Life As I Know It

I wanted to dedicate a post to Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. Sachin Tendulkar, the one individual who brought an entire country together for his last match. What a beautiful farewell he got and how much more inspiring his speech was. How marvelous a journey the man had led from his first interview giving monosyllable answers to an entire speech on the last day of his game. Talk about being moved. Amidst all this frenzy over Sachin retiring there was one section of the Country that believed that the fanfare was too much and that he didn’t deserve it and that everything was just a bit too much. They argued that the country had more pressing matters to take care of. That he was just another sportsman… yada yada… AND all I could think was…. WHAT A LEGEND! I mean to be the best at what you love to do - not just in your family, or your district, or your State, or your Country, or your Continent but to be the best in whole entire world… THAT that that is just mind blowing!!!!! F...

"In journalism, there has always been a tension between getting it first and getting it right." Dear Journalists and police, IF( and this is a very big if) after what you Did: Crowding the court halls causing commotion without letting advocates represent their cases and then started foul mouthing the advocates. Resorted to blows. Threw around the court furniture. Man handled innocent advocates. Abused a judge. Burnt vehicles belonging to advocates and judges and you still have the gall to label lawyers as “Black Coat Bullies”? If the lawyers were actually how you have portrayed them in your papers and channels then the lawyers would have had no qualms about trashing every news room in the state. Portrayed a sad story of media persons being beaten black and blue by advocates. Airing half truths and only a part of the commotion that took place without investigating into the matter completely and branding advocates as goondas/hooligans/bullies. Only to find out af...

R.I.P IPL until the ghosts surface next season. Last night was such tragedy. You would think some major catastrophe hit us earthlings when RCB was defeated by MI. It WAS a catastrophe. It took excess will power not to put up status messages either cheering for RCB or jeering the team they were up against so as not to jinx the match. But, well… it happened and now it is over. Sadness. Seriously for the guy who wrote ‘The Great Indian Novel’, Mr. Tharoor couldn’t you have come up with a better defense than playing the sympathy card? I hate to admit it but I actually respected you even though you belonged to the ‘other’ party. Now I know for a fact that even the smartest most educated politician is not immune to Vitamin M*. [ Not that I am claiming you are the smartest or the most educated politician we have.] Where is the President? What is she doing? Does anyone know she exists? [These 3 questions have no relevance to this post, I am merely wondering. Can I have her...

The road that leads to the colony I live in was a very muddy road. The road wasn’t level nor did a tar road plan materialize till a month back. Plan came and was immediately executed. It is such a pleasure to ride on that road now. No more fear of ever skidding on the post rain quick sandish road ever. I don’t use the horn often [Never], but recently while riding on the busiest and most accident prone road I was pressing the horn in vain. It had died a silent death. Probably because it wasn't often used or because I left my vehicle under the rain one terrible day and hence there might be some trouble with the wiring. I used to think that the kick start was like a vestigial organ because when you have the automatic start what use could the kick start be of? I discovered that as well. Rains can really make you rediscover the various utilities of your vehicle. The parliament was debating about a TV show. The TV show in this case is the desi version of Moment of truth. I decid...

Part1 When in school I had learnt a story on unity. An old man had four sons who did not get along. The old man did not want to see his fields divided. His only wish was for his family to stay together. So he calls his sons and gives them a stick each and asks them to break it. Each one obeys and breaks them. He then takes four more sticks and hands all to his eldest son and asks him to break all four at once. The eldest son fails so do the other three. The moral of the story is that if we stick together and remain united nobody can destroy us. What are the lacunae in this story? 1. If all four had placed the four sticks on a wedge which would act as a liver with two men on either side putting all their weight on either sides you would have 2 bundles of nicely cut sticks. 2. It is true that one person cannot break a group. But if the number were even on both sides I am guessing there would be a decent fight. 3. Honestly which sane "individual" would go attack a grou...

Obviously the two don’t go together. Sex forever has been a taboo, any law which even has the word in it is turned down. [God forbid one might be tempted into unscrupulous behavior which is a no no in India.] People won’t even allow schools to bring in sex education as a part of the syllabus because the parents/politicians/ jobless junta/politicians all feel that by bringing this Act into force is a free pass to introduce porn in schools. [Ha!!!] So it’s ok if teenagers have sex, experiment, not use protection, get pregnant, go to shady places for abortions – because that’s what is happening. The country is better off by not educating them, so allow them to figure things out for themselves. And the wise junta is still figuring out why? AIDS is rampant. [Go figure!] *Sex is against our culture*. So how did you get here? By a miracle? Gah!!!! Kamasutra? Remember the god of desire? Ok for all the faint hearted old politicians who stare at a woman's chest thinking it’s their birth rig...

I voted yesterday. My first time voting experience at the Lok Sabha elections. After voting I had to get home and switch on the news channels to check how the third phase was faring in Mumbai. After all the uproar post 26.11.2008, I had expected Mumbai to have the largest turn out but ha! was I wrong! Only 50% turn out from the city that screeched and pelted expletives at all political parties. Mumbaikars were the ones screeching BLOOD! After the Taj fiasco, people came on the streets saying that the government is this the Government is that . The youth went out in the scorching heat to form human chains to display solidarity-“oneness”. [All of this happened in November -December] We are now in May. 1, 09. I’d say the anger has fizzled out, people couldn’t careless till another blast happens. The media started debating about why ? There was such a low turn out. The youth and people stated that it was just too hot to step outside their house to go and vote. Ah …ok I get it. It’s too hot...

“But why?” is a question I constantly seemed to ask people when I was a child. There was this Sports Shoe Shop in our neighbor hood and everybody knew the owner, he was dumb and deaf, yet he never seemed to have any problem communicating with any of us. In 1992-93 things changed. The change was apparent, some people stopped talking to this man and others maintained cordial civilities expected of them. This was a very strange experience because noticeably the neighborhood which once used to boast of being very cosmopolitan was suddenly divided. Babri Masjid was demolished on 6.12.1992 and all hell broke loose. Curfew was declared, violence continued, schools were closed, people feared venturing out of their houses. During one of these days while walking on the streets with my mother I saw that the shoe shop was not there any more, it was burnt down. Why? Because the owner was a Muslim. Who burnt it down? Hindus. But am I not a Hindu? Are Hindus bad? My parents fortunately don’t harbor c...

Sigur Ros is an amazing band. My brother got me to listen to them. Hoppipolla is my favorite track as of now. I have 7 reports to submit. I don’t think I’ll be doing it till the last minute because the last minute rush of getting everything done and actually completing is more satisfying than having worked on each report individually treating each one as the most precious creation on the planet. Plus I am at my best when my head is totally muddled. Finding clarity in chaotic situations is far more rewarding than analyzing each word without making any progress. That is probably because when one has more time one becomes overly analytical putting even the most insignificant of things under the microscope and analyzing the same as if trying to find some hidden meaning. Where as last minute work usually gets me to attack all the necessary points and come up with decent arguments. The lack of time probably helps one notice the most important things. Ah to each his own I guess. The electi...

Last night I was watching TV till 11 pm. I then decided to browse for a while and then decided to watch some more TV and then browsed again. Watched Power puff Girls, Courage the cowardly dog, Shark and Criminal Minds. When I finally went to sleep it was 5 am. Woke up this morning at 9 am. Watched more TV and had breakfast (It’s something I do may be twice or thrice a year) The papers had more reports on the Mumbai happenings. The public has the same hysteria one saw soon after RDB was released. Looks like the youth is fired up to probably to pull a RDB on some of our politicians especially with all the updates about the government being warned of the impending assault on our financial capital. I’m sure the Congress party is having a hard time using 'brave officer' and 'Hemant Karkare' in the same sentence. Raj Thackrey is nowhere to be seen or heard. Hmmm… I wonder if the commandos got his tongue? The last page of the right hand corner of the Hindu talks about a totall...