My Junkyard

Global Warming in Florida Coast.

2009-07-24T08:45:00.005+05:30

Over the last one year, scientists have been puzzled at the sudden and profound impact global warming has shown near the coast of Florida. The average temperature at the beach has risen by almost 2 degrees and the coastline is suffering from serious erosion for the lack of vegetation that holds the sand. And all this happened within the last year. In short, this level of global warming has the potential to affect everything that defines Florida today, and to alter the lives of innumerable innocent Floridians who flock its glorious beaches and pristine waters.

Finally, a well guarded state secret reveals the possible reasons for such a travesty.

Scientists at the Florida Atlantic University have finally pin-pointed the reason behind the sudden increase in global temperatures, emanating from the coast of Florida. Apparently, the global warming was caused by the sudden loss of vegetation suffered by a certain organism called Lakitosh Rajput. Sometime last year, the exact dates are still unknown, the said organism shed the hair on chest and legs in an alleged attempt to attract its mate with shiny, clean shaven man-chests. It must be noted that this organism was famous all over the world for the rain-forests like vegetation that he carried on his chest and legs (other areas remain unexplored by the researchers).

Just as an underground movement against the shedding of hair by Lakitosh was gaining momentum last month, the organism sat on his bathroom tub and asked his roommate to shed all the hair on his head.

Lakitosh's chest and leg vegetation have been the home of many endangered species and removing this vegetation without the prior consent of the appropriate authorities is reprehensible.

An appeal is underway to name these regions as endangered and punish any future deforestation that might happen.

Even though latest reports have confirmed a vain attempt at regrowing the lost vegetation, restoring these forests to its old glory is still a distant dream.

R.E.M

2008-03-23T04:44:00.004+05:30

I was at home in Nagpur, having Doshas for breakfast,
when my sister reminds me that i have a flight to catch.
I am at the Airport, waiting alone for the bus to take me to the flight,
The bus arrives, all curtained up, like an AC coach of a train.
I get in, and my parents are already seated inside,
They scream at me ,"Where have you been all this while?"
I look out of the window and see a line of airplanes outside.
We chit-chat for a while and I reach Noida.

At my house, my friend opens the door, and i go to my room,
To my surprise, the room has been painted with Rainbow like colors,
and there is some sort of grass on the floor too.
Where did i come? I think.
More people join in the celebration, and i feel like i am floating around the room.
I takes me a while to notice that amongst the people are faces i have seen.
My friends from school, my teachers, some relatives too..
A teacher comes up and tells me i fared badly in an exam. I look away and move on.
My friend is standing on the door smiling at me. I ask him to join us.
He pinches me, still smiling, my hand turns red but i don't feel it.

I felt like i was being borne down by a tide of thoughts.
Why was i waiting alone at the airport, if i was traveling with my parents?
Why was the inside of the Bus like an AC coach of a train?
How did i reach Noida, without ever getting on the flight?
How did all those people turn up at my house?
I squinted my eyes to remove the blur ..
I saw my hand had in fact turn red.
And there was a big fat mosquito sitting on it too.
Everybody had left... my room was back to a pale yellow.
I smiled. :)

What a Birthday Present.

2008-02-14T09:41:00.003+05:30

I got a huge package from my sister (Aishu) living back in pune. Now i knew that i was supposed to get something. But i surely didn't let my imagination go this wild. :)

A little flashback --
Back in October when it was her 21st birthday she had asked me to send her a present. I asked her what she liked. She said, "Anything in black would do." Now, all my life, if i had learnt something, it was that, Never let your sisters loose, never let them take you for a ride. Everytime she asked me for a present, i would disregard.
So I told her that i was sending her a secret gift that could not be sent through the regular means. I told her i was sending it through my trusted network of beggars and it would take time to reach. I told her was sending her black poster colors and some money. So that she could buy anything with that money and paint it black. I also said that since it was winter approaching, i put a nice polka dot underwear on the paint bottle to keep it warm. (Of course she was laughing her ass off.. but little did i know that it would manifest into something like this.)

Cut to today ---
So when i got the package today in the office, it obviously created a lot of noise as to WHAT was in that big package. So i carried the huge package home, answering everyone what was in there. When i opened the package back home, I saw a scroll attached with it..

"
Dear Loyal Customer,

Hope this delivery finds you in cheerful spirits. We are writing from the Beggar Network of India (r) . We have bad news (Sniff!!) . Our Head whose services you always preferred and trusted has alas passed away. His will mentioned you as the heir to his Coveted Fortune. Hope you will be gracious enough to accept it.

.Ever Grateful,
.The Beggar Network, India.

.
PS: The package that was supposed to be sent to a certain Ms. Aishwarya Menon is being returned along with the other belongings. "

Inside, the package was a sack, which had the following items:
1. A pink Underwear, with grease all over it.
2. A dirty newspaper.
3. A smelly pair of socks.
4. A curshed Limca bottle.
5. Some Grass. (Supposedly of medicinal value)
6. Kashmiri Mitha (mouth freshener)
7. A packet of Beedis.
8. Two chocolate wrappers and one Chocolate. (Brand unknown)
9. A dry nimbu. (Suggesting he ran out of luck).
and last but not the least...
A bottle of black paint (wearing a polka dot underwear).
.

Check out my Heirloom here...

Thanks Aishu..
This is by far the most innovative present i have ever received.

PS: I hope this proves that I am not the sole contender here, and MADNESS runs in our family. :D

Afterglow...

2008-01-28T15:01:00.001+05:30

Today he leaves work early,
to meet his friend.
He reaches the Mall ,
sees him at the hallway's end.

'Its been a long time', he says ,
He gives him a big hug,
They go to a coffee shop,
and finish up a mug.

They catch up on the lost time,
they rig up a joke,
'You've grown a little bigger', i say
"Its prosperity", he boasts

He's been busy with his job,
and i have been busy with mine,
But sometimes at night,
we catch upon old times.

Some great times we had,
OH! what great times they had been ,
Those days and nights back then,
were the best we had ever seen.

He must leave now,
He doesn't wanna be late.
I am a little free today,
But I wouldn't make him wait.

The Sun is long gone,
and tough times lay ahead,
They may be a thousand miles apart,
But they are still strung by a little thread.

Take care, Fellas.. Kick Ass. :-))

Table Tennis ... paper cup coffee.. and a stupid 64 bit computer

2007-08-14T10:01:00.000+05:30

Best formals on Day 1
Breakfasts at RAMA's
An overstuffed tempo traveller
having the largest cubicle in the office
(and sharing it with 22 others)
self imposed Lent
a 64 bit computer that makes you scrape your skull off
3000 powerpoint slides
TABLE TENNIS!!
150 cups of paper cup coffee
Punjabi Food @ night
(1/2 Butter chicken 2 Garlic Naans and 2 Gulaab Jamuns)
Nightouts to discover stronger coffee recipies
Code Contests where finishing supercedes finishing first
Splitting 5000Rs three ways
(What were they thinking??)
World's Nerdiest Mahabharat directed in 8 hours
A fresher's party with a hot hostess holding a mike you broke
And then ...
A few days later you go a few floors up ..
.. but you still stay at the bottom of the food chain .

[An attempt to encapsulate the 6 weeks of traning
at Mentor Graphics Noida]

The History of KGP's LAN

2007-04-09T04:33:00.000+05:30

[This post is dedicated to all my fellow KGPians and our good ol’ LAN]

For every KGPian life is, Roti, Kapda aur LAN.

The no. of times a person checks the latest™ (or what’s happening on the DC++ main chat) varies from 3 to 20 times a day (on an average) and I am NOT talking about the devout members of sacred Gymkhana clan or the joru ka ghumals who spend more time in and around SN that their rooms. I am talking about the general Junta of KGP, the one that prefers spending their days bhatting, sleeping and asking treats from their seniors. =)

Here’s the story of our LAN…

The STD Age
(2001-2002):

Very few people had computers in this time. The common culture was to rent a CD/video from tech market for 10Rs and watch it in the TV room. Most people used to go to STD booths on a weekly basis to talk to their families or on daily basis if you had more than just family. [:-) The hostel phone was always a zone of activity. There would be guys making fun of the others talking to their bandis on the phone, or the guy on the phone asking the other fellow to hush-up the swear words because his mom could hear him. I even remember people running to the phone booths when they heard they got a call from an IIM.

It was around the mid-semesters of Spring 2002 that everything in KGP was about to change. HCL had provided the students with the subsidized computers. Obviously, the guys screwed up their mid-sems. Then by end-semesters of Spring 2002, the institute provided them with an amazing gift of LAN. They screwed up their end-sems too.

The Shareaza Age
(2002-2003)

By the time we entered KGP, LAN was being used to its fullest. Shareaza was the most popular software then. It allowed multiple user download and even then getting 1MBps was considered good. There was no share limit and people didn’t bother to share. Sharescan was another popular choice. But even then, KGP was still wasting most of its time playing cards (Soon, LAN was going to kill that).

Yahoo Messenger was the favourite IM amongst the masses. [Yahoo Messenger had its death in the Autumn of 2005] while Yahoo/Rediff/Indiatimes/Sify were the most used email services.

SERVER™ hosted the only CounterStrike server in the insti and it was rampantly popular.

A priced few had Cell phones. Only Reliance and BSNL was there to offer service. Reliance was costly and to get BSNL you would either have to wait for long or you needed to have the correct contacts in the BSNL office.

The Yahoo Age:
(2003-2004)

Yahoo messenger was the backbone of communication in Kharagpur (Most SF and Kshitij work is still done using YahooGroups). The LAN did not have any Latest™ Offliner and Friends and Seinfeld were the funniest shows available. TV rooms were reserved for Cricket matches only. There is a Murphy’s Law associated with things on LAN – “All good things on LAN come during the mid-sems or the end-sems.”

During the mid-sems of Spring 2004, a new trend came up. SKYPE. But Skype did not have the mettle to dislodge Yahoo from its top position. Yahoo was so popular that people had two yahoo accounts because you could have only 100 friends on one account. I even know someone from my Hall who got married to his chat friend from abroad. [Can You Beat That!!]

This was the last year Kgp has Direct Connection.

For a few days in the Spring Sem, TV was aired on the LAN using the TV-Tuner card. Various channels including the Saas-Bahu mega-thrillers were popular. (I remember watching the Oscars Live on my comp that year.) It was soon stopped when the people realized that it was eating too much bandwidth and moreover, it was illegal. :P

By the end of Spring 2004, something came up that would become an integral part of a KGPians life… ORKUT.

The best part about Orkut was (is) that it gave the guys something they badly needed – Hope. With Orkut spreading fast every KGPian had only one bubble floating over his head, “I never knew there were so many good girls out there.”

The DC++ Age:
(2004-2005)

ORKUT grew to its full potential in the autumn of 2005. [The cynic in me refused to believe that Orkut could be of absolutely any use, and it wasn’t until 2 years later that I joined Orkut]

I remember I was spending my second yr summers at home when Hazro told me about the 'In-Thing' in Kgp. It was called DC++. Even today I don’t know what DC stands for, but the first time I heard about it I didn’t care at all because there was a 5 GB share limit which I wasn’t very happy to comply with and people were using both Shareaza and DC simultaneously. Pretty soon everyone shifted to DC and. Soon after that there was a Latest™ [and the sub-sections in latest were introduced soon after]. Unlike Shareaza, you could get kicked from DC for any reason. DC was controlled by the admin, who would be one of the quietest fellows in the real world but a real cat on DC.

When I was spending my December vacations of the third year at home someone from Kgp told me that Kgp was embroiled in some big-time kaand. It was this kaand that brought us and our LAN to national publicity for the first time ever.

The RaviRaj kaand. Overnight Kgp became notoriously famous as a giant Hub of unlimited porn. It was an extremely embarrassing situation for every Kgpian .as most of them were at their homes when this news broke out. Everyone was asked by some parent or a nosy aunt or a distant friend that, "Raviraj tera dost tha kya ??"

After this huge turmoil, when KGPians returned to college in January, explicit notices were put up everywhere and for a couple of days, DC++ was off too. Even uttering the word 'porn' was serious sacrilege. There was a rumor that someone somewhere is monitoring your computer. It was during this period that vast amounts of 'resources' were destroyed and people had turned into puritans.

Then after a few days, no one knows how or from where, a term was coined, a term that would become as popular in the KGP lingo as ‘Bhaat’, 'peace' or even 'makhana'. This was the term 'Bhajan'. Slowly with time, people started sharing more bhajans on DC and soon life was happy as ever for a KGPian. This was the time when SERVER™, mkd, Nukem and MrMast ruled the Kingdom of LAN.

Later in this semester came along another craze. Google started Gmail. Gmail was then on a purely invitational basis and it was a privilege to have a Gmail account. It was the first e-mail service to offer 1GB of storage (to store all the junk fwds in the world).

The Google Age:
(2005-2006)

As soon as people returned from the summers they were introduced to Gtalk which eventually changed the way KGPians chatted with each other. Gtalk was small, fast and people could use it as a phone too. Yahoo messenger was becoming a pain with every passing day. I remember I read a status message on a friend's YM, "Yahoo is History.. My Gtalk ID is ***"

Soon Gtalk became the norm. People started blogging quite often. All the hidden poets and journalists started off with a simple blog.

Soon Orkut and Blogger were integrated with the gmail account and the Kgpian had one password for all.

Nukem, Frosty, Nefilim, nullchar and ReligiousMonk[;)] ruled the Kingdom..

The New Age:
(2006-till date)

KGP's LAN had evolved at a tremendous pace and had reached saturation. Soon the LAN became bigger and better. DC++ had taught people to share more, so much so, that people had bought more hard disks to share stuff on LAN. There was a race to share more stuff on LAN. For the first time the total size shared stuff on DC++ had became more than 1 TB in Spring 2005.Today it has around 15-20 TB of stuff at any point of time.

Yahoo has INFACT become History.

Unless I write a book about my life in KGP I won’t be able to explain how directly or indirectly the effect LAN has on a KGPian. (You should see our frantic souls when the current goes off.)

The more I write about it ... the more is left to tell.

I guess every KGPian has his own side of story to tell.. About how he spent the last 4-5 years of his life...

But I can bet you that an extremely essential part of that life is the KGP's LAN...

Yo KGP.. Yo LAN. :)

Whatever happened to ..

2007-04-07T02:59:00.000+05:30

Whatever happened to the touch..
whatever happened to the gifted fountain pen..
whatever happened to the trash can full of paper balls..
whatever happened to the colored envelopes ..
whatever happened to the smilies on them..
whatever happened to the file that has the letters from friends who moved away ..
whatever happened to the blotted ink on the colored paper..
whatever happened to the mailman ..

whatever happened to the touch... whatever happened to it.

I wrote this quite some time ago [about 3-4 years].. when everyone had just started sending so many emails and chatting was the latest fad. Do you realise that less than a decade ago, chatting meant actually TALKING with people, today not a single person uses this word for that purpose.
I guess with time .. we were losing the sense of touch .. after all.. when is the last time you touch a letter from a friend. [:-)

RAW is WAR

2007-04-03T21:39:00.003+05:30

Moving out from the rotten apple and the addictions i guess its time wrote something sensible. When I came across this article in today's TOI it reminded me of the all those times when i searched on the net about RAW[The Research and Analysis Wing .. not WWE] and found nothing. Here's me sharing some of the information which IS very interesting...

The most essential element of RAW is that, even after being the premier intelligence agency of a country as big as India, it maintains such an amazing low profile. [Search on Google for Research and Analysis wing .. there is no website for RAW.. the first link is wikipedia's article on RAW.. at least right now that is the case . ]
No movie, serial, book has ever mentioned its name.. there have been no sensational interviews of RAW directors or ex-agents.. for that matter, after its inception, not a word has been said about it in the Parliament. Some days ago, some Tariq Ismail Sagar wrote a book on RAW and put it on sale on the Internet. Some dude from Kolkata bought it for 15$. RAW immediately slapped some Customs Act on the fellow and confiscated the book. I heard the news today morning. When i opened the site the book was no more on sale. If RAW was able to track something as benign as the selling of a book over the internet, you could only imagine how effective their network is.

There are very few sites which divulge information about it. A few years ago, the police hauled 320 kgs of RDX from J&K. Mumbai serial blasts required just 25 kgs of RDX. Most of RAW's work goes unnoticed and unappreciated. Imagine what those 320 kgs of RDX could have done?

Here are a few interesting facts [coz they really ARE soooo few] associated with the RAW.

- Its organisational structure is strikingly similar to CIA
- It reports directly to PMO, not the MPs, not to the Parliament, not to the President either.
- They recruit people from the IPS channels (so i have heard) and also directly from the universities offering their recruits proxy jobs.. obviously noone knows how, like wikipedia says, "Again, there is not a lot of information available about this"
- RAW along with ISRO have 1.5 million images stored of every inch of india. India has had less than 1 metre resolution for quite some time now. [1 metre resolution means anything that is of the size of atleast 1 metre is visible to the satellite]
- RAW agents used to be trained by KGB and Mossad, and more recently by CIA and MI-5.
- RAW has many units working under it, but there is one particular unit, which indulges in the realms of internet [The Electronics and Technical Services(ETS)]. The funny thing is if you click on the wikipedia link for this, it says, "Article not found".
I guess the ETS guys believe its better that the thieves do not know where the police is. Go Ahead. Search on Google for ETS. You wont find ANYTHING.

As far as the international politics and crucial domestic affairs go, there isn't a single decision in which RAW is not involved at some level.

Remember Israel ?? (its that country, which goes ahead and bombs its neighbouring Lebanon and US doesn't even curl its eyebrows). India and Israel have a long history. They have been working hand in hand, from sharing vital information to training each other's spies with latest techniques for decades.

The story is such, that Pakistan, US and others had absolutely no idea that India and Israel are working together for a whole nine years from 1968 to 1977 until the piss drinking Morarji Desai became our prime minister. It so happened that Zia-ul-Haq (the then Pakistani General) was acquiring nuclear capability and it came to know that Israel had this intell'. In the mean time RAW informed Morarji Desai about this. Morarji Desai, like a five year old, went on and called up the general and told him, "General, i know what you are up to. RAW has provided me with all the details." This blew the cover over the RAW-Mossad Link.

Im sure this is just the tip of the iceberg. Im sure some RAW fellow will find this site and keep a tap on it.[JUST KIDDING.. :P]. But its amazing how they keep it a secret in a country of over a billion people.

Proud of these fellows....
... forget being underpaid, they are under-appreciated.

The Rotten Apple.. in your brain

2007-03-20T23:55:00.000+05:30

People Hide.. Every single one out there hides something. Someone hides their true age, someone hides their true weight/height, someone hides their wealth, but most of all there is something that everyone hides. EVERYONE hides who they really are. We all hide our thoughts. Now, im not going to talk like the self-help books prescription of discovering who you really are. Im talking about the thoughts that you have had in your brain, which you havent shared with anyone. Im talking about that part of our brain that continues to disgust us. This part of the brain is the one who makes you smell your own fart. Now, the point here is, you KNOW its not going to be all lavender and jasmine over there, but you WILL smell it anyways. Its you and only you who knows how shallow you really are, or how prejudiced/bigoted you really are. Just when we thought that we couldnt sink any lower, that part of the brain proves the rest wrong. Its this part of the brain that keeps your morality and conformity in check. It makes sure that you know what is 'proper' and what is not appropriate. Because this part of the brain is like the rotten apple in the basket. It will remind the rest of the apples in the basket 'What not to be'. If a thought comes up on this part of the brain, the rest of the brain detests it and rigteousness and abidance prevails. This happens for quite some time. But as the devil jives around with the rest of the apples, soon they wanna be like this pariah apple. Just so that they could be different. Just so that they could be unique, away from this conformity. It is this attraction to the pariah that makes us to do really great, or really disgusting things. But dont kill the rotten apple in your brain. It brings the joy of being unique. It brings the joy of being funny.
Keep it in check, and you'll enjoy,
Let it rot you, and it will destroy.

The Addictions of a Sloth.

2007-03-19T01:23:00.000+05:30

Mr. Philip Dormer Stanhope's view on Addiction:
The strong mind distinguishes, not only between the useful and the useless, but likewise between the useful and the curious.

I guess my notion of a Strong Mind doesnt coincide with Mr. Stanhope's. You see, a strong mind not only needs to distinguish between the useful and the useless but should be resourceful enough to make the distinction between an entity that, at the moment, is perhaps an otiose piece of junk but could very well be an invaluable possession currently obscured by the vast ulterior's terra incognita.

I guess you wont be wrong in saying that i spent around four minutes and searched the Wordweb dictionary around six times to make that sentence. But my point is, You cannot define addiction. If there was such a clear cut line where a habit becomes an addiction then people would be smart enough to not cross that line. But we are NOT that smart. We love to indulge in our own petty addictions. I have a few addictions of my own. For instance, i like the Nescafe Soup, I like Wai-Wai noodles and most of all .. i like Chicken Pattis.

[The Skyscrapers]

Like a serial killer who keeps the souvenirs of his kill, i like to keep some souvenirs of my own. (Now, isnt this the most random justification for not cleaning you room... :D)

Apart from this .. i also love Britannia GoodDay's ChocoNut.

[GoodDay]

Oh yes, when im sick of these things, i have the good ol' Kurkure.

[Kurkure]

Im sooooooo damn jobless..... Again. [:P
.. But its worse this time. Im Hoggin too.

The colors in the photograph...

2007-03-04T07:48:00.000+05:30

"Look at this photograph,
everytime i do it makes me laugh .. "

I heard the song .. and i thought i had to make something out of it ..
So this Holi .. i dedicate this .. to all the colors i captured over the years.

Click Here

Enjoy Fellas!!
Happy Holi ..

Freak Analogies...

2007-03-01T11:28:00.000+05:30

[Certification : You should be over 18 years or over 21 years in some families. But no matter what your age, you will not tell anyone that you read such mortifying stuff on my blog. ]

Alright, after reading Freakanomics you kinda get inspired to find out the most random analogies and proove them too..

Here are two such random analogies..
[1] A Marriage is like doubling your Harddisk's memory on your desktop.
[2] A Man is a Supermodel and the penis is his manager.

Lets start with the first one.
Now, look at it this way. Your brain stores (or atleast tries to store..) as much of the major details happening around you. And it has been doing that for decades now. Almost by the time that you get/will get/should get married (that is .. 21-35) you must have met more than a thousand people whose names you would remember and most of the times even how they were related to you. Whether it be your mother/father/brother/sister, a friend, an uncle/aunt, a third cousin or whoever.. you know what to call them and you know how they are related to you. In some cases you would know their likes, dislikes, what they do, how far to stay away from them, etc etc etc. But even if we consider just the name and the relation it is still a huuuge amount of information.
Now imagine, that you are get married today. That inforamtion doubles- Instantly. You are expected to know her mother/father/brother/sister/friends/uncles/aunts/cousins and so on. Thats pretty much like doubling your memory overnight. What do you think ??

As scandalising as the second analogy may sound it is rather much simpler and much relatable. I would rather keep it short.
Men dont think for themselves, their penises think for them. In case of supermodels, their managers think for them. Secondly a man's penis wakes up 5 mins before him, EVERYDAY. Same is the case with the Supermodel's Manager.

Back from the bathroom

2006-12-21T01:38:00.000+05:30

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be able to use a computer or a laptop inside the toilet. Now all you people out there who live in their ‘homes’ would have to imagine a toilet in a boys hostel to really imagine how inconceivable an idea that is. And I say this because many times, it’s inside the confines of the bathroom that you get these amazing ideas. Now I know you might think ‘Oh-no, Not the bathrooms again’. I always wondered why the people in the west call the bathroom/toilet a 'restroom'. Anyways, the fact of the matter is, there would have been no wars, no imperialism and no industrial revolution if Archimedes wouldn’t have farted in his bathtub. Another fun fact about bathrooms - Until the european merchants landed in India and saw the people here, people in europe were contended with one or maybe two baths in a year. Now no matter how cold the place is, and no matter how less hair you have on you, with just a couple showers in a year and not using water to clean your shit, they must be stinking reaaalll bad. But lets leave the poor 'civilised' europeans aside, if it werent for us they would still be 'a bunch of stinking pigs in search of india' :D.
Coming back to bathrooms, I think I can say this for the entire mankind (at least the men) that time you spend is the bathroom is the most unique time of the day. And I am not talking about the 30 second showers you take in the morning before going to work or school. I am talking about the comfortable hot water baths. I am talking about the ones where you get all these weird thoughts about the most absurd things. That time you do things, and think about stuff you might bnever do otherwise. Now I am not indulging into the thoughts now, but the thing with bathrooms is that, it’s such a private place. You can do anything you want in there. You can sing, dance, flex your muscles, scratch anything, suck in you belly and tell yourself ‘eh-im-not-that-fat’… hell you can even give a big ol’ stinkbomb and not worry about someone (else) smelling it. (just make sure no one sees you go in or come out [:-) ). Now the only other thing that’s watching you (from a very compromising position) are your slippers. Imagine what those two guys must be going through. Now they know how big a hypocrite you are. They are the only ones who know everything. And we still don’t give a crap about them. Once, in my first year, I dragged around my broken slippers for weeks as I was thinking I would look like an idiot wearing one slipper while the cobbler repairs the other one. Aye aye, that’s a little far fetched, but still. My point is, such thoughts, like the ones about my slippers, come only in the bathroom. Yes, I just came back from my bathroom. Don’t worry I washed my hands well. [:-).

Time Travel : 1980

2006-12-16T01:30:00.000+05:30

I go back in time to tell a story.

This is the year 1980. The year is about to end and im penning this down on a small parchment sitting in my room, C-213 of Patel Hall. Call it a time travel or just a figment of my psyche but I go back in time to tell a story.

Indira Gandhi has just returned to power and there are still problems everywhere for her. Sanjay Gandhi died in a plane stunt and Rajiv is still working for Indian Airlines. But the country's problems are not in Kashmir, which is still the most favorite spot for Bollywood and the elite to spend their tropical summers. India is facing a new form of 'internal conflict' which in the later years would more popularly be known as 'Terrorism'. The religious extremism is in the form of the bhindranwale's militancy which will make the country burn for a few years to come and then people will forget it ever existed. India has started to see some cracks in the Soviet Iron Curtain and is wondering whether it was the right way to go. One of the most controversial reports on education was submitted in December this year by some guy called mandal. People did not take it seriously .. but i heard that it infuriated the students across the country some 10 years later.

As far as our economy goes, the rise in oil prices across the globe has increased our oil expenses three-fold. A recent report suggests that thousands of Indians are moving to the Gulf and are pouring in millions of dollars in our forex reserves. Indira Gandhi has eased the restrictions on private businesses in India. Until now, a computer science engineer from bangalore had to make half a dozen trips to delhi and collect 50 permits to import a computer from abroad. After 20 years or so this man went on the establish the largest and fastest growing billion dollar IT company that India had ever seen. The streets are ruled by Enfields, Rajdoots, Ambassadors and Fiats. A company called Maruti Udyog will be formed next year .. which will go on to rule the streets for the years to come.

India has done one underground nuclear test, has just one nuclear power plant in Tarapur and has not yet sent an Indian to space. India has never won a cricket world cup yet and as of now West Indies seems unbeatable. But look at the bright side, our hockey team won the Gold in the olympics this year, after 16 years (our only medal.. obviously).

Priyanka Chopra is yet to be born.. and Sholay is still running in some theatres across the country, even after five years..India Today in its May 1st edition has a cover-page on Amitabh Bachchan calling him a 'One-Man Industry' .. (Some things dont change much in 25 years). Raj Kappor's latest release Satyam Shivam Sundaram has got the oomph shoot through the roof.. A 21 year old fellow with a shabby hairstyle and who doesnt 'walk, talk or even look like a star' is acting in his first movie called Rocky. From what i heard, he went to jail after 10-15 years for abetting a terrorist and 10 years after that, he made our country consider the path of Gandhi-something... again. In the mean time a 15 year old 'quit' movies as a child actor so that he could play tennis for Maharashtra, and another 15 year old is busy playing cricket, football and hockey in St. Columbia School, Delhi. The first guy went on to play cricket in the Raan of Kutch and almost got himself an Oscar for that. The second guy is happy being a legend in his own fan following. Some people consider him to be the next Bachchan.
No-one in the country had seen Ramayan or Mahabharat on Telivision. For that matter, it was after two more years that the color TVs stepped into Indian markets.

India like rest of the world, was oblivious to an unknown virus that was killing people everyday.. HIV was not discovered. Polio was still rampant. Phoolan Devi is still at large and Bombay, Calcutta and Madras are still Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. The IIT and the IIM entrances are not that popular and the people passing out from these places atleast start their careers in India.

The spirit of India is not defined by a cricket match or a patriotic movie, as much as it is by the people fighting the red tape, the corruption and the increasing prices. Ya i guess this is a much simpler time as compared to the future that awaits us.

730 am DIP Class

2006-11-10T12:48:00.001+05:30

Well after a few months (3 to be precise) into the semester i decided i should attend the 7:30 class of DIP. Ofcourse i was awake at 730 in the morning coz i slept for 18 hours the night before that, but that is not the point. Now i totally belive that its no point attending a class if you dont make something worthwhile out of it.
So true to my word, I decided to take notes. Here's a glimpse of what i did.

click to enlarge

Dubyaman Is Funny!

2006-11-08T02:15:00.000+05:30

Now everyone second american makes fun of George 'Dubya' Bush, but i personally havent seen him worth making fun of.(By this i mean making fun of him as a person, i have always made fun of his foreign policies :) ).
So i went to YouTube [the TIME invention of the year] and decided to search for Geroge Bush. The first hit i got made everything clear. I have never seen a President or a Prime Minister who is soo funny. Now i can understand why people love making fun of him.
Some of you must have seen it already, but still watch it. Its a Hoot.
Video 1
Video 2
[Be patient enough to let it load.. Believe me, Its worth it.]

The tick-tocks without a rhyme

2006-10-23T20:32:00.001+05:30

As the clock tick-tocks over my head ..
and i see the laptop screen for some inspiration ..
i lean back on my rickety chair ..
i look up at the dingy fan ..
but still no inspiration ..
I walk out of the room ..
share a light.. laugh around a bit ..
and then come back ..
The laptop still shows no sign ..
The clock still tick-tocks .. without a rhyme..
I pray to God 'Put me to sleep' ..
Show some light in the future thats soo bleak.
And i close my eyes and pretend to sleep..
Coz tommorow is a new day ..
a new week.

Devesh's Fortress of solitude puts me in the mood everytime i read a new post.
This was one of the conceptions..

The 'Indians Abroad' Musings

2006-09-22T23:44:00.000+05:30

This guy has just spoken my mind out.
Amazing article.
Click Here

The Musings

2006-09-22T01:33:00.000+05:30

Vo ‘sandal’ ki gidgidaahat... Vo holi ki aag...
Vo ganpati ke visarjan … Vo pooja ke raag…
Vo dopahar ki mithaiya… Vo aam ki mithaas…
Kabhi kabhi yaad aata hai ..
Yaad aaya aaj.

Vo amma ka khana … vo godh mein sulana…
Vo school ki busé… vo teacher ki maar…
Vo classes chodd kar ground par jaana…
Kabhi kabhi yaad aata hai …
Yaad aaya aaj.

Vo raat-raat bhar gacchi mein letkar aasman ko dekhna…
Aur sochna ki kab jaunga mein in sarhadon ke paar…
Sarhad paar aaye hue din bahut beete...
Ab ghar jana hai mujhe … apne yaaron ke paas.

Par jindagi ke tarazu mein …
Bhoot ki bhavishya se jyada aukaad nahi hai …
Bhoot bulaata hai .. jaana hai bhavishya ke paas.

The "Then-Now" Musings

2006-09-07T02:27:00.000+05:30

As one reaches the fifth year, kgp which used to look like a newly wed bride a few months back, starts to look like a raped and a battered woman (So is life for people who left this place). One cant help but feel nostalgic at times about how things were. Whenever i sit around with fellow-duals and talk about the years that passed by a contagious laugh fills the room.
But what the heck .. things change .. times change .. and you move on.

When 'The' SidSeth wrote this blog i couldnt help but notice how people have changed from the day they entered this institute. Its a bunch of people i have lived with over the years. Some people dont change at all. Some change a lot.. they are the interesting ones.

click to enlarge

This is dedicated to my batch of 2002. IIT Kgp.

Like i told seth, "Today we are laughing at our first year pics. The time is not far when we'll be laughing at our the final year pics."

Disclaimer: All defamation suits need to be shoved up your posterior.

PS: Thanks seth for the idea. And please no anonymous comments.

The "Blog-Cell" Musings

2006-08-28T23:05:00.002+05:30

It so happens that mind numbingly prosaic lifestyle leads to the most vivid hallucinations a person can have. What came to my mind was simple, but startling.

How similar is a blog to a cellphone???

* A blog address is like a cell number, to be able to use it fully you have to publicise it and not keep it to yourself. If you dont share it, you wont be having any incoming calls(read comments for blogs).

* These days, everyone wants to have a blog.. and its (supposedly) only the elite's privilege(read fad). The "richer" ones have more than one blog.(Read cellphone... and ask yourself WHY??)

* No matter how less frequently we accept this, but we love it when people(even those who you dont know well) read our blogs and comment on them(read 'We all love to get phone calls from people we like, and sometimes even from strangers'). Many times, our sole intention of reading and commenting on other's blogs is that, if they just happen to check our blog, they would feel obligated to leave a comment on yours.

* Some people have some of their close friends on speed-dial (in blog world ... this would be the 'Blogs i read' column on the right side). Being on the speed-dial of a famous blogger.. you win more blog points.

* The more the no. of people call you (read .. leave a comment on your blog).. the more are your blog points. [:D.

* A blog is like talking to many people at the same time. Something like a conference call where you do all the talking first, and the more jobless/opinionated ones reply (again ... read comment :-) ).

* Communalisation of blogs came almost as fast as 'Saral Mobile Sandesh'. Blogs along with them brought back the boon of Hindi literary writing and the bane of transliteration (just like sms'es).

* On a more serious note, blogs are revolutionizing the entire modus operandi of communication/news just like the way cellphones did a few years back. The way this sms generation needs to type 'evry thin in dis frmat' and overrate brevity in everything they do, the blog generation would rather be unnecessarily verbose about anything and everything (you are reading one right now). :P

Thank you for the patience you have shown ..
you have already helped me gain more blog points by reading through these nonsensical arguments.
Keep bloggin.. [:D

The 'Carpe Diem' Musings part - 2

2006-08-26T01:33:00.000+05:30

A parchment lying under the pile of scraps on my table caught my attention while i was searching for something.
It was a bunch of peoms, a bunch of lines i had jotted down long time ago after i happened to see a wonderful movie, 'Dead Poet's Society'.
No matter how much time passes by, some of these lines still reverberate in my head as i try to move on with my life in slow motion.
A cynicism in me has always made me ask this question, "what do people get by writing poetry?".
"What purpose does it serve?".

Keating's lines answer this question.

We don’t read and write poetry because it is cute.
We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.
And human race is filled with passion.
Law, Business, Engineering are all noble pursuits.
Necessary for sustaining life.
But poetry, beauty, art, romance, love
… these are the things we stay alive for.

These were the lines that made me write my first poem.
And it was a gratifying experience.

The answer is in one word. Passion.
Some people are so passionate that things like courage, love, poetry come naturally to them. When there is passion, we do things not for money, respect, power or even family. We do things for beauty, for wooing a girl, for making a complete fool of yourselves and still not feeling ashamed.
We do it because we are passionate. Because we love doing it.

I guess it is all about how you see the beauty of things around you. And how you look at things in a different, non-conforming way.

Robert Frost said, “Two roads led to the woods and I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.”

I guess its just a matter of Carpe Diem...

To the virgins to make much of time

Gather your rosebuds while you may,
The ol’ time is still flying,
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.

Robert Herrick

The 'Carpe Diem' Musings

2006-07-17T18:11:00.000+05:30

The Whisper

The sound of John Keating.
It seems like a whisper
that was in the back of my head.
A whisper that was always there.
A whisper that i killed
with my mundane thoughts of conformity.
A whisper that could have changed
the way i look at others,
A whisper that would have changed
the way i look at myself.
A whisper ... that could change my life.

So I Listen,
So I Think,
So I Act.

Before the whisper dies down..
Before .... there is no sound left at all.

- Thantil

The 'Invitation' Musings

2006-07-13T16:07:00.000+05:30

Here i came across the most innovative "Mallu Wedding Invitation" of all..

Check it out ..

Click Here..

Yenjoi!!!

The 'QT' Musings

2006-07-11T16:08:00.000+05:30

'Serious mental dementia' is how i will call the disease infecting Quentin Tarantino.

He loves it when the blood oozes out from your guts, squirts from your viens, and plashes out on the wall along with your encephalon. He loves irony, sad endings and loong pieces of dailouges which sound good but mean nothing.

He doesnt belive in characters having normal traits or a normal life. From his point of view dyfunctionality is inherent in the human psyche.

He hates to edit his movies. He just makes the movie from start to finish in one go. Scene after scene. Then he summons the reel, takes out his midget pair of snuffers and chops them all like a crazy old man sick of his garden bush.
Then he sticks them all together and .. VIOLA!! We have a QT flick. Again.

But When did i say i dont like him/his movies. :-)
Are'nt we all dysfunctional at some level??

The 'ArdhSatya' Musings

2006-07-04T00:38:00.001+05:30

I know it has been long since i sat right up and blurted some gibberish here ..
but i plan to do more often now ..

An hour ago i saw a movie that was way ahead of its time.
Excellent direction. Amazing performances. All truth.
But still they call it --Ardh Satya.

I heard this poem in the movie .. its an amazing piece of work.

Chakravyuh mein ghusne se pehle,
kaun tha mein aur kaisa tha,
yeh mujhe yaad hi na rahega.

Chakravyuh mein ghusne ke baad,
mere aur chakravyuh ke beech,
sirf ek jaanleva nikat’ta thi,
iska mujhe pata hi na chalega.

Chakravyuh se nikalne ke baad,
main mukt ho jaoon bhale hi,
phir bhi chakravyuh ki rachna mein
farq hi na padega.

Marun ya maarun,
maara jaoon ya jaan se maardun.
iska faisla kabhi na ho paayega.

Soya hua aadmi jab
neend se uthkar chalna shuru karta hai,
tab sapnon ka sansar use,
dobara dikh hi na paayega.

Us roshni mein jo nirnay ki roshni hai
sab kuchh s’maan hoga kya?

Ek palde mein napunsakta,
ek palde mein paurush,
aur theek taraazu ke kaante par
ardh satya.

-- ArdhSatya

yeh chakravyuh kya hai .. zindagi ???

The 'Bathroom' Musings

2006-04-28T17:20:00.000+05:30

This post is especially dedicated to all those who use the C-first-East bathroom of Patel Hall.

I post might go down in the history of mankind as the height of joblessness a person can reach.
But no matter what you end up saying .. if there is some place you can call your private space.. it would be your bathroom.

Archimedes' fart in the bathtub lead to the discovery of buoyancy. and its no secret that bathrooms have been the genesis of brilliant thoughts all along history. So has been the case with me. No matter how less frequently you visit the bathroom [:P .. there is no better feeling than coming out of it.(whether it be after taking a bath or doing the big job).

Here is a brief description of my bathroom. We have a common bathroom shared by around 15-20 people. This bathroom has 4 bathrooms and 3 toilets for doing the big job(ya .. id rather call it the big job) and a couple of pee-pots. I'll try my level best to not go into the details. |:D

Lets start with the bathrooms. If you happen to touch any of the bathroom walls or doors after you are done with your bath, you might want to consider taking another one.
The first and the third bathroom have shower caps and are hence the generally preferred ones by everyone. The second and the fourth have been barren for ages. this has been so for a couple of years now. Guys have been got soo damn lazy that didnt bother taking a couple more steps to the third bathroom.. the result: the first bathroom's latch is now clinging on just one nail. If someone as much as gives the door a slight push he would be looking into the depths of the amazon jungle. Still noone gives a shit.

Coming to the pee-pots.. if you are lucky the pipe at the bottom of the pee-pot will be still there.. else pee from a distance so that it doesnt squirt all over the place.

The toilets- Ashton Kutcher once said,"We are always proud of our shit, we never get disgusted of our own shit's smell" .. quite true in its own disgusting way ..
well the funniest part about the toilets is that.. everyone has their choice.. everyone goes to their specific toilet. The first one(my choice) .. has a leaking flush.. if you are squatting for long .. you'll get up with a completely wet ass. But in the midst of doing your job.. if you happen to look up .. on the door you'll see this ...

The last one has a serious problem. It regurgitates.. so it might happen that .. if you are in there .. and you flush after your job .. you might see stuff thats not yours.

But still, i havent seen a single bloke complaining .. not once .. not EVER. Thats might sound zimbly disgusting to people, but we have larger issues. [:P..

PS: Yes .. i was extremely jobless .. when i wrote this.. [:D

The 'Hitman' Musings

2006-04-13T00:00:00.000+05:30

A Legend once said, these lines in his Hall of Fame speech. It trashes out all the cliched Oscar one-liners. Guess who he was ???

"The best chance you have if you want to rise up to the top, is to give yourself up of the loneliness. Fear nothing and work hard.
Soon you would realise that, life is based less than you think, on what you've learnt and much more than you think, on what you have inside you away from the begining. "

-- Bret 'The Hitman' Hart

The 'Craziest' Musings

2006-04-11T20:02:00.001+05:30

They say there is some part in everyone of us that is crazy. In our case, it was every part of us. Living together for more than two years has only made us realize, there is no limit to human tomfoolery. Here is a list of few things we have done in our ‘Wing’ (for the uninitiated, it’s a bunch of 14 people living together in a hostel). This list may prove to be a cultural shock for some of you, but for us, it’s just another day in CFM Patel …

• Ripped a cello tape of someone’s hairy chest.
• Stripped someone in the middle of nowhere and doused him with 7-up.
• Wrapped someone in a blanket, dumped them in a sintex tank, put water from top and rolled the tank over and over again.
• Made someone smoke 21 cigarettes at the same time through 5 different ‘apertures’.
• Wore baniyans and bandanas in the middle of the night, and vroomed 8 bikes to the highway, just to have ‘special chai’ at a roadside dhaba.
• Videotaped an official wrestling match. (Royal Rumble).
• Pretended someone falling of the bed as to be falling off the cliff and attempted to rescue them.
• Blew up condom balloons on someone’s birthday and made him suck it.
• Have a wing ‘anti-gay-activities’ police officer who finally turned gay himself.
• Have a set of Cabinet ministers in the wing, with apt port-folios.
• Have a security council with permanent and temporary members.
• Stripped the most number of juniors.
• Played a particular card game, around 50,000 times (realistic figure) at 7 different places in Kharagpur.
• Hatched a conspiracy theory, with witnesses, press and a court-room drama and made a presentation to commemorate the occasion.
• Played dark room (14 dark rooms) when the power went off.
• Started a hall tradition of water fight on friendship day.
• Threw frogs on someone taking a bath.
• Put an alarm clock in front a room, to wake up two people who slept off while making love.
• Gave a birthday boy a bath in ‘mishti-doi’ and had someone use it as a hair-gel.
• Have special morning rituals and exclusive hand-shakes.
• Drew all over someone, coz he snoozed off in your room.
• Mooned in the middle of the highway a million times.
• Apart from the normal games that everyone plays- UT, AOE, wing-cricket, Fifa, 29 we played games like: Seven stones, Chor-Police on NFS, Desi Poker, Texas Hold-em, Strip Poker (with real people), Dumb-C, Vateez, Biz-Quiz (with a professional quiz-master) and Monopoly.
• Had a bike trip of 260 kms.
• Blew up everything from drawers to bottles and bricks to shoes. (courtesy our pyromaniacs and LTTE specialist, who almost lost his foot).
• Ensured that all but one is single(tried our best to make him single too)
• Naked wrestling match in the shower.
• Have a Wing Band with a remix album of 12 songs.
• Have an official wing video.
• Made a birthday boy collect his birthday gifts from 3 total strangers (2 chicks and an old lady) at Pizza Hut.
• Spent the new years 3 kms into the Bay of Bengal.
• Planned an Ocean’s thirteen to save a fellow wingie’s career and failed miserably.
• Have a Wing Radio/ Wing J(a)ckey.
• Raised an injured stray puppy, into a bold dog that bit everyone and shat everywhere.
• Had four pet fish, all died (respect). Conducted official burial ceremonies in their memory.
• Have a Rat Extermination Squad with 30% strike rate. Finally electrocuted the last one.
• Have a belly dancer in the Wing all the way from Arabia.
• Proposed an ‘Adapter Charging Theory’ to measure a person’s current level of ‘khodiyapa’. (Patent pending)
• Have a 10 kms race from 90 degrees (a place we named) to the Hall, with crashes, back markers and loads of drifts and drags.
• Have a Comprehensive Non-Proliferation of Natural Gas Treaty, with two compulsory signatories and eleven non-mandatory signatories.

We have no clue in what sanity prompted us to do what we did. But looking back, 10 years down the line, we won’t regret (maybe embarrassed) a single thing we did in our stay here. At least we’d be able to say “Been there, Done that”, and actually mean it.

Writing credits: myself and great inputs from Jaackie.. and everyone else in the wing.

PS: some more happened lately...
• Two guys go to a shop and buy a set of panties ... to make a fellow wingie wear on his birthday. [:D]
• Climb the tallest water tank(120 ft) in your city at night and light a victory sutta on top.

The "Jhansi ki Rani" Musings

2006-03-24T08:05:00.000+05:30

My Favourite Poem of all times.

A tribute to Maharani Lakshmibai.
A masterpiece by Subhadra Kumari Chauhan.

सिंहासन हिल उठे राजवंशों ने भृकुटी तानी थी,
बूढ़े भारत में आई फिर से नयी जवानी थी,
गुमी हुई आज़ादी की कीमत सबने पहचानी थी,
दूर फिरंगी को करने की सबने मन में ठानी थी।
चमक उठी सन सत्तावन में, वह तलवार पुरानी थी,
बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,
खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

कानपूर के नाना की, मुँहबोली बहन छबीली थी,
लक्ष्मीबाई नाम, पिता की वह संतान अकेली थी,
नाना के सँग पढ़ती थी वह, नाना के सँग खेली थी,
बरछी ढाल, कृपाण, कटारी उसकी यही सहेली थी।
वीर शिवाजी की गाथायें उसकी याद ज़बानी थी,
बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,
खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

लक्ष्मी थी या दुर्गा थी वह स्वयं वीरता की अवतार,
देख मराठे पुलकित होते उसकी तलवारों के वार,
नकली युद्ध-व्यूह की रचना और खेलना खूब शिकार,
सैन्य घेरना, दुर्ग तोड़ना ये थे उसके प्रिय खिलवार।
महाराष्टर-कु ल-देवी उसकी भी आराध्य भवानी थी,
बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,
खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

हुई वीरता की वैभव के साथ सगाई झाँसी में,
ब्याह हुआ रानी बन आई लक्ष्मीबाई झाँसी में,
राजमहल में बजी बधाई खुशियाँ छाई झाँसी में,
चित्रा ने अर्जुन को पाया, शिव से मिली भवानी थी,
बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,
खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

उदित हुआ सौभाग्य, मुदित महलों में उजियाली छाई,
किंतु कालगति चुपके-चुपके काली घटा घेर लाई,
तीर चलाने वाले कर में उसे चूड़ियाँ कब भाई,
रानी विधवा हुई, हाय! विधि को भी नहीं दया आई।
निसंतान मरे राजाजी रानी शोक-समानी थी,
बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,
खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

बुझा दीप झाँसी का तब डलहौज़ी मन में हरषाया,
राज्य हड़प करने का उसने यह अच्छा अवसर पाया,
फ़ौरन फौजें भेज दुर्ग पर अपना झंडा फहराया,
लावारिस का वारिस बनकर ब्रिटिश राज्य झाँसी आया।
अश्रुपूर्णा रानी ने देखा झाँसी हुई बिरानी थी,
बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,
खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

अनुनय विनय नहीं सुनती है, विकट शासकों की माया,
व्यापारी बन दया चाहता था जब यह भारत आया,
डलहौज़ी ने पैर पसारे, अब तो पलट गई काया,
राजाओं नव्वाबों को भी उसने पैरों ठुकराया।
रानी दासी बनी, बनी यह दासी अब महरानी थी,
बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,
खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

छिनी राजधानी दिल्ली की, लखनऊ छीना बातों-बात,
कैद पेशवा था बिठुर में, हुआ नागपुर का भी घात,
उदैपुर, तंजौर, सतारा, करनाटक की कौन बिसात?
जबकि सिंध, पंजाब ब्रह्म पर अभी हुआ था वज्र-निपात।
बंगाले, मद्रास आदि की भी तो वही कहानी थी,
बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,
खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

रानी रोयीं रिनवासों में, बेगम ग़म से थीं बेज़ार,
उनके गहने कपड़े बिकते थे कलकत्ते के बाज़ार,
सरे आम नीलाम छापते थे अंग्रेज़ों के अखबार,
'नागपूर के ज़ेवर ले लो लखनऊ के लो नौलख हार'।
यों परदे की इज़्ज़त परदेशी के हाथ बिकानी थी,
बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,
खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

कुटियों में भी विषम वेदना, महलों में आहत अपमान,
वीर सैनिकों के मन में था अपने पुरखों का अभिमान,
नाना धुंधूपंत पेशवा जुटा रहा था सब सामान,
बहिन छबीली ने रण-चण्डी का कर दिया प्रकट आहवान।
हुआ यज्ञ प्रारम्भ उन्हें तो सोई ज्योति जगानी थी,
बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,
खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

महलों ने दी आग, झोंपड़ी ने ज्वाला सुलगाई थी,
यह स्वतंत्रता की चिनगारी अंतरतम से आई थी,
झाँसी चेती, दिल्ली चेती, लखनऊ लपटें छाई थी,
मेरठ, कानपूर, पटना ने भारी धूम मचाई थी,
जबलपूर, कोल्हापूर में भी कुछ हलचल उकसानी थी,
बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,
खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

इस स्वतंत्रता महायज्ञ में कई वीरवर आए काम,
नाना धुंधूपंत, ताँतिया, चतुर अज़ीमुल्ला सरनाम,
अहमदशाह मौलवी, ठाकुर कुँवरसिंह सैनिक अभिराम,
भारत के इतिहास गगन में अमर रहेंगे जिनके नाम।
लेकिन आज जुर्म कहलाती उनकी जो कुरबानी थी,
बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,
खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

इनकी गाथा छोड़, चले हम झाँसी के मैदानों में,
जहाँ खड़ी है लक्ष्मीबाई मर्द बनी मर्दानों में,
लेफ्टिनेंट वाकर आ पहुँचा, आगे बड़ा जवानों में,
रानी ने तलवार खींच ली, हुया द्वन्द्ध असमानों में।
ज़ख्मी होकर वाकर भागा, उसे अजब हैरानी थी,
बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,
खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

रानी बढ़ी कालपी आई, कर सौ मील निरंतर पार,
घोड़ा थक कर गिरा भूमि पर गया स्वर्ग तत्काल सिधार,
यमुना तट पर अंग्रेज़ों ने फिर खाई रानी से हार,
विजयी रानी आगे चल दी, किया ग्वालियर पर अधिकार।
अंग्रेज़ों के मित्र सिंधिया ने छोड़ी रजधानी थी,
बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,
खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

विजय मिली, पर अंग्रेज़ों की फिर सेना घिर आई थी,
अबके जनरल स्मिथ सम्मुख था, उसने मुहँ की खाई थी,
काना और मंदरा सखियाँ रानी के संग आई थी,
युद्ध श्रेत्र में उन दोनों ने भारी मार मचाई थी।
पर पीछे ह्यूरोज़ आ गया, हाय! घिरी अब रानी थी,
बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,
खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

तो भी रानी मार काट कर चलती बनी सैन्य के पार,
किन्तु सामने नाला आया, था वह संकट विषम अपार,
घोड़ा अड़ा, नया घोड़ा था, इतने में आ गये अवार,
रानी एक, शत्रु बहुतेरे, होने लगे वार-पर-वार।
घायल होकर गिरी सिंहनी उसे वीर गति पानी थी,
बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,
खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

रानी गई सिधार चिता अब उसकी दिव्य सवारी थी,
मिला तेज से तेज, तेज की वह सच्ची अधिकारी थी,
अभी उम्र कुल तेइस की थी, मनुज नहीं अवतारी थी,
हमको जीवित करने आयी बन स्वतंत्रता-न ारी थी,
दिखा गई पथ, सिखा गई हमको जो सीख सिखानी थी,
बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,
खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

जाओ रानी याद रखेंगे ये कृतज्ञ भारतवासी,
यह तेरा बलिदान जगावेगा स्वतंत्रता अविनासी,
होवे चुप इतिहास, लगे सच्चाई को चाहे फाँसी,
हो मदमाती विजय, मिटा दे गोलों से चाहे झाँसी।
तेरा स्मारक तू ही होगी, तू खुद अमिट निशानी थी,
बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,
खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी।।

The 'Fockworth' Musings

2006-03-20T23:23:00.000+05:30

Sitting here in my room, the sounds from the cricket ground ensure that i dont get any sleep. I hear seniors applauding, juniors whining and the stupid boooming microphone that rarely lets any commentary out of it.

Welcome to the "Nandoori Venkata Chalapati Rajesh Trophy". For the ignorant souls, this is this year's Patel Hall's Night Cricket tournament.

Almost everytime, the players have uncomparable standards of sportsmanship. The players fight and toil for the honor and pride of their teams. It is ensured that these matches are played by the standard cricketing rules.... except when there is a match between a team of seniors and juniors.
We call this the "F*ckworth Lewis System".

Hereinafter the F*ckworth Lewis System would be reffered to as the System.

Following are the rules of the System.

The System
--- This system would be applied only and only when a senior team faces a junior team. This rule is strictly prohibited, when neither of the team comprises of even a single senior member.
* Hereinafter the Senior Team would be reffered to as the Seniors, and the Junior Team as the juniors.

--- The system is automatically applicable when a senior team plays a junior team. No objection of any sorts against the system would be entertained at any point of the match.

--- If the senior team is not willing to play to match, the junior team will be forced to forfiet the match and the senior would be the winners in that case.

Umpires
--- The umpirage is expected to fair and abiding by the rules given here.
--- There would be atleast 2 main umpires and atleast one leg-umpire.
--- The umpires decision, is final and binding(... as long as it has the approval of the seniors)

The Toss
--- There would be no need for a toss, when the system hass been applied. The seniors can decide if they wish to bat or bowl first.

Batting
--- The Seniors can bat for as long as they wish to or till twice the stipulated overs of the juniors... whichever is more.
--- The senior batsmen can be called out of the field at any point of time. It is not necessary to specify a reason.
--- If the junior batsman is called out of the field, he cannot return to bat again.
--- If we have a senior batsman on the crease, and he happens to hit the ball within 10 meters of the boundary he should be given a four or a six.
--- Only and only the juniors can get out by LBW.

Bowled or Caught Out
--- If we have a senior batsman on the crease, and he happens to get bowled or caught, it is totally to the discretion of the umpire to give it either a no-ball or a dead-ball.
--- If we have a junior batsman on the crease, and it so happens that the ball comes within 30cm radius of the stumps, the umpire can call it 'Out'.
--- If we have a junior batsman on the crease, and upon hitting a shot his ball comes in the hands of any of the senior fielders directly or with one or two bounces, he can be given 'Out'.

Run Outs
--- In the case of run outs, if the senior batsman has crossed half the pitch length, he cannot be given out, unless the umpire feels otherwise.
--- A junior batsman should have stayed in the crease for atleast 2 seconds after the run is complete, to be given a 'Not Out'.
--- If we have a senior batsman on the crease, he is allowed to call for a runner anytime after facing a total of 2 balls.

Bowling
--- A senior bowler can bowl a maximum of six balls in an over. (Extras included).
--- A junior bowler has to bowl a minimum of six balls in an over. (Extras excluded)
--- Any ball by a junior that doesnt touch the senior's bat can be called a wide.
--- Any ball by a senior that goes for a boundary can be called a dead-ball.
--- Seniors are allowed atmost six bouncers an over.
--- Juniors are not allowed to bowl bouncers. Its too dangerous.
--- If any part of the juniors feet touches the crease he can be given a no-ball for overstepping.

It is expected that the players play to their true spirits and make their team proud. May the Best (senior) team win.

PS: if i missed out on any of the rules, please feel free to contact me. :D =)

The "Best Match" Musings

2006-03-13T00:12:00.000+05:30

There were about 10 people in the room, when i entered. I came in to watch the Bahrain Grand Prix, and sat down content watching Schumacher lead the race. This is the particular piece of conversation that i heard in the common room around 530 in the evening. Someone started from behind me,

X : Abey suna .. aaj Australia 434 banaaya hai.
Me : Whaaaaattt??
Y : Haan be .. Kuch maara yaar Ponting.
Me : Abe yeh australians pagal ho gaye hai kya .. accha bhala chal raha tha cricket mein .. Log 300 run banaakar khush ho jaate the .. yeh log frusst honge joh 400 run banaate hai..santushti seekhni hai to indian team se seekho.
X : Abe yeh log har big match mein .. kutte ki maut maarta hai .. opponents ko . (someone changes the channel to see whats happeneing in the match.. and SA are 14 for 1)
Z(watching the crowd still in the stadium): abe yeh log abhi bhi kyun baitha hai?? koi kaam nahi hai kya??
X: Seriously yaar.. yeh log kuch jyaada hi optimistic hai.
(the channel was changed back to star sports)

After the race was over, i came back to my room not bothered the least bit to even check out how badly Australia was beating South Africa.

At about 830 in the night i heard a loud roar from the common room. Something made me open cricinfo.com and i saw South Africa at 262/2 after 26 overs. I looked at the screen twice, more intently the second time. Yeah... that was the correct score. I ran like a mad dog to the next room and told jaackie the score. But still, at the back of my mind .. it kept telling me,.. eehh, its Australia, it will come back in this game. And within minutes, Gibbs got out. I thought, yeah now the game is over.

Then, at about 930 i went to the canteen for dinner. Thats when i saw that the common room was still abuzz. When i peeked in for the score i saw around a a good crowd of people there. Curiosity made me go to the bed under the TV.
.... the rest is something everyone knows.

I saw the last ten overs of the match.
At the end of the match, i looked behind and i saw everyone giving a standing ovation to South Africa after the match.
Probably the best game of cricket, there has ever been.
The old, cliched sayings about anything being possible in cricket, and cricket being a mind game seemed true that day.

After the match i heard, the whole caboodle of comments. Some of which i mention below.
"Its totally a miracle... SA proves the proverb, 'nothing is impossible' " (Guppi)
"SA vs AUS. Bester than the bestest matches ever." (Ladha)
"SA eating Kangaroo curry for dinner." (Shubham)
"Then i met the third kind ..South Africa" (ChatterG)
My comment was "bcoz of matches like these .. cricket will be watched for years to come"

.. but there was this particular comment that i found pretty exciting
"From today onwards the world of cricket lovers will be divided into two kinds of people - those who saw the match live .. and those who saw it's recording"

The '21st' Musing

2006-02-25T11:35:00.000+05:30

This is something a sister send me on my 21st birthday ..as jobless as i am these days ..i gave it a shot.. I got 53 on 200 ..

01. Bought everyone in the pub a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
--03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula.
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
--08. Said ‘I love you’ and meant it
--09. Hugged a tree
--10. Done a striptease
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
--14. Stayed up all night long, and watch the sun rise
15. Seen the Northern Lights
--16. Gone to a huge sports game
17. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
18. Grown and eaten my own vegetables
19. Touched an iceberg
--20. Slept under the stars
--21. Changed a baby’s diaper
22. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
--23. Watched a meteor shower
24. Gotten drunk on champagne
25. Given more than you can afford to charity
--26. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
--27. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
--28. Had a food fight
29. Bet on a winning horse (even if it was only $1)
--30. Taken a sick day when I was not ill
31. Asked out a stranger
32. Had a snowball fight
33. Photocopied your bottom on the office photocopier
--34. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
--35. Held a lamb
36. Enacted a favorite fantasy
37. Taken a midnight skinny dip
--38. Taken an ice cold bath
39. Had a meaningful conversation with a beggar.
40. Seen a total eclipse. (Through one of those fourth grade cardboard “save your eyes” thingies…)
41. Ridden a roller coaster
42. Hit a home run
43. Fit three weeks miraculously into three days
--44. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
--45. Adopted an accent for an entire day
--46. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
--47. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
--48. Had two hard drives for your computer
49. Visited all 50 states
50. Loved your job for all accounts
51. Taken care of someone who was shit faced
52. Had enough money to be truly satisfied (maybe now?)
--53. Had amazing friends
--54. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
55. Watched wild whales
--56. Stolen a sign
57. Backpacked in Europe
--58. Taken a road-trip
--59. Rock climbing
60. Lied to foreign government’s official in that country to avoid notice
--61. Midnight walk on the beach
62. Sky diving
63. Visited Ireland
64. Been heartbroken longer then you were actually in love
65. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
66. Visited Japan
67. Benchpressed your own weight
68. Milked a cow
69. Alphabetized your records (and CD’s and tapes and and and…)
--70. Pretended to be a superhero
--71. Sung karaoke
72. Lounged around in bed all day
73. Posed nude in front of strangers
74. Scuba diving
75. Got it on to “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye
76. Kissed in the rain
--77. Played in the mud
--78. Played in the rain
79. Gone to a drive-in theater
--80. Done something you should regret, but don’t regret it.
81. Visited the Great Wall of China
--82. Discovered that someone who’s not supposed to have known about your blog has discovered your blog
83. Dropped Windows in favor of something better
84. Started a business
85. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
86. Toured ancient sites
87. Taken a martial arts class
88. Swordfought for the honor of a woman
89. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
90. Gotten married
91. Been in a movie
--92. Crashed a party
93. Loved someone you shouldn’t have
--94. Kissed someone so passionately it made them dizzy
95. Gotten divorced
96. Had sex at the office
97. Gone without food for 5 days
98. Made cookies from scratch
99. Won first prize in a costume contest
100. Ridden a gondola in Venice
101. Gotten a tattoo
102. Found that the texture of some materials can turn you on
103. Rafted the Snake River
104. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
105. Got flowers for no reason
106. Masturbated in a public place
107. Got so drunk you don’t remember anything
108. Been addicted to some form of illegal drug
--109. Performed on stage
110. Been to Las Vegas
111. Recorded music
--112. Eaten shark
113. Had a one-night stand
114. Gone to Thailand
115. Seen Siouxsie live
116. Bought a house
117. Been in a combat zone
118. Buried one/both of your parents
119. Shaved or waxed your pubic hair off
120. Been on a cruise ship
--121. Spoken more than one language fluently
--122. Gotten into a fight while attempting to defend someone
123. Bounced a check (I didn’t mean to! But alas, more than once…)
124. Performed in Rocky Horror
125. Read - and understood - your credit report
126. Raised children
127. Recently bought and played with a favorite childhood toy
128. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
129. Created and named your own constellation of stars
130. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
--131. Found out something significant that your ancestors did
132. Called or written your Congress person
133. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over to be with the one you love
134. …more than once? - More than thrice?
135. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
136. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
137. Had an abortion or your female partner did
138. Had plastic surgery
--139. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived.
--140. Wrote article for a large publication
141. Lost over 100 pounds
142. Held someone while they were having a flashback
143. Piloted an airplane
144. Petted a stingray
--145. Broken someone’s heart
146. Helped an animal give birth
147. Been fired or laid off from a job
148. Won money on a T.V. game show
149. Broken a bone
150. Killed a human being
151. Gone on an African photo safari
--152. Ridden a motorcycle
153. Driven any land vehicle at a speed of greater than 100mph
154. Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced
--155. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
156. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
157. Ridden a horse
158. Had major surgery
159. Had sex on a moving train
160. Had a snake as a pet
161. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
162. Slept through an entire flight: takeoff, flight, and landing
--163. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
164. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
165. Visited all 7 continents
166. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
167. Eaten kangaroo meat
168. Fallen in love at an ancient Mayan burial ground
169. Been a sperm or egg donor
--170. Eaten sushi
171. Had your picture in the newspaper
172. Had 2 (or more) healthy romantic relationships for over a year in your lifetime.
--173. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
174. Gotten someone fired for their actions
175. Gone back to school
--176. Parasailed
177. Changed your name
178. Petted a cockroach
179. Eaten fried green tomatoes
180. Read The Iliad
181. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read.
182. Dined in a restaurant and stolen silverware, plates, cups because your apartment needed them
183. …and gotten 86′ed from the restaurant because you did it so many times, they figured out it was you
--184. Taught yourself an art from scratch
185. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
--186. Apologized to someone years after inflicting the hurt
187. Skipped all your school reunions
188. Had sex with someone half your age or twice your age.
189. Been elected to public office
190. Written your own computer language
191. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
192. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
193. Built your own PC from parts
194. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
195. Had a booth at a street fair
196. Dyed your hair
--197. Been a DJ
198. Found out someone was going to dump you via LiveJournal
199. Written your own role playing game
200. Been arrested

The 'Light-bulb' Musings

2006-02-02T21:20:00.000+05:30

------------------------------------------------------

There's a lightbulb dangling from string
It's slowly swaying up over my head now
As I jot down the words that'll never be sung
And wait for my headache to numb........

And the wind sounds as if the world's sighing
And the moon's just a torn fingernail,
As the TV flickers and hums by the wall,
And I wait for my eyesight to fade.......

Sooo sooo sooo it's so damn slow
Sooo sooo sooo it's so damn slow

All the bright-eyed choke on ambition,
And the old folks circle their graves,
And the young ones are busy destroying their ears
and you're still just wasting away.

I sit and watch the screen for a message
Some kinda sign that says we're okay
But the screen stays blank till I turn the thing off
And wait for my conscience to break

Sooo sooo sooo it's so damn slow
Sooo sooo sooo it's so damn slow

And I hope you're learning to listen
And I hope you're learning to stay
And I hope you find what you're missing
And I hope that you're making your way
But I'm a head case if I don't keep moving
And my head hurts if I don't stay still
It's an itch that I'll never stop scratching
It's a hole that I'll never quite fill

Sooo sooo sooo it's so damn slow
Sooo sooo sooo it's so damn slow

------------------------------------------------------

what lyrics... amazing. (Electric President -- Insomnia)

The 'Rang de Basanti' Musings

2006-01-30T07:17:00.000+05:30

As Aamir Khan aptly puts it –
aaj bhi agar kisi ka khoon na khaula...
woh khoon nahi hai paani hai ..
joh des ke kaam nahi aaye
woh bekaar jawaani hai.

RDB is an amazing blend of Legend of Bhagat Singh, Dil Chahta Hai and Yuva. It’s a story of the sms generation searching for their identities. It’s a generation of rebels without cause. The Punk generation.
What makes this movie different is how each character is etched out perfectly taking flavors from all kinds of youth today. If Diljeet aka D.J is the ‘sab cool hai yaar’ guy, Karan is a spoilt brat of a rich dad. If Sukhi is the easiest dumbo alive, Aslam is the poet lost in his own world. Sania is naughty, but if need be she will mommy these guys. I doubt if any other actor of the caliber and aura of Aamir Khan would have agreed to do a movie where he shares the lead role with six other actors. That’s the beauty of this movie. It doesn’t create a larger than life role for any of its characters. There is something in each character that the audience can relate to.

Rang de Basanti stirs that nationalism in you. It asks you, to give a damn. It asks you to take pride in your country rather than bitch about it. The powerful dialogues from Prasoon Joshi are simple and yet dark. The one which Karan says in the end especially strikes deep inside—“No country is perfect. We have to make it perfect”.

The lyrics by Prasoon Joshi are no less. The background score during the heart-wrenching scene of the lathi charge, Khoon Chala is exceptionally well written.

The movie goes back and forth in time to relate with the contemporary characters with the ones in the past. The movie touches newer stories from the revolutionary movement, like the kakori kaand, the capture of Chandrashekar Azad, Ramprasad Bismal and Ashfaqullah Rahim. Each of these sequences has been shown with excellent screenplay, especially the chase sequence of Azad, and the capture of Bismal and Ashfaqullah.

Alice Patten playing the idealist English movie-maker Sue could have done better. Considering that she was the ‘sutra-dhaar’ for this movie, Rakeysh Mehra should have chosen someone better.

This movie provides you with the flavor of a youth that DCH gave in 2001, and Yuva gave to some extent in 2003.

If Dil Chahta Hai portrayed Friendship, Rang de Basanti portrays the power in Friendship.
The lines from General McKinley’s diary are moving –
There are two kinds of people,
One who die screaming,
Others who die silent.
…
Then I met the third kind.

A Million miles of sand

2006-01-29T09:39:00.000+05:30

On the Beach, la manière de DCH
(one of my favorite pics)

Begetting the Sun

2006-01-29T09:32:00.000+05:30

Chandipur, Feb 2005

The Bollywood Musings

2006-01-29T01:47:00.000+05:30

2005 should be rightfully termed as the year of Indian Cinema. The kind of transformation amongst the acceptance of movies with emphasis on original scripts and talented acting is alleviating. The entire assortment of movies released this year includes big banner movies like BLACK and Sarkar,small budget films like Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi, Iqbal, Page 3 and movies based on literature and folk stories like Parineeta and Paheli. The striking feature here being, none of these movies is a love story, a family drama , an action flick, a paki-basher or a lame screen by screen copy of a hollywood script. For once it can be safely said that the Bollywood is catching up with its western counterpart, and not in terms of Box-Office revenues, but for the sheer quality of cinema.

I really doubt if there would be any other actor anywhere in the world who has a fandom as huge as Amitabh Bachchan. Calling him a genius, would be an under-statement. And with performances like BLACK, Sarkar and Viruddh under his belt, he is in no mood to reduce his standards. Even chotta bachchan(Abhishek) is rearing to live up to the family name. Abhishek Bachchan has grown as an actor and shown equal ease in portraying roles from Bunty to Shankar Nagre. By the end of the year Amitabh Bachchan confronted a real-life ‘Sarkar-like’ treatment, when he went in for a surgery at Leelavati Hospital. All ended well for the first family of Indian Cinema when he came out of the hospital and waved to all his eagerly awaiting fans and the press.

Once again, Rani Mukherjee proved that she is not in the film industry to do just sob stories and family dramas. Her portrayal of a deaf and blind girl in BLACK would be considered as a yardstick for performances by actresses in Bollywood. Another actress who glistened under the aura of Rani Mukherjee was newcomer Vidya Balan. Ten years ago she had made her way through the small screen in ‘Hum Paanch’. But she had to climb the hard way, doing TV commercials, music videos (Euphoria’s Gully) etc. That’s the price you pay for not having a famous actor for a father. Other mentionable performances have been by Chitrangada Singh for Hazaaron Khwahishein.. and Minissha Lamba for Yahaan.

With the advent of the ‘multiplex-movie’ culture, independent directors are finding it easier to suit their budgets and provide the audience with quality cinema rather than providing stereotyped entertainment. Film making is slowly becoming more of an Art than Business. Bigshots in the industry like Subhash Ghai are willing to take chances with independent filmmakers (Nagesh Kukunoor) to produce excellent films like Iqbal.

There has been a silent upsurge in the bollywood music industry too. Gone are the days with the typical ‘dil-dhadkan-pyar-ishq-mohabbat’ lyrics of Sameer. A new face amongst the lyricsists is Swanand Kirkire, who wrote the words for Parineeta and Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi. The legendary Gulzar Sahab gets better with age, this year penning down for Yahaan and Paheli. The new blood amongst the Music Directors, suchlike M.M. Kreem and Shantanu Moitra have swept aside the ‘inspired’ numbers by Anu Mallik. There was a time when the nominations for best female playback singer would be flooded with songs by Alka Yagnik and Kavita Krishnamurthy. But with the advent of new talents like Shreya Ghoshal and Sunidhi Chauhan, Alka Yagnik is left with just presenting the awards. Same is the case with a swarm of male singers Atif, Adnan Sami and Himesh Reshammiya.

Practically, the New Generation Bollywood film industry can be described as a three legged stool, where the first leg would be the originality of the scripts, the second being the next generation actors/actresses, musicians and technichians… and the third being Amitabh Bachchan.

My Old Man's Musings

2006-01-29T01:46:00.000+05:30

Tell me one son who doesn’t have issues with his Dad. And there isn’t a single day when the father wishes his son could be a little different, maybe not totally like him, but a little more inclined to the things the way he does them. My Old man isn’t any different.

He is the one who wouldn’t let me have the bike I always wanted, at least not when I asked for it. He is the one who would not care if I got an A+ in Art, as much as he would bother about Math or Science. He is the one who would make me finish the most stupid household chore when my friends would be waiting for me on the ground. He is the one who wouldn’t let me listen to music aloud when I am studying. He is the one who wouldn’t let me take the car out but make me wash it every week. He is the one who doesn’t give me the 10 bucks I asked for buying a ball. He is the one who didn’t let me watch the movie that all my friends saw on the first day. He is the one who made me stand in the long queues of all the banks and made me pay all the bills. He is the one who I am the most scared to face when I know I did something wrong. In principle, I am supposed to feel like the most unfortunate son alive. But I don’t.

Maybe it’s because he taught me that something yearned for long, is a million times more precious than a temporary obsession. Maybe it’s because more than half the mistakes I ever did are because I didn’t follow his advice. Maybe it’s because when I failed in math his silence made me more ashamed than any words could ever have. Maybe this is because he was the one who, at 50, came half way down the country nursing a high fever just to meet his son studying in college. Maybe this is because I saw his eyes moisten a bit when he left me at the hostel gate the first time he came to drop me at college. Maybe it’s because, when I was a toddler, he took me on his shoulders and walked 2 miles in the middle of nowhere, looking for a doctor, as I wouldn’t stop wailing. Maybe it is because he didn’t bat an eyelid while booking my 50k plane ticket to Chicago even though I had seen him wear that same shirt for god knows how long. Maybe it’s because I consider him a big reason for the man that I am today. Maybe it’s because of something I think I would realize when I become a father myself one day, that, ‘He did the best of everything that he could afford. He could have done a lot worse’.

The Gujarat Musings

2006-01-29T01:44:00.000+05:30

The Concerned Citizens' Tribunal Report states - "A gruesome episode in the afternoon (September 20, 1969) brings out the depth of animosity against the Muslims. A young Muslim, enraged by the destruction of his property said he would take revenge. Upon this the crowd seized him, showered blows on him, and tried to force him to shout Jai Jagannath. Staying firm, the youth refused even if that meant death. To this, someone in the crowd responded that he might indeed be done away with. Wood from broken shops was collected, a pyre prepared in the middle of the road, petrol sprinkled on the pyre as well as on the youth, and he was set alight with ruthless efficiency. What is remarkable is that there was no resistance from any Hindu. The wails of the Muslim inhabitants of the area were drowned in the celebration of the incident by the Hindus".
Circa March 2002.
12, 000 rounds of bullets fired. Almost a thousand houses and shops set on fire. Official figures state 1044 dead. 790 Muslims. 254 Hindus. You know why? Coz the bullet doesn’t know any religion. It just kills. Hate just kills.
This is the account for the blood in the Godhra riots that we conveniently ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ reading in the newspapers sipping hot tea on a beautiful March morning.

The very grounds of Gujarat once saw their Hindu and Muslim ancestors walking down the Daandi lanes hand in hand breathing down the air of nationalism. Little did they know that they were giving birth to a country so messed up in its own communal strands that its enemies don’t even need soldiers to kill this country from inside, just a little wangling from the tampered-Quran or Geeta and the required weapons. The ammunition is already here. Apparently, it’s become easier to convince the youth to fight for their religion than for their country. It doesn’t end here. Communal riots are cynically used as a platform for political propaganda. The judicial system is so badly crippled that even the most incontrovertible evidence cannot put the ones responsible for creating this communal holocaust behind bars.

Popular word goes, along with statements made and denied to the press, that the Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi had fuelled the Post-Godhra riots without investigating even the cause of fire in the S-6 coach of Sabarmati Express. This became clear when; A B Vajpayee’s made the statement post-Godhra, “Lekin aag lagayi kisne? (Who lit the fire?).” Surprisingly though, the question still remains unanswered. Even though the entire nation’s press had derided Narendra Modi’s ideology he was gaining immense popularity within the Hindutva brackets in Gujarat. There was this choice BJP had to make between, what’s right and what’s popular. As any other party in the country today, it chose the latter.

Gujarat provides a chilling account of how rights of citizens, especially minorities, can be violated with political sanction. The lessons learnt from Godhra need to be understood by the public, coz otherwise we are waiting for another Gujarat to explode somewhere.

For all I can say to the religionist fanaticism:-“Hate is baggage; life is too short to be pissed off all the time, its just not worth it”. – Danny Vinyard, American History X .

The L.A.D Musings

2006-01-29T01:39:00.001+05:30

Imagine a guy standing and about 70 girls staring at him. The only three possibilities are :

-- he was dreaming

-- he was naked

-- he was standing in L.A.D

L.A.D is Lady Amritbai Daga college for women. Nagpur's so called 'Hot-Spot'.

When i drove down to pay my sister's fees, all i cared was this would be over in 10 mins.But i almost screamed when i saw the line. This was a fuckin freakshow.

Two longs lines with 35 girls in each and i had no idea which one to try.A girl told me i would have to stand in one line first and then the second.

Its like being in a zoo here. And I am exhibit '1A'. I feel like a white woman being chased by half clad kids in rural india. Its soo funny that the one thing i realised from this was how girls felt like in an IIT registration.

I feel really stupid for asking this girl for the pen ..... and now she is staring .. .to get a glimpse of what im writing on a small parchment cushioned on my wallet.

This is a funny place to be... for instance this is the first college i have seen where they were selling some embrioded stuff in a small stall. duhhh ??You will see all kinda cups n cuts here. And each one of them will greet you with a high-pitched "Hiiiiiii" which sounds as fake as a porn queen's climax.Two guys work in the principal's desk... one of them is totally gay ... and the other considers his job to be the best any guy could ask for in nagpur .. Even though at snail pace i got to the front of this line.

The lady on the counter stared at me .. giving me a detestable look. As if i came here to just drool at the girls. Believe me .. i'd rather turn gay than stoop to levels like coming to LAD and checking out girls . No offense to women in LAD, but just that im not that kinda guy.As unbelievable as it may sound, i have to stand in another line with 35 more girls.

The next 15 minutes were quite uneventful. Two more minutes are left for the counter to close and there are still around 15 girls in front of me and another 15 behind me.

"Hello .. suniye zaaraa", the man on the counter called out. i looked behind me .

"Haan aap ko hi bulaa raha hun... blue shirt", once i was sure i was the only one with a blue shirt in his line of vision i went ahead. After all this i didnt want to be laughed(read giggled) upon by all these girls.

To my utter surprise he asked me to pay the fee amount. i paid the fee amount and left the college premises making sure that i contain the laughter bubbling inside me and also trying my best that my eyes didnt meet a single girls'.

I dont know why the guy called me to the front of the line.

Maybe there was a rule about a seperate line for outsiders that these girls conviniently forgot to tell me.

Maybe coz he thought he could let me out of the misery. Maybe coz he thought he could make the girls feel for one second, how the guys feel whether it be the line in a cinema hall or be it the line for the electricity bill.

... i really dont care.

The 'Adolscence' Musings

2006-01-28T10:51:00.000+05:30

February 2, 2002. 1 am.

I am pissed. Hell ya i am.
But i dont know why am i so pissed. I have been very angry off late.
Maybe im angry on amma, coz she never stops nagging.
She still thinks im a kid. ..... I am not.

Or maybe im pissed coz acchan doesnt consider me responsible enough. He thinks the only thing important in life is to study and get good marks.
im pissed coz everyone has soo many expectations from me. im pissed coz when all my friends went on to see that movie, i didnt have the courage to ask my parents if i could.
But mostly i think im pissed on myself. I havent done well in the last tests. I have laxed a lot in the last few weeks. I turn 17 next week, and there is not going to be a celebration. I guess, im pissed to stay in a race where noone is a friend - everyone is a competitor, who you would eventually step onto to reach at the top.
Im pissed coz i have had to sacrifice everything for this, i dont know i will win or lose. I think im a little scared and Im also too proud to tell anyone about it. Im scared to lose.
I had to move away from my friends, my 'group'. I really feel jealous when i see them enjoying these days.
But there is this stupid something at the back of my head that reminds me .. " The more painful the journey, the sweeter the prize ".

I am standing here, in my fortress of solitude, 150 feet above ground. over the water tank.
Noone can bother me here. Noone can touch me.
I look up onto the moonless sky, ans as the city lights fade away into the night.. i see the stars ..
..reall bright.

i guess this song means ... right for this day. its by sum41 - in too deep.

The faster we're falling,
We're stopping and stalling.
We're running in circles again
Just as things we're looking up
You said it wasn't good enough.
But still we're trying one more time.

Maybe we're just trying to hard.
When really it's closer than it is too far
Cause I'm in too deep, and I'm trying to keep afloat,
All the thoughts in my head, instead of going under.

The Kid's Musings

2006-01-28T10:42:00.000+05:30

Im looking outside the window.
I see a bus, maybe two. Kids playing.There is a pencil on my table, scribbling mindless mumbo-jumbo.The table is old, my chair is jittery. But i have no reason to cry. i generally dont, but i still do.
Im sitting with 40 other people. Im 12 years old.
Last week i read the political news for the first time. It isnt that bad, actually. There is a war going on. Many people have been dying.
Do people really go to heaven after they die? Or are they reborn?i dont know. i really dont care. For all i care, my vacations are starting tommorow and this is the last period of the day.
Amma said she will make 'unni-appam' this time.
This time im gonna play all day, if it doesnt rain.. that is.
Last week i had a big fight with him, after the match. But now its all OK. He says i should tell her. What does he know. i mean .. what if she says No. But she surely is very pretty.

This has been a loong day. Days are lesser fun when there is no 'PT' periods.
It has been long since i drew... @#$!blah!@$&*$@@blah$%^$@!!blah#%^&%.

..................... and the mind moves like a bloodhound searching for something .. dont know what ..but still searching.If there is something i could do different today, it would be to turn back time and be 12 again. Just once, just for sometime.
Just to feel how 'big things' in life seemed soo irrelevant.. so petite..
Just to feel how it is like to accept what is told .. and not question everything .
Just to feel how it is like to do something stupid .. and get away with it.
Just to feel how the innocence is ripped out in this preposterous rat-race
.....Just to feel how it is like to be 12 again.

My vacations start tommorow. And i know i dont feel like i used to. But this is the price i paid. To be what i am today. I guess everything comes at a price.

I just think i overpaid.