A Line of Thought

The Palace of Illusions

2011-11-03T06:15:00.000-07:00

Epics have always fascinated me. I love them for their long-winding plots, interesting twists at opportune moments and multiple shades of characters. It gets even more interesting with narratives of different authors with their point of view. I can never get enough of them, and Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's 'The Palace of Illusions' is my latest read on The Mahabharata.

Of all the epics, Mahabharata remains my favourite for which I'd give partial credit to BR Chopra's version that aired on TV in the 80s/90s. It only went uphill after that with me reading different versions and interpretations of the epics. The aspect of Mahabharata that I liked the most is its well fleshed out characters. The way everyone from Krishna to Karna, Kunti to Uttara exhibit different shades in different situations. I always felt Mahabharata would be very interesting to read from different characters' points of view. Krishna might have his own version of it, in his support of Pandavas, while Karna might look at it as a conspiracy against his dear friend Duryodhan masterminded by Krishna. Also, Mahabharata is not plain black and white like Ramayana in which good and evil are clearly demarcated and the reader gets polarized quickly in every episode.

All this made Palace of Illusions an interesting read for me as it is narrated from Draupadi's point of view. Draupadi is one of the strongest (or maybe the strongest?) characters of Mahabharata, also exploited to a great extent with some decisions taken without her consent and which went against the rules of the day. She was distributed by her mother-in-law to her 5 husbands, who ultimately lose her in a game of dice to their enemy!

What would've Draupadi felt when she was distributed among 5 people like a sweet/fruit? What would she have felt at her swayamvar where the decision was meant to be taken by her but eventually influenced by everyone else but her? What went through her mind when she was subjected to the ultimate insult in the court of her family's enemies?

All these questions find an interpretation in Palace of Illusions. Chitra illustrates Draupadi's point of view quite well right from her birth - her struggle to come to terms with the prophesy about her destiny, her righteous indignation against the discrimation she faces due to her status of a 'princess', her travails in the forest with her husbands in exile, her devotion towards her husbands against all odds - everything is etched out in detail and it's a pleasure to read it in Draupadi's own words.

IMO, the best part is the narrative of Draupadi's unprofessed love towards Karna. I've read about it in a couple of other versions and some articles and it seems quite logical and sensible for her to have been married to Karna. But strange are the ways of destiny, and she ends up being his rival who he detests much. How would the whole epic sound if Draupadi were to marry Karna, or if Karna were to know his birth secret much in advance of the war? Do karma and dharma influence one to the extent of being the cause for the greatest war ever? Palace of Illusions brings up a lot of these questions to the fore and has some narratives that could scandalize some conservative readers who hold our epics in high stead and consider them directives for human lives.

Overall, a great read and unputdownable!

Dad

2011-10-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

Whenever there is a discussion about role model or inspiration, I don't look beyond my home. I have a role model to emulate in my Dad. He has been everything that I ever wanted to be, and has been showing me the path to follow since I don't know when.

The quality I like the most about Dad is he has stood by his principles at all times, in all adversities, and taught us the same. We've never compromised with what we want to do with our lives and this couldn't have been possible without his support. Be it my first travel abroad, choice of time to get married or my plans for post graduation, he understood my aspirations and supported them despite concerns raised by so-called 'well-wishers'. I've never been afraid to speak my mind out and follow my heart, mainly because of his confidence in me and my inherent trust that he'd support me if I'm doing something right. And I've never been disappointed. Dads are always special for girls, more so for me.

I haven't slept in my Mom's lap as often as Dad's as a kid. I've attended family functions, been to relatives' places more often with Dad than with Mom. If I had something to ask for during my adolescent years, I'd approach Dad - mainly because of the inherent trust that he wouldn't say 'No' if it's a valid request.

I take extreme pride in the fact that well-learned people from the companies that my Dad does business with sing praises of his professionalism and business acumen. His professional friends tell us that we're blessed for having a father like him, and we of course nod in agreement.

Even in the tough time that we're going through right now, he is an example to follow. I still can't forget the image of him feeling helpless and collapsing on the floor when we received that dreaded phone call, crying into the phone to the police inspector to help save my brother. We faced the worst and unimaginable tragedy of our lives. Yet, Dad conceals his concerns and insecurities to listen to and understand Mom's, sister's and my pain and sorrow. All of us have lost our cool at some time due to the pain and frustrations that are building up inside us, but there he is, still a pillar of strength, bundle of affection and a source of inspiration.

There can be no one like him as far as I'm concerned, and would be glad if I become even a fraction of what he is as a person. I know he will sail past this, and get us there too.

Blessed for being your daughter - Happy Birthday, Dad!

Storytelling

2011-09-25T23:21:00.000-07:00

I've never done it before, but since it sounded like fun and it was on the occasion of International Girl Child Day, I took it up. Pratham Books sent me these lovely stories and a beautiful flexi banner to put up for the kids, which made it all the more interesting. And I had my husband, sister and my friend Indumouly to help me put up the banner and engage the kids.

I am associated with an orphanage close to my place, which is run by a guy who quit a plum job with one of the star hotels in Hyderabad because he felt he should do something for the needy. It has about 30+ kids in the age groups of 1-13. All are sent to municipal schools nearby, and some who get funding through considerate donors are sent to a local private school. I've been visiting the kids for 5 months now, and all of them are quite active and well-read.

When I walked in and told them I'm here to tell you some stories, they were quite excited. I showed them the books with colourful pictures and told them they could keep it and they were all the more eager. I showed them the stories and asked them which would they like to hear from me. Most of them liked the story of the newborn elephant Ambili, and the guy who had the annual haircut day. Only a few asked me to tell the stories in English, and the rest wanted in Telugu. So, I narrated Ambili's story in Telugu, and then read out and showed the illustrations of The Annual Haircut Day story. They all laughed out loud after listening to the annual haircut day story. And they were quite fascinated with Ambili's story, because they could relate to Ambili's curiosity and wish to learn things. When I said 'Ambili was quite scared as a 4-day old because she didn't know anything. She's too small to know anything, right?', they all nodded and said 'Yes, she's too small.'

The kids wanted more after the 2 stories, so I read out the TING-TONG book, which was about various sounds made by different things like temple bell, calling bell etc. I also felt some of the kids might be interested in reading out a story, so picked the Telugu story of the bird who learnt to fly and called 2 kids to read out. I was quite surprised by their flawless reading with proper intonations. Kids never fail to amuse us, do they?!

And the best part was reserved for the end. I asked Vaishnavi, who is in 6th class to come and narrate a story. She narrated the story of 4 friends and a lion. All of them listened to it intently and when I asked what did they learn from it, some of them shouted back - 'You should always listen to your friends' :-)

Good fun session with a bunch of energetic and enthusiastic kids. Love Pratham Books for the kind of work they're doing, which is what I'm passionate about too. Look forward to more such sessions in future!

Nothing is the same

2011-08-24T02:46:00.000-07:00

I was excited about a recent achievement and quickly started typing an e-mail and an SMS, only to find one address and phone number short. Sis does something smart, and I look for company to make fun of her and deflate her, but I don't find you around. I do something super-silly and don't know how to get out of it gracefully, I look around for you to laugh at me non-stop so I'll feel better, but I hear nothing.

There are umpteen stupid movies releasing, but I don't have you to discuss them with and make fun of you when you watch them. I rarely login to Facebook as I don't see your friends pulling your leg for me to pitch in and make it worse for you.

I don't get those silly messages and phone calls asking me to check your callback tune and report to you because someone is playing a prank on you. I don't get those calls late in the evening asking me to inform Mom about you not coming home. I don't get to have those long, meaningless conversations about what your cook made for breakfast and how you shopped for kitchen supplies.

I don't have someone to spoil my Sunday siesta by yelling in my ear. I don't have someone to fight for space on the divan. I don't have the same enthusiasm in exaggerating what I do at work and showing off any more.

It's been 4 months now, we've changed, our lives have changed. But our thoughts didn't, our love for you didn't. Rest in peace, and continue to be around.

Brothers

2011-08-13T05:30:00.000-07:00

It has been a tough week for me. Everytime I saw rakhi stalls and promotional e-mails about rakhis, I couldn't control my sorrow and tears. I couldn't send the rakhis to my brothers who I send every year, wherever they are. I didn't have the heart to even buy some for cousins who I visit every year. I wasn't prepared to step out of home to visit any cousins.

It's not easy to not have my brother around, who'd make this day special. But it is in times like these when you realize how blessed or cursed you are. My uncle brought my 4 year old cousin all the way from my hometown to get us to tie rakhi to him. The cousin who stays close by came home too. There was no way I'd feel sad for not being able to tie a rakhi to a brother.

And just as I was feeling happy for having the kind of family we have, there lay a surprise ahead. I take pride in making the right kind of friends, and was proven right once again. Just as I was about to see off my cousins, stepped in 5 friends who cheered me up, brought rakhis, gifts and spent loads of time with me. Even before they left came my brother's friends. Then another family friend. One of the brothers who I send rakhi every year has e-mailed me telling me he remembers me this day.

As I was lying low and trying to tell myself to deal with it and not feel bad, I had all these people stepping in, reassuring me that they're there for me, taking time to make me feel good, talk and laugh. There was no way I was gonna sit and brood over my loss. It's times like these that you feel glad for having the right people around.

I miss my brother a lot, and nothing can replace him for me today. But I had 11 brothers visiting to cheer up me and my sister. I'm glad. And happy. Thanks to all those who made the effort today. It's people like you that makes me value the life I have.

Cheers to the gang!

2011-08-08T00:09:00.000-07:00

We were a gang of 6. Didn't think I'd bond so much with my work buddies. But this group was different. Not easy to find 5 other super cheerful faces and buddies with who you can hangout anywhere, anytime. We initially thought we're the unfortunate lot who had to work on Saturdays too, but we soon made those Saturdays a lot more fun. Every Saturday would translate to half day work + lazy lunch/movie, with us ending up reaching home at 6-7 PM. And slowly, as with any work group, our group split - with some of us moving to other projects and some to other cities. Yet, we stayed in touch. And continued to meet as often as possible with whoever remained in town.

And now we're three of us in Hyderabad. Me, S & G. When we all met, we were pretty new to corporate world, shared the same excitement, apprehensions and insecurities. We "grew up" and are more mature and in control of situations now (or I'd like to think so). And it's only S, G and me meeting now. The topics we discuss are different, but the camaraderie remains the same and our friendship has evolved a lot from where we started.

When I got married, one of the things I told my husband was that no matter how he gets along with other friends of mine, I'd like him to get along with S & G, for they're an integral part of my life, and we'll be hanging out with them more often than with any others. Not that any of the 3 are difficult to get along with, but well, you never know, and I didn't want to take a chance. Not surprisingly, husband gets along excellently with them and we continue to have as much fun as before.

We've always been there to share each other's happenings in life, happiness, problems, insecurities - everything. We count on each other at all times, yet never really told each other we could be counted upon. Actually, none of us are the kind who'd overtly tell that we need something but the rest of us easily understand what's needed at the moment. We've had our share of fights and misunderstandings, I specifically remember one fight I had with G, threw a tantrum and refused to make up. Nobody can be angry with G for the way he keeps us in splits, least of all me.

When my family faced the worst shock of our lives recently, they were the ones I counted on to help me cope with it, and get me out of it. I stepped out of my home/office for the first time to meet them. I laughed heartily for the first time when I was with them. I'll always remember - G, who rarely even shakes people's hands to wish them, came up to me and put his arm across my shoulder - and at that moment, that was all that I needed. A reassurance from someone who really cared for me to tell me I'll be able to get out of it. When I saw them standing behind, watching us as we went ahead with the proceedings, and assuring me I have them for support - meant the world to me at that moment!

We're not the kind who butt-slap each other or hang out late nights in pubs. In fact, S summed it up well last week - when we planned to meet and I asked him where should we meet, he texted me 'Basically any place where we can sit, talk for hours and laugh out loud'. That's all we look forward to when we meet. Venue, occasion, others around us don't matter.

I know there are many more happy and sad moments ahead. I know we'll continue to be part of each other's lives. I know this friendship will last forever. Thank God for friends like these!

P.S. Not really a friendship day post, but when I saw so many quotes, anecdotes and wishes about friendship yesterday, I kept thinking who really mattered to me, and couldn't help thinking about how our friendship started, grew and where we are today.

Silence

2011-07-19T03:12:00.000-07:00

What do we crave for when we're in a choc-a-block traffic jam? In a market? In a railway station/airport? Silence.

All you need sometimes is silence. Silence to think, to gather our thoughts, remember, introspect, and finally make peace with a situation. In my view, the strongest are those who can take things calmly - happy or sad. It takes a lot from someone to not jump in joy and shout out to the whole world that they've achieved something, or to cry their hearts out when they're deeply disturbed about something.

It's not even about feeling happy or sad. Sometimes, you just want to not speak or listen to anything. Just want to let those thoughts run in your mind and vanish after it ends. When we go through those moments, it doesn't matter how many people surround us, all that matters is the freedom to remain silent.

But then, silence is not interpreted the same by everyone. If you say you choose to be silent, you face mockery. Or dissent. Or both. Usually, you're termed weird, asocial, or insensitive. But rarely do you find people who can understand the silence and let you be. Isn't silence better than 10 or a million words which may hurt or may not make sense at all?

Pen Friends

2011-07-11T05:36:00.000-07:00

To put it in twitter lingo, 'Pen friends #youremember?' Most of the current generation may not know the concept of pen friends. But I grew up in a home where everybody duly read their weekly AndhraBhoomi magazine. And showed the kids' sections like cartoons, pen friends to me and my brother.

I hardly had any 'friends' in my school till my 6th class. There were very few kids from my village in the school and I hardly interacted with most of them. Only after 6th class when more girls joined in my school, I had some friends.

So when my uncle explained the concept of pen friends to me, I was quite fascinated with the idea of befriending someone with similar interests. And started the journey. My uncle would help me look at the profiles and pick the ones who sound similar to me, I'd write her a small note on a postcard introducing myself and why I want to be her friend, and lo! a new friend was made. However, this didn't continue for long as I grew up, found new friends later, got busy with studies etc.

And then came internet. Chat. Social networking. I am a social person, but not the kind who initiates conversations and makes friends. I take time to get pally with someone, trust them and call them friends. So when I had friends talking about getting into chat rooms and having 'chat friends', I couldn't relate to it. I wasn't comfortable with the idea of talking to a total stranger about myself and befriend him/her.

But when my brother introduced me to orkut and told me how he has made some good friends there, reconnected with old friends and generally had lot of fun discussing things with like-minded people, the idea seemed interesting. And the journey started again.

I logged in, but didn't know what to do initially. I observed, said silly things, added wrong people as friends.. but I learnt. And then made some wonderful friends. One of my closest confidants is a person I became friends with through silly 'Community' banter on Orkut. He supported me through thick and thin, lent me an ear whenever I needed to pour out about something - all virtually!

Now, it's the turn of Twitter. As I said, I'm more comfortable with interacting with people and getting to know them slowly before I call them 'friends'. That's why Twitter works for me. I've made some wonderful friends through regular interactions over common interests - books, movies, music, Hyderabad and a lot more. Call me sexist, chauvinist, whatever you may please, but I've made girl-friends more easily on Twitter than in my real life. It's easy to spot the right minds by looking at what a person is tweeting, and you can choose who to become friends with. It's not so easy to make friends as you grow older. But when I do manage to make some, I choose not to lose them. And then, friendship extends beyond the virtual world. Is it forever? May not be all, but certainly some. Cheers to the modern 'pen friendship'!

Faith

2011-06-17T03:16:00.000-07:00

I don't know what to think, what to write. There's nothing important enough that I can think about, without the thought of 'what would my brother say' crossing my mind. There are a lot of thoughts bottled up which I wish I had him to share with. It's not without reason we thought we were telepathic. There were many instances when I'd start a statement and he'd finish and vice-versa. I miss him in every living moment, every simple thought.

When I look for him when I have something to share and only to get to stare at emptiness, my heart gets crushed. I keep thinking why him? Why this? There are no answers to any questions. No meaning to most of my thoughts. And what did any of us do to deserve this?

My parents have always believed and taught us to be compassionate, to put ourselves in the other person's shoes before saying/doing anything. They've stood by their siblings when they went through tough times, led as much an ideal life as could be possible in their realm. Both have been the best daughter and son, best spouses to each other, best mom and dad that I know. And yet, are in an inconsolable state now - for no fault of theirs. Who is to be blamed? I know my brother, and he's not the kind to experiment or do an adventure. I know he took that one last step being totally unaware of the danger ahead. If he had an inkling of it, he'd stay 10 steps behind. What made him take that step? That's a worm that'll never get out of my head.

When people tell me that it's his destiny, I find solace for a few seconds thinking it's nobody's fault. Yet again, when I think of the kind of faith all of us had, especially my parents, it makes me wonder what must God be made of that He takes away such people's happiness forever this way. And going by the kind of person that my brother was, he should've been immortal. He's the most caring and genuine guy I've ever known. I'd fight with him over the silliest of issues, yet when it came to issues that matter, he always had my backing. He was never wrong in his thoughts or actions that I had to contradict what he had to say. If a person's good nature and good work are returned with good, then why this end to him? Why this pain to my parents?

I'm not expecting answers, nor am I looking for explanations. Right now, not in a state to find or understand meaning of anything in life. I'm living by the day, hoping to find some meaning sometime.

Pain - getting stronger and deeper

2011-05-15T09:04:00.001-07:00

I thought it only happened in movies. Lives of many being shattered in a second. I couldn't relate to the fact that a family loses its identity and becomes an altogether new entity which one fateful moment that changes something in their lives for eternity. Only until it happened to us.

We've been a happy family who loved each one of us equally and stand by each other at all times. We didn't count on anybody else's support in any testing times since we all believed in facing problems head on and come out of it on personal strength. All we looked up to is the rest of the family. We are each other's strength and weakness. We take each other for granted, we fight, we care, we trust and we bring joy to each other. This family as a unit is made by each one of us. Everyone is equally loved or missed. And then, all of it changed with one cruel stroke by fate.

None of us have been able to be the same since then. We can't eat a meal without thinking what he'd say about it, we can't step anywhere without thinking what he'd say standing/sitting there, we can't live a single moment without recollecting some incident about him.

It hurts when one member of a closely-knit family is suddenly taken away. None to blame, none to question. All we can do is stare at each other and understand what the other is going through. I feel cheated, angry, helpless, frustrated. My parents are my biggest strength - I draw my strength when in any problem in life. But now, they're the ones who need strength and support from us. I don't know what to do, what to say. I know nothing I say can console them, for I'm equally or even more helpless. How can I be strong and support anyone when I'm crumbling inside?

My parents have given us all luxuries in life, and showed us only the brighter part of life. They took all the problems in their stride and shared them with us only after solving them. Dad is my superman... who can set anything right. Whenever I'm in a tight spot - from a train ticket in waiting list to misunderstandings in family - I look up to him and know that he'll set things right. His assurance that nothing is falling apart makes me look at any problem as a minor one and gives me the courage to overcome it. Mom is my conscience - Nothing is unclear in my mind after I speak to her. She puts things in just the kind of perspective that would give me confidence. And now when I look at them crying their hearts out and feeling helpless, I don't know where to go. I don't know how to give them support.

They say time heals. For us, time has only been cruel so far - bringing up more and more memories, inflicting new wounds. I still don't know when we'll be healed - or if we'll be healed at all.

Conservation - At What cost

2011-05-10T00:07:00.000-07:00

Ever since I've read this news item about my brother, my blood boils thinking about the fact that human lives are cared so less for by some fake 'conservationists'. If the viewpoint had a railing, my brother wouldn't have met this fate. Our family wouldn't be as depressed as we all are right now. If there was even a warning limit, I'm sure he wouldn't take a step beyond that and end up this way. Whose fault is it? Definitely not his!

When we spoke to the police in Lonavala, they categorically mentioned that the forest department doesn't understand the importance of a railing at Tiger's Leap Point. Do you know that close to 30 lives were lost at this viewpoint in the past 2 years? All young men and women in their 20s and 30s. From what we hear from the police, it is a seemingly harmless point, people don't realize that they could fall until they take that final step and fall straight into the gorge.

The police states that they got a railing done with INR 2 lakhs, with their expenses to stop such disasters. And the forest department conveniently removes it as it 'violates' some silly norms. What are those life-shattering norms?! Looks like some babu is waiting for a bribe offered by a coffee shop vendor, but it's people like us who suffer invaluable loss.

What is the forest department conserving here while losing so many human lives? There's no wildlife trying to climb up the cliff there. There is no widlife trying to cross the road and jump into the gorge. There are no trees with growth stunted due to man-made structures. Then what the hell is the Conservation Act stating that's taking so many lives for no fault of theirs?? It's high-time the conservationists and outfits like PETA get a bit more practical and consider human life equally if not more important.

Dear Bhaiya

2011-05-04T23:56:00.000-07:00

It's all over. It's been 10 days now. You've left us to an unknown destination. You didn't give us a chance to take it in slowly and come to terms with it. It's a shock that has changed our lives forever.

I've lost my prime confidant, my pillar of support, my partner in crime. I don't know who to dial now when I have something important to discuss. I don't know who'll I dial first when I'm excited about an achievement. I can't even imagine a life without you. Everything I do now seems so pointless because I don't have YOU to share it with.

I can't even articulate to people what we shared. How we thought we're telepathic, how we discussed important matters about life before we spoke to Mom Dad about them, how I'd fight with you, not talk to you for days together, yet call you first if I had anything important to share about me. Do you remember all that, Bhaiya? And it pains me when people think I am somehow in a position to move on easily since I'm married. NO. It's even tougher.

I look around the house and every wall, every chair, every inch shows and reminds me of some moment that I shared with you. It's easy to say move on, but not so easy when you really have to. It's not easy to lose a 26-year old sibling with who I've literally shared every moment of life. It's not so easy when he is a charmer who stood by his loved ones at all times and made their life seem so much easier when he's around.

I've always looked up to you to show me the way when I'm stuck with a problem in life. I trusted your judgment when I couldn't figure out the nature of some people. Despite being younger, you've been my guide in many instances and showed me the way. Even when you went away, you gave me hundreds of brothers and sisters who tell me they're there for us. You've showed us who our true well-wishers are, and who're mere fair-weather friends and relatives.

I may not get back to my original self, and be as cheerful and happy as I was. It might take some time to take it in my stride and get back, but I will try my best. You've lived life king size. Always. I will try to match up as much as I can. I'll try my best to be there for family and friends like you did. I'll try to take things with a smile on my face always, I'll try to live life to the fullest because I know that's what you lived by! I'll try.

3 cheers to 3 decades of togetherness

2011-03-07T02:28:00.000-08:00

This post was due a year and a week ago. Yes, I've become lazy and twitterified and not spending enough time to blog. But if I had to write after such a long lull, it had to be something which is really close to my heart and something that I care about. And this is it.

Yesterday was my parents' anniversary. Thirty-first. As they went about the standard daily routine and special day routine, I couldn't help observing them and recollecting a bunch of memories and realize what makes them so strong as a couple.

My parents have always been envied and admired at the same time for the camaraderie they share. I feel proud and happy to say that they're one of the few couples of their age who are quite open about their fondness and caring for each other. It's a fact that Dad's siblings and extended family reach out to Mom first to inform about any occasion or seek any help. She built every relationship on her own, talking to them, getting to know them and adjusting to them. Similarly, Dad is one of the few men of his age who cares less for rituals or attention than the people and relationships, which is exactly what many people take advantage of. But they know their priorities in life and maintain them that way always.

Both of them are short-tempered with each other, fighting over silly things which almost every couple fight about, but when they're hurt because of someone else, they have the strength and dignity to take it in their stride. I've never seen them get down to squabbling with others and show disrespect towards anybody. Yet, when people try to be rude to them, Dad makes it clear in no uncertain terms that they can't be messing with Mom, and vice-versa.

I've learnt how to care for family from them. I've learnt how to be patient with bitchy and nasty relatives, to be confident and overcome personal and professional challenges, to build and maintain relationships with new people and to change with time.

I've had a very safe and happy upbringing and wasn't really exposed to most of the mean things in life since my parents chose to face them and shield us from it. And one day when I decided to get married, I suddenly realized the responsibility and expectations it brings - I found it difficult to sail through initially. Circumstances suddenly threw me into situations where I had to stand by myself and take decisions that would affect me quite a bit in the years to come. I'd think I'd slip, but all it would take is a phone call to Mom and Dad and a warm assurance from them that nothing can go wrong as long as I have them - and I'd gain the strength to face the situation head on.

Whenever I'm in a situation where I'm unsure of things and need to take a bold call without a clear vision, I count on them. I know my Dad will say 'I'm here', and Mom will say 'You don't need me. You can take care.' Cheers to the most wonderful couple on earth.

Balance beyond belief

2010-12-14T05:51:00.000-08:00

Ah! Shaadi season again. Translates to more socializing, more meeting people, more ranting. I can never be done with the usual ranting about looks, attire, kids (ever since I got married) etc. But of late, I've found one more question/remark quite amusing.

First, women are stereotyped that their first priority should always be family (I don't have a problem with that as I agree). But they're not well-received when they're career oriented and give equal importance to make it big in the corporate world. On the other hand, they're not very well-received if they balance both well too! Don't believe? Read on.

It's been close to 3 years since I got married. And we stayed away from home for over a year and we managed pretty well in handling the household affairs. I don't take care of stuff at home or help Mom with cooking because that's the way I've always been. Mom is an excellent cook and is very fast at things, which I am not. And she prefers doing things herself because that way things are done faster. All I do is run errands and do other things but not the kitchen stuff. But when I NEED to cook, I manage pretty well. Lived out of home for quite some time and manage to cook decently. I'm very choosy about food and not very impressed with anything and everything. But I eat what I cook, which in itself is a big thing if you ask me. Moreover, my husband loves whatever I cook. Period. I really don't care about what others have to say about my skill.

But what amuses me is even after these 3 years, I still face questions about my cooking. 'Do you know how to cook?' 'Oh, you don't cook at all and eat at your Mom's place?' Or to my husband - 'Does she cook well?' 'Hope you can manage to eat what she cooks.' I just can't understand this obsession with cooking ability. It's not what I live for, and definitely not something that I consider important to survive. It's a skill, agreed. And very few people have the rare gift to make tasty dishes out of anything. I respect them. But why expect me to be one of them? And why can't people believe me when I say I can cook? My husband MUST ratify that I cook well. Or they'll say something like 'We'll come to your home, cook for us'. By all means, you're welcome to my home. But if it's to test my cooking abilities, then sorry, I really don't care what you have to say about that!

Why is it so hard for people to believe that a woman can be good at both? Professional work and household care. I won't say I'm a superwoman, but I manage my home quite well. I never ask for my parents/in-laws' help in taking care of my home. Not that I mind if they do - but I really don't feel the need. I keep my home decent enough for people to feel at home when they come home. Then why question my abilities JUST because I have a professional degree and earn for a living? I'm as womanly/human as anybody else is. I'm sure most of the working women face such situations - I hear you, ladies. I can understand when you smile away as a pesky relative asks a silly question.

Power - Play

2010-11-13T05:08:00.000-08:00

I had knocked off another item from my Bucket list. Managed to watch Naseeruddin Shah live on stage - in Antigone at Hyderabad during the Qadir Ali Baig theater festival.

It's a play on Antigone's tragic death trying to cremate her brother Polyneices. It's one of those Greek tragedies and will interest you if you're interested in Greek literature/mythology or if you enjoy theater in general too.

In terms of performances, there's no need to mention how excellent Naseeruddin and Ratna Pathak Shah were. Benjamin Gilani introduced the play, characters and then the cast took over. The narrations were too long - a prologue, before the interval and an epilogue. Introductions are valid as audience needs to understand the context and characters and not everybody is well versed with Greek mythology. But when a long narration comes in between a play, it gets a bit boring. And the biggest negative for me was that the climax was all narrated and not really enacted. Antigone, Haemon and his mom's death are all narrated blandly and the theatrical drama that I expected was missing.

Anyway, I'm not an expert on theater, drama etc. so wouldn't pass any judgment on it. My takeaways from the play are quite different as I detail below.

The reason for the hatred and confrontation between Antigone and Creon is her brother's cremation. Creon says that he too would have liked to cremate Polyneices as he is his nephew. He admits that he can't do it as he is bound by law and cannot cremate a declared traitor.

Antigone then questions his authority as a 'king'. She asks him what's the value of the power if that power doesn't let him do what he thinks is valid. Creon insists that great power brings with it greater responsibility. And that he can't go against his own judgment.

This part of the play got me thinking about power. Isn't this always the case? We see leaders of countries and kingdoms who really can't do what they want to for the fear of being disliked or losing the power. Power is such an intoxicant that one's ideals and beliefs are sometimes overlooked in order to keep up the power. Or sometimes the one in power is emotionally/ideologically bound by what his/her subjects expect from them - case in point - Lord Rama's story.

If a 'powerful position' seizes from us the power of absolute decision-making and the will to stick by our ideals, is that position really worth it? And what IS power? The real ability to be able to do as we believe or to have others believe that we're in a position to do so?

Dowry demands

2010-10-22T04:26:00.000-07:00

Dowry is a very sensitive topic and I have very strong views over it. I was quite disturbed after seeing the judgment in this case. According to the judges,

"Giving dowry under the fear that the proposed marriage may be called off is not an offence, the Delhi High Court has held while quashing an FIR against a bride and her family for conceding to the demands of the groom's family."

The ruling wasn't really a generic one but in a specific case, yes. Even then, how can coercing one to give dowry and giving in not be an offence? Bride files a case saying groom asked for dowry, he in turn files a case saying they agreed to give dowry and then court declares giving dowry under pressure is ok, thus nullifying both the cases!!

Both the bride AND groom are guilty for exchanging dowry. As per law, taking as well as giving - both are offences. How is it then legal to give dowry because you are under 'pressure'? If you say the bride's family was pressured like holding someone for a ransom, bride's side is the victim, then isn't the guy guilty? Moreover, what have the bride's family got to lose if they disagree to give dowry? Their 'name' in the society?

I can't understand the logic of some families who think their name is spoilt if the proposed marriage doesn't take place but is somehow intact when they fight over such cases in the court. If a proposed marriage is about to be cancelled because of disagreement over dowry, is it really worth going ahead with? If the parents of the girl think rationally over this for just a few minutes, many more women will have successful marriages. And I wish the judiciary did its duty as per the book - the only way to eradicate 'dowry'.

My problem with the public service ads

2010-09-24T03:43:00.000-07:00

With the CWG around the corner, TV and radio ad slots are considerably filled with the preaching ads 'issued in public interest'. Now, there's nothing wrong in advocating good hygiene and healthy practices and encouraging people to behave well. But my problem lies with the state. An individual who does not litter has the right to damn a person who doesn't. But the state does not have the right!

When the state is telling people not to spit, defecate or urinate in public places, isn't it also its duty to ensure that citizens have adequate facilities to follow these directives? We have only seen the sad images of the used toilets in the CWG stadiums, but have we been shown any kind of 'facilities' provided for the construction workers?

State tells us not to litter - where are the dustbins on the roads? Not to urinate - I agree there has been some progress on this - but much improvement needs to be done. Not to spit - show me ONE spittoon in the entire city of Hyderabad?! We don't have toilets in fuel Stations like most of the 'well-behaved' countries do.

So, dear government, why don't you fix ALL these things before being our Mommy and telling us what not to do! If you can't, then leave us alone. Those who can follow, will. Those who can't - you have no right to ask them to.

Worlds of books

2010-07-12T02:58:00.000-07:00

I feel a book can be judged by the way it transports you into its world. A book is complete for me when the author manages to describe the surroundings and happenings so intricately that I can feel the place, see the people and be one among them - observing the whole proceedings. Storytelling is a complex art and there are very few authors who can manage to do this. Many can write beautifully and impeccably but few can change your world. That's the reason behind RK Narayan becoming a respected storyteller despite his lesser reach to the English-speaking and more literate audience in his times compared to, say, a Jeffrey Archer or an Arthur Hailey.

2 books that I read recently reinforced this belief - Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer and Immortals of Meluha by Amish.

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi is the kind of the great book that I'm talking about. Geoff Dyer transports you to Venice Biennale, the art exhibition full of artists, critiques and journalists. You can feel the Bellini flowing as the journalists and so called artists and art-lovers indulge themselves, see the way some grass knocks off some of them(including the leading man and woman) and understand the longing that the lead journalist Jeff Atman has for his lady, Laura. Jeff is unsure of his feelings for Laura, and is not certain about their next meeting. He enjoys the biennale in its true spirit, forgets the reason why he went to Venice and leaves without the story that he intended to get from Venice. He feels part of the whole milieu and yet doesn't belong there.

And then we see the narrator from Varanasi. He is a journalist too, covering a story in Varanasi - could be Jeff but not very clearly established. He's fascinated by the deaths and cremations in Varanasi and people's frenzy over dying in Varanasi. He makes new friends, falls sick, understands and gets confused about some uniquely Indian things and happenings, and ultimately falls in love with Varanasi.

Geoff Dyer cleverly juxtaposes Venice and Varanasi and flawlessly establishes the effect that these cities have on the characters. When viewed on practical parameters, Venice and Varanasi look like chalk and cheese, but Geoff picks the right kind of instruments to help demonstrate the similarities and you enjoy reading the book and look forward to the next paragraph and the next page.

Immortals of Meluha, according to me, lacks in this department. Amish's idea of recreating the myth of Shiva and narrating a story with a human Shiva is good. In fact, most of the settings and happenings in the book lead to this idea - almost. But when taking up such a huge task, it's extremely important that the author creates the 'new' mythical world in the mind of the readers. Writing that Shiva resides on one side of Mount Kailash isn't just enough. The reader should be able to imagine the snow covered mountains, thick forests and construct an image of the tribals of the area. An odd reference about an armband or clothing simply wouldn't do. Simply saying Nagas are deformed wouldn't do, an elaborate description of their features, body build would create an imaginary figure which will stay with me even after finishing the book.

If the author tried to narrate Shiva's myth in a contemporary way (like Ashok Banker's Ramayana), he should have simply stuck to facts. Otherwise, he should have made sure he created a whole new world for the reader. As a reader who understands Shiva's mythology (to a reasonable extent), it's difficult for me to shed the notions and see him a new light. And a passing reference of his epithets like 'Neelkanth' only confuse me more. Not to talk about lame jokes like "Are you free? - I might charge you" etc. The language used should be simple, but it's disappointing when the reader's intelligence is challenged at times.

The better side of Meluha is that it's a breezy read (finished 390 odd pages in 2 days) and you don't feel you missed much if you ignore some conversational paragraphs and move on. On the whole, definitely not one of the books I'm proud of owning.

Coorg it was

2010-06-03T01:15:00.000-07:00

After much dilly-dallying over locations, tour operators and dates, our vacation happened. The original plan of heading to the North-East with BIL & SIL didn't happen and finally husband and I headed to Coorg (which was one of my must-see destinations after much good feedback from friends who'd been there).

I had a completely different picture of Coorg before I landed there. Assumed it to be a completely hilly area with cool temperatures and lots of people around. But the scene there turned out to be quite different. An uneven surface, yes, but not totally hilly (like say, Ooty).

Lot of people advised us to head to Orange County if we wanted to go to Coorg, but our last-minute planning didn't give us that luxury. It was completely booked and we didn't get a cottage within our budget. So we finally zeroed in on Kadkani. These people are sweet - they approached us directly when we were making enquiries on makemytrip etc. for accommodation in Coorg and been patient to bear with our ever-changing and demanding requests. They gave us a convincing package with an A/C cottage and pickup & drop from & to Bangalore. This avoided a major headache for us.

About the resort - Kadkani is a nice resort - totally self-sustained. There are lot of activities you could do inside the resort - Rope river crossing, boating, still water rafting, plantation trek etc. The resort is beautifully landscaped with enough space between the cottages to give you the privacy you'd need on a holiday. It's great for families as well because it has Volley Ball, Cricket grounds, net climbing, burma bridge where we saw families get together, play and have fun. The package was inclusive of breakfast, lunch and dinner so there was no worry about food either. They serve awesome pakoras as well if you want an evening snack, which is chargeable. The cottages have a neat sit-out with a wooden bench where we played scrabble for hours together. They have Tata Sky, but then who cares?! We didn't bother to switch on the TV and there was no mobile signal so we were blisfully unaware of the worldly happenings.

The resort is slightly away from the sight-seeing places so it will be a challenge if you don't have a car hired. They will help you get one but it might be difficult to get one on demand during peak season.

There are a lot of interesting places to see in Coorg. And the variety of flora seen in the valley is simply out of this world!

Tala Cauvery is a well built, beautiful temple with a scenic view from the top. Fortunately we didn't find crowds there. The temple houses Agastyeswara, from whose kamandalam the river Cauvery is believed to be originated. A little uphill (370 steps to be precise) from the temple is a breathtaking viewpoint with green hills all around.

Abby falls is a typical waterfall, nothing unique but the approach to it is quite nice. You walk and trek through the coffee plantations to get to this waterfall, the surroundings of which are well-maintained despite the mindless junta who throw plastic bottles, broken shoes etc. on the way though there is a huge dustbin on the way and placards requesting people not to litter.

But the Tibetan Monastery bowled us over. A friend recommended the place to me and I took his recommendation seriously since we share a lot in common and I'm usually quite charmed by Buddhist monasteries. There's an unusual calm and peace about them which I don't feel elsewhere. The huge buildings with bright coloured interiors and pleasing sounds of the gongs give me a great sense of peace. And so we headed there despite many other recommendations from the resort reception.

The monastery didn't disappoint us one bit! We were lucky to have been there on Buddha Purnima - a day of celebration for the Buddhists and there was a huge gathering of the monks and Buddhists. The monks dressed themselves in bright orange and maroon robes and performed their traditional dance using various instruments.

Oh, and we did the mandatory elephant-ride as well in the bamboo forest ;-) We rode a majestic 36-year old tusker who plucked grass with his trunk and sneezed on to us while we were sitting on him!!

The specialties of the hills are honey and spices. We stopped by a spices & honey store and got to know about their process of extraction and saw their honeycombs. The stores all well-stocked with honey and spices and the storekeepers are very friendly. They explain anything you want, give you suggestions and even go out of their way to help you. At one store, we wanted just 1/2 Kg of honey while they usually stock 1 Kg bottles. But we didn't want 1 Kg, rather 2 different varities of 1/2 Kg each and she obliged. She emptied one bottle into a bigger bottle and gave us what we wanted - all with a smiling face!! In general the people in Coorg are very tourist-friendly unlike many other places I've been to. They may not understand English and Hindi but they will not frown or behave rudely with you. And that's the best part - it leaves a pleasant feeling as you leave the place and feel like coming back.

A few things we wish we'd known earlier:

1. Having a mode of transport is a must in Coorg. Public transportation is almost non-existent towards the resorts and hiring one on demand through the resort might be an expensive affair. It's better to negotiate for an all-inclusive package (which we luckily did).

2. The way from Bangalore/Mysore to Coorg is almost deserted with not many places to eat or even find some biscuits/snacks. Better to stock some snacks if you enjoy your munchies on the go.

3. There are quite a few places in and around Coorg if you really enjoy forests and wildlife. And IMO, the best time to visit would be Oct-Nov, when the rains would have stopped and temperatures dropped.

Recalcitrance - Insights into the book

2010-05-04T23:44:00.000-07:00

There's nothing like the pleasure of reading a good book. And sometimes you read a wonderful book and want to follow it up with equally great books, nothing less satisfies you. I was going through a similar phase after I read two wonderful books - Yuganta by Irawati Karve and Madhavi by Bhisham Sahni. I still bought books - loads and loads of them - and they still lay unread :-(

And then one day, Anurag Kumar asked on twitter if anybody would be interested in reading his book and reviewing it. I got to know about his research on the 1857 mutiny and his keen interest in the topic from his blog and my interactions with him on twitter. So I thought of taking a shot at it since I'm quite interested in Indian history too.

His book 'Recalcitrance' is not really a history book. But it gives a good insight into the contemporary Lucknow during the munity time.

The story starts as a prelude to the mutiny - depicts the events in Lucknow - the agony and the anger of the youth, concern and confusion of the elders, emerging leaders (in the form of people like Bade Babaji). It is evident that ample amount of research has gone into studying the surroundings, culture, education levels of people at that time. There are traces of the bonhomie shared by the Hindus and Muslims during the period which is established in the beginning of the book when an officer orders his soldiers to arrest Sureshacharya and none of the Hindu/Muslim soldiers dare to do that out of respect.

The unrest against the Company leads many youth during that time - led by more rebellious leaders like Narenderlal - into fighting the Company. Chote Bhaiya (the protagonist) is led into the rebellion through his good friend Narenderlal. He fights many a war with his group of friends after he leaves home and travels across villages. On the other side of his rebellious side, he is deeply in love with a Muslim girl Farheen. Again, the love story can't be a regular mushy story as it is set in a struggle-stricken pre-Independence India.

So, the protagonists have the lines drawn between them in terms of propriety, society, security etc. And obviously it isn't a black and white love story. The beauty of it is the way it unfolds intertwined with the struggle and rebellion with the Company.

The contemporary setup and the culture is described in detail as part of the narration as the novel progresses and that's the beauty of it. The language used is quite simple and comprehensible, making it a joyful read. It is for people who like reading books for the pleasure of reading and not just because it's a bestseller or written by a popular author.

All of 196 pages (with a 10 page glossary), it's a breezy read that can be finished in 2 days :-)

Notes on Simha

2010-05-04T02:26:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not even attempting to review it. Not possible for mere sensitive mortals like me. But just some notes and observations from the movie experience.

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Can any Balakrishna movie be devoid of any punches? No. So, we do have some amazing punchlines in the movie like:

"I follow grammar only while teaching, not fighting"

"Only your ears should function while I talk. If by mistake anything else functions, you won't have(sic) your next birthday"

"Guns are created by rules, not swords" (This was a total *facepalm* moment for me!)

"If somebody asks me to help, I give them life (Ya, he's a doctor) and if someone makes a mistake, I take their life"

"Basically I am a lecherer (ya, he's that too - a mis-pronounced lecturer)"

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Balakrishna's movies are usually full of audience hoots and whistles. And that's why I'd avoided watching it in a single-screen theater and opted for a multiplex. There were few such people here too but kept their appreciation to clapping which was far more tolerable.

In the flashback part, there is a scene in which the villain's brother comes to a construction site auction, makes a mess, kills a couple of people and drags away the female auction officer yelling at her - "If you want to fill your stomach, work silently. Go live with your husband and why do you need to work/duty etc etc..." At the end of the dialogue, this bunch of people suddenly started clapping loudly - a perfect showcase of the chauvinism.

The scene didn't have any so-called macho-ism by the hero for me to think they were appreciating the hero. It was a villain being mean to a woman who was doing her duty. And we get to see such idiots appreciating this nonsense. Why do we need outfits like the Senas, the Muthaliks? They're everywhere. And we still think India is a world power? IMO, no, we're just a bunch of hypocrites.

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It's a typical Balakrishna faction movie with lots of bloodshed and violence. There are cars exploding mid-air, hands, legs and heads getting chopped off, blood spilling all over the place. And yet, we saw parents bringing their 8-10 year old children to watch the movie. This is an issue which I get quite upset about, and which showcases someone's poor parenting skills.

How can parents bring along kids for an A-certified movie?! I know it's quite common in India and it upsets me to no end! There is a reason why there is a certification and it's only good for us to follow it. I am not a great supporter of censoring for adults, but when it comes to kids, I do believe that there's only so much that you should expose a kid to.

You might argue that there's so much violence on TV, newspapers etc. But I'd say it's still in parents' hands on how much they want to expose the kid to. You can always avoid television and unsubscribe from a newspaper.

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And lastly, all such observations happen as a side-effect of marriage :-(. I was dragged along to watch a nonsensical movie (which I knew would sort of turn out this way) and now badly need to watch some harmless comedy or a fairy tale to get over it!!!

Jiski biwi moti...

2010-03-16T22:32:00.000-07:00

For unmarried folks - Are you a regular visitor to Vibes/VLCC or any such weight-loss program? Have you bought that cheesy-looking Sauna Belt on TVC with the hope that you'll lose 10 Kgs in a week without stepping out of your bed while gorging on cheese balls and chocolate? If you're a guy, have you been rejected by a girl because you can't lift her and do a merry-go-round like a Hindi film hero? If you're a girl, have you been rejected by a guy because you might not fit on his Bajaj CD 100 as a pillion rider without causing a flat tyre or reducing the mileage?

If your answer is yes to any of these questions, you needn't worry ANYMORE!! Here's your chance to set yourselves free! A matrimonial site dedicated exclusively for fat, obese, overweight people who don't seem to have a life and who don't seem to deserve normal people as partners. Doesn't matter if you have a heart of gold. Who cares when it's buried under layers of flesh ,though it's ephemeral?

Now, I can think of so many such opportunities considering how many such sad, unsuitable, abnormal unmarried people exist in India -

www.darkcomplexionshaadi.com

www.unwaxedhandsshaadi.com

www.cant-sing-and-dance-shaadi.com

www.cant-cook-shaadi.com

www.cant-wakeup-early-shaadi.com

www.cant-wear-saree-shaadi.com

www.earn-only-10000-shaadi.com

www.only-5"-shaadi.com

Hmmm... I can already see so many entries and successful marriages happening out there. You said they're all people and have feelings, hearts and suchlike?! Ha ha.. who cares?! Marriage is the biggest market in India, and why should I care if a person's feelings get hurt? There isn't a chance of someone not getting hurt at all in an arranged marriage setting anyway!!

Updated to add: Link courtesy - My friend Shivangi Tiwari. She gave me the idea to blog about it too :-)

What Sadhus do

2009-12-22T22:58:00.000-08:00

While driving to work today, we saw a huge poster near Hitec Station of Sadguru Sri Sri Some Ananda Maharaja Swami performing some Sri Chakra Homam in Maheshwaram, Hyderabad from Dec 1-27.

The poster was in Telugu and hubby can't read Telugu. So he asked me what's that Swami's name? I read out the name.

And then he says - "Oh ok! What's he doing? Some molestation camp?!"

I told you he's a cartoon!

The Mommy called government

2009-12-22T00:48:00.000-08:00

Our netas never fail to amuse me! They are always upto some antic. And our beloved Modi always leads the pack. He has now come up with a bill to make voting compulsory.

Doesn't this beat the basic purpose of the "right" to vote? As an adult citizen of India, I am given the right to vote. If I don't utilise the right, it is me who'll suffer. If an incompetent MLA/MP gets elected because of my callousness, I will pay the price by not being treated well and not getting access to good roads, food and water. Yet, why should government behave like a parent and dictate me to vote? Do I really have a choice of a non-corrupt, educated, dedicated politician who knows and understands my everyday problems and works towards solving them? When no such politicians exist in this country, why force the citizens to vote?

As citizens, we have the "right" to vote, and as our representatives, they have the "duty" to serve us. But they choose not to serve us and expect us to vote! If it's mandatory for us to vote, shouldn't it be mandatory that they serve us well? How do we ensure that?

I am also amazed at the speed with which this bill got cleared. The whole House agreed and passed the bill because they are not accountable but the public is. Whereas something like a Women's Reservation Bill or Right to Information would take years together.

I know there will be many people who will support such move - quoting the apathy of many voters who won't utilize their 'right to vote'. To all those folks, I have only one thing to say - Spare a moment and think where this could lead to. Today it's voting, tomorrow it could be anything else. Democracy means being given a choice to do something. If something is made mandatory, the basic meaning of democracy is lost.

Affairs of the state

2009-12-09T22:54:00.000-08:00

So now we have a separate state. It was inevitable. If not today, the state was to be formed sometime in future. I am not against forming a separate state - administration becomes easier and government becomes more accessible to the people through smaller states. Not particularly Telangana - but in general - FOR smaller states.

But I'm disturbed by the means adopted to achieve this and the spineless government that bowed to the demands of a greedy politician who went on a fast-unto-death and instigated graduate students to join the agitation. KCR is the main culprit and central government the next. KCR resorted to sheer blackmail by threatening to fast-unto-death which incidentally he called off after 2 days. But the students and Telangana supporters didn't let him break the fast and insisted he continue it, to which he had to agree.

The police made the first mistake by doing lathi-charge on the agitating students. When it comes to students, such acts only instigate more students to join. They're emotionally charged and aggressive people, so naturally it took a violent turn. The agitators took to raasta-roko, rail-roko, damaging public and private property alike. Public life came to a standstill for 2 whole days and quite bad on many other days resulting in losses to the tune of Rs 400-500 Cr.

CM and the leadership didn't address the public well enough and try to pacify them. In addition, all opposition parties sided with TRS because they knew that Telangana will be formed - some day or the other! And the Centre finally gave in - and announced they'd initiate the process to form a separate state!!

By doing this, the government is sending wrong signals - that if you try tactics like fast-unto-death and disrupt public life for a few days, you can get anything done. A wrong precedent is being set for other such agitating groups to follow. Will the situation ever come under control this way?

There are already discussions about a separate Rayalaseema as they do not want to merge with Andhra. And there's also a 'Samaikyandhra' stand by the Andhra region. What will the government do if these two agitations take off similarly? Form a separate state for each district? Or go back on the commitment made to form a separate Telangana?

For all the mayhem that's created, Telangana has a shortage of good leaders too. KCR is, at best, a clown! He doesn't have the vision to lead a state - be it Telangana/Andhra/AP. And what about Hyderabad? I'm sure there will be huge debates and fights about Hyderabad as well. Andhra investors have huge stakes in Hyderabad after all.

As I said, a wrong precedent is set and the consequences might be fearful. A sad day today for Indian democracy - Violence and mindless mobs still rule in our country.

Shattering Attires

2009-11-11T03:31:00.000-08:00

It's that time of the year when you suddenly start introspecting on what you've achieved in the year gone by and try to document to impress the boss. So while looking at some weird colleagues in the recent times, I got some ideas on rating the employees. An employee's professional results shouldn't be judged on business generated, problems solved etc. alone. There are deeper and more serious things to be considered, which ignored might hamper the company's reputation and growth. For example - employees' attire.

We have a dresscode in my current organization, and as per the dresscode, EVERYBODY is supposed to wear business formals for 4 days in a week and wear BUSINESS casuals on Fridays. The emphasis on BUSINESS because lot of them don't understand the difference between business casuals and real casuals. So you end up seeing people wearing:

- Dingy Jeans - Faded, shaded, boot-cut, torn etc. Anything but normal blue/black respectable jeans that you see sensible working people wear.

- Flashy floaters - Mind you, these are not the suave Adidas/Nike/Reeboks. The fake ones with orange, yellow, purple stripes/belts that attract your attention to the feet from 2 Km distance.

- Jing-bang Jhootas (for girls) - Usually girls have it easy because they find decent footwear in almost all colours. Both work and party types. But there are some women who choose to mix-and-match the time and occassion and end up wearing really glittering footwear that is more blinding than the bright CFLs in office.

- Accessories - Now there's a lot of scope here. People wear all kinds of things - thick chains, bulky watches, flashy ear-studs(guys) and noisemaking anklets(girls). They think the looks that people give them are out of admiration, not disgust!

- Weirdo Hairdos - Sigh! Unfortunately, this problem is more with men than with women. I thought grownup women liked trim and smart men and not the weirdos?! At least I do. Wonder why some men flaunt their locks at work! No customer will be impressed meeting a junkie-looking guy with a namoona gold/red coloured hairstyle!

I understand that some people don't need to interact with clients all the time. But there is something called "professionalism" - your attire shouldn't have a disturbing influence on your co-workers. More power to such people and their friends who can tolerate such attire. But shoo!! Away from me, please!!

Crime and Punishment

2009-11-06T05:49:00.000-08:00

If you commit a wrong and then do a good thing, does the wrong get compensated? Is it ok to commit 1000 sins towards some people and do 1000 nice gestures towards others? Does it balance out? If your answer is yes to any of these questions, then this post wouldn't make much sense to you. Please move on, there might be other things that might interest you.

If your answer is No to any of these questions, then I have another question - Do you like/admire Narendra Modi because he is an able administrator who has changed the face of Gujarat? If you now say yes, then what's your answer to this?

Whenever there is a discussion about Modi, I usually go quiet because I know that those who support him will not understand my argument. Just like I mentioned above, it doesn't make sense to them. For they are like your project managers - who remember your performance in the last 2-3 months and not really the whole year.

If the same crime were to be committed by a common man, would he be let free? When there is an eye-witness to the whole episode and he's willing to go to court with it, why shouldn't Modi be punished?

Modi has done well for Gujarat. All the improved administration, development, business in Gujarat is thanks to his administration? But can these overwrite the happenings of 2002? Shouldn't he be arrested and prosecuted for his atrocities against the citizens of his state? I know many people who feel proud of what Modi did to Gujarat, but I hang my head in shame.

Bell Bajao

2009-10-26T00:44:00.000-07:00

Apparently October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and IHM's post on the same compelled me to write a piece on the topic.

When Amitabh fails her by driving their elder son away from home, Jaya tells him that he is just a 'Pati' and not 'Parmeshwar' - because God doesn't commit mistakes (Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham).

A husband is just that - a HUSBAND. Not God! He is a partner, a companion. He is an equal partner in a marriage and shares the responsibilities and the pleasures of being married equally with the wife. A wife is not the lesser among equals, and a husband doesn't have any right to exert his force on her.

In India, girls are conditioned to believe that the guy and his family are more important than she and her family (even by her own family). His family always comes first. By some weird logic and magic, she ceases to belong to the family that she is born into and must BELONG to the new family. As if she doesn't have a mind of her own and she doesn't need time to get adjusted to the fact that she is entering a new relationship with the guy and his family. The simplest of justifications being she is transferred to a new 'gotram', as if she is a property and is being exchanged over a stamp-paper!

It's not just the fault of the guy and his family when she faces a threat to her existence in his home. Her parents will tell her to adjust, to be more accommodating and try to save their face in the society by sticking to an unhappy marriage. She won't be supported and encouraged to walk out of a marriage which has no meaning.

It's always considered okay for the girl to face the violence, after all she is a GIRL, and she won't talk/hit back. If she does raise her voice, she is reminded time and again that she is a G-I-R-L, and there is a way in which she is supposed to behave, whereas it doesn't apply to the guys. They can live the way they want to, choose to say what they want to, and treat girls like a property or a decorative piece.

Violence doesn't hurt the body alone. It affects one's psyche in such a way that one might be afraid to speak to the offender. The scars and bruises will be gone, but the damage to the inner self can't be repaired so easily, probably never.

And then there are families which believe in going the verbal way. They won't consider the girl to be a human being and part of the family, but expect her to consider them her family. They won't hurt her physically, but make sure she and her family is insulted every now and then so much that she loses her self-esteem and develops a sense of hatred for the family, which is, well... just natural.

A girl is as good/bad as a boy and is only as capable as she is brought up to be. She deserves equal treatment and respect at both her homes, work and society in general. It's just plain wrong to bring her up making her feel she is the lesser being and then add to her misery through mistreatment in all spheres of life.

These facts may not be applicable to some educated, well-to-do girls, but still applicable to many others. Sometimes education and financial liberty contribute nothing to a girl's urge to voice her opinion.

Strange Encounters

2009-10-15T03:36:00.000-07:00

Usually the hubby drives the car while coming to work. Some days when he has an early morning meeting, I end up taking the car. Today was such a day. Not a meeting but he had to go to another destination and asked me to drop him mid-way.

I dropped him and continued on my way. The traffic as usual was terrible near Hi-tec MMTS station. That's a danger zone for me and I usually go slow and away from other vehicles to avoid any problem. An auto-driver banged into the rear bumper in the second month after we bought the car and that left me scarred. So I'm usually quite vigilant on this road and do not try to overtake other vehicles.

There's a sharp left-turn just behind the overhead bridge and I was veering left, I heard a bang on my rear left door.

I went pale for a second thinking of what that could mean and looked left furiously to find an auto next to my car. I started hurling abuses (with windows rolled up though). He couldn't have heard what I said but could clearly understand from my expression that I was angry.

I could see the passenger in the auto gesturing and turned towards him to start yelling at him if he supported the driver. But then he said something and showed towards the rear-door. And then I understood what happened.

Just a few minutes before that I noticed an indicator glowing under my steering wheel which was meant to alert me if a door is open (Damn! It was the hubby's mistake). I saw that but since I was in the midst of heavy traffic, I thought I'd check and close after I crossed the overbridge. But the gentle soul in the auto decided to do it for me because the traffic was slow at the junction and he could easily access my car door with some help from the auto driver in getting the auto close to my car.

I felt really ashamed after I realized what happened. He simply smiled at me, did a thumbs-up and moved on. But I felt miserable thinking at my lack of consideration. Later I realized it wasn't a 'BANG' but a gentle thud. I didn't shake inside the car like I did the last time an Indica driver banged into our car from the left. It didn't occur to me for a second that the auto couldn't have hit my car because the noise wasn't as loud. I didn't think of enquiring what happened before I frowned at the auto-driver.

It's quite rare to find people who stop by an accident spot or help a broken down car. So it's not so easy to think of the possibility of someone trying to help you out. But it's gestures like these that make me have faith in people. That make me feel all is not lost in this country. That make me hope. For a better tomorrow :)

When it's the time to end

2009-10-14T02:48:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Ashok Banker's "Vertigo". I'm not writing a review, but I'd definitely recommend the book. Well-written, quite detailed with interesting, multi-layered characters.

The book is not the topic of this post. Topic is the thoughts I had after I finished reading the book. It has an ending that's partially left to the reader's interpretation. It's not like a typical black/white ending that the movies have.

I liked the climax and felt it justifies the characters and the context of the novel. But I couldn't help wondering if I would do the same if it happened in a movie.

In movies, we like black or white climaxes. The heroine either marries the hero or does not. Hero's father either accepts them or does not. The heroine takes hero's infidelity in her stride or does not. It is ALWAYS either this or that. We don't like any middle-paths. I know there must be some exceptional movies which handled such a climax well. But I am talking about the larger percentage of "usual" films.

Isn't it difficult to leave the cinema without really knowing a "concrete" ending to the whole visual that you've seen? Don't you feel a bit empty without knowing whether to feel good or bad at the end of it?

Books give me all the liberty to visualize the scenes, characters and their expressions. So I create my own characters and define their personalities as the story progresses. When the climax is left open, it's easier for me to complete it the way I want. It depends on my feeling for the involved characters at THAT point of time.

But on the other hand, in a movie, I see particular people playing defined characters - and emote in a particular way for different kinds of scenes. I am watching someone else's interpretation of the story, MY taste applies only to the performances of the actors, which of course I can't change depending on the events in the story and my feelings at that point. This leads to a disappointment sometimes when the story doesn't end the way I want it to. It doesn't have anything to do with the story or the performances, it's just my feeling (as an audience) at that point of time. Feels weird, but true. Wonder if everyone feels the same..

Language for unity?

2009-09-22T20:33:00.000-07:00

On Monday, I was watching an interesting debate on making Hindi compulsory in schools. Most of the panelists were of the viewpoint that a language can't enable national integrity, it's much deeper than that. And some of them argued that it's because of the chauvinistic Hindi-speakers that the language has lost the respect accorded to it by the South Indians.

There were some points in the debate that I agreed with and some that I didn't. But merely going by Mr. Sibal's words, he is defeating his own logic. He says -

"Hindi should be taught alongwith the regional language. Some students are exceptionally good in their mother tongues. They should learn other languages too"

And then he also says -

"It's time for the country to start thinking about the children instead of imposing a system on them."

Why should Hindi be imposed on the kids? We anyway have English as our business language, and with all due respect, for a non-Hindi speaking person, Hindi and English have the same value. Both languages are foreign to them. Agreed that Hindi was born on Indian soil, but what is the additional gain that I have by learning Hindi? If someone is fluent in English, he/she can find good employment opportunities in/out of India. Hindi doesn't provide any such professional advantage.

I'm not against the idea of learning multiple languages, for that matter I speak Hindi quite fluently. But the idea of forcing children to learn it in the name of "national language" doesn't go down well with me.

Mr. Sibal says -

"Now the lingua franca is English for professionals. When we become producers of knowledge then we can set our language as the lingua franca"

Why this obsession of proving ourselves superior to others? What's the big deal in English replacing Hindi or for that matter any other language? I don't have any particular attachment to any language barring my mother tongue (which I don't think needs to be the lingua franca), and I believe that any language is fine as long as I understand it and gain some knowledge through sources in the language.

If Hindi-speakers want to make Hindi the national language, why do they have a problem with Karunanidhi fighting for equal status for Tamil? He is equally right by that logic.

I disagree with both equally. It should be upto the parents/kids/schools to decide what the child wants to learn - not the state, not the majority of the population, not the dominance of the language.

Enough!!

2009-09-18T05:20:00.000-07:00

It's always a woman's fault, isn't it? If an idiot passes by and gropes her because his wife is pissed with his bad breath and avoids him, it's her fault for not covering up or moving away. If a middle-aged lout pinches her bottom in a bus, it's her fault for getting into a crowded city bus. And if a burly moron forces himself upon her, it's because she invited the trouble!

If a young female student is complaining that a plumber tried to force himself upon her, what business does a lawyer have asking her if she bathed, drank or smoke that day? If a woman smokes/drinks, does it entitle men to misbehave with her?

It's shamefully NORMAL for Indians to put up with such groping, pinching etc and move on. Women feel ashamed to share it with friends/family. Only a woman can understand what she goes through when someone misbehaves with her. It affects her psychologically for days, weeks, months and sometimes - forever. Do others care?

Instead of understanding and supporting her, the whole world turns against her and tells her to cover up and "avoid" trouble, as if she invited it in the first place! Why can't a woman be respected as an individual rather than for her characteristics like "simple, beautiful, independent and such other BS"?

A woman wearing a short skirt with a smart spaghetti top with it makes the moral police squirm and malicious men ogle. A woman who drinks/smokes is easily termed "loose character". What has a piece of cloth and a glass of drink to do with a woman's (or even a man's) character? It's completely a personal choice. It's the way one wants to look, live and behave. As adults, we all have the right to live the way we want to. As long as it doesn't affect someone on a personal level, NOBODY has a right to comment on it.

And when someone crosses the line and a woman is bold enough to fight against it, why is the law being a mute spectator to all the humiliation inflicted upon her? Molestation IS a CRIME! It shouldn't be left unpunished!!

Marriage Matters - 3

2009-09-09T06:06:00.000-07:00

Men and women have different behaviours, attitudes, ways of looking at work and ways of executing them.

At work, men score in some tasks and women in some. But when it comes to home, women score almost all the times!! I wonder why household tasks are so difficult to understand and execute for men!!

For example:

Task: Find the dust-bin outside the kitchen, take out the garbage bag and put it near the gate for the garbage collector to pick it up.

Hubby's execution:

Goes to the kitchen. Finds a dustbin. Wife mentioned the outside one. (There is another one that the wife brought inside in the morning. She wants him to clear the outside one now.) But there is a dustbin inside. There was one outside in the morning. Assumes wife brought it in when he wasn't there. Doesn't matter if there's another one! So calls wife and tells her that the dustbin is empty and needn't be cleared. Wife repeats that she told him to look outside. But he insists that he found the right one. Wife gets furious, comes there and clears the stuff herself. She is already pissed enough to let the hubby feel good by offering to do it.

On the other hand, if the same task was given to another woman:

Goes to the kitchen. Finds a dustbin. But recollects that the woman mentioned "outside the kitchen". Takes a second glance at the dust-bin in the kitchen. Figures out its not full. So there must be another dustbin if she has clearly mentioned "outside". She opens the door and steps out of the kitchen. Finds a full dustbin there. Clears it. Task completed! See how simple it is!!

Men always say they can't understand women. Wonder how the male brains are wired, but women just don't seem to get them either! So, are we equal now?

I know I'm right

2009-08-21T05:21:00.000-07:00

Jaswant Singh wrote a book. BJP expelled him from party. They defended the decision in the name of their "ideology". He got back at them by pointing out to the ban of RSS. And is now talking of covering up for Advani at Khandahar.

No, I'm not going to write a political/historical comment on these events. Rather, the human factor intrigues me. Look at the way they all acted on impulse.

If Jaswant has been with BJP all along, he believed in their ideology, vouched for their philosophy and spoke on their behalf. But now when the tables are turned, he is picking long-forgotten events.

Same goes for BJP/Advani. They believed in him, supported him in his rights and wrongs, and believed he is one of them. But a single difference in opinion made them expel him.

Aren't we all like that? I mean, when we have a difference of opinion with someone, don't we dig the past and try to point the mistakes?

If we are arguing with someone and we see ourselves losing, we usually try to look into the past and highlight an old mistake to weaken the opponent. From a rational point of view, this looks absolutely ludicrous. If we have a standpoint on the topic of the argument, shouldn't we win the argument solely on the strength of the argument and not digging into the past?

I have seen this happen in many cases, some involving me too. It's very easy to defeat the person than the argument, so we choose the easier way. But we end up souring a valuable relationship and hurting a person who we cared for till then.

Probably the other person realizes the folly in his/her argument after a while (provided we're right), but can we ever get back to the state where this argument never took place?

P.S. I intentionally used the term "we" in this post because I believe all humans do this at some point in their lives. I do this sometimes too and I try healing the wound which succeeds sometimes, but not at all times. I consciously make an effort to avoid this, but to be frank I'm not completely successful at it. Yet.

Lost my way!

2009-08-20T02:10:00.000-07:00

When we went shopping 2 days back, I was generally checking out in a store. There was a section dedicated for bags and shoes. They were all neatly placed in wooden racks along the wall. And there were some objects lying on a table close to the racks.

I took one in my hand and looked at it. It was green in colour with some red/pink/blue coloured design in threadwork. It had two loops which looked like those of a bag. So I held it by the loops and was trying to figure out how am I supposed to hold it like a bag, which is when I overheard the hubby say behind my back - "That's not a bag!"

Me: "Not a bag? See, it's straight, is in silk and has loops to carry. What else do you call a bag?

H: "No, take a closer look at it. It's not a BAG. It's a TANK TOP!!!"

Then I Pulled it, stretched it, flipped it only to figure out it's a tank top!!!!

M (suspiciously): You say you can't even figure out which colour suits me the best! Then how the hell did you know this is a tank top without even holding it?!

H (coolly) : For that, you need to have a certain way of looking at it.

M: *horrified* *shocked* *almost faints* What way?!

H: Leave it. You won't know!

HORROR!!!! What is that certain way, people? Any idea?

Age of the consumer? Think again!

2009-08-19T00:51:00.000-07:00

I wrote about the state of customer service in a retail outlet sometime back. As a customer, I always feel bad at the way the retailers take advantage of the ignorance of an average Indian consumer and exploit this.

I had another such ridiculous experience yesterday. My Mom bought 2 sarees at a designer store called Brisah in Banjara Hills. She buys sarees there quite often and can be considered a regular customer if not a frequent customer.

Finding a saree that suits your taste is quite simple in a store that stocks thousands of sarees, but getting the blouse stitched to your satisfaction is an equally difficult task which almost every Indian woman agrees upon! And invariably Mom gets disappointed with the work at almost every store. And she was trying her luck at Brisah this time.

Considering that she was getting a lot of older ones also stitched with a total of 6 blouses, she requested the lady to stitch one, let her try it and depending on her satisfaction with that, she can proceed with the others. Both of them agreed to that.

But when it came to billing, they asked us to pay for all the blouses in advance. I wasn't around during the payment so Mom made the whole payment. But she wasn't confident of the expected outcome depending on her previous experience, so she wanted a confirmation if she can take back the unstitched ones.

When I asked them if we can take them back, the billing personnel had no clue. They called the salesgirl who took the details and when she came, she went on saying that we needn't worry about the quality since their "finish" is far better than others'. When I insisted that I had been assured the same by many other stores worth their names yet not received a good product, she still didn't budge.

I made my point clear - If I am not satisfied with the trial one, I will take back the remaining ones, to which she replied you can take them back and get a credit note!!!

Credit note?? What the heck? I have already paid for the blouse material when I bought the saree. I am leaving MY material with them with the belief that they'll do a good job, and when they do a lousy job, why should I be forced to buy again from their store through a credit note?!!

I just don't understand why don't we have a funda of cash refund in India. If I buy a good/service and I'm not satisfied with it, why shouldn't I get a cash refund? Even in such a big store? Here I'm not even returning what I bought from them - rather just asking back what's mine and I left with them trusting them to do a good service!

If she has the confidence that she'll do a good job, so do I that I can pay - which was in fact confirmed when I bought the sarees in the first place. Then why should I pay in advance? And she won't even give me a refund? What exploitation!!

Why should a customer trust the shopkeeper and pay in advance when the shopkeeper wouldn't bother to satisfy the customer? How unfair is this!

We went to another store after that where there was a sale. Most of the items were "Buy 1 Get 1". But if I buy only 1, I get only 25% off. (*@^$*@^$*@$ And it's not that I couldn't afford to buy the other 1 to avail of the offer. But the store didn't have another item to my liking. Then why should I be forced to pay extra? Isn't it their fault not to have stocked it enough?

If this is the kind of treatment we the educated consumers get even in this age, I don't even want to think further!!

She and I

2009-07-28T03:35:00.000-07:00

She is a great cook. I am not a great cook, just a decent one.

She has a great dress sense and presents herself really well. I can't imagine how a particular outfit looks on me, so end up buying lots of junk. And I'm quite clumsy compared to her.

She has great taste in interiors. I don't know how a piece fits into the house, I just buy if it appeals to my eyes as a sole piece, and then usually regret that it doesn't fit into the "look".

She is a neatness freak and maintains home spick-and-span. I make my house fit to live, don't bother about the clothes and newspapers lying around.

She maintains her calm even when someone offends her because she doesn't believe in retorting and worsening the situation. I can't tolerate offense and usually don't mince words when I let the offender know the same.

If I think of such differences, I will lose count of them. I am her daughter, but very different from her - in behaviour, thoughts and tastes. But somehow many people don't seem to get it. They usually seem to believe that children are mere photocopies of their parents, not "persons" on their own.

So I usually face questions like "Can you cook like your mother?" "Why can't you dress up like your Mom? She manages it so well!" etc. It's quite normal to assume that children imbibe qualities from their parents. And usually they do imbibe many, but not all.

Children do have their own skills, characteristics and personality which is quite different from their parents'. They live a life different from their parents, have a compeltely different social network which shapes their character. They have a personality which is a combination of their parents' qualities, their upbringing, their friends and the social setup.

So, I am very different from my Mom and though I respect my Mom's tastes and usually take her inputs while shopping, I can't pick the same stuff if I were to go alone. Things that appeal to her don't appeal to me instantly, and vice-versa. Agreed that many a time I regret my choices and wish I listened to her, but that's different.

I can't make a great meal like her, or stitch a saree-fall, or buy the right kind of furniture. But I have other skills - I do make some special dishes, I am more comfortable with electronics and technology, and I can drive. I have qualities that define me, and do things that reflect this personality. I am not her.

I learn a lot from her in many aspects of life, I admire many of her qualities and aspire to be like her in some things. But, I am not her. I don't try to be like her too.

It's so easy to categorize people as someone's daughter/son/wife/husband/XYZ, but so difficult to respect the similarities, differences and above all, the individuality - which I value a lot!

Work and Life

2009-07-16T00:02:00.000-07:00

Recently I attended a training in which I was one of the 3 female attendees. We didn't know each other before, so we were getting to know each other after the first day of training.

As usual, we all discussed our current job roles, business units and then the topic turned towards families. Both of them are married with kids. So, the topic then turned to kids and managing family with kids.

As they both discussed their daily routine, problems with raising kids, I was just a mute listener. That's a topic that varies from person-to-person and usually I refrain from making any comments. I only share my experiences, if any.

From their conversation, I understood that both of them find it difficult to handle kids and work and tend to think that they aren't doing full justice to either. Fine. I think that's the case with most of the working Moms in our country.

But then, they made a comment which got me thinking. They both felt that their experience and education would be wasted if they didn't work in an MNC like my current organization. And they weren't happy doing it either for the fear/guilt of neglecting their kids.

I don't understand why the two should contradict. I mean, if someone wants to devote enough time to his/her family, it's entirely upon them to mould their work and career to suit that. Otherwise, one should just move on without the guilt for it's your choice, not anybody else's.

Does one's education get justified only by doing a white-collar job? When someone asks me, I always say that I would give priority to family and if I choose to have kids, I would prefer taking a couple of years off to devote my time to them.

Many people smirk when I say that and ask me "Then why did you study so much?" I don't understand the link. I studied because it interested me. And I needed to be financially independent. If at a point of time I choose to quit work, I should be able to quit. And if I choose to resume work, I should be able to.

In fact, if I work, it's because I chose to. Not because I'm supposed to.

Is it still such a common idea that women are independent/liberated only if they earn? I thought we moved ahead. But no, there seems to be a long way ahead!

The hand that rocks the cradle

2009-06-08T00:49:00.000-07:00

The recent past has been quite dry with respect to the movie releases. So, we ended up watching Kavya's Diary this weekend despite the promos and posters indicating that it's a rip-off of "The hand that rocks the cradle". The film-makers fell so short of creativity that they even copied the original movie posters.

So, I will not discuss the plot here. The original is a widely-acclaimed movie and loved by many. Since this is a COMPLETE rip-off of "The Hand..", all the flaws of it apply too. The dialogues have been "translated" to Telugu, and the settings are all replicated. They couldn't show innovation in even simple things like the wind-chimes or even the greenhouse. Tell me, how many Indians own a greenhouse? That too, a supposedly single-income software engineer's family?!

Anyway, leaving alone the relevance part (which Indian filmmakers will probably NEVER get), the performances were very uninspiring too. Charmme doesn't look sinister, she only stares and smiles whenever some ill happens. She doesn't bring a chill down your spine. The less said about the male folk, the better, Shashank's antics were lively and made it look fine for a while. Barring him, everyone else just hams. Manjula's shrill voice is irritating to say the least.

On the whole, I didn't like it a bit. But, what bothers me a lot is the attitude of the filmmakers. They blatantly ripped off an English movie, copied it frame-by-frame, and never acknowledged the original!! Not a mention of even being inspired by it.

Telugu film producers always go ga-ga over anti-piracy, and keep airing ads informing people to buy original CDs and watch movies in theatres instead of borrowing pirated CDs. Incidentally, one of the protagonists in this film, Manjula is the sister of Mahesh Babu, who once went berserk at the CD-lenders for renting pirated film DVD/CDs. But his sister copies an entire film without acknowledging the original and it's perfectly fine!! What applies to the audience doesn't apply to the filmmaker, eh? Ah well, maybe the Amada Silver and the writer from Indira Productions are telepathic twins - like Nagarjuna in Hello Brother.

The most annoying fact is that not even a single professional movie-review site or newspapers have mentioned the rip-off in their reviews. Is the media in Andhra so scared of these "powerful" movie-stars that they can't call a spade a spade? Telugu media, definitely surprises, rather shocks me!!!

The movie is definitely not worth mentioning on my blog, but the indifference of Telugu media is something that I am unable to tolerate. This shows that it's not free from lobbies and pressures from the powerful. It isn't democratic enough to bring the truth to the public. Instead the magazines, newspapers and the TV channels are all hyping the movie with special programs, interviews and suchlike.

I won't really feel guilty watching Telugu movies in pirated DVDs from now on. Hindi films are getting better in the sense that they acknowledge the facts, and there are thousands of reviews mentioning the rip-offs. But Telugu... nah, a long way to go! Till then, go piracy go!

P.S. I chose this title so that at least I acknowledge the truth!

Notes from the past

2009-06-02T02:21:00.000-07:00

While driving to work today, I heard a radio ad of a notebook brand for completing 20 years or so. These notebooks were special when they were introduced because they had a piece of trivia written on every page. They designated the notebooks with different subjects like Maths (we call it Maths, not Math), Social (we never called it Social Studies back in school. It was always "Social"), Science etc. The trivia was printed on the pages depending on the subject.

I was quite fascinated by these books because they gave me a new piece of info everytime I turned the page. And I felt it's a good idea to have such books since they gave you back more than what you wrote.

As I recollected this, my thoughts went to the way we were taught to handle our notebooks. They were supposed to be covered, stapled and kept neat at all times. The "Fair Notes" were to have the Q&A relevant to each lesson. The Teacher would dictate notes at the end of a lesson. We had to memorize them and vomit verbatim in the Tests. To think of it, the whole process sounds so futile to me.

Instead of "ordering" us to cover the notebooks in the summer vacation with those boring brown sheets, it would have been so much interesting if they asked us to come up with different kind of labels for the books or come up with a creative cover for the book. It would have been fun to do during the summer holidays and be a good product that showcased our talent and individuality in the desings we created!

If the teachers laid less stress on the "fair" part of the fair notes and encouraged kids to make short notes and points in each page relevant to the content in that page, they would try to understand the content rather than just memorize it. And I am sure their success (read: no. of marks) would improve in exams. Instead, all their energies are spent on knowing the answers by heart. They know the words, but don't understand the meaning or the context. And invariably end up failing to answer if the wording of the question is slightly changed.

There can be no end to the list of complaints about our education system. But, there are many such small things that go a long way in building one's creativity, individuality and are not addressed by our schooling system. There is too much stress on the structure but not the content.

P.S. One of my favourite bloggers, Jai is currently writing about his trip to Germany on a workshop with a publishing house of children's books.

Long long ago

2009-05-06T08:25:00.000-07:00

At a family dinner couple of weeks back, we were cracking jokes on one another and telling tales to the hubby about my childhood days.

There are more such tales involving bro and me than with sis and me because she is younger than me by 8 years. Bro and I share a very colourful childhood with lots of crazy incidents, like when he suddenly went missing in a wedding on the same day as I fell flat on my face from a compound wall, or how I broke a tooth while trying to jump on a tamarind sack trying to flatten it(don't ask me why I did it, it scarred me for quite a few years *sob* *sob*) or when we went to get some clay from the dried river and ended up running like crazy when someone told us a weird "bhoot" story. I will write about them sometime, but this time I will share a funny incident which nobody from my extended family can ever forget in their lives. It cracks us up whenever we think of it and look at his innocent-looking face. (I say looking because he's not all that innocent as he looks :P)

It's a standard practice in South Indian Hindu families to get their kids' hair shaved in the first 1-3 years. They did it for my brother too. Unfortunately, we didn't own a camera back then so don't have any pictures to post :-(

In my family, we usually called the barber(if I may say so) home. He would shave the head and give us the hair to be deposited in the Tirupati Venkateswara Swamy temple. It's a family affair, so we invited the near and dear ones.

Typically they do it either within 1 year after birth or after 3 years. We couldn't get it done in the first year so we got it done in his third year. Bro was a healthy, plump kid with this long, pony-tailish curly hair.

Our maternal uncles were to cut the hair using scissors for 3 times and then the barber would take charge. Bro holds my uncles in high respect, especially the oldest one. So, while uncles did their part, he behaved like a good boy, all smiling.

It was the barber's turn now. This barber was a regular at our store and usually in our village, we knew almost everyone by first name. So, once the barber put his scissors on his head, thus went the conversation:

Bro: X, You came to cut my hair?

Barber: Yes, Sir. I am supposed to.

Bro: You bloody *beep* *beep* *beep* (Censored, but the words ended with "son" in Telugu and one of them rhymed with cow, so those who know Telugu can figure it out. It translates to "son of ****" in English. The ***'s varied for every abuse though), what the hell do you think?

Barber (Completely shocked at this 3-year old spewing out such filthy abuses): Silence. Continues cutting his hair.

Bro gets upset, starts hitting his feet on the floor, mouths the choicest of abuses, keeps repeating them, while all of us were wondering where he picked them from!!

Barber is completely helpless, but continues to do his work.

Bro: *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* (This time with more intensity and louder voice)

Half the village assembles outside our house thinking someone is holding him at a gunpoint and he is abusing them for threatening him. Once they got to know about the actual scene, they started giving us more respect since they knew what lay ahead otherwise. Fellow villagers were so affected that they even allowed us to take one extra bucket of water at the municipal pump everyday.

Barber now gives up. The look on his face said he wished he were dead or went deaf by now. Uncle #1 takes charge and he tells bro that it's not a big deal, it's quite a simple task, and if bro doesn't want the barber to do it, he'll do it himself.

Bro is somewhat convinced and agrees to let my Uncle cut the hair. Uncle starts cutting with scissors and keeps talking to him to engage him and distract his attention from the cutting. He then passes the head to the barber.

By now the barber had lost all his hopes on life and was just waiting to finish this so he can head to Himalayas and cleanse his soul or just go to a shrink to improve his self-esteem. Uncle had to shake him to get him out of the dreamland (err...nightmareland :P) and make him shave the head completely.

Once done, Uncle told my bro it was done. Bro suddenly realized what happened. All hell broke loose as he unleashed his anger at the barber again!!

All of us were dumbstruck at his vocabulary and his understanding of the impact these words would have on anyone. For a 3-year old, I must say he was quite a quick learner. But at the end of it, all of us heaved a sigh of relief!!!

A new India

2009-05-06T02:25:00.000-07:00

When we travelled as kids (even as grown-ups), we packed as much food as possible to avoid any shortage. We always carried a huge water can and in some cases where we had to stay overnight, we would carry bedding. When we set out for travel in India, we're usually never completely sure of the availability of decent food, water and shelter. But our trip to Srisailam showed us how long India has come in terms of travel and tourism (especially Southern India).

There are multiple dhabas and tiffin centers on the highway to Srisailam where you can stop by for food and water. Even in Srisailam, there are lot of places but not the hi-fi Air-conditioned ones. There are small tiffin centers where you can get good south-indian food. We found small shops selling biscuits, chips, soft drinks, juices and CHILLED water even in the remote places where the tourist spots and views were located. There wasn't a SINGLE shop without a bottle cooler! They charge higher than the MRP printed on the items but the availability itself bowls you over. We were amused by the supply chain of the cola-drink companies and the enterprising nature of the local populace.

We didn't feel parched for a second because we found mineral water everywhere. The hotels served clean, good food which didn't cause any problems for any of us. We went by our car but even otherwise there wouldn't be a problem. There are enough number of autos and taxis plying in the area and APSRTC connects Srisailam well to other parts of the state.

We stopped by a shop at the waterfalls to pick some snacks. There we saw a solar cell being charged. While we were curiously examining it and admiring the way technology is reaching rural areas, the girl in the shop told us that it was being used to charge her mobile phone! And ya, there was Sun Direct DTH in almost every village that we crossed from Hyderabad to Srisailam. It was there in small houses with just one or two rooms too!

Sun Direct's success says one thing - All one needs is a way to reach out to the rural India. They are more than glad to lap it up. Sun came up with smart plans that would make sense and appeal to the whole of India and see where they are!

Kudos to mera Bharat! No place else in the world like this!

Srisailam

2009-05-06T02:01:00.000-07:00

The long weekend gone by saw us on a road trip to Srisailam. Four of us (Brother-in-law, sister-in-law, hubby and I) went by road in our not-so-new-now Swift. The drive was OK, though not as good as a trip on the Warangal highway. It was almost completely barren from 25-30 Km after the airport and in a way that made it pleasant. We set out at 6 AM from home and reached Srisailam at 1:15. Of course with multiple breaks in between for coffee, breakfast, pictures etc.

I tried to book rooms in the Devasthanam cottages online but there was no such feature. When I called them a day before, they said there is no advance booking but I will manage to get 2 A/C rooms if I reach there by afternoon. But something told me not to go by that and I managed to block 2 rooms in my community's satram with the help of Dad's contacts. Upon reaching Srisailam, we headed straight to the Devasthanam cottages to check if there are any rooms and they sincerely told us there weren't any. They offered non-A/C rooms but we left for the satram since they were kind enough to tell us the truth and blocked the rooms.

The satram was a decent place, not a starry place but neatly maintained with necessary amenities in place. We set out to have lunch outside, but to our disappointment we found very few good places to eat. We had lunch at a hotel inside the Devasthanam cottages. It wasn't great, but not bad either. We proceeded to the ropeway after lunch. It is a lovely ride from the top of one hill to the other. You can see Krishna river flowing between multiple hills and the Srisailam dam. The weather suddenly became pleasant once we sat in the cable cars. It started drizzling after we got down at the other hill. So we chose to stay there for a while and sip some hot tea next to the banks of River Krishna. It was all just out of the world!

We headed to the famous "Paladhara-Panchadhara" waterfalls from there. Legend has it that the two streams of water taste different - the bland one is named Paladhara and the sweeter one Panchadhara. But we couldn't make out any difference. And it was so disappointing to see water coming out of 2 pipes instead of a mighty waterfall that we expected. And the flight of stairs that we had to climb made it even more disappointing :-(

Our next destination was the temple. There is a special Rs 100 darshan in the temple. But one of the attendants at the satram told us that he has some contacts at the temple and he can get us to have a closer look at the God and get some special pujas also done. We were too lazy to stand in a long queue and realized that it anyway works to the same since the special ticket is Rs 100 each. So we agreed to take his help and had a darshan (to pray to God that he pardon our sin of bribing the attendant). We bought the prasadam - 12 laddoos (they were yum!) and went shopping in the street outside the temple. Nothing much to buy but these places are always fun to roam around on. This wasn't a particularly pleasant place because there were lot of beggars - kids, cripples, sadhus - pouncing on us wherever we went. We had dinner at a canteen next to our satram. They served really good idli, dosa and other south-indian dishes.

Next day we got up early, had breakfast and set out to go to the forest safari (which is about 35 Km away from the temple). On the way, we went to the Mallela Teertham waterfalls. The approach road to these falls sucks. You need to take a diversion for about 8 Km from the main ghat road and it's real bad! It took us 30 minutes to cover that 8 Km. And we realized we had to climb down 250 steps to see the falls :-( But we went ahead since we went all the way till there. This wasn't very disappointing. In fact, it will look much better during rainy season. There was a rock-climbing camp for children near the waterfalls. We didn't stretch our luck too far - simply took pictures and came back. The flight of stairs exhausted us so much that I could go on eating chocolate for another 2 weeks :-P

We headed to the forest safari from there. The guide informed us beforehand that we may not spot many animals in the afternoon. But we chose to go ahead because we wanted to return home early. The drive in the forest was pleasant. There was a cool breeze despite the sun and we didn't feel tired at all. We spotted some deer, langurs, peacocks and some birds. The sight from the viewpoint was breathtakingly beautiful. It wasn't lesser than any viewpoint that I saw in Mahabaleshwar/Lonavala/Khandala. Wonder why APTDC doesn't advertise it as much. Seems APTDC built cottages there but they were blasted by the Naxalites. You can still see the remains there. It was very disappointing to see such wonderful cottages in ruins :( Damn these Naxals! (The Nallamala forest in Srisailam was the hub for Naxal operations till sometime ago. The activity seems to be reduced now).

We returned after the forest safari and reached home by night. Had food at one of the road-side dhabas on the way and it was very tasty. Good service, tasty food and refreshing coffee. That ended our trip to Srisailam. A much needed break for us!

Tamaara

2009-04-28T02:16:00.000-07:00

Nowadays I seem to be lucky with food joints in Hyderabad. I already wrote about Sweet Nirvana which is a hit with the hubby and me. The service they offer and the lounge-ish ambience is simply amazing!

And this week we went to "Tamaara". It is located next to the Durgan Cheruvu gate in Jubilee Hills (in the lane next to Monster office). It is built on a rocky region with lots of open air seating. There is some indoor seating with A/C too, but outdoor is very pleasing. The hilly area and the lake backdrop provide a scenic view. They have multiple seating areas in between the rocks. You can have as much privacy as you would wish.

The food is quite tasty. The dishes are priced slightly higher than in other restaurants and a typical meal for 2 might cost around 700-800. But the overall ambience and service are worth it. The spread is Thai, Italian and Indian. I know the combination of cuisines sounds weird, but the dishes are tasty and maybe in a large group of people with diverse tastes, it makes sense. My only complaint is that of any standard vegetarian's at such places. They do not have much variety in veg dishes. Wonder why all good restaurants give this mean treatment to vegetarians :-(

A lovely place to be, I'm sure I'll visit it more often.

P.S. I somehow felt if my TTL buddies were in Hyd now, this place would be haunted regularly!

A 360 degree view

2009-04-24T05:44:00.000-07:00

Talking of directions in my previous post, I think it's my Geography teachers and the school syllabus to be blamed. Before we started map pointing, I only knew four directions - North, South, East and West, which looked like this:

Now, I only saw the arrow pointing upwards and always thought that sky represents north. When people said Himalayas are in the north, it only confirmed my assumption. We got rain and fog from sky only na? And people would usually say it gets colder as you go up (meaning north). But for me, north WAS up. See, there!

One fine day suddenly my new geography teacher decided to open my eyes and told me that north is not actually up, but on the earth - on your right when you face the sun in the morning. That fact scarred me for a few days. I could not eat, drink or sleep for a few weeks after I learnt that fact. People thought I had jaundice, but that wasn't true. Just that I couldn't digest this new revelation.

I tried to make sense out of this new argument. If north was up, south was down. Well, east and west? Simple, right is east and west is left. How easy! But if all directions were "on" the surface and not up/down, east - facing sun in the morning. North - to the right, south - to the left. West - behind. Hmmm.... makes sense. But what about 63.5 degrees to my right? I know people say there is also North-East, North-West, South-East and South-West. But again they say that there are totally 360 degrees in a circle. So, ideally shouldn't there be 360 directions? I know it's a brilliant idea and back then people didn't think of this because they weren't as "evolved" as we are. Let me go patent, copyright and trademark this idea before someone else does.

Left ya right?

2009-04-24T05:07:00.000-07:00

I suck at giving directions. Actually, at taking them too. If you want to see a family sitcom (complete with the laughter background), please drop by when I am stepping out and asking my Dad for directions. Dad is an expert at it and he gives directions to the precision of the name and colour of the pan-dabba at the corner. Somebody must be seriously directionally-challenged to goof-up after taking directions from him.

But I am smart. I don't goof-up. I just challenge myself and explore alternate ways to reach the destination, often with fuitful results.

Dad's directions:

Go straight for 4.37 Km to point A. You'll see a signal. You'll also see "Balaji Ramlal Kishanlal Pyarelal Motilal Mithai Bhandar cum chat bhandar cum cyber cafe" on your right.(Yay, yay I saw)

You need to go straight after that signal for 0.7324 Km. (Ok, going. Btw, why'd the dude in the car on the right stop and listening to music in the middle of the road? Oops, the signal is red. Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake. Screeeeeeeeeeech.Phew!)

You'll come to a crossroad with 2 roads ahead, take the left road. (Hmmm, I see it. He said take left. Na, right. The road on the right is broader and looks more inviting with less traffic. Should I take that?)

I proceed on the left road.

Go on that road for about 2.12 Km and you'll find a temple on the left. Proceed straight after you see that. (He said temple. Ok.... but I saw a God's idol on a tree just after the crossroad. But he said it's after 2.12 Km. Now it reads 2.1178, maybe this is the one, ok.)

Another 347m later, you'll see a signal with 4 junctions ahead. You need to take a steep right turn. You'll see an Akbar Pan Shop on the corder. Go on that road for 497.26m and you'll find the place. (I see the junction... but hey, what's with these roads? There seem to be so many! Did he say steep right? But then there are 3 right roads, which of them is steep right? Morons, the GHMC guys haven't even put direction boards "Right", "Slightly Right", "Slightly more right" & "Steep right". And was it Kumar Juice Center that he mentioned? Now, I need to use my judgment. Sigh! Will do it. I will not give up. I am a smart and independent woman who can take such situations in her stride and take smart decisions. So, I go with my head held high in the "Slightly more right" road.)

I cross 300m, no sight of the place. 350m - none. 400m - none. 430 - none. 450 - none. 470 - none. 500 - none. 520 - none. Panic!

Frantically calling Dad - "Dad, I took the right turn as you said, but somehow this doesn't look so familiar. I am in front of some H No. 2-32-47/3/B/H2 in Road no. 24 of some Arbitpally. How do I get there?"

Dad - Hmmm... Did you say Arbitpally? I guess it must be next to that Randompet. Did you see that on the way?

Me (Enthusiastically) - Yes, yes!

Dad - Oh! I told you to take a steep right. You took only slightly more right. Anyway, now you can't get there from any other route. You need to go back. But that road is a one-way. So, take a U-turn, proceed straight, then take the second-left which touches the road just at the older signal. But this time, you need to take the slightly left turn, not steep left. Do you get it?

Me (With stars in my head) - Hmmm.... well... yeah, I guess so. Actually, yes Dad I get it.

I take the first left instead of second left, bump into a dead-end. Take a U-turn and get back on the right road. I reach the aforementioned signal. But still can't make out which road to take, but put on my right indicator and I'm on the right-most lane for safety. Now, I ask the auto-bhaiya "Bhaiya, ye Funny Function Hall kaise jaana?" He shows me the road and it is the slightly left turn. The signal is red, there's a free left but I need to wait!

I clear my way at the signal amidst the busy traffic and blaring honks and reach the place - just in 1 hour 37 mins, which I could have reached in 40 minutes if Dad had driven it! Phew! But I explored an alternate path to the place. It might be of use when there's a plan to have a detour during a flyover construction, say, maybe in 2019? And considering the average number of roads in a crossroad in Hyderabad, I must say I'm doing pretty good, eh?!

The monsters that don't get you a Naukri

2009-04-23T03:08:00.000-07:00

I was just talking to the hubby about an e-mail that I received from the Consultant. The mail was for the posting of a Sales Executive on some trading company in the middle-east. The placement consultant asked me to send my salary and education details to process my profile for the opening.

I am sure almost everyone who has internet and e-mail access and knows English has his/her resume and profile updated on Naukri, Monster, Shine and many such other job portals. But I wonder if ANY of these people got placed at the right place through these sites. I have been working for almost 7 years now and like any typical software engineer of my days, I duly created my account and uploaded my resume on all these sites. And it opened a whole new world to me.

When I was an Oracle Consultant, they tried sending me on Siebel/SAP/Peoplesoft consultant roles or just random developer roles on C++(was the ++ a typo by the guy who invented it?), Java(I can only drink Java, not read/write/execute), .NET(The developer is language-challenged. He/she put the "." before the word, not after it. Huh!), C#(why not ##, just for matching-matching?) and somehow never really on an Oracle project. I knew nothing of these languages and couldn't code to save my life. And these consultants wanted me to save others' lives and money doing it.

After I finished my MBA, I thought these sites will become smarter with time and I will get some meaningful results. That was not to be. This time, almost all sites have colluded together and are bent upon sending me as an Oracle Consultant to any part of the world despite the fact that I mentioned I am looking for a Strategy/Business Development role. Somehow the world seems to be a less complicated state now and nobody needs a strategy consultant. And ya, I thought in times of recession, recruiters would want more business development folks but these portals tell me otherwise.

What bowls me over is, these portals run amazing marketing campaigns. Naukri ad says I could call my boss an idiot and get away with it because I have a smarter job. I guess I'll do it the other way, just pass on the job description to my boss and admit that I'm an idiot and don't suit for the job. Either way, I can get rid of him/her.

Monster on the other hand keeps asking "Caught in the wrong job?". Well, the ad is fine, but going by their profile-matching criteria, I guess they should change the sequence of the ad. Instead of the dhobi becoming a cricketer, the cricketer wants to be a dhobi and becomes one. Because somehow I keep getting profiles of jobs which offer salaries lower than what I earned as a trainee!

There's at least one bright side to it - I know for sure who not to depend on when I look for a job!

The Sky is falling

2009-04-20T23:49:00.000-07:00

A very funny thing happened at the workplace today. Or rather weird. Usually we have fire drills at work sometimes. Which happens at almost all offices nowadays. There is a public announcement that it is a fire drill and that we should leave the campus once the siren goes off and the fire alarm bulbs start flickering. We follow the instructions and do that.

But today, there was no such announcement but the fire alarm lights suddenly started flickering. I thought it might be a defect and waited for a full 10 minutes. After that, like any normal, willing-to-live human being, I got concerned and called the facilities to inform and find out the problem. The guy seemed rather shocked when I told him that and asked me if I'm sure. I gave an emphatic "yes" for an answer. He then informed me he would send a technician to look into it. Within 30 seconds the lights went off and there was an announcement stating that it was a false alarm due to dust accumulation.

Maybe it's just a normal technical glitch. But what amused me was that all through the 10 minutes, nobody else bothered to take note of the flickering lights. They just continued with their work as if nothing happened. All it would take was a phonecall to the facilities to check if there was a problem and make sure nothing was wrong. But people were so indifferent that it made me feel that they wouldn't care for their life until they saw the noose approaching them. Contrastingly, all hell would break loose had there been a fire in the building and they got to know about it (obviously through other means because they anyway wouldn't bother about the alarms and check themselves). There would be mayhem with everyone wanting to save their lives and rushing to the emergency exit.

All it would need is to respect the security systems, be alert to the alarms and announcements and follow the instructions. Wonder why it's so difficult for them though.

Play Reading - "The Cyclist"

2009-04-17T01:55:00.000-07:00

Play Reading by Version One Dot Oh! (VODO) of "The Cyclist" by Vijay Tendulkar. Details as follows:

Play : The Cyclist

Playwright : Vijay Tendulkar

Translated by : Balwant Bhaneja

Date : Sunday 19th April 2009

Time : 3PM

Venue : Cubbon Park, King Edward/Press Club Side Entrance

Contact : Vikram Rai - 98455 01929

More at http://vodo.blogspot.com/

If you are a theatre enthusiast and you are in Bangalore, be there! Even if you are not, what's the harm in enjoying a lazy afternoon at Cubbon Park, especially when it's free? :) Be there!

Shameful in Democracy!

2009-04-16T22:56:00.000-07:00

The T-word is important in the current elections in Andhra Pradesh. Not because it's going to change the fortunes of the land, but because it will change the fortunes of the politicians (I don't call them leaders because barring Jayaprakash Narayan, I don't see any leaders in any political party in AP).

TDP was against Telangana and chanted the "Samaikyandhra" mantra in the last polls and they lost. So, now Chandrababu Naidu changed his strategy and took a pro-Telangana stand this time. When he realized he might not have a stronghold, he didn't shy away from joining hands with the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) to create the "Mahakumati" (Grand Alliance). They fought with each other on the seat-sharing in many districts, but finally resolved and fielded the candidates that they deemed fit. The less said about KCR of TRS, the better.

YSR didn't take a stand in last elections. This time, he tried hard staying put with united AP, but the pressure from all parties and pointed criticism against him that he is against development in Telangana area forced him to say that he would consider it if re-elected. Sonia had promised a separate T-state if KCR supports her in the UPA, but she did a volte-face once they got into power.

Maybe taking a cue from his party leader, YSR too, this time did a volte-face once the polling got over in Telangana. Entire Telangana polled yesterday in the first-phase. And immediately after the polling, this is what we hear from our current CM. Shameful in democracy!! With the kind of comments he made, I don't think he deserves to be the CM even now, for how can he continue being CM to the region which he doesn't think is equal to the other region which is his stronghold?

I am not pro-Telangana and I am against mob violence, but for this one time, I don't mind if people in Telangana go crazy against any elected Congress politicians in their areas. They called for it!

Doomed

2009-04-15T01:56:00.000-07:00

How do you feel when you know that you are don't really rank #1 in your partner's desire list? Doesn't it hurt to see him crave for something despite you giving your best? You leave your tastes behind, change them to match his, share everything with him because he means the world to you. But what do you do when you realize that's not what he needs and he is in search of something else? Doesn't it break your heart? Yes, it does, and much more than that!!!

The moment he lays his eyes on the slick thing, he goes weak in his knees. I can see the longing in his eyes and understand how much he wants to leave me and go there. He doesn't bother to stop by for a second and see how I feel about it. I sit inside the car, all alone, watching the traffic whizz by and wondering what to do to make him get over it. He can go on talking when the thought crosses his mind without for a moment wondering what's on my mind. I listen all the while, questioning myself and trying to understand which one of us made the mistake. He is not his usual self when he is possessed by the desire. I can see a different person, who is single-mindedly pursuing his object of desire, oblivious to the concerns of his loved ones.

All he needs at that point is to go, grab it, fill his mouth with it and keep sucking like a little child until the stick stands out. He enjoys the tangy orange flavour it leaves on his tongue and relishes it whole-heartedly. He calls it "Kuchchi Ice" in Tamil which translates to "Stick with ice". It's the Fun Orange stick by Kwality Wall's. Aaaargh!!! Not that I don't like/enjoy it, but his obsession with it is at times irritating, but mostly endearing. Such are the simple pleasures of life :)

Akasamantha

2009-04-14T06:17:00.000-07:00

Akasamantha - translates to as vast as sky. I guess they named the movie so because it revolves around a father and daughter and tries to capture the immense love that the father has for his daughter.

The movie is seen from the father, Prakash Raj's point of view - his relationship with his daughter Abhi from the day she is born till she gets married. It takes us through various phases of Abhi's life, Raghuram's obsession with Abhi and his dilemmas at various junctures.

Raghuram is overjoyed at the birth of Abhi and loves her crazily from then on. He is so obsessed with her that he doesn't mind slapping his wife Anu for no fault of hers. He rationalizes soon after and seems to be a nice guy from then on. He invites a beggar into his home when Abhi insists on it. He donates his sweater to an urchin when Abhi demands it. He literally agrees to whatever she wants. But not without making a fuss sometimes. Like when she wants to go to college on a bicycle. He follows her in his car. She snaps saying she knows what she's doing.

Despite being the over-possessive father that he is, he also sounds like an understanding father when he tells her to deal with her life on her own and just ignore a cranky card that she receives from a classmate. But this doesn't last long and he gets upset when she brings home a Sardarji Joginder Singh as her fiance. He throws tantrums, tries to prove him unsuitable for her but finally gives in to their love.

Director Radhamohan made a decent attempt at narration and succeeds in getting good performances out of the cast. But I felt the story wasn't coherent.

If it was meant to be a father-daughter movie, the bonding, clashes and dilemmas should have been explored in detail. The possessiveness of a father, when he realizes that there's another man in her life who is more important to her, doesn't come across clearly. Joginder's love for Abhi should have convinced Raghuram about the marriage. Instead, the director takes the easy route of philanthropy to make us believe that Joginder is a saint and Abhi loves him because of that.

Joginder is shown as some superhuman - someone who talks to the Prime Minister like he is his chum, who gives interviews as an expert in TV about current economics, and who makes a family out of victims of circumstances - father who killed his terrorist son, kids who lost their parents in Mumbai blasts, woman who lost her family in 1984 riots. I don't think these qualities are enough for a father to get convinced that he is the right guy for his daughter. Agreed these are good qualities, but these are not qualities that would make a father think that he should get his daughter married to this guy.

Even Abhi looks like some kind of messiah helping a beggar near her school and giving clothes to an urchin. These are good qualities, but not so relevant to narrate a tale about father-daughter bond.

Or maybe it's fine, but I had different expectations from the movie. Looking at the posters of the movie, I went in expecting to see a breezy story of a father-daughter relationship with lots of fun and drama, but came out disappointed on that front. But otherwise, it's a fun movie to watch.

Let kids be kids

2009-04-09T01:22:00.000-07:00

It's very fascinating to watch kids do funny acts and demonstrate their observation & learning abilities. It's nice to watch them from a distance and get amused with the contrasting complexity and simplicity of human learning abilities.

But its really painful to watch these kids subjected to immense pressure to make them perform and compete to win. Indian reality television has no competitor in that! As far as I remember, this goes back to Sa Re Ga Ma on Zee TV and Boogie Woogie on Sony. These shows started it all.

Kids should enjoy the process of learning - be it academics, music, dance or anything. They should share each other's knowledge, learn and grow with it. That's not the age where they should compete, win/lose, feel proud or discouraged.

It is extremely disturbing to see kids of 6-12 years (or even less sometimes) dancing to item numbers and giving weird expressions on their faces which they don't even understand. Even the costumes match those of the stars in those songs and look ridiculous on a 6-year old.I simply don't understand why the production houses, judges and people in general don't get this. It's even more disgusting in South where almost every film has an item song full of double-entendres and vulgar moves.

But the parents of these kids don't seem to have any qualms about their kids giving such inane performances in front of such a huge audience. We talk about Indian culture, values upbringing yada yada yada. But if this is what we make them watch and do at such a young age, what culture are we talking about?

Children are allowed to watch movies of all genres in our country. People feel offended at being called a cobbler or a barber in a film despite that being their job, but don't have the time to pick and choose the movies that they want their offsprings to watch. If it's good for them, it's good for the kid. They take the kids along even for A-rated movies, which are full of violence & filth.

Our censor board censors movies because they think the content affects even the adult minds. But when it comes to disallowing kids from watching content that's not intended for them, all we have is parental discretion, which is seriously lacking in our country.

To err is human, and we live to err

2009-04-08T05:19:00.000-07:00

I am not an expert in English. Or for that matter even in my mother tongue Telugu. But I make an effort to be correct when I speak any language. I make mistakes sometimes, but I refrain from repeating them once I realize the mistake.

There are some, rather many people who think they are very good at English and make blunders while they speak. And what irritates me the most is the fact that they think they are actually right and everybody gets what they speak.

If we go into common pitfalls, there are a zillion such silly mistakes which I don't want to talk about. There are 3 particular terms that irritate me to no end when I hear them at work or elsewhere.

It is so darn irritating when someone says "I passed out of my MBA in 2000". Oh yeah?! So how long did it take to get back to your senses? Was MBA so hard that you passed out a whole year? That must be real bad, eh?!

And when someone says "We need to insitutionalize the concept of social networking in our organization". Excuse me! What does that mean? You've got a bunch of insane employees joining Facebook etc. and you want to send them to an asylum? Or are you actually running an asylum and thinking of creating a social networking site of your own?

People tell their clients that they need "updation" of their software and architecture. Eh?! Updation? I thought you get your systems "up to date". Even the sound of up-day-shun sounds so yuck!!!! (If I have to speak in terms of Maya Sarabhai of Sarabhai vs. Sarabhai, I would say "Chee! Updation is so middle-class. Say "update your systems" or bring them "up to date")

I know language evolves over time and there are new phrases and meanings that keep adding to the dictionary. However, when certain words/phrases are used completely out of context and are "supposed" to be right, people seem stupid to me.

Main aisi kyun hoon.....

2009-03-25T00:39:00.000-07:00

I had earlier written about my name. The way people turn, twist and play with it. The way I was named is another story altogether.

People usually name their children after someone who they are inspired or influenced by. Like, say, A Mahatma Gandhi, an Amitabh Bachchan, a Sachin Tendulkar, an RD Burman, a Lata Mangeshkar. The list goes on. You get the point. So, it's natural to see a Sachin who was named after SD Burman doing equally well or even better and being an inspiration to other parents.

And there are some kids named after mythological characters - Bharadwaj, Gautam, Sravan and in some cases maybe even Duryodhan. I remember our Chemistry teacher in +2 telling us that he knows 2 kids named Duryodhan and Dussala. Their parents felt the mythological characters were highly misunderstood but actually they were quite virtuous in their own way. Very interesting logic!

We also get to see some Hitlers and Alexanders because they were great heroes to some parents. They too had qualities that could be emulated, how ever the overall package may be.

It's also a fad to look up Sanskrit or vernacular dictionaries to find different sounding names. Just so that the kids' names get noticed. And become good conversation starters.

There are children named after Gods/Goddesses too. You can be innovative with these names too, considering that almost all influential Gods in Hindu mythology have 1000 names each. (Just a doubt, how would these deities remember so many names and respond when someone calls?! I can't seem to remember 1000 names of others :P)

But when I asked my mother about the origin of my name.... it was an altogether different story. I later wished I hadn't known the weird truth. What would I have lost if I hadn't asked that question? Maybe just an answer to a common question "Why were you named so?" But by asking that, I learnt a weird truth about myself. Which makes me laugh and feel strange at the same time.

My Mom doesn't seem to have been unfluenced/inspired by any achiever. Alas! Nor was she in a mood to name me after a Goddess. Maybe she was afraid that she won't be able to yell at me with such a name! So, she chose an altogether different route.

She stayed for close to a month in the hospital before I was born. She and my grandmom had almost made it their second home. They had a routine to follow, a social circle among the staff, other expectant mothers and their relatives. My Mom had a set of staff attending on to her. And a nurse would visit her quite frequently to check up on her. My Mom found her name interesting and pleasing. So, she named me after her. Just because she liked the sound of the name.

That was the strange story behind my name. I wasn't named because my Mom was attached, liked, inspired or influenced by someone. She named me so just because she was so used to that name at that point of time and she liked the sound of it. Quite a story to tell!

Whom to believe?

2009-03-24T03:15:00.000-07:00

About the same incident, ToI says:

A 16-year-old girl was allegedly burnt alive, on Monday afternoon, by four residents of her village in a case of "aggressive moral policing," as they suspected she had a physical relationship with one Irfan of the village.

Whereas CNN-IBN says:

In another shocking incident in the National Capital Region (NCR), a teenage girl was set ablaze by four men after she resisted their attempts to rape her.

In either case, the victim is the girl and the crime was related to sex. Why should those men have a problem if she has a physical relationship with another man? Even if their argument was that she is a minor, our Constitution gives the correct age for marriage, not for sex. Agreed it's not correct, but nobody has the right to set her ablaze! Or, if you go by the second report, what right do they have to force themselves upon her?

A woman has a life of her own, her body is her own. Why does it become anybody's business to dictate what she should do with herself and her body and react in the way those 4 morons did?

Driven crazy??

2009-03-23T22:40:00.000-07:00

There is this TV ad on Suzuki GS150R, with the tagline "Drive me crazy!" The ad has the girl telling the guy to drive her crazy and he zooms ahead on his bike with her, twisting and turning on the way to "drive" her crazy.

As is with all bike ads, the purpose of the ad was to highlight its "manliness" and manoeuvrability. And they did a decent job of it, if not excellent.

But the hubby being the cartoon that he is, comes up with a brilliant idea.

He: "Did she just say 'Drive me crazy'?"

Me: Hmmm, er.... well, yeah! *gives a confused and questioning look*

He: Ha ha. Then why is he sweating it out? He should have driven off leaving her on the road. She would have indeed been driven crazy. Isn't that cheaper? Ha ha ha.... ha ha ha...

Ya ya, he is like that only!

Two places

2009-03-23T01:57:00.000-07:00

The weekend saw hubby and me trying two new food joints. One is Sweet Nirvana, the European cuisine one and the other is the yummmm Chocolate Room.

We also saw Gulaal over the weekend. Go do yourself a favour by watching it. It's an outstanding movie! Simply go watch. Nothing else will do. And I won't write a review on that.

Ok, coming to the point - Sweet Nirvana is a fine-dine with European cuisine. Actually you could just call it Italian, because at least the vegetarian menu didn't have much else in the normal course. The desserts are different though. They had an impressive lineup but we couldn't try because I couldn't get over my urge to visit Chocolate Room.

SN is a quiet place to have a cozy dinner. Food is tasty, ambience is really impressive. The mosquito coils couldn't be helped with the outdoor seating I guess. They were the only annoying thing around.

The staff seems inexperienced. The waiter didn't understand "pint" and brought the 600 ml bottle of KF. But they are pleasing in demeanour. He didn't object to us cancelling a dish (We were done with just one soup and sandwich, food was yum and the quantities quite big). The roasted garlic tomato soup was by far the best tomato soup I ever had. Mushroom and onion sandwich was good too, but we couldn't finish it! The foccacia bread was a wrong choice maybe.

Chocolate Room - Ummmmmmm!!! A menu full of chocolate, what else would one want from life?! Well, that's what I thought when I saw the menu. It wasn't to be! The menu was impressive and is very different. I learnt that one could drink hot chocolate and jalapeno peppers together!! There were many such interesting items. The chocolate fondue looked irresistible too. But we didn't have time, so picked our regular favourite - the banana pancake. It tasted heavenly. But the process was tiresome. We had to wait bloody 40 minutes for just 1 pancake and some bananas!!!! We were almost stepping out when the waiter came running and said our order was ready. But I'll give it a second chance. For chocolate at least :) The interiors were nicely done in chocolate colour. They would be much better if the sofas were in brown colour too. On the whole, a Heaven for chocolate lovers! Just that St Peter might keep you waiting at the Pearly Gates and test your patience.

Lovely joints which I'm sure I'll revisit!

P.S. I know the title is dumb. Just wanted to follow the previous post :)

Two Plays, Two shows

2009-03-23T00:07:00.000-07:00

A play by Dramanon group this Saturday at NIFT, Hyderabad. Be there if you enjoy theatre and want a fun-filled evening :)

TWO PLAYS... TWO SHOWS... ONE DAY... BE THERE...

‘DRAMANON’ presents
A Dramanon Bangalore - Hyderabad Collaborative Production

“DOUBLES and PIZZAZZ”

Directed By Sharanya Ramprakash & R.K Shenoy

at
NIFT Auditorium, Madhapur, Hyderabad

on
Saturday, March 28, 2009

Show Timings: 3:00 PM and 7:30 PM

For Booking Assistance kindly contact:
Tickets are available for Rs 250 only
Online Booking @ www.bookmyshow.com
Tickets available @ My Movies cafe latte, Sweet Nirvana, Ofen, Xtreme Sports Bar, Bottles n Chimney
For Home Delivery: 040 - 39895050

For Enquiry: 97013 94442 (Neha), 99664 08650 (Sandy)

ABOUT THE PLAY:
"Doubles" by Michael Frayn, is both farcical and comic. The play is a humorous & critical commentary on disconnection between couples. It explores the obtuse humor in our off the hook, disconnected relationships with ourselves and with each other – and the resulting tragic-comedy of such a set up. "Doubles" involves two travel worn couples from different walks of life who check into identical hotel rooms next to each other. Their rooms, which are mirror images of each other, are separated by over thin walls. Through the play, we slowly discover that the only thing that eventually separates them is not the physical wall between the rooms, but the invisible walls between each other.

"Pizzazz" by Hugh Leonard is a cleverly plotted, effervescent comedy about relationships. With its compelling play of words, Pizzazz tells the story of two strangers - Marion and Dr. Conroy, who are inadvertently stranded on a Boat Jetty on the river Shannon waiting for an indefinite boat strike to end. To kill the long, tedious hours, the vivacious Marion draws Olivia (her secretary), Dr. Conroy, Mrs. Hand (A cleaning lady) and Rooney (The desk clerk) into a series of games - games about relationships. She manages to weave these characters into a fantastic, make believe dynamic narrative that approaches human relationships in a most unusual way…. (May we add, hilarious?). With its fair share of idiosyncrasies, quirkiness, persistence and insecurities Pizzazz is a loveable comedy of trials, mostly errors & that indefinable "something.

We would like to introduce ourselves as an eclectic mix of professionals who collaborate to form Dramanon in Hyderabad, one of the newest and favorably popular theatre groups to emerge in just two years.

Historically Dramanon is a theatre fraternity found by 2 faculty members of the colleges in Manipal in the year 2000. Dramanon is currently based in Manipal, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi. After staging 30 successful plays, all of which having recorded rave reviews and wide critical acclaim; we continue to extend our circle of influence. Also as what would be a first time, reputed theatre personalities from Hyderabad like Vaishali Bisht andRJ Anuj Gurwara would also be acting in this production, making it, the first ever collaborative experience for the theatre lovers from the twin cities.

The other side

2009-03-19T23:57:00.000-07:00

Like they say, grass is always greener on the other side. We in India crib about lack of facilities in schools, over-enthusiasm of parents which drives the kids to exhaustion, lack of overall development etc. And Mr. Obama thinks we are doing better because of the same over-enthusiasm.

He is right in telling the parents to devote more time in their child's development and improve his/her thirst for knowledge. But, I feel in India we overdo it and relate everything to academic performance, and that's the reason why our kids excel in academics. We don't have top performers in sports and very few in art, considering the billion population that we have. There are exceptions to every rule, and we do find kids in India too who have overall development - who are good in academics, arts and sports.

But these are the kids of parents who can afford to provide/pay for all the facilities required for that development. Not all parents can afford to provide these facilities and our government schools are not as well equipped as the public schools in the US. Leave alone the sports facilities, library - most of our schools don't have rest-rooms for kids.

So, who's better?

East or west

2009-03-19T04:15:00.000-07:00

Wherever it may be, crimes and victims remain the same. I thought tantriks raped innocent women, but this is an interesting case where the tantrik directed a man to rape his daughter. Maybe because the daughter refused his indecent proposal previously!

Inferences

2009-03-16T23:30:00.000-07:00

We(Hubby and I) were listening to the AR Rahman's Signature Collection CD #1 in our car stereo. As we enjoyed the songs immensely, we shared our thoughts on the songs thus:

Me on Arziyan saari from Dehi 6: This song is so beautiful for its lyrics. Prasoon Joshi is amazing, I tell you. He's so young and yet writes so profoundly.

That song finished and the next track is "Ringa ringa" from Slumdog Millionaire. Hubby is crazy about this song and he suddenly starts swaying wherever he is the moment it plays!

So he says: This song is also great for its lyrics. Guljaaaaar wrote it na - that old man, I tell you, is still so naughty!

:-O Much fun comes!

Start Doing. But don't stop Talking!

2009-03-06T01:00:00.000-08:00

I was reading a range of posts - on the current political scenario, violence against women in the recent times, global warming etc. And usually bloggers being the educated, thinking lot, I could see a common theme across all these posts. That if we need to put a stop to all this, we should start implementing our beliefs. 'I' should do it before I expect others to do it or before I tell others to do it.

That led me to ponder - "Talking or Doing? What's more effective?" I don't think anything can be achieved by doing either. We should talk as we do.

Look at this - I believe in maintaining clean public places, following traffic rules and co-existing harmoniously with people from different communities, cultures and backgrounds. And I do it in my own way. I do not litter, I carry waste with me and throw it in the nearest dustbin. And if I don't find one, I get it in my car and throw it in my own dustbin. I follow traffic rules(to the extent possible in chaotic Hyderabad roads). And I don't have any problems in getting along with people from any background/race/community.

But, do I achieve anything from doing this other than the satisfaction of following my beliefs? Practically, NO! I can't influence anyone - not even my younger sister or my desk-mate to follow what I believe in without speaking about it. They might watch me, notice my behaviour, but that's about it. It's not necessary that it prompts them to do it themselves. Good or bad - doesn't matter!

On the other hand, our politicians promise a lot of things. Talk about lot of irrelevant things. They live in palatial bungalows yet wear the same white kurta-pyjama or cotton saree when they venture out in public. And people trust their words. They believe in what they speak. They think even the politicians believe in what they speak. And of course realize the truth only after they are elected to power. But that's another story.

Even powerful figures like Gandhiji and Martin Luther King influenced people by talking. Of course, they practised their beliefs. But they did the talking too. And THAT is the key to influencing.

So, does that mean those who silently go about doing their business can't achieve anything. I think they still can. But they need to talk about it. At least to a few people. So that they are influenced by the good and propagate the same. And this is where the social networking scores! Bloggers pick a topic and spread around the word like fire. And before you realize it, it's there all around - be it about the Pink Chaddi Campaign or about a blogger's plight at being humiliated by the mighty Barkha Dutt.

Again, blogging/social networking community is miniscule(at least in India) compared to the vast population who do not have access to these communities. And this minor population is usually more educated than the majority. Wonder when the majority have access to such means so that we can have a world similar to the one shown in the recent "Idea" ads. Where every opinion counts!

The true dostana

2009-02-24T22:14:00.000-08:00

Perhaps I read the wrong reviews about Billu (of course, minus the barber). Most of the reviews that I read noted that Shahrukh did a shameless self-promotion of himself, whereas he didn't. (Wouldn't mind even if he did, for he is the only Hindi film star who can carry it off without sounding desperate!)

Billu is a very pleasing, lovable, and touchy movie. It's the simple story of Krishna-Kuchela(or Sudama, whatever you prefer to call him) retold with a contemporary feel to it. Irfan as a poor barber in the small town of Budbuda is very natural and endearing. His uprightness makes you respect him and the result of it makes you pity him.

His neighbours poke fun at him, his kids don't respect him and his wife is a hopeless woman. The whole town makes a mockery of his life when they know he knows the superstar Sahir Khan.

They lift him to the sky with an intention to please him so that he'll take them to the superstar and get a picture clicked or have dinner with him. And when they see that he has no such intentions for he is not sure if the star recognizes him, they topple him in a second. Such is world.

Priyadarshan captures the herd mentality and greed in human beings quite beautifully. He sketches the canvas with varied characters like the evil landlord and money-lender (Om Puri), Billu's evil competitor, and friendly neighbour (Asrani) to make us realize that when in herd, no single voice is heard. Everybody bevahes in a similar manner, either in praising him or abusing him. And the couple of exceptions really do not make a difference.

It would have been quite easy for Shahrukh to make the story revolve around him (It was his home production). But he didn't. He stuck to the characters and made a really nice film. The couple of scenes which he appears are quite relevant and well enacted. And regarding the common complaint that I see about him that he tried to endorse himself with all the "King Khan" choppers et al - Well, it was quite necessary to set the context. The aura of the superstar wouldn't be evident otherwise. It's just that people are used to seeing Shahrukh behave like a star in real life(which he definitely is, so what's the problem in flaunting it?), they try to mock at his role in the film.

There are a few scenes in the movie which leave an impact on you just through the visual or a single dialogue. Like the scene in which Irfan gets back his old mirror and stands in front of it. The mud on the mirror metaphorically shows the defamation that the villagers did to him. Or Irfan's ripostes to his children/wife's appeals to take them to meet Sahir Khan.

Climax monologue by Shahrukh was a bit verbose and done in his typical style, which was avoidable to an extent. Nevertheless, it touches you. The message is conveyed clearly and coherently throughout the movie. A heart-warming tale of friendship, indeed!

Oh yeah, there's Lara Dutta too. But that's exactly what can be said about her. That she is there.

2009-02-24T00:50:00.000-08:00

We don't waste a single opportunity to boast about any success that's remotely related to India in some way. Why is our media so desperate? TOI and Rediff are going berserk proclaiming this to be a matter of pride for Indians, blah, blah, blah. Even our goverment stakes claim in it!

It is a matter of pride for Indians that our homegrown musical genius called AR Rahman won the coveted Oscar for an amazing musical score, though not his best to-date. He has done better work in Dil Se, Delhi 6, Vande Mataram, Jodha Akbar and many more. Slumdog is definitely not his best and most of us understand that. But he definitely deserved the recognition for his sheer talent and we should be glad he did.

And of course, Resul Pookutty. He got recognition for a department which we don't acknowledge as being important to film-making. Our film industries do not acknowledge many such talents in departments that are not visible on screen but are important. And some that are visible too, like Costume Designing. And the fact that he got recognized on an international platform while his own fraternity refused recognition is a matter of celebration.

But that's about it! Why should we be bothered with all the other awards that it bagged? It's after all a British film though it's based in India. So, does shooting in NY make a Kal Ho Na Ho a Hollywood flick? If that were the case, at least 60% of our movies would be called Hollywood flicks.

Just because it's based in a slum in Mumbai, our media is going crazy declaring this our country's win and that India has arrived and other such nonsense. India is still where it is! Churning out A-grade nonsense like Chandni Chowk to China and C-grade nonsense like Horn Ok Please. We don't give movies like A Wednesday, Mumbai Meri Jaan, Dev D their due. Our media and film critics only cling to successful actors and directors and not to meaningful cinema.

Not that all Hollywood flicks are good, but at least they don't stake claim on something that's not theirs!

Jai ho!!!

2009-02-23T00:15:00.000-08:00

When it's such a big honour, we couldn't have expected anybody lesser than AR Rahman to do it, could we? Congratulations, Rahman on winning the Oscar!

P.S. I hope people leave aside the East Vs West, Hollywood Vs. Bollywood (whatever you prefer to call it) etc divides and genuinely congratulate this genius. He deserves it!

Gen Gaps

2009-02-20T01:36:00.000-08:00

Change is inevitable. And it has been quite fast in the recent past. We grew with it, became smarter and more mature. Also created along with all this is something called a "generation gap".

Earlier a generation gap resulted in, say, 15-20 years. Or maybe even more. But now with the pace at which technology is changing our lives, we feel a generation gap in 5-6 years.

I can say this from my own experience with my sister. We have an age difference of 8 years, which is a huge span in current times. Lots of things change in 8 years - a government's term, a sports team's ranking, valuation of currency, an actor's lifespan, and a lot more. Maximum change is now observed in technology.

I didn't have an e-mail id until the final year of my undergraduation. I got my first cellphone 2 years after I started earning. I bought my laptop a year after that. But my sister has access to all these from her school days.

We both are part of social networking sites and we both extensively use e-mails and cellphones to keep in touch with friends. But the way we use it is entirely different. If I am connecting back to my long lost friends, she is keeping herself updated with the latest happenings like the new pair of shoes that her friend bought or the colour of nailpolish that her friend changed after reaching home.

During my undergraduation, we had our college parties in a small tent inside our college campus. She goes to discos in 5-star hotels. I attended a government college whereas she attends a private one and that makes a difference to a small extent in these parties. Yet, it is conducted by students alone with no funds from college, so it's not that we couldn't have done that. Just that we couldn't imagine doing that during our college days. We were far more conservative in spending back then.

I had hardly been to any movies in my college life. Maybe a dozen. I'm sure she's already leaps ahead of me on that.

It's good to see all the fun she has with her bunch of friends. I was nothing like her when I was her age. Times WERE different. My friends weren't like hers and even my parents weren't like what they are now. They too understand the change in the world and they move with the changing times. So, they are more liberal with her. And honestly, I do feel jealous sometimes.

Not that I didn't have fun during my college times, but things would be different if I were in college today. Some things are good about the old times and nice to feel nostalgic about them. I am someone who moves with changing times, and I adapted myself to the changing technologies, mindsets and attitudes. But I wish the change happened earlier :)

Devdas revisited

2009-02-20T00:07:00.000-08:00

Ya, ya I too liked Dev D. So, what's new? I think more than half of those who have seen the movie like it. Dev D can be treated as a benchmark of Anurag Kashyap's excellence. This man is amazing! He can make a movie out of anything I believe. And can play a cameo at ease(Luck by Chance).

Dev D has everything in place. Especially in the first half where Dev's character was evolving. What I liked the most about the movie is Dev's portrayal. Anurag conceived this role with a conviction and Abhay did it quite well, again more in first half.

I always felt Devdas is a loser and never felt sympathy for his character when played by any actor - Dilip Kumar/Shahrukh Khan in Hindi or ANR in Telugu. I had this urge to slap this man and show his "aukaat" like Paro does in Dev D. After all, he is the sickest of men, isn't he?

He is an arrogant boy who doesn't care for his childhood friend who goes out of her way to please him. He grows up into an insensitive, amoral man who doesn't respect anything in life - parents, lover, friends - none. He only lives by the moment. When he needs his Dad's money, he stays with family despite his hatred for Dad. When he grows up to adulthood and craves for a companion, he hangs around with Paro. And finally when he is obsessed with Paro and can't get her out of his mind, he goes to Chandramukhi.

He never really "gives" anything to anybody throughout his life. Then why should I sympathize with him. He hasn't sacrificed anything in life. His is not a character that I would want any man to imbibe. No, not even for his crazy love for Paro. For I think even that is an act of madness and nothing less. If you are a sensible lover, you wouldn't lose your love. And if you can't help losing, you respect the lover and wish his/her wellness, not go around messing with their happily or otherwise married lives.

Paro's character in Dev D is also just what I wanted her to be. Not a woman who sulks when her lover ditches her or not one who still goes around chanting his name despite being married to another man and not having the guts to break out of societal norms to go with her true lover. I loved it when Paro tells Dev that she is showing him his aukaat. After all, he deserved that. And much more!

Just for these two characters, I think Dev D will be my perfect Devdas.

Looking back

2009-02-11T01:10:00.000-08:00

We are different. Very. To the extent that there are probably 1 or 2 dishes that both of us like and just 1 or 2 TV shows that we can watch together. I can see a number of ways in which we are different.

Yet, I like the fact that I am married to him. And that we continue to be the friends we used to be before getting married. We still share the same camaraderie, we still crack the same stale jokes about each other, we still are the same as individuals.

And that makes it all the more special to me. Thanks to his tolerance and adjusting nature, I didn't have to conform to the role of a typical wife that our society believes in. I am free to do what I wish to, and say no to what I don't wish to. In fact, he gives me more space than even my parents. I get his support in all my ideas and beliefs.

We built a relationship truly based on love and mutual respect. We care for, support, argue and fight with each other. Yet, at the end of the day, we talk to each other like rational human beings and sort the things between us.

That's the thing. We TALK. About anything. I don't have to keep something to myself thinking he might not take it the way I do. He listens to and understands my point of view. And that makes the whole difference. I am never in a dilemma to share something with him. I know I can trust him. We have differences of opinion, but we understand and respect the differences. And move on. We don't hold them against each other.

When I was contemplating getting married to him, a good friend D, who knew both of us very well, said - "I'm telling you he will be a good partner. He will be a friend who you can talk to about anything under the sun. He will understand your point of view. Nothing like having a partner who can be your best friend. Not everybody can do anything for his/her partner as the person he/she loves the most, but you will get there with him."

And now I see how true D was! He is a great friend to me before anything else, and will always be. I'm sure that's the thread that will keep us tied together. Touchwood!

Gasp! 1 year already?!

2009-02-11T00:49:00.000-08:00

It's an unfair world I say. People are mean, sometimes cruel - conspiring behind you all the time. How else will you explain what happened to me? *sniff*

I am a simple, sweet, obedient wife and a good enough daughter. And what do I get in return for *ALL* my virtues? A family that conspires behind me and cheats me in all ways possible.

The day before our wedding anniversary(which was yesterday), the hubby goes to drop my brother at work, tells me he needs to meet another friend for coffee, takes his own time and returns home much later than I expected. He took all the time to get my favourite Chocolate Truffle Cake.

Dad goes to attend a company meeting in the afternoon and manages to sneak in a bouquet of my favourite orchids. And Mom keeps them away from my eyesight, wonder where though! All while I was sleeping due to the effect of the pills I took for my fever that disturbed me and made me miss a good friend's wedding reception.

At the stroke of midnight, all their cruel deeds come into the light when hubby suddenly takes the cake out of the fridge and Mom and Dad greet me with a bouquet. They all were scheming together to surprise ME! And me alone :D

And that's how, people, my first wedding anniversary was celebrated. An amazing year gone by, and a great day to remind me of all the fun (and miseries like cooking my own food, making coffee for myself, making my own bed, cleaning my own kitchen etc.) I had in the last year. Cheers!

P.S. Title Courtesy: The hubby! He got that written on our anniversary cake :P

Scary Movie

2009-02-06T00:35:00.000-08:00

Pasupati (Sonu) is married to Arundhati's(Anushka, aka Jejamma, the local Goddess) sister with an intention of grabbing their empire. He is a merciless womanizer and doesn't care for his wife. He goes on a killing spree when someone comes in his way. Arundhati can't stand his attitude and her anger peaks when her dance teacher becomes a victim of his lust. She orders her men to give him a painful death that would make any man think twice before looking at another woman.

But, his stars shine on him and he lives through, only to become a tantrik with evil powers. He gets back at Arundhati on the day of her marriage and tries to kill her. But, she being a brave fighter, kills(?) him through a dance routine, which is quite interesting to watch.(If done by someone else. Anushka sucks the life out of the dance.) But his pret-atma lives on because he died without avenging. And he is all set to take his revenge on the reborn Arundhati.

The story revolves around how Arundhati-2 realizes her reincarnation and how she kills the evil force.

It is a cliched story of reincarnation, vengeance, death and good vs. bad. But, the making of the film gives it an interesting appeal. The screenplay is taut with a few minor lapses. The graphics are too good for an Indian cinema, and the background score very apt. The whole package makes it a thrilling experience and you won't go out disappointed.

Many parts of the movie are quite scary and I had goose bumps every few minutes. We went for the late night show and I just wanted to get out of the darned hall. But the cinematic brilliance was worth watching. Anushka, for a change, acted. Sonu suited well for the role, both as a flamboyant prince and the ruthless tantrik.

A must-watch for the special effects and excellent screenplay. But it's not for the weak-hearted. I don't prefer to watch scary and violent movies in a theatre and usually watch them on DVD. I went to watch this because of the hype and brother and hubby's constant pushing. And this was the scariest movie-watching experience for me. The loud background music in the theatre(it has a good sound system) made it worse!

P.S. The worst part of this movie was the audience. We saw many families come along with kids for a scary movie for a late night show. This film holds an A-certificate by the censor board and yet there were 3-4 year olds watching the movie. We felt quite disturbed at the callous attitude of the parents who didn't mind their kids watching a movie based on the theme of a tantrik waiting to rape a woman and kill her. What can we expect kids with such negligent parents to grow up to be?

You and I

2009-02-05T22:48:00.000-08:00

He stays calm in an argument. I can't.

He loves dogs. I don't.

He doesn't plan things at home, and almost always delays things. I plan my day and don't really like any deviances.

He prefers to sleep with his face uncovered. I prefer to snuggle completely inside the blanket.

He can't stand the noise of the fan while sleeping. Nothing affects me once I fall asleep.

He eats all cuisines, all vegetables without any complaints. I don't.

He loves raw banana. I HATE it. (Got myself to manage to eat.)

He thinks too much of coffee is not so good. I love coffee.

He likes South Indian movie star Anushka. I hate her.

He is very finicky while packing. I don't care how I pack as long as everything reaches safely.

His eyes are glued to the screen when he is watching television and doesn't hear a word that I speak. I don't get so hooked on unless it's a chat show with SRK.

He is allergic to tomatoes. I looooooooove them.

He likes his food cold (not frozen, but less warm). I prefer mine piping hot.

He doesn't mind stepping out anywhere in his PJs. I do.

These are just a few. I am sure I'll find many more in the years to come. Till then...

Ram's Warriors

2009-02-05T00:23:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned earlier, hubby suddenly has some "Eureka" moments. And in one of those, he made an interesting observation about the nuisance that Sri Rama Sene is upto nowadays in Mangalore.

Mr. Muthalik's men are dragging people into medieval times, themselves behaving like cavemen. If you know your mythology right, it's an army of monkeys that helped Lord Sri Rama to defeat Ravana and fetch Sita.

So, Sri Rama Sene = Lord Rama's army = Monkeys. Does that explain their behaviour? Do you still think we should take them seriously and put them behind the bars? Come on! What will PETA say then?

Compare this!

2009-02-04T21:32:00.001-08:00

Italian prez slams racist attack on Indian. But, our leaders don't raise their voice against multiple attempts of violence against foreign women.

Just expressing an intent to kill her lover's wife got a US woman punishment of 12 year jail-term. And our countrymen kill their own daughters in the name of "honour" and our judiciary is a mute victim.

And Indians still blame the western nations for their BAD influence?

It's women's turn now!

2009-02-02T21:54:00.000-08:00

Oops! This will be an interesting case to watch. Will we see the rise of "Men's rights activist groups"? Hmmm...

I think I like Federer

2009-02-02T03:58:00.000-08:00

I am not an ardent tennis fan. Nor am I an avid-watcher of tennis matches. Just happened to watch the Australian Open Men's Singles final for the first time. And I was totally in awe of both the finalists.

I mean, the sporting spirit they displayed throughout the game and even later is exemplary. Roger showed that even champions break down when they see their dreams being shattered. It's NOT unmanly to shed tears but a mere expression of your angst, sense of loss and disappointment. The audience's hearts went out to him when he wept and said "I love this game and it means the world to me. And it really hurts to lose!" Only a true sportsman who loved his game could say that.

And when he loses fighting so hard, he wins more hearts than when he wins. It's the passion that matters. And when you see a genuine passion in sportsmen, you get to love them.

Here's to the two great men. Hope to see more such real sportsmen in all fields.

Luck by Chance

2009-02-02T03:42:00.000-08:00

I went to watch it in awe of Farhan. He looks awesome in the trailers. Of course in the movie too. And returned being completely in awe of Konkona.

The movie isn't really GREAT. It's not even completely entertaining. But, the slick screenplay and amazing performances by the cast more than makeup for its flaws.

Vikram (Farhan) and Sona (Konkona) struggle in the "Hindi film industry"(as Dimple chooses to call it in the movie) to make their mark and do it finally. In their own ways. The film is about how they get that once "chance" by luck and finally make it. Nothing really new or different in the story. But director Zoya's take is!

There are many interesting aspects to the movie that make it watchable. Almost all the characters in the film are well-etched. And it shows in every scene. The cameos are very carefully chosen and the way she has planned for the cameos is commendable. The best was, of course, Shahrukh Khan's with his gyaan on relationships in the industry.

There are many digs at filmstars and their tantrums, especially Hrithik's on Shahrukh. They are done quite well and its nice to see SRK not taking offense to it, unlike others who did at his spoofs in OSO.

There are no unnecessary song-and-dance sequences which spoil the narration. Couple of those present are well-timed and go with the flow.

The lead star isn't shown compulsively wearing designer Ts and shoes despite being a struggling actor. Yet, it doesn't have the feel of an offbeat film(whatever it means!). *spoiler alert* The ending is not a regular happily-ever-after one. But, it's completely real, honest and believable. Vikram confessing to his guilt and Sona accepting it and moving on would have been a typical Hindi movie climax. But, Zoya excels in coming out with a convincing unconventional climax. *end of spoiler alert*

On the whole, its the screenplay that makes the difference for this movie. And Farhan and Konkona's performance. Konkona just breezes through the movie and wows you at the end. This lady has it all!

Verdict? Well, I guess you can watch it for the lead pair if not for anything else.

Joke of the day!

2009-01-28T22:23:00.000-08:00

The idiot convenor of Sri Ram Sena says: "We acted like brothers." I didn't know this is what they meant when they composed our pledge "All Indians are my brothers and sisters". Uh!

I guess in that case, these "sisters" should go and beat the pulp out of those morons, shouldn't they?

As I said earlier, BJP being in power seems to be a strength for such fundamentalists.

A slum, a dog and a millionaire

2009-01-28T01:30:00.000-08:00

All of you who are criticizing Amitabh for being so harsh on SM and passing some naive remarks about Oscars and Indian films, do you even know why he feels that way? Have you ever tried to look at it from his point of view?

He would have made it in a much better way, I tell you. Don't believe me? See how it would be if Amitabh thought of making it:

Director - Yash Chopra

Music Director - Jatin-Lalit

Cast:

Anil Kapoor's role - Amitabh Bachchan (of course!)

Dev Patel's role - Abhishek Bachchan (minus the jumping into the pit scene for the first Q though)

Freida Pinto's role - Ummm, well, Priyanka Chopra. Remember Dostana? So, I think it wouldn't be apt to show Mrs. Bachchan as Javed's girl first and then marrying Jamal, no?

Jamal & Salim's mom's role - Jaya Bachchan

Supporting cast - who cares?

Remade highlight scenes of the movie:

Original: Salim locks Jamal inside the toilet when Amitabh's chopper lands in the slum(wonder why though). Jamal wants AB's autograph and so jumps into the poop to run and get one.

Modified: Salim locks Jamal inside the toilet when Amitabh's(ya Amitabh in this scene too. Anyway, many loons can't get enough of him. Any problem with that?) chopper lands in the slum and he notices Jamal being locked. He in his ever generous style walks up to the toilet and knocks releases Jamal, kisses him on the cheek and signs his shirt for an autograph. (Background music: Jumma chumma de de. Ya ya, I know it was the Zanjeer age. But hey, remember this is a Bachchan flick.)

Side mein methinks all AB's vengeance against SM might be due to the fact that Danny didn't give him footage even in this scene. He wouldn't hold a grudge if he were asked to do a guest appearance, would he?

Original: Jamal's mom dies in a communal riot when someone hits her.

Modified: Jamal's mom is shouting "Bhaag Salim bhaag, bhaag Jamal bhaag". They start running and Jamal suddenly sees her collapse. He runs there amid all the rioters ripping people apart, places her head in his lap and she dies after giving him a locket which has Salim and Jamal's pictures in it. (Background Music: Ye hai tere karam, kabhi khushi kabhi gham)

Original: Salim and Jamal save Latika from the brothel house. Salim kills Maman.

Modified: Jamal sees Latika dancing to "Ringa ringa" and he is immensely disturbed. Among multiple close-up shots, Jamal gets fired at his lady, er, kiddy-love being treated like this. He screams aloud and pounces on Maman. After a 3-minute brawl, Maman lies battered and Salim is overawed by his brother's valour. The threesome move back into the slum and start their lives all over again. This time with some romance added between Jamal and Latika. (Background Music: Bol na halke halke)

Original: Salim becomes Javed's henchman after he kills Maman.

Modified: After seeing Latika, Salim is smitten by her beauty. But, alas! Jamal has an eye on her too and she reciprocates. So, Salim decides to eliminate his brother and joins hands with Javed. (Background Music: Govinda govinda - Sarkar ishtyle)

Original: Anil Kapoor envies Jamal's glory and sends him to the police in an impulsive jealous moment.

Modified: AB loves the contestant, admires his grit to have reached so far. He keeps showering praises on him on every answer and motivates him to do better everytime. He even halts the show for half-an-hour in the climax scene when Jamal has an urgent task to attend to. (Background Music: Bum chik chik bum, chik bum bum, bum chik chik bum)

Original: Jamal is being asked the last question. Everyone's watching the show. Salim frees Latika and advises her to go ahead since this is her last chance.

Modified: Jamal has 5 minutes to reach the studio. In the meanwhile, he receives a call from Salim that he kidnapped Latika with the help of Javed. Jamal runs to the terrace of the under-construction skyscraper where Latika is held hostage. A 5-minute long brawl ensues between Jamal and Javed's henchmen. Jamal beats up all, but is given a killer blow by the last one. He is in immense pain and Javed takes sadistic pleasure out of it. In this monologue, Salim discovers that Javed helped him because he too had an eye on Latika. He is dejected and disappointed. He suddenly realizes his folly and helps his brother by releasing him from Javed's captivity. He is in turn killed by Javed. Jamal kills Javed and returns to the studio, wins the contest and lives happily ever after with Latika. (Background Music: Dhaai akshar prem ke)

Now, Danny Boyle, I tell you has no aesthetic sense and is just too foolish and lost in the subject to have made an honest movie out of it. Why did he have to show the slums in the first place? All these scenes could have happened in a snazzy mall or a palatial bungalow or even in an airport. Why the VT Station? Huh! These English people I tell you, they don't see anything beyond our slums only.

That's why he showed the kids running around energetically and full of intelligence and wit instead of showing them as some malnourished lepers or as kids of some drought-stricken village in Gujarat. Yes, he is selling our poverty! What, Gujarat is no more part of India? Narendra Modi has already declared it a separate country? Oops, sorry!

He showed the lead actor as wearing formal shirts and trousers to a call center office than an Armani Jeans t-shirt or a Versace shirt. Yes, he is being too "unreal" or "un-Indian". For that matter, he even showed our hero as someone who works for a living. Huh! How stupid?! Have you ever seen any Hindi film hero work for a living? If at all he does, it would be for an underworld gangster until the hero realizes his folly after his mother dies/girlfriend dumps him. Or he goes with a briefcase in his hand to some mysterious office which seems to pay him a bomb to finance his designer clothes, BMW car and foreign trips to exotic locales for a mere 4-minute song.

Now I know why Mr. Amitabh is feeling so bad about Slumdog. And some rational people even dare to call SM a "real" and good film? Huh, maybe they are not Indian, right Amitabh?

Are we free yet?

2009-01-27T22:43:00.000-08:00

Hindus follow Manusmriti - which dictates Manava Dharmasastra. I don't have a for/against view towards Manusmriti. But, the fanatics who claim they follow Hindu religion and that's why they commit such atrocities against women in the name of religion also claim that they follow Manusmriti.

Then, what happens to the famous sloka - "Yatra naryantu pujyate, tatra namante devatah" (Translation - God lives in the land where women are respected). Why don't they follow this?

We see foreign tourists being raped, assaulted and killed. And these ruffians remain mute spectators. We don't hear a single voice against the culprits. They don't condemn these acts as against Hinduism. They are fine with that. With some sex-starved hooligans defaming the whole nation and breaking another Hindu doctrine - "Atithi devo bhavah" (Guest is God).

In the name of Sri Rama, they drag women, beat them, hurt them, thus violating the other doctrine - "Ahimsa paramo dharmah" (Non-violence is the supreme virtue).

Why should these idiots be spared? Why shouldn't we ban Sri Rama Sena just like we banned SIMI sometime back?

We don't think twice before casting doubts on citizens of other faiths for the acts that some fanatics in their faith commit. Are we on any higher moral ground?

And is it just a coincidence or a pattern that such crimes are committed in BJP-ruled states?

Our own Gandhiji said - "In true democracy every man and women is taught to think for himself or herself." Then who the heck are these zealots who are telling the women how to behave and what to wear?

Apparently, they arrested the SRS chief. I say, hang him and set an example. If we want people from other faiths to respect us and not terrorize in the name of religion, we must set an example, and let it start now! It needn't take the burning of another landmark hotel or bringing down a shrine to do this. This act is no less a crime for it showed the world that we let such barbarians take control and command the society.

Party time!!!

2009-01-27T05:12:00.000-08:00

ISB is ranked 15th globally ahead of B-schools like Yale Business School, Kellogg, Manchester Business School. Yay!!!! Way to go, ISB!

Power of democracy

2009-01-22T04:04:00.000-08:00

This gentleman(?) pulled off, among many other things, this. And yet, we have some lunatics who do this. Why am I not surprised that India is treated the way it is by the developed nations?

Ewww!

2009-01-22T01:54:00.000-08:00

Anklets in office? Going chan-chan all over the floor? Ewww! Wonder where such samples come from!

Marriage Matters - 2

2009-01-21T03:58:00.000-08:00

Another one of my post-marriage posts. As I mentioned in the previous post, one of the things that bothered me after marriage was a sense of loss of identity. It's not that people ill-treated me. Yet, there was a change in their attitude towards me. My family and the hubby have been very supportive and understanding. Special credit to hubby for never enforcing ANYTHING upon me. Not even adopting his family name. I am probably the most liberated wife. I am happy. :) And full marks to him on that!

But, I somehow can't understand people's "You don't belong to your parents' family anymore" business. I wonder why this sudden change in a single day. I still have my room and my bed intact. I still have my piles of old, new, used, unused clothes lying crumpled in my closet, and I am the same person that I was the day before I got married.

I stepped out to start a new life with my husband. And I like that. Being on our own, setting up our own house and doing chores ourselves. It makes me feel satisfied. It makes me feel that it's my home and the hubby is a permanent part of my life now.

But, according to the society, his family still remains his. He has his family name retained. And I am supposed to change mine. People ask us when we are going to live with our in-laws. And I am supposed to have "left" my family. As if I am a commodity that's exchanged over a sale and found a new owner. I "belong" to a new family and my name is to be changed. I should embrace the new family, treat them my own from Day 1 after marriage and forget about what my parents do/eat/drink/think everyday. Now, how fair is that? Why two sets of rules for two people in the wedlock?

I won't even argue on the grounds that I am equally educated, earn equally blah blah blah. For me, the belonging to the family that a girl is born into remains with her, whether she is educated or not and earning or not. Nobody can deprive her of her right to call herself part of her family. Not many girls have this luxury, despite being smart, independent women. Because even their own families wouldn't call them part of their family anymore. She is left with a feeling of misplaced identity.

She tries to adjust and gel into the new family. But, it surely takes time for an adult to accept some strangers as family. It takes time to get to know and understand even your best friend's family. And not many people understand this. They think the girl changes herself as if by sorcery at the moment she gets married. It's taken for granted that she will eat, drink, walk, talk and think like the new family. After all, she is a human, and she has a personality and a values system of her own that her parents cared to etch into her throughout her life. She has a mind of her own, tastes of her own and ideas of her own. She needn't always agree with anyone in the new family on any topic. And when she doesn't get that time and freedom, she will only turn bitter towards the new family. This is definitely not a problem with the guys as they are not expected to do any of that. If they do, it's considered a bonus!

I wonder why this difference? Marriage happens between two people. These two should know, love and stand by each other. They should take on life as a team. They should support each other in their endeavours, and share life's fun, problems and embarrassments. And there shouldn't be any rules by external factors on them. On both of them. Everything else remains the same.

Marriage Matters - 1

2009-01-20T23:10:00.000-08:00

It's almost an year since I got married. And I have hundreds of experiences to share. Millions of memories - good and bad. So, here I am, doing some posts on marriage and post-marriage life. Will not be a regular feature on this blog, just for this few weeks when I am recollecting the past year's life.

Among the many things I learnt after marriage, I have a few learnings that helped me evolve, understand people and situations better and realize who means well for me.

1. I knew I can't take my family for granted. I have always believed in this, and it was proven again. I had seen some really tough times for the past one and a half year. Nothing really earth-shattering, yet affected my life greatly. And my family was there, smiling and lifting my spirits whenever they saw a wrinkle on my forehead. It didn't matter to them that they had thousand other things to break their heads over.

2. Parents are parents. Period. Girls' parents build their character, make them worthy of what they are, guide them through life and let them make their mark, but none of this will be understood and recognized by others. She is expected to behave according to the norms of the marital home and not what she has been all through her life.

3. Life's DEFINITELY NOT THE SAME after marriage - Some girls, especially those who are educated and independent, tend to think that everything's going to be the same after getting married, more so if they choose the partner on their own. And they couldn't be more wrong about that. Marriage brings numerous changes to your life. And hundreds of compromises. The sooner you realize, the better.

4. I realized that I'm still very bad at judging people. I again went by the outward behaviour and appearances while judging some people and fell flat when my perception was proven wrong. Well, life's like that. And I have always been like this. Hope a few more grey-hairs bring some sense to me while judging people and the ability to handle such people and relationships.

5. I felt a loss of identity. Not always. But in the initial days. It was so disheartening to hear silly comments and remarks that I don't belong to my parents and my family anymore. I know they are silly and harmless remarks. Yet, I always felt irritated at the relatives who made such remarks. I don't feel I am detached from my family and I never will. It breaks my heart to listen to people say my room doesn't belong to me anymore, my home isn't mine anymore. I agree that I have a new home now. But, my home is as much a part of my life as the new one is. I loathe addressing it as Mom's home or Dad's home. It's mine too!

These are just a few of the things that came to my mind. There are things good and bad, will keep writing about them in the following posts.

Network Effect

2009-01-15T23:19:00.001-08:00

Networking is not always good. It takes you down sometimes. But, take a look at this image. What irony!

IIM-A - builds talent or gathers it?

2009-01-13T00:48:00.000-08:00

The world looks upto them. Top corporates employ them. They are in the top management or top performers of almost all MNCs. We take pride in them. We showcase them as our nation's capabilities, its brilliance. They are the IIT and IIM graduates.

What does it take to get there? If you ask a student who aspires to be there, his/her reaction most likely will look like "Go to a Matrusri from 7th/8th class - > Ramaiah/Krishnamurthy at 11th & 12th - > IIT" or "Go to TIME/IMS at undergraduation level - > IIM". There are umpteen coaching centers that have "IIT Foundation course" as their offering. They just adapt rote learning and the students are subject to 12 hour classroom sessions in most of these institutes. In fact, there is qualification criteria to get into these "training" centers too. In such a performance(read marks/percentage)-driven environment, how well rounded can a student get?

Then, does it really make sense to call IIM-A a world-class institute? They are anyway picking the brightest of students with a consistent academic performance throughout their student life. Such students are most likely to continue their performance in corporate, with or without IIM. Does getting a management degree from a Tier-2 B-school lessen their intelligence or performance? If yes, then I agree the selection is perfectly valid. But, it's a proven fact that it doesn't always require an IIM MBA to build a successful enterprise. In that case, is IIM just a brand that we are assigning to these bright individuals to get the dream careers that they wanted?

Brilliant students who don't have high scores in 10th and 12th will still make it on their own, with or without IIM. Whose loss is it then, students' or IIMs'? I don't think it matters to either. with lakhs of IIM-aspirants giving CAT each year, it doesn't matter to IIM if a few hundreds of genuinely smart students lose hope or give up. And for really smart people, it doesn't really matter if they get into an IIM or not. They make their own destiny. But, it does reflect on the institute's ideology.

P.S. This is not an IIM vs. ISB rant. I am sensible enough to understand the depth of this problem, and that's the reason I don't compare the two institutes.

Left, right, center?

2009-01-04T23:52:00.000-08:00

In my organization, there is a standard setting of having a printer room in every wing/floor of the office building. It's a standard feature in any city, any location, any building. And it's quite common for people to move between cities/locations/buildings.

And as far as I know, every seat has a pre-assigned cubicle number. It's a random alphanumeric, but still there is one. When someone moves from one place to another, he/she is given the seat number and floor number and they can go to the building and move there directly.

But, being the humans that we are, we don't understand the meaning of seat numbers or printer rooms, right? So, invariably people tend to ask the nearest colleague where the room is or where the concerned person sits. To my utter misfortune, I sit right in front of an Exit door and going by the number of people whom I guide everyday, seems like "Lost?! Please ask me for directions. Pls. Pls. Pls." written on my forehead.

Almost every Hari, Giri and Ravi that comes to this floor stops by my desk and asks with the cheesiest of smiles "Where does Mr. XYZ sit?" or "Where is the printer room?". Now, how am I supposed to know where XYZ sits? I don't handle seat allocation and unless XYZ is from my team, it's least likely that I would know where he/she sits.

And the printer room. Yeah, it's right behind me - about 4 cubicles away and is easy to locate. All it takes is concentration of a couple of seconds or maybe a walk of 10 strides. But, you see people are too busy to do that. And I am totally jobless sitting at my desk with the sole purpose of guiding the lost soles. Grrr! (Just as I type this, I guide 5th person of the day to the printer room. Sigh!)

I mean, can't people understand that they need to look around a bit before disturbing someone? I am working too, and my time is equally and sometimes more important than theirs. But, hey who cares? As long as there is someone to tell me, why do I need to read the labels on the doors?

The reason I get most irritated is that almost all floors/buildings have similar setup, and it isn't too difficult to locate the printer room. And coming to people, I am as aware of anybody's seat as the one who is looking for him/her. So, what's the point in wasting my time? Huh!

Duty of beauty

2008-12-30T04:04:00.000-08:00

If there is someone who can beat our FMCG manufacturers in making women feel so bad about insignificant things like the skin colour, hair colour or dry skin, it has to be our beauty parlour managers/assistants!

If I have to believe their comments about me, I feel my family is being a little too kind to me and are really doing me a favour by accepting me as one among them. For who would want a girl whose hair is never right, whose skin is always dark/dry/something else, whose face is the ugliest with lot of pigmentation and who supposedly has the worst pair of palms/feet?

When I go for a haircut, they find a problem with my skin-tone. If I go to get my eyebrows done, they tell me I have an ugly face with many dark spots. If I go for a facial, they tell me my palms are hard and like those of men. And if I go for a pedicure, they tell me my hair is so ugly that I should be glad I have a good-hair day once in a decade! Phew!

Seriously, I haven't heard more criticism about my looks from anyone other than the people at the beauty parlours. I for one am not so serious about the way I look because I believe, looks alone cannot make or break a person. It's rather how well-groomed you are that matters.

But for some reason, our beauty parlour ladies seem to think that they can make people use their services only by telling them how bad they look. Most of the times, they don't have an idea about the skin-tone or the body nature of the customer and yet they go on to make ridiculous suggestions which might affect the customer negatively. Well, like true Indians, they don't care as long as they get the money, and the damage is done to somebody else.

Rab ne bana di Jodi - Adippa!

2008-12-15T01:46:00.000-08:00

Aditya Chopra probably didn't want to take any risk with his latest venture after such a long hiatus. So, he ensured that the regular Shah Rukh Khan fans get a dose of typical SRKness in Raj and the underplayed Shah Rukh Khan for those who constantly compare him to Aamir and tend to criticize him for being Shah Rukh Khan always and not the character.

The plot is quite simple and revealed in almost all forums by now. So, I will not discuss the plot but some highs and lows that I observed in the film.

Shah Rukh as the simple, middle-aged, middle-class husband with shell-rimmed spects and formals is endearing. He carries the role so effortlessly and is convincing. There are some "SRK" moments even in this role - like the monologues in Bobby's salon, where he talks to the mannequin or the scene in which he explains the story being wielded by "rab". On the whole, it's a new and different role for Shah Rukh and he does an honest job.

Raj comes naturally to Shah Rukh. He did this in so many other movies - KKHH, OSO, DDLJ to name a few. But, there is some originality to this role too. In the sense that Raj is not completely at ease with his "yo" look. He wears flashy clothes which he thinks are fashionable and has an awkward gait. He dances miserably to the 1-2-3-4s and says "Adippa" in the true Jat style. There were glitches like him suddenly dancing to the tune in "Dance pe chance", and suddenly getting all mushy with Tani.

Shah Rukh Khan is better as Surinder Sahni and does justice to the role. This role wasn't explored as much as it could have been. It left the viewers asking for more from Surinder. A Sumo wrestling, eating chicken biryani after a stomach-full of gol gappas won't qualify. Instead, they should have touched upon the rose stem, "I am sorry" notes more to make it more genuine.

Anoushka as Tani is so-so. She is not charming, but did her role well. The bike-chase scene was refreshing. But, her transformed look in the dancing school is unconvincing. Otherwise salwar-wearing Tani suddenly turns a DTPH-Madhuri at the dance school. Eh?

The silliest point of the movie is where she asks "rab" to show her someone who she can find "rab" in, and lo and behold! Surinder Sahni appears in front of her and she realizes he is her love. That could have been done in a better way - by exploring her relationship with Surinder, and contrasting the behavior and affection of Surinder and Raj.

Not all Surinders are boring just because of their looks. It's the whole package that matters. If the director could touch upon this aspect, and made Surinder seem lovable despite "looking" boring, it would be a sweeter tale.

Nonetheless, it's worth watching, just for Shah Rukh Khan if not anything else. He doesn't disappoint a bit.

Oh yeah, the item-song. That's just passable. Shah Rukh-Kajol is the only high-point of the song. Everything else looked like sleepwalk for Shah Rukh. He has done it in OSO, his concerts, award-functions... yawn!

Cheesiest pick-up line

2008-12-14T03:39:00.000-08:00

One of the cheesiest pick-up lines that I have seen - A guy scrapped this in my orkut profile -

"Hi...Sangeetha, how are you doing>? i hope you will not disappoint me...thank you"

Eh?! What the *#^%*#^%?

Woes of women

2008-12-11T23:21:00.000-08:00

What is more criminal according to you?

1. Domestic Violence against women

2. Female foeticide

3. Rape

4. This

If a woman is subject to domestic violence, she'll firstly approach the family. When things don't look so bright there, she can approach women's rights organizations or the court to settle the matter. Not always a nice experience, but nevertheless, there are multiple doors to knock. And when all else fails, if she has the guys she can simply say to hell with the world, disown everyone and live life on her own terms, however tough it maybe.

Killing a foetus is murder. Period. But sometimes I feel it's much better than giving birth to the child and making her feel unwanted throughout her life and not even providing her the basic necessities of life. Maybe the child will wish everyday that she's dead.

Rape is a heinous crime. And the criminals should be castrated no doubt. But, when a woman goes through this traumatic experience, most likely all her faculties are intact. And if she is bold enough and serious about punishing the criminals, she has all means to do it. It only depends on how serious she is about putting the culprits behind the bar. At least 60% of the time, I would say. She can even continue with her life, if not as comfortably as before the incident.

But, what about the girl who was subject to the acid attack? She might lose her eye-sight. She is disfigured(excuse my bluntness). And her life can NEVER be the same as before. For she cannot continue with her studies as planned and live the lifestyle that she desired. For no fault of hers. She will be a burden to her family. She might not find a life partner who will accept her. And in this patriarchal society that validates a woman's status through her marriage, what are her chances of acceptance?

And why must she go through all this? The reasons are still not known in this case, but a majority of such cases so far were because of "love failure". Where the girl rejected the guy's proposal and he sought vengeance through acid. So much for the "LOVE"! Whatever may be the case, is this crime any less than a murder? The person who she WAS, doesn't exist anymore. She becomes a handicap after the attack. And it's not an accident that she can be compensated through some means by the culprit. It's a premeditated attack with an intention to shatter the person's life altogether. The culprits should be hanged till death. No lesser punishment will deter future culprits. Not even pouring acid on them. They shouldn't simply exist anymore!

Update: Apparently the alleged culprits were killed in an encounter by the police. All the women's rights organizations, the girl's parents and some random public hail the decision. I don't support the killing because it shows the way police misuse the power given to them. In all fairness, they deserved a trial at least, though fair or unfair. Killing the accused without taking them to court is outrageous!

Rail tale

2008-12-08T04:43:00.000-08:00

If anything can go wrong, it will. And we knew it had to when we started from home at 6:20 and the train was supposed to leave from Secunderabad station at 7:15. Reaching the railway station in less than an hour on a weekday evening was almost impossible. Yet, we overestimated our good luck and expected to be there on the dot in the worst case.

Midway to the station we realized we haven't got anywhere near and it's already 7 PM. We hurried the cabbie and he zoomed past the traffic as much as he could. But you know, if "any"thing can go wrong, it will. So did the traffic signals. They all seemed to hate us that day and were turning red the moment they spotted our cab. Sigh! We didn't lose hope and just persisted - sometimes even stopping 3 times at the same signal.

It was 7:13 and we were at the last signal which was almost 1.5 Km from the railway station, and luckily it didn't turn red. We zipped ahead and came to a screeching halt in front of the gate sharp at 7:15. We could hear the announcement about the train leaving. We ran with the luggage (err... hubby was carrying it, I was only running :P) into the station praying that the train should leave from platform 1.

But, Mr. Murphy resurfaced, and the train was to leave from platform 9. A force equivalent to that which wakes up a Bollywood hero after listening to "Bhaiyaaaaaaaaaaa" from his sister despite being beaten to pulp by the villain plunged into us and we ran and ran and ran crazily on the foot overbridge. We just reached platform 9 only to realize that the train started moving at a speed that we couldn't have got in.

We pleaded with the passengers to pull the chain to stop the train. Somehow everyone seemed to abide by the rules and refused to pull the chain. But, they helped in a way - they told us to request the guard in the last coach. The guard was a really sweet chap - he saw us running like crazy and told us he will stop the train. He indeed stopped the train and we got in. We were running inside the train trying to reach our coach(G12). Some sense prevailed in me and I asked the guy sitting on the last seat "What's the number of his coach?" and he said "G12". I couldn't believe my ears. We walked to our seat and crashed in it. Both of us laughed like crazy when we looked back at the mad running that we did. The most adventurous train ride so far in my life! Phew!

See, I am neutral

2008-12-02T02:35:00.000-08:00

GenderAnalyzer says:

See how neutral I am :-)

Prudence on potence

2008-12-01T02:31:00.000-08:00

There are some moments in life when you feel like screaming "Eurekaaaaaa!" Most of the times the brainwave isn't worth 2 cents and yet you are impressed with your idea. And look back at it fondly for a long time. The hubby is an expert in this. He gets a brainwave about silliest of things and gets excited.

Today was one such day. He often gets irritated with crazy drivers on the street who make him almost bump into them or who park their cars in odd spots. One such car was parked very oddly at a narrow turning and the driver was happily gabbing with another mindless pal. Hubby was miffed and gestured to the driver to get lost. That dimwit took it to be a greeting and saluted in typical Telugu namaste anna style. That was the tipping point which gave the hubby a brilliant idea!

He said(quite angrily) - "Somebody should invent a gun which will make the target impotent. These retards don't deserve to procreate. We don't want more such dumb drivers on the roads." I almost broke the windshield as I convoluted while laughing in my seat.

But seriously that remark made me think how useful such an invention would be. And I realized it will be one of the most useful inventions of the mankind in 21st century. Wonder how? Let me tell you how it helps in various situations:

Domestic Violence: Being a staunch feminist, this is the first thing that came to my mind. If a woman had a weapon in her hand that would make her husband worthless in a second, no man would dare raise his hand on his wife. All men (read: MCPs) will start being nice to their wives, give them equal respect and not take them for granted.

Burly Husband: The dishes from last night's party are still lying in the kitchen sink. I don't understand how can anyone stand this stink and not be bothered about others at home. Why don't you...

(Puny Wife slowly reaches for the drawer which stores the magic gun)

Burly Husband: I meant, er.., why don't you take a nap and relax? I will finish the dishes, make some tea and snacks and of course do the laundry too!

Eve-teasing: This is for the other group of MCPs who treat every woman except their family members to be public property and don't think twice before misbehaving. Such a weapon would make all these morons think twenty times before leching on women.

In the bus:

Roadside Rowdy: Ae chamiya, aati kya...(Hey good-looking, will you come...)

(Simple Sweety unzips her handbag to take out her handheld mirror)

Roadside Rowdy(mistakes her to reach for her magic gun): Arey kyun gussa karti ho aap? Main to bas apna seat aapko dene ke liye bula raha tha.(Why do you get angry with me? I was just asking if you would like to come and sit in my seat).

RR gets up, offers his seat to SS and leaves the bus thanking his stars and his presence of mind.

Traffic: Huh! My pet peeve nowadays. All unruly two-wheelers, auto-drivers, indicab drivers and bus drivers will suddenly start following rules, for you never know who'll get annoyed with unruly driving and shoot the gun. Of course, this doesn't help completely as there are female drivers too. But, you see half the problem is solved. And definitely there aren't as many female driver as there are male drivers. So, it will still reduce the problem.

An auto-driver tries to zoom past a car waiting at the signal from the left to go front and wait closest to the signal causing inconvenience to all the vehicles that intend to go left. The driver in the car reaches for the dashboard and Screeeeeeeeeeech! the auto-driver halts fearing for his potency. The signal turns green and the traffic flows smoothly without a break.

Don't you think auto-drivers have this urge to annoy other drivers and traffic cops? They tend to break every written traffic rule, and make every vehicle on the way come to a screeching halt for the fear of being hit by them.

Governance: Wouldn't our leaders and politicians behave themselves and work for the public if there existed such a fearful weapon?

Crime: Can't help saying this after the recent happenings. Hope at least such a weapon makes the terrorists less attracted to the "virgins" they are supposed to meet after the operation. For what's the use of virgins when one alert hostage rips you off your potency?

Well, that's just a few of them. I am sure there are many such advantages of such a weapon. I know there are many things which I haven't taken into account, and there are many side-effects to such weapons. But hey, what's wrong in looking at the brighter part and smiling for a while?

When will it stop?

2008-11-28T02:13:00.000-08:00

Angry. Scared. Outraged. Skeptical. Sympathetic. Sad. Sorry. Spiteful. Agitated. And many more. Feelings change by the second. By the people whom I am thinking about. The victims. The hostages. The hotel management teams. Police. NSG. Onlookers. Luckily escaped ones. Terrorists. Public.

But, the agony continues. The morons are still not giving up. May God give them the most brutal death possible. I don't feel an iota of guilt when I say this. The crooks deserve all the hatred that's possible by every Indian.

Many Lives, Many Masters

2008-11-24T03:39:00.000-08:00

Many Lives, Many Masters is a book on reincarnation and afterlife by famous psychiatrist Dr, Brian Weiss. It's the story of the doctor and his patient, Catherine going through a sea-change in personality and attitude towards life over her recovery period.

Catherine comes to Dr. Weiss for treatment for her fears and anxieties. He treats her through hypnosis - by hypnotising her to go into her past and trying to find the incidents that led to her anxieties. In this process, he realizes that she goes into her past lives, not just the past in her current life, and recalls incidents from every birth that led to her present state. She says she had lived eighty-six different lives.

She recounts all important incidents - as both man and woman - from childhood to her beds of death. She floats after her death experience in all her lives, and she says there are some masters who have supposedly learned it all and guide other souls and lead them into their current lives. The masters give messages to the doctor through Catherine (these messages are very similar to the ones you get to read in any of the self-help books). The interpretations of the doctor and his professional repute compel you to agree with the concept of reincarnation and afterlife.

The book in itself is a light and interesting read. But, the incidents themselves are quite unclear to me. Catherine suggests that the souls usually reincarnate in groups. And that explains the presence of Edward, Becky and the doctor himself in more than one birth. But, why do they always reincarnate as human beings? If the masters want the doctor to know something, why do they approach him through Catherine when they could do so even in his dream (which happens later).

If our psychic problems can be solved through hypnosis and telepathy, wouldn't it be easier to go through such a session and feel at peace? I am not doubting the authenticity of Catherine's case or the doctor's narrative, all I am saying is that there is still no concrete proof for a concept like this.

Some parts of this argument are quite intriguing. Catherine says that there are some "masters" who are more learned and guide all the other souls. These souls have apparently reached this stage through their struggles in many births and therefore become sacred and learned. Once they reach this stage, these souls do not reincarnate. (The telugu adage - "purva janma sukrutam" was probably derived from this concept). This theory is very similar to the theory of evolution. Species evolve over ages by learning and adapting to Nature in the best way possible. They become extinct after some ages, just like the masters who are not reborn.

I wonder what kind of sins did those who die of starvation and malnutrition commit in their previous births. And to think of it that the population is growing, is it that the sins are so huge in number that there are multiple bodies bearing the pain of the same soul?

When the hubby picked this book, going by the cover and the font on the coverpage, I asked him "Is this a self-help book?" and he said "No, I don't think so. I have heard a lot about this book. So, let's pick up." I never say No to a book unless it's a self-help book, so we picked it up. After reading it, I felt it is a self-help book, written in a different manner.

I am no authority to talk about hypnosis, psychiatry etc. But I believe that you find peace in your life through your own attitude towards yourself and others. You shouldn't need the motivation of moksha or nirvaana (Hindu concept of becoming a "master") to be a good citizen who is true to his/her duties. For reincarnation and rebirth..... well, let's see if I remember the URL to my blog in my next birth. Will confirm then!

BIG DEAL

2008-11-21T04:08:00.000-08:00

So, as you now know I started driving and now own a car. I know I sound obsessed with the driving part, but if you know me well enough, you would know what a BIG deal it is for me! For most of you, it might be something really very normal, and probably silly too. But for me, maybe some others too, it is a big deal! Looking at it, it's all relative. Whether it is a skill, emotion, appearance or anything, it's all relative. Someone's good at something, someone else is not so good. We can't really make an assertive statement about anything saying it sounds silly. Here I go, with my set of big things in life, which probably are not so big in your life.

Since I started this post with driving, let me talk about it first. I surprise almost everyone when I tell them that I can't ride a bicycle. Go laugh. I still can't. It's not that I didn't put effort or I didn't care. I tried. Very hard. When I was 9-10 years old, my uncle took me on 2 rounds of bicycle riding everyday from my home to the Panchayat Board office (which was 100m) away, with him sitting on the carrier (or whatever you call it, sorry I don't know the specifics either :( ). I did this for a couple of weeks with no progress, and I gave up. Tried once more at my grandparents' village with the help of some other friends a couple of years later. No use. Gave it my last shot at 17 years (Now, stop laughing!) with my poor brother trying to balance a heavier me, and sigh! I realized that this monstrous 2-wheeler was something invented to deflate my self-esteem and make me feel that I can't conquer at least one thing in this world when in case I realized I were Alexander reborn and tried to conquer the world. That silly little 2-wheel thing, I HATE YOU!

This 2-wheeler probably communicated my prowess to the motorized version. And a similar episode happened when my Dad bought me a Kinetic Style. I tried my hand at a flimsy Bajaj Sunny, and it being so light and all, felt that I could drive even an Enfield on the road. But yeah, that wasn't to happen. Dad bought me a brand new Kinetic Style thinking I am going to zoom into my engg college with the new bike surprising all my detractors. I drove it for a couple of days with my brother sitting behind (to the end of the road in front of my house, not to the college silly), and thought I am doing good. I was all set to take it to the computer coaching center(Ya, I was one of those million engg students in Hyd who attend coaching classes for C in the first year). I tried getting it down the ramp outside my house, and I hated myself for being born on Planet Earth. This bloody gravity thing had to show all its power and I lost control of it and BANG! The Style crashed down with a broken break :(. It scarred me so much that I couldn't gather the strength to drive a 2-wheeler, ever again!

Now that the economy is doing real bad and everyone's cursing the I-bankers at the Wall Street, I can safely say this. Finance has never been my forte. Since I come from a trader family, people assume that I should be doing decently well in Finance, but somehow I just don't seem to get it. I mean, I am fine with Economics. It tells me when there is a demand, you can make money by satisfying it. And also tells how to make the max money in different situations - monopoly, oligopoly, perfect competition etc. The crux is that you know how to make money. Then what the hell is finance? How does it matter if I borrow all the money I need and launder it, I can still say I am bankrupt and nobody can do anything to me (sounds good, na?). And if I make money, well and good. Does anyone have a problem with that? Then what the hell is alpha, beta, debt, equity, leverage and what not?! I believe in one thing - People complicate things only so that they can claim they are the experts and make money out of others' ignorance. Isn't that what you call "investment advisors"? And these Finance Profs are damn good at it, I tell you!

Speaking about complication, I must give it to Indian women for being the best in this field. I mean, why wrap a 9-yard cloth in such a complex way? Doesn't it suffice to wrap it around you in a circular manner? I mean:

1. Stand at a point. Spread the saree in front of you.

2. Keep turning 360 degrees until the whole 9 yards is wrapped around you.

I know this is not really an artistic way of wrapping it and you might end up looking like an Egyptian Mummy. But hey, if everyone looked alike, who cares? I feel nauseous at the thought of draping myself in a saree. I can visualize multiple wardrobe malfunctions and multiple physical damages resulting out of wearing it. Not even talking about the financial damage. All these silly silk or sequin-laden chiffon sarees cost a fortune. I am sure the cost of an average Indian women's wardrobe will be equivalent to the GDP of a small country. If I were to be appraised for my saree-draping skills, I will be fired by ALL my appraisers. I avoid many of the family functions after my marriage just to avoid wearing a saree. You don't know how much perseverance and EQ it demands.

Some people are just born athletes. They acquire these skills trying to steal some eatables from the kitchen, on top of the attic, or trying to squeeze themselves under a sofa trying to hide themselves from facing their Mom's wrath at breaking a jar of coffee powder. But, a good, sincere, obedient girl that I was, I never had to resort to such things. I ate what my Mom gave me, and felt I deserved the punishment when she beat me. This probably explains my poor performance in sports. If there were a race where the slowest won the prize, I would win it. I could never jump beyond the entry boundary line for a long jump. I couldn't cross any obstacle beyond 1 ft high, so never cleared a high jump. My size wasn't actually proportional to my strength so never won a Shotput or Discus throw. Forget about the running-intensive games like Kho-Kho, or even volleyball and basketball. Yes, folks, I have always been a loser in sports. The only race that I could probably win is if there were one for "Sleeping" :D

You know what? I am a loser in many such silly aspects of life. Yikes! My autobiography would sound so bad! For now, I will not prolong this post and save them for a rainy day. But you must promise me that you will not judge me because I could not accomplish these mountainous tasks. I am still where I am no?

Phoney tunes

2008-11-20T03:38:00.000-08:00

"Trrring Trrring" the phone rang. Our minds were tuned to recognize it as it went "Tr.." and we would rush to pick it up. We would longingly look at it to ring, so we could go pick it up and talk. We could hear a similar tone when we made a call too.

With the advent of mobile phones, everything has changed. The ring became a ringtone. Telephone became a landline. And then came ringtone downloads. And then came personalized ringtones. And then came dialer tones. And the world never rested!

You never know what you are about to hear when you call someone on his/her mobile. Sometimes, if you are lucky enough, it's just a plain ring. Otherwise, you have had it! My biggest problem with dialer tones is you never know when it ends, and can't make out if it was a "no answer" call or if the call just got dropped. You are happily cursing the person you called while the phone rings and suddenly you hear the person's voice before you even realised s/he answered the call. Then you go "Err... ummm... actually it was X who was being nasty and I was giving her a piece of my mind blah blah blah" and the listener got the message.

If someone likes a song or a theme, it's his/her personal choice. It needn't necessarily be world's favourite and needn't necessarily be understood by all. I am ok with someone using it for ringtones. After all, it's your phone and you could do whatever you wish to do with it. But, when you set it as a dialer tone, it is others who are affected by it.

How does it feel when you are all happy and excited and want to share a great news with a friend and the friend has a sad "Dost dost na raha" dialer tone? Or if you are too angry with your boyfriend for going to a coffee-shop with a bitch that you hate, and you get to hear "Chalti hai kya 9 se 12"? Or if you just crashed your car into the pavement and frantically calling your Dad to help get yourself out of the traffic cop's hands and all you get to listen is "Karmanye vaadhikarastu..."? You get the point?

Wonder who got this wonderful idea to torment the callers, but ya it might serve the purpose sometimes. How about a customized "Kutte, kameene, main tera khoon pee jaaunga" kind of dialer tone for tele-callers? Am sure the no. of nuisance calls will drop dramatically.

It's here!

2008-11-19T21:59:00.000-08:00

My new car - a silky silvery Swift :D. Got it home yesterday evening. Really kicked up about buying my first car :) Wishing myself smiley miles ahead!