nothing other than 'Ro aur chillao' for the night. Later on, he offered me the whole birth, told that he would sleep on the floor.

There was a beautiful girl in the next seat, but of course, with her boyfriend/husband. She was in the upper birth for the night, her bf/huby in the opposite upper birth.

***

Late night. Myself in deep sleep. Suddenly, something fell on me and I jumped up. Whoa! none other than the beauty. May be she was trying to get down from her birth.

"Sorry" . She said.

(No problems, girl. You could fall on me like that a hundred times, and I wouldn't complain. I should've known that you were going to fall. I would not have slept, in that case. )

"It's ok."

Her bf/huby was up by that time, and offering a helping hand would have been a disastrous idea. I swirled back on my birth.

***

Mumbai! I love this city. From there, to Ahmedabad. 6th night. This time, dad is with me, and nobody fell on me at night. While I was waiting for the train at Mumbai central, I kept fidgeting with the number lock of my suitcase, opening and closing it several times.

***

In the hotel room at Ahmedabad. 7th afternoon. I tried to open my suitcase, in which I had kept all my certificates and the dress for the interview, and got astounded, finding that the number had changed, while I was playing with it, the previous day. Three digits, 1000 possibilities. Took a deep breath, started to try out each. Started from 999 and tried backwards. Came up to 600. Then, started from 000, and eventually, found that the number was 070. great! A self pat on the back, for that perseverance shown. Didn't have a choice also.

***

At MICA campus on 8th morning. First, they had the registration process. After that, a short essay writing for fifteen minutes. A business case was given and we had to suggest a solution. I wrote, the most sensible things that I could think of, didn't know how sensible it was, according to the general standards.

***

Then, there was this group exercise. We were divided into groups of 8, and had to perform the given task. They called out the names of my group members. Damn!! seven girls.

"I take a lot of time to fit into a group. Now, that's a group of girls. Makes things worse"

Before I could say something to my group members, there started the GE. (They were all familiar with each other, since all the girls had sat together for the registration.) "Design a garden which promotes harmony and good health." Girls were calling out each others names and were having furious discussions. "Heck!! Why such shit happens to me all the time?"

I tried to give suggestions, but who listens? There went everyone, around the table. There wasn't enough space for all of us to stand. I went and squeezed myself between two of them. wow.. that wasn't bad ;)The girl standing on my right was wearing a sari.

I took a sketch pen in my hand. Didn't have any idea about what to draw. Heard someone talking about a jogging track. So, I started drawing a jogging track, which was nothing other than two parallel lines, along the boundary of the chart paper. I pretended that I was doing something really important. Tried to spend maximum time, drawing it.

"ok, time up" said the professor. There was some kind of a mess on our table.

It was very obvious that I was the odd one out. Straight away, the prof asked me "So Sudeep, please explain what was happening. And also explain how this garden will promote harmony and good health"

Garden.. er.. oh.. this thing on the table. I was sandwiched between two good looking girls all this time. And the prof thinks that I could keep a track of all that happened. Fuck. No way.

I started the explanation, and before I could finish, prof knew that I didn't have much of a clue. He told me to stop.

So, the GE was pathetic. I knew that I didn't stand a chance of selection.

***

I had lost all hope of getting a selection. So just wandered around the campus, alone.

Interview was pretty much ordinary for me. Panel consisted of 3 people, one lady and two gentlemen. The first question was to tell a good thing and a bad thing about Kerala. I said "Kerala is a beautiful place, but people are too conservative." Then, B tech project, tell us about urself, hobbies and some usual questions like that.

Before concluding it, the lady in the panel said. "ok, I'll give you a chance. Ask me a question, and try to make an impression."

I couldn't think of anything impressive. Had a prepared question in my mind, asked that.

"I can look at the emblem of your college in 3 different ways. It can be one triangle placed over another, It can be an 'M' which stands for Mudra, or even it can be an arrow directed in the left - down direction. So what does it actually represent?" (Have a look at the emblem here)

She explained some complicated things with the help of some huge words, and I didn't understand anything, as usual. Kept shaking my head, and pretended that I was really interested in what she was saying.

That concluded the interview.

***

All the candidates were asked to sit in a hall, for the announcement of the results. There was a girl with curly - curly spring like hair, wearing a green top and black pants. My attention was fully on her. Her parents were with her, but I had managed to talk to her once during the day, and so I knew her name. I was listening if her name was there, while the merit list was being announced. There goes my name in between, but I didn't hear it. "Dude you are through" The guy next to me pushed me with his elbow.

"Er.. I am through! Seriously, I don't know why they selected me. ain't a big deal since this doesn't conform the admission. It just enhances the chances of selection"

***

Flashback.. A few days before I started the journey.

"Dad, get me a flight ticket back from Ahmedabad."

"No way.. travel by a train"

"I want to be in a flight. I've never seen the inside of a flight except in movies. at least once. pleeease"

"start earning by yourself and travel. You know, when I was of your age.."

"Stop that dad. Ok.. fine.. I am a worthless idiot and all. But still, can I travel by a plane?"

"Why are you pleading? Earn your own money and do whatever you want"

"Oh come on.. ok.. now let us assume that the speech about growing up independently is all done. now, will you get me a flight ticket?"

(silence)

"Yay!! Em gonna fly!!"

And in the end, I got a ticket, from Mumbai to Bangalore.

***

Inside of Kingfisher Mumbai - Bangalore flight. I was sitting in a window seat. Excited, but tried to act cool, just to make others feel that this is just day today affair for me. I looked around, ensured that no one is looking at me, and clicked a picture of another plane, through the window.

Few more minutes for take off. "Oh my god! who is walking in? Ain't that Konkona sen sharma?. It is..She is not that gorgeous and all, but of course, I like her. Why am I having this feeling that she is looking straight at me?"

My jaw dropped. 'Close your mouth, idiot' I reminded myself

She walked straight up to me and asked "My seat is a few rows behind. will you please go to that seat so that I can sit here?"

"Oh yea.. why not?"

I walked to her seat.

During the flight, I tried to yawn in between to show that I was bored. I even told the gentleman in the next seat

"When will this flight reach Bangalore? I am too bored. I am traveling too much these days"

***

Back at Bangalore. Back to the routine of eating, sleeping and writing meaningless things like this! Hah!