14 years of work-ex

I will complete 14 years of working on 1st July. Non stop, no breaks in the middle and still no end in sight...

Ram's vanvas ended in 14 years and a life term sentence also completes in 14 years.

Driving to/from work in Bangalore

I started driving again to/from work. Key takeaways:

1. The traffic in Bangalore is exactly as chaotic as it is made out to be. People do not think while driving...
2. Driving in a car protects you from the evening rain.
3. It is a major fun to splish splosh the car in the next lane
4. Kishore Kumar is still THE BEST.
5. Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Kay Kay and Abhijeet could come close, but there are some limitations.

It is important to choose a time to commute. Starting from home before 8:15 AM is necessary and leaving around 5:00 PM is absolutely essential.

Tuesday superstition

I need to find out the root cause behind the Tuesday superstition in South India - essentially no one starts any work on a Tuesday. Someone needs to tell Microsoft though - they are unveiling the next update of Windows Phone 7.x on a Tuesday :-)

Return of the blogger

After spending too much time on Facebook, almost to the tune of an hour daily, I have decided to give it a rest and return to the platform I love the most - blogging. This again needs to become my favourite pass time.

As I see it, the 140 character limit on twitter and few character limit on Facebook does not allow me to express my literary skills :-) to the fullest. I am fed up of trying to create one liners just to keep the humour going. I will now start blogging again - few blogs a week here and more on my astrology page. I am planning to start investing some serious time on Astrology blog as well.

Prestige Shantiniketan News Site

Since I am a part of Shantiniketan family, I am proud to be associated with the website. This is the site - Prestige Shantiniketan and associate blog Prestige Shantiniketan News.

In coming days I wish to start blogging for this site as well, apart from posting just news. Facebook is denting my creativity by making me think of one liners for status updates... I need to get back to some serious blogging both here, on PSN site as well as on the Astrology site

Hooray, I was a sitting duck !

I went to watch the Mumbai-Bangalore IPL match and heard one of the blasts at around 3 PM. Did not understand what it was - it never crossed my mind that it could be an act of terrorism and I was so close to the epicenter of the blast :-) It was only after they started flashing a message about the match being delayed, did people started talking about bombs.
I will be very honest, at no point was I scared. Ticketgenie.in (the online ticket site where I purchase the tickets) had earlier lost my tickets in courier. When I confronted them, they gave me Rs49/- tickets (the guest pass to pavilion). Now the issue was what if the match gets canceled, what refund would the organizers give me :-) This was the only thought that crossed my mind, apart from the fact that I would not be able to see Sachin Tendulkar play... Basically, my brother put it succinctly - "haath to aaya, par muh na laga", roughly translated as "I had (food) in my hand, but could not eat it".
But the match happened - and it was a good match. I shamelessly cheered Sachin's team, much to the chagrin of my fellow Bengalureans, but I did not care. After all, Mumbai's team is called Indians and I am an Indian first and a Challenger later. The only thing I was pissed about is Bangalore's fielding and that they chose to hold on to Tendulkar's catch alone.

Mile Sur Mera Tumhara

In tune with, pun intended of course, with my current state of mind of cribbing against anything substandard, I would like to trash the new “mile sur mera tumhara” video that is being telecast now on television. This reincarnation essentially belongs to the same category of Karzzz and Sholey (RGV ki Aag) and brings out the following points:

1. The population of India has grown a lot in last 20 years and hence all these additional hero/heroines from Bollywood needed to be accommodated.
2. The egos of these people are inflated and all of them wanted separate screen space for themselves.
3. Shah Rukh Khan misunderstood the meaning of phrase - “passion towards one’s own country” and portrayed the same expression in this video as he did in “Suraj hua maddham”.
4. Salman Khan had to compromise with a vest because he was not allowed to take off his shirt.

Let put an end to sequels and remakes…

This is a test

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Aman ki Asha

From my office, I can see a huge billboard displaying an advertisement for “Aman ki Asha”, a joint program by Times of India and Jang Group, Pakistan for peace in the Indian Subcontinent. It is supposed to be a people-to-people initiative type of confidence building measure between the two countries and any such programme should be encouraged. Everything about this initiative is in right spirits.

However, as a common man of India, I do not feel connected with this initiative. For me, this is just another full page advertisement in TOI, very much like the Mercedes-Benz ad that came last week. The objects of both these ads remain unachievable for me. I don’t know about Pakistan, but in India TOI has roped Amitabh Bachchan to represent the Indian face. Somehow I am reminded of the other campaign Mr. Bachchan was part of - “UP me dum hai, kyonki jurm yahan kam hai”.

If they were really serious about it, why not get the man from street in Bangalore, Mumbai, or Karachi and ask him to act in such commercials? Why not have reruns of Dhoop Kinare or Bakra Kiston Par on Zoom?

Call me cynical, but this too will fizzle out in a few days and in no time TOI and its sister channel Times Now will be back to their jingoistic campaign against the Government, ISI, the Army and all the related institutions in Pakistan. I am sure Jang will resort to the same cheap tricks on the other side of the border.

Multiple Idiots

For the new year, we treated ourselves with a Hindi movie in a cinema hall after 1.5 years. We went to see “3 Idiots”, which turned out a treat to watch. It is an excellent movie with almost no loose ends.

When I came home in the evening, I figured that this really is a story of multiple Idiots. There was a full spat on television. The producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra got offended on a question regarding sharing of credits with the writer of Five Point Someone, Chetan Bhagat and asked a journalist to “shut up”. With such dirty laundry being washed in public, I felt like the first Idiot who went and paid for this movie. I should have just waited for the DVD to come out.

The second Idiot is Raju Hirani. Raju, if you really lifted the “setting, characters, plotline, dramatic twists, one liners, message – almost all aspects” from “Five Point Someone”, give due credit. I am a blogger who writes on Astrology and hates it when people copy passages from my astrology articles and post on the web as their own. Chetan is at least the author of this book and deserves something better. Even when I copied assignments and xerox’ed others’ notes at IIT, there was an implicit, heartfelt gratitude - “tu God hai, boss…”.

The third set of Idiots is the pair of Aamir and Vinod Chopra. Guys, shut you mouth and let Chetan make some noise. Your opinion has even less weight than mine. I actually paid money to watch this movie.

Lastly, in my very humble opinion, Chetan Bhagat is also a pretty big Idiot. Dude, lets face it… your novel is not a work of literary genius. It is a five pointer story through and through. I did not feel either happy or excited or surprised while reading it. There was nothing that I already did not know. My first reaction was of indifference and felt I would have had much more fun during a cack session with my wingies.

Raju and Abhijat took this five point something story and modified it to score a nine point something, making it a rare case of a movie being better than the novel. The best elements that make this movie a pleasure to watch are not present in Chetan’s book, however fantastic they may sound. Whether it is a moron pissing on a spoon/light bulb or the “aal is well delivery” happening in a hostel mess, it comes from the mind of these two writers. Chetan’s book does not have the irony of an inventor being discovered dead using his own invention. There is no Sept 5 and Laddakh angle in this story. Chetan’s heroine is nowhere as charming as Kareena.

Someone might argue that such characterization is not possible in novels – to which I would like to politely direct to the Harry Potter series (which score a perfect 10, btw). My suggestion to Chetan is to only ask for as much credit as the book really deserves. Also, I would like to ask everyone to remember the fate of the other movie “Hello” based on the other novel “One night at the call center”.

If “3 Idiots” is a big hit, it is not because of 5.someone’s plotline, but because of the treatment it got from the writer/director. They could have as well walked into any IIT, interviewed a couple of hostellites and got the plots from there. Chetan’s book was successful, no doubt, but what really matters is excellence and success naturally follows excellence, jhakh mar ke.

Life is like ad only - II

Why I want a girl child...

Daughter behaves the right way. Firstly, she has the right dreams, then she studies well and then buys a car for her dad.

Son does this... the pest first wants his father to plan for his future and then goes on a car buying spree. Look how the pest treats his grandfather.

ps: I have a son.

Life is like ad only - I

Life of a poor, typical software engineer:

(1) Does not know how to deal with girls.


(2) Cannot think of anything other than his place of work.


(3) No scope of girlfriends, therefore pakka arrange marriage.

Apples and Oranges

Media in this country has a habit of comparing apples to oranges and declare themselves intelligent in doing so. One more example is this news story - Rumours about Twenty20 cricket killing the one-day game may have been a bit exaggerated.

Ms. Author, can you at least tell us if you did any other research than just comparing TRPs? The IPL relied on "in your face" marketing to succeed, much like the crap movie Om Shanti Om. People watched Champions Trophy due to patriotic reasons. Poor fellows at Champions League had no such weapon in their arsenal, demonstrated by the fact that they still have intelligent folks like Harsha Bhogle and Sunil Gavaskar doing the commentary, and not Mandira Bedi.

The Champions League also comes after a long cricketing season. There is a factor called fatigue and law of diminishing returns.

If only our journalists had more than just a degree from college...

Nobel prize for what?

The intention behind the Swedes sucking up to the US for is everything but noble. There is otherwise no reason to give the Peace prize to Obama. The guy has been in office for just about 8 months, has not done anything other than make speeches and still has a long way to go in really making a difference to this world. Giving Obama all the benefit of doubt in the world, the award committee should have waited at least till his last year of Presidency.

In the current circumstances, a US president should be a peace award only if he/she manages to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and get rid of at least Pakistan's nuclear proliferation if not the whole worlds...

Water on moon?

There is some speculation about Chandrayaan finding water on moon. Does the news media really believe that is possible? People should think about all the other NASA and Russian satellites that have been roaming around that area did not do anything till now and this kal ka chhokra chandrayaan comes and discovers water !! To kya woh amereeki aur roosi satellites jhakh mar rahe the?

Two new items in TOI answer this question for us beautifully... Did chandrayaan find water on Moon's surface? and Chandrayaan-1 was 'killed' by heat stroke.

Therefore my detective mind reconstructed the truth like this - when Chandrayaan-1 was dying from the heat stroke, it wished for water on Moon's surface and would have imagined it during the process. This imagery made scientists believe that there is really water there :-)

Up for grabs

With the credibility of BJP reaching rock bottom, I think I am seriously reconsidering voting for them in the next elections. Congress suddenly looks so much better. It is a bitter pill to swallow, but my vote is up for grabs...

Sanatana Dharma

Moved to the planetarypositions website - Sanatana Dharma...

62 years of bhashan-baji

On the morning of 15th August, I did not even wake up till 8:00 AM since the gym was closed. My son also slept beatifically. My wife did not switch on the television as she made a quiet cup of tea for herself. We essentially missed the bhashan given by the Prime Minister at the Red Fort. When I woke up, I felt sorry for the old man who had to get up so early in the morning, reach Red Fort and give a speech who almost no one wants to listen. The group of people and dressed up children were there only because of an official dictat.

At about 9:00 AM, the breaking news was that SRK was detained at Newark's airport because he has a Muslim surname. In fact, on CNN-IBN, the order of headlines was (1) SRK's detention, (2) Bombing in Kabul and at a distant 3rd place - the PM's speech. Even the TV channels had other important things to show.

Which brings us to an important question - why do we keep up with these age old practices and unnecessary rituals in name of democracy? If the PM really wants to address the nation, he can surely use 15 mins of his time each week and talk to people on radio and television. What kind of status update can he provide to us once a year from 15th August? In our country where food prices go up every week, does just once a year of communication make sense? If it does not, lets put an end to this bhashan-baji. It will save us from a ritual and save 100s of crores of tax payers' money in organizing such events. Every year, what do we get by displaying the military hardware? Is it meant for us or for China and Pakistan? It looks ridiculous when we put the display against the backdrop of delays in defence equipment procurement, CAG rapping the whole Gorshkov deal and frequency of aircraft crashes.

PS: I think SRK created this whole drama and episode at Newark Airport just to get publicity for his next film - "My name is Khan"... Sorry Shahrukh Bhai, I really don't trust you. I think you are very much capable of such stunts :-)

Anti Doping

Everyone is aware of a the dialog between BCCI and WADA - World Anti Doping Agency with ICC in the middle. The whole dialog can be summed up as:

ICC: Kya hua, tera wada? Woh kasam, woh irada?

BCCI (while saying yes): Wada raha sanam...

WADA (while doing the policing): Jo wada kiya woh nibhana padega...

But the players are essentially bewafas, in no mood to comply. I fully support them because I feel that they are correct about all their objections against various clauses. The arguments are pretty convincing:

1. I am not addicted to cigarettes - otherwise I would have already appeared in ads for Nicorett by now.
2. I am not addicted to crack/cocaine otherwise it would have already come out in open.
3. While at home, why should I remain away from the cheap stuff available in outskirts of Delhi, Chandigarh or Ranchi? You just tell me 2 days in advance and I will stop.
4. Once in a while I go to exotic places for vacation... the local economy needs to be supported.
5. I can't tell you where I am going for vacation, otherwise photographers will start following me. If I don't ever take a vacation, that too is bad for my image.
6. Finally, I don't do performance enhancing drugs otherwise Team BCCI would not have lost so badly in T20 World Cup.

Team BCCI, we are with you on this one. No one can tell you what or where you can or cannot smoke.

Selling India's Poverty?

The charges against ISKCON Bangalore that they are trying to sell India's poverty abroad are ridiculous. If that is really the case, the following people should be immediately put behind bars.

(1) Arundhati Roy

(2) Aravind Adiga

(3) Salman Rushdie

(4) Danny Boyle

Futher, Arundhati Roy and Aravind Adiga should be declared as traitors and charged for treason. The other two folks should be treated in the same way as Ajmal Kasab and tried for waging war against India.