Windmills of Your Mind

A new survey claims that if you store any information in your cell phone, you will forget it!

This whole cell phone boom is ensuring that an entire generation of people become bad at memorizing things. Putting details on your cell phone means that you will forget phone numbers and struggle to recall birthdays. I agree that people just don't remember anything anymore but is it that bad? The fact that everyone has a phone these days, all the numbers are on the other side of ten digits and almost everyone I know has two phone, then landlines will surely make it a little difficult to remember details.

How many phone numbers do I remember? OK, let's see ...five...six...ten...hmm not bad.....sixteen...oh hold that's eighteen...yes...of course she has three phone so that makes it twenty one...well I can safely say that I can recall thirty phone numbers off the cuff.

Is that really bad?

I'm of the opinion that bad memory ensures a good life but that can be taken out of context here. I think it's the other details that we are not good at memorizing. Mostly I come across people who need to be reminded about trivial things as landing up for appointments at the scheduled time which as a matter of fact was decided three days ago; I, at times, have to remind people to send some mail or stuff that they have been threatening to do but never get around; some times they do things at the exact time we need them to do but only that they are late by weeks or months. More often than not I remind people to pay up!

I had no clue that I was a victim of this not being able to memorize numbers thingy. A few days ago someone from my bank came to get a couple of forms filled and asked for my land line number. I had no clue what he was asking about.

What did I do?

Scanned my cell phone's contact list. If that wasn't enough, the other day I met an old friend; we go back a long way...almost 24 years. Our fathers were officers in the same regiment. She told me that her father, who had lost touch with mine, wanted my father's cell phone number. She was more than a little surprised when I had to refer to my lifesaving phone book on the cell to fish out my father's phone number.

The funny thing about memory is that the stupid games it plays with you...nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on it's face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind
-Windmills of Your Mind

(Alan, Marilyn Bergman and Michel Legrand)

Talk to Her...

And you thought complimenting a woman was all that it took?

A recent survey has concluded some thing that even a new born baby (boy, of course) knew all the while- 89% loved to complimented every now and then. While this isn't surprising, the survey did throw up some new stats- 67% of women don't like it when someone other than their partner compliments them.

Didn't you just flashback to recall the last time you complimented your woman/partner and made her happy? Good Boy! Now consider this- 65% of women actually believe that there ain't no such thing as an innocent compliment! A brave journalist tried testing the numbers; he randomly started paying compliments to unknown women and most of the weren't too kicked. No wonder men are afraid to compliment freely. I really can't blame them; try complimenting someone when she could just complain and you could be charged with sexual harassment!

This new evidence just makes things tougher for a lot of men I know. Some of them believe that complimenting could be the beginning of a very beautiful friendship. They consider it to be art and usually take it very seriously. Christine Webber, a relationship expert, believes that though it may seem somewhat frivolous, a compliment is in fact a vital ingredient for well-being. The trick, of course, lies in the balance- a compliment should make the receiver feel good about themselves, rather than coming over as smarmy or, worse, a bit lecherous. She recommends 5 daily compliments because they oil the machinery of all relationships: in romance, the family, the workplace.

What is it with women and compliments?

So they like them but would love it more if someone they knew complimented them more often? Wouldn't it make things so much simpler for them if a new crush just decides to drop the C-Bomb? Or is it that they'd like their partners to repeatedly compliment on some thing in particular? Or would they prefer if the partner discovered something new to compliment every day....OK every third day, perhaps. Hey that's a healthy ratio. Or is it that women like to work hard for compliments for otherwise why'd partners, who are notorious for being lackadaisical after a point, go to uncharted terrains to compliment something new? Where does this survey place answers to trick questions (do I look fat in this outfit?) that more often than not pass off as compliments but play otherwise on closer inspection?

The funny thing is that a French Wine company conducted this survey. Damn French! I couldn't figure out what is it with French men and women? Many women say that French really know how to speak to a woman- well if that accent can make something as stupid as what's your name, sound exotic then I'm sure anyone can be charming! The good thing about the survey is that they just asked a 1000 women and that too in UK. High Five, Dude!

The bad thing is that if men can be the 'same' are women the same as well?

Click to enlarge

Image Courtesy: geekculture.com

What if....?

No matter what you do there is some who is better than you.

What do you do in that case?

You feel sad, you ponder, you probe, you question, you debate and finally reach this conclusion that what you are doing is better than the others and that's because you have a life. You have some one special to go home to. You have interesting friends who'd stand by you no matter what. You have amassed experiences that your contemporaries ignored. You have everything that your seemingly better off (professionally speaking) friends don't have....

What if what you are doing is the purpose of your life...?

Maybe you enjoy the journey and don't worry so much about the destination. What if life, in reality, is how you look at it? What if life really is more about enjoying personal pursuits rather than competitiveness? Most importantly, what if you have no reason to do what you are doing except that you are enjoying it?

Imagine your happiness when you are stuck by this revelation.

It takes time to sink in...but once it does its roses and more roses all the way. Life seems beautiful.

Wait.

It was beautiful all the while but just that you started to notice it just a little while ago.

Then you get to know someone else has been doing that for a longer time and is probably better than you.

click to enlarge

It's like enjoying a drink...a drink that sets you free and lets you be what you are but drinking makes such fools of people and in reality people are such fools to begin with...

Image Courtesy: XKCD

Sunny Side Up

Here's another NICE mess you've gotten me into…- Oliver Hardy

Graham Ford has refused to coach Team India and so has John Emburey. Ford perhaps thought that one year was too little a time to get things in order and the fact that he’d work without his support staff could make things tougher; Emburey on the other had now believes that Indians will burn out, they won’t be able to beat Australia and all the blame would end up on the coach. Why the hell was John Emburey considered in the first place is a question that will never be answered. John Emburey should thank a certain Sunil Gavaskar for making people acknowledge that John Emburey still exists. A man with hardly any coaching expertise is called to present his case by Gavaskar to make the selection process look worthwhile. In the aftermath of Ford's rebuttal and Emburey's snub, Gavaskar only commented that they were back to square one.

What is Sunil Gavaskar's problem? He's not happy with anything that he doesn't suggest. He was on the committee that selected Greg Chappell to coach India and he was the first one to piss and moan about Chappell. Dave Whatmore was almost the short-listed and was willing to work under any conditions but Mr. Gavaskar wasn't too happy with an Aussie. If Gavaskar's word is the end all when it comes to Indian cricket why does he wait till the last moment to open his mouth? The reasons the board gave were as stupid as Gavaskar's- Dave Whatmore campaigned too hard for the post! These people started sending feelers to Whatmore in West Indies during the world Cup and then later had meetings with him in Bangladesh while the two teams were playing a test match and then they say he campaigned too hard!

Now that Graham Ford has refused the TV channels will have a field day and discuss this issue to shreds. They will again pose non-sensical questions like why the hell can't we get an Indian? You know what for once I agree with the argument; get a darn Indian and not just any Indian get someone whose heart bleeds for Indian cricket, someone who wears his patriotism on his sleeves, someone who won't sleep till Indian cricket reaches the dizzying heights it promises to scale. Get Mohinder Amarnath, Lalchand Rajput or Javagal Srinath or Parthiv Patel! Let this guy come and conquer all. If he's successful then great and if he fails greater still for this stupid debate will get over. Jimmy Amarnath keeps crying that he's never considered so give him what he wants and let him prove whatever the hell he wants to prove! Recall Anshuman Gaikewad at least viewers will not have to listen to his expert views on TV channels; get Madan Lal for as it is he can't speak and for once he'll get a chance to let his actions speak or request Ajit Wadekar to take up the reins again for at least he'll not say 'foreigners' reduced us to a laughing stock.

If everything fails get Sunny Gavaskar. After all he refused many people for they weren’t right for the job. The fact that Whatmore was ready to accept the challenge and perhaps make Sunny eat humble pie didn’t go down too well with the Master. Get Gavaskar and pay him so much money that he can't refuse. But we all know that Mr. Gavaskar won't do it for he'll have to let go of his favorite past time- complaining. And of course, if you ever say this in front of him he'll either explain how he has the sole right to speak about this issue for he has given the country so much yada yada yada or he'll ask you to prove your credentials. He has a strange way of dealing with issues- he walks out of the ground if the umpire goes against him, he makes sure you are fired if you don't toe the line, he'll ensure you are not hired if you speak too much or too little! All this sounds very familiar to me....for it seems like India's second greatest cricketer (the first being Kapil Dev according to Wisden and not me!) is behaving like me when I'm pissed off at some thing.

And if that is really the case then you ain't seen nothing yet!

Do You Google...?

Over the years search has changed many definitions. Today the words ‘search’ and ‘Google’ have almost become synonymous. Earlier on if you entered a term to search the Internet on any of the popular search engines- Yahoo, Alta Vista, Mama or Jeeves- the search would be based on very basic principles. In case you entered 'CAR RENTAL' the search would check the number of times these two words have appeared on web pages. So instead of cars for rental you could find car chase and video rental! The Google dudes- Larry Page and Sergey Brin used a page rank method amongst other things; this basically used a mathematic formula to calculate the combination of these two words, how many times CAR preceded RENTAL, etc. Such simple tools set Google apart and rest the rest as they as is history.
Simplicity has always been the benchmark for Google. Once upon a time they had called in testers to check the search engine out. After being instructed to start searching many testers waited for something to happen. Upon asking the company got to know that the testers thought that the home page was still loading; that day onwards the home page had a copyright text at the end to tell people like us that the darn page is ready to do the job. These dudes had gone to Yahoo but they refused to buy Google for they thought that the future of Internet would be one page that offers everything and that search would fade away. Well, that was not to be; today barely a day goes by when you don’t Google. I, for one, have Google as my homepage! The thing that worked in Google's favor was of course the simplicity and the fact that it was an underground thingy initially and people took it like a cult and made it the leader that it is today.

I was in the process of doing research for an article and surprisingly enough found out that for 3,330,000 hits for Johnny Depp, Google threw up 2,610,000 hits for Jack Sparrow and Jack Sparrow is fictitious!

So my randomness got the better of me and I decided to test Googling famous names and got some really interesting results. There were 181,000,000 hits for George Washington, 2,570,000 hits for Abraham Lincoln, 38,900,000 hits for John F Kennedy and guess what...everyone's favorite American President Bush got 97,700,000 hits! That is more than Lincoln and JFK put together. It's a strange place this Internet, for Osama Bin Laden (1,660,000) gets more hits than Mahatma Gandhi (1,670,000)

Dying Young does have its benefits on the Internet too; Marlon Brando considered by many to be the greatest actor of all times gets 1,770,000 hits but James 'Live-Fast-and-Die-Young' Dean gets 56,800,000 hits. Robert De Niro may rake in more votes when it comes to acting prowess but at Google Al Pacino gets more hits; 2,510,000 to 2,550,000.

There is virtually no competition between the two greatest computer icons Steve Jobs gets 122,000,000 hits while Bill Gates manages just 67,700,000.

The fashion icons had the closest comparative hits: 4,510,000 for Calvin Klein, 3,990,000 for Dolce & Gabbana, 2,750,000 for Roberto Cavalli, 2,080,000 Donna Karen, 4,110,000 for Giorgio Armani but dying young has it's benefits here as well for with 8,700,000 hits Versace seems to be way ahead.

Outliving does have its benefits as well as Paul McCartney (5,470,000) manages to outdo John Lenon 3,820,000. The Rolling Stones may have outlived The Beatles but the Fab Four get 48,700,000 hits as opposed to 9,350,000 for the Stones. Led Zep (2,340,000) and Pink Floyd (3,700,000) pale in comparison to the Stones.

So how did some famous Indians fair on the list?

1,280,000 hits for Amitabh Bachchan, 1,930,000 for Aishwarya Rai, 1,030,000 for Abhishek bachchan, 1,020,000 for Aamir Khan, 739,000 for Sachin tendulkar, 508,000 for APJ Abdul Kalam, 1,270,000 for Manmohan Singh, 317,000 for Narayana Murthy, 666,000 for Satyajit Ray, 306,000 for HImesh Reshammiya, 1,390,000 for Amartya Sen.

It's a funny thing, this Google search for what can you say about the times we live in when a green comic book 3d Ogre called Shrek (I,II & III!) gets 39,500,000 hits and boy-toy Brad Pitt gets only 5,550,000.

And if you thought that was it then dodge this- there are 1,040,000,000 hits if you google ‘GOOGLE’!!!

I Love Paris

Paris Hilton’s simple life might just get simpler still on June the 5th, her date with the jail authorities. Paris Hilton is my favorite blonde, she has made it easier for me to picture a blonde in blonde jokes and I’ve started to enjoy them more! Paris Hilton has urged her fans to sign a petition to keep her out of jail. That’s OK, I can live with that but the interesting part is the reason she cites for such a petition. She, if you please, “provides beauty and excitement to (most of) our otherwise mundane lives.”

What!?

Hilton’s plea on her MySpace website urges fans to join this ‘movement’ to keep her out of jail by convincing the Governor of California Arnold ‘Terminator I, II and III’ Schwarzenegger to change his mind! Tough luck babe! Life has been really tough for Paris Hilton. Imagine being named after one of your father’s properties. Can you imagine how tough life would be with a name like Exclusive Floors Chintamani, Jungpura Extention Kapoor or Ghatkopar Heights Jadhav! On top of that Paris claims that cops always pull her over and ask her out. Wow that can be really tough! Then not to forget that she keeps losing her pet dog, Tinkerbell and has to live with the fear that some anti-social element might find the pooch, kidnap and then demand millions for the canine!

Look at the brighter side, Paris... this could be the best thing that’s going to happen to you. It’ll make your life more interesting than just schmoozing. You can shoot an entire series of Simple Life (I don’t know season 3, 4 or 5) inside the jail. You will just be allowed to walks out of your cell for one hour a day but the whole time camera can capture every simple move of yours. You can make more money than any season of Simple Life and you don‘t need Nicole Ritchie darlin! Remember Martha Stewart?

The Resistance, a Christian group in US, has welcomed the hotel heiress’s possible jail term. They intend to celebrate her jail sentence by trashing Paris Hilton CD’s across the US at Hilton Hotels. (Her sales might just go up, see darlin I told you this could be good for you!) The Resistance founder Mark Diceof, believes that, “Paris is an extremely materialistic, uneducated person who rose to prominence because of a homemade sex video. We're going to be throwing her CDs in huge trash cans and getting them off the face of the Earth."

Good Luck to you guys for it’s an uphill task as there are more freaks out there. Some crazier than Paris Hilton, one of them, some Aussie dude has offered to sponsor her jail term! The thing with freaks is that you can’t get rid of all of them, you lock up one Paris for 45 days but there are millions others as crazy as Paris Hilton.

I love Paris in the spring time
I love Paris in the fall
I love Paris in the summer when it sizzles
I love Paris in the winter when it drizzles
-Ella Fitzgerald

Cinema Last

The mushrooming multiplexes in the country are a result of a chain reaction initiated by Mr. Ajay Bijli of the PVR chain. Amongst many ‘firsts’ this chain was the unparalleled leader in exhibition business of cinemas. PVR proudly claims that for them ‘cinema first’.

Please visit one of their halls to experience anything but that.

Let’s start with the very first thing one does in order to watch film- book tickets. If have you ever tried the option of Internet booking on PVR’s website you’d notice that they charge a ‘convenience fee’. They levy a ten rupees fee for booking the tickets online while I think that online book should be cheaper. So if 100 people book online per day that’s 1000 bucks a day, 30,000 a month and 3,60,000 a month! Wow! This is definitely a first.

OK once you brave the traffic, fight it out foe the parking spot and finally arrive at the cinema hall you are treated like the scum of this earth. In the name of security a guard will frisk you as if you the pole that he’s dancing to! They don’t allow you bags, cameras, laptops, etc. They don’t allow cigarettes, which is OK with me but if you are chewing gum they ask you to spit it out. They will make you empty your pockets and only allow cell phones and nothing else. I don’t blame Mr. Bijli for not visiting Adlabs or Fame in Bombay; they too frisk, check but allow normal things like handbags and laptops inside! I understand this being Delhi he can’t have his way as far as security is concerned but at least allow me to chew gum!

Every show will have at least three people who are in for a rude shock when they see someone else is already warming their seats. I can’t figure out why the hell do you need people to guide you to your seat, isn’t that printed and isn’t the hall well lit along the aisle for any idiot to find the seat? OK in spite of all this if you have someone to guide you why do they goof up!

When the lights fade out and the screen comes to life you are hit by some meaningless ads instead of the trailers or the ‘feature presentation.’ I know they need that money to run the fancy show, pay for the rentals but does Mr. Bijli intend to take all that money from me!? As it is he charges the heaven for the tickets… anyway they have four digits printed on the ticket called the show timing but who the hell worries about that little thingy? No film will ever start on time.

When the film finally starts you are in for yet another rude shock- the film’s print has been massacred by careful handling by the unique cinema lovers who work at PVR. I saw Spiderman-3 first day-second show; Shootout at Lokhandwala on the second day both the films had more scratches than a car crash survivor. For the money that they charge the least they can do is make sure that we don’t get third world treatment.

During interval you make a beeline for the ‘concession stand’ where you will get everything from candy to four types of overpriced sweet carbonated water, nachos, corn, Baskin Robbins ice-cream but you can’t get simple black coffee. Sorry sir the friggin machine only spurts out pre-mixed coffee! Some wise guy sued such places for cranking up the price and charging more than the printed MRP of bottled water so India Inc. got together and now charges the same exorbitant price by printing that as the MRP on a bottle specially packed for PVR. (whatever that means!)

Many moons ago Priya used to screen old films in addition to the current crop as part of some festival but now the more things change the more they remain same. There are a hundred screens in Delhi or Mumbai and they all are playing the same crap! Given a choice I still choose Priya over anything else for the sheer beauty of the cinema hall. I haven’t been a DT cinema till now and hope to keep it that way (old story, some other time!)

PVR has a bright future irrespective of the fact that they are at loggerheads with Yashraj Films. I like the way Mr. Bijli plans and I’m sure he has more than the four aces that life dealt him. They have come out with an IPO; they are getting in film production; industry grapevine reveals that Mr. Bijli and Mr. Aamir Khan have tied up to machao some major dhoom. People will need entertainment and will need places to beat the heat. So while your favorite blockbuster plays in an air-conditioned hall in the neighborhood, cinema can actually rue for being last on the priority list.

The Bigger it is, The Better it Feels!

How long will it take?
Hardly any time…say 2 hours at the most!

Will there be a marked difference?
Not at all…you won’t even get to know!

Any thing else I should know….
Usually the bigger it is, the better it feels!

Before your over-worked mind comes up with strange notions let me tell you that the above is a regular feature of the usual Q&A before converting one’s vehicle to CNG. I’ve been toying with the idea of getting a new car ever since we sold the old warhorse of a Matiz that we had. I had made it clear that no matter what car I settle for it’ll run on CNG.

Why?

Try doing Gurgaon-Delhi and back everyday on fuel and we’ll talk about it. I can’t afford petrol anymore and if you plan to shift to Gurgaon get a CNG kit installed! My father wasn’t too kicked about the idea and my brother had a long list of useful gizmos to purchase before getting a CNG kit. So I waited. There are many apprehensions about switching over to CNG but once you take the first step it gets easier thereon. It’s cheaper, cleaner, reduces emission of sulphur, lead and carbon mono oxide in addition to other toxic emissions. For all those who’d cite the danger of CNG catching fire can take solace in the fact that due to it’s high ignition temperature of 540 degree C, CNG can’t catch fire because of simple exposure to a hot surface. Now, since my father’s Esteem has finally changed owners it was time to ring in the new technology.

The Italians are the world leaders in CNG kit and trust them to come up with a beauty of a thingy even for a gas kit! The cylinder is in the boot and the rest of mechanism that fools your car and makes it runs on gas rests nattily in one corner under the hood. The basic rule of the thumb with regards to CNG is that it doubles up your mileage for almost half the cost. This when translated means that my Esteem should now give me 24kms/kg instead of 12kms/lt! The price difference would be almost 30 rupees; 1 kg CNG is 19 rupees!!!

The gentleman who has the sole distribution rights to the Italian Landi Renzo CNG kits in Haryana told me that people are converting left, right and center. In three years he has converted a Sonata, a Toyota Corolla as well as a freaking Benz to CNG! The conversion’s more successful with bigger cars. He told me of a guy who got his brand new Honda Civic converted to CNG and gets almost 23 kms/kg! Of course no one knows what’s under the hood. No wonder you can see all these big cars with their drivers waiting their turn to fill ‘er up in the darkness of the night!

While I was getting mine done a good-looking dude comes up in a Scorpio and sheepishly makes enquiries about the whole process. He looks around a couple of times as if he were selling Coca Cola’s secret formula! I couldn’t help but remember all those sarkari advertisements assuring the working class hero that vasectomy won’t reduce his manhood!!

A few minutes later I drive off in a trail made of natural non-polluting gas that has 340% lower emissions than the diesel that the dude’s Scorpio burns whilst he makes up his mind. Looking at the number of cars, people traveling up and down and the lines at almost 97 filling stations that Delhi has I don’t think the Scorpio dude will take long to join the CNG bandwagon!

Half Full/ Half Empty

The previous blog got me thinking. Got me thinking about many things but mainly about myself.

People who don't know me might think that I'm one angry guy who seems to be pissed off at everything. Let me clarify for that's not true at all...

I'm not annoyed at everything!

Big difference between most of the things and everything! After pondering about my anger issues, I finally decided to do something about it. Starting right at the top of my issues I've decided to start a new blog!

Yeah I know...as if this wasn't bad enough but the new one's not about me but it's about Gurgaon. The city of Gurgaon has a a strange personality...it's almost like that famous example of the glass being half full or half empty and the last blog here made me want to deconstruct.
Do visit Half Full/ Half Empty

Millennium Mumbo

That thing about change…’The more things change, more they remain the same!’

Nothing could epitomize that as much as the night of May 10th 2007. I’ve been in Gurgaon for the past four years now and I seem to have had enough of this millennium megapolis! The raison d'être for my outburst is the fact that I didn’t sleep for a bit on that fateful night, as there were no lights. Yes ladies and gents, welcome to your worst nightmare. We’ve all been at the receiving end of this totally avoidable circumstance called power cut but wasn’t that supposed to be a thing of the past? Aren’t we supposed to be a mega power in the making or is it that the CIA has nothing better to do than come out with corny reports that say India is poised to be millennium marvel? My country’s currency is waging a war on the US $, the growth rate is about to kick China’s butt but I still can’t sleep for there are no lights!

Gurgaon was originally called 'Guru Gaon' as this was the place where Guru Dronacharaya resided when he trained the Pandavs and Kauravs in the times of Mahabharat. And if you ask me nothing has really changed since then except that from a jungle it has become an urban jungle. The real person behind this amazing transformation Mr. K.P. Singh, the media shy owner of DLF and the richest Indian. This national hero's company ran out of places to develop in Delhi so they shifted south and literally chiseled out this part of the city out of nothing! The National Highway#28 divides the city into two parts- Gurgaon and DLF.

Our side, DLF, is ostensibly progressed…yeah right!

The building I reside in is called The Exclusive Floors and trust me there ain’t nothing exclusive about this joint. There is no power back up as experienced in the neighboring buildings- Princeton, Carlton, Wellington and Royalton. The DLF must have realized their mistake while they were building this colony for this is only low-rise colony surrounded by 16-floored apartments and it’s spread over a monstrous piece of land. No wonder they washed off their hands before most of things could get sorted out. All these colonies are like little kingdoms onto themselves run by a group of ministers. A very intelligent lady, who does whatever the hell her little mind desires, runs Exclusive Floors. In the 200 meters from the main gate to my house, there are 18 speed breakers while from the main gate to Delhi I experience only 4. It’s been three years and they haven’t really done anything but spruce up a natty little park.

That night lying in my bed in a house that is worth 60 lacs, I was wondering, why am I sweating in heat and fighting mosquitoes when all my neighboring buildings have enough power back up to light up almost 5000 tube lights in their stairways? You know it’s the pits when not contributing to the global warming is the only consolation you can derive while braving an entire night of power cut in the month of May in Delhi!

It's Just Not Cricket...

Twice upon a time in the valley of the tears

The auctioneer is bidding for a box of fading years
And the elephants are dancing on the graves of squealing mice.
Anyone for tennis, wouldn't that be nice?
-Eric Clapton (Anyone for Tennis)

Considering the state of Indian cricket, this could very well be their theme song! The auctioneers are the five wise men popularly known as the National Selectors. And fading years would be the past glory that these people, fondly referred to as a bunch of jokers by comeback king Mohinder Amarnath, are betting on! Like the elephants crushing the mice everyone thought that the seniors didn’t like new people in the team and wanted the selectors to bamboo them! Trust me there’s nothing that anyone can say that would explain how these five idiots look at things.

With the poor show at the World Cup, many of us thought that maybe things would really change. Heads would roll, people will get the boot, etc but nothing of that sort happened. Only God and the Selectors knew how it’d all play out. And of course Navjot Singh Sidhu knew it for he knows everything guru! They wanted to sack the coach but he quit before they could do anything about it. They decided that they wanted to try fresh talent but Chappell ensured that there was no one left to experiment with in Indian cricket anymore. They thought of chucking the demigods like Tendulkar and Ganguly but then agreed to ‘rest’ them for bigger fights that lay ahead. They finally went ahead with a new and young team- yeah right! So young that it doesn’t have a vice-captain! And new talent translates into one young guy.

The Indians don’t seem to have a plan while on field or off it. Try explaining Sourav Ganguly’s 60 runs from almost twice the number of balls against Bangladesh? Perhaps it was Puma who made it a contractual obligation for him to spend as much time as possible in front of the wicket to make money? Sachin Tendulkar is so busy ‘serving’ Indian cricket that he refuses to acquaint us with his former self. When he can’t take the heat he informs us about his many hidden injuries and rests. When ready to play he just shows up and he’s selected! I believe that he needs to be given the boot for a good series or two and I don’t mean against Bangladesh to get his cricketing genius of a brain ticking.

No one epitomizes the stupidity of Indian cricket better than Mr. Virendra Sehwag, the Butcher from Najafgarh who seems to have fallen in love with the lamb he’s about to slaughter.

Sehwag, who has forgotten that he needs to score runs at times, was dropped for two matches ostensibly to tell him that he wasn’t bigger than the game. While cooling his heels he threatens that if the Board gives him anything but a Grade-A contract, he’ll ensure that no one in the team signs the new contracts! Before he could prove himself in domestic cricket, he gets a ticket to go to West Indies and as expected fails to perform. He manages to survive the axe, retains his place and to top it off the Board’s sources have now hinted that in case Dravid can’t play, Sehwag would be made the captain for he has ‘hunger’!! Don't they realize that many people in India are unfortunately hunger and perhaps hungrier than Sehwag. Maybe all aspiring cricketers from Najafgarh and elsewhere and also VVS Laxman should learn a thing or two from this Maa ka Laal!

The newspapers and two bit ex-cricketers who form the expert panels on television all had Nostra’dumb’ass like predictions about India winning the world cup. Now we have commercials in which young children are going to the local tailor and asking him to make them Indian team’s uniform three sizes too big for they will be ready to don the Indian colors in 2011 to get the darn cup!

Only if we had listened to Sidhu and his advice that it’s ‘better to prevent and repair than to repent in despair.’ But as that isn’t the case anyone for tennis, wouldn’t that be nice...?

Image courtesy: www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au.

Here Chicky, Chicky

I have always maintained that god must be a woman. I like it that way for it makes it easier for me to connect to God. Imagine my surprise when I saw The Devil Wears Prada and realized that the devil could be a woman too. The film is based on 2003 best-selling novel of the same name by Laura Weisberger. Excuse my ignorance but I never knew about the book till the time the film came out. Power to cinema! When the film finally hit Indian screens I was at a stage in life wherein I didn’t fancy watching a chick-flick.

But I was wrong.

To the uninitiated, chick flick is the slang for a movie that appeals mainly to women or young girls, either by design or popular consensus. It’s a relatively new term but I wouldn’t worry too much about that part as everything these days is relatively new! Devil Wears Prada, the book, is a prime example of ‘chick lit’ and spent six months on the New York Times bestseller list. The novel was widely seen as a roman à clef, a novel describing real-life events behind a facade of fiction, about Vogue magazine’s iconic editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour as Weisberger had cooled her heels as an intern there. That kind of back-story did help the book but Weisberger has always denied it. Check out the picture below for the striking resemblance!

The Devil Wears Prada being my first chick flick, made me ask myself a few basic questions. If the intern was the protagonist and the Devil was everything bad because the intern refuses the Devil’s offer of a good fashionable life, then why am I sympathizing with the freaking Devil by the end of the movie? Perhaps because Anne Hathaway who plays the intern to Meryl Streep’s Devil, is miscast and how! She tries so hard to look effortless that it’s not even funny. Even in the scenes when she’s trying to explain, to her boyfriend, her almost slave like dedication to her boss she can’t help but sigh and look around for clues as if she were a present day Al Pacino. What was Weisberger thinking? How could Weisberger settle for someone so pedestrian to portray a character supposedly based on her!?

Throughout the film Devil is portrayed as something bad and evil but trust Meryl Streep to sway you, you can’t help but love her! Even though the Devil’s tough as nuts exterior starts showing cracks and she develops a soft corner for the intern, the intern scoots away but in the end even the intern can’t help but look up to the devilish boss.

So did I miss the point?

Or is it that the ‘chick’ to root for and love in this ‘chick flick’ is the older ‘chick’ and not the obvious younger ‘chick’!? After all this is marketing terminology and hail whatever helps to sell! Do we really need terms such as chick flicks or chick lit?? If we do and if people want to see them then one word of advice choose your medium correctly for no one- chick or not- would settle for Anne Hathaway and whatever she projects if the other end of the spectrum offers the Devil oops I mean Meryl Streep! When the intern ho and hums about still preserving the integrity of her soul all Meryl Streep’s Devil does is sigh and summarize it by saying, “You sold your soul the first time you put on that pair of Jimmy Choos.” I might not know chick lit and I might not know what a woman really wants but I know they love shoes and that can make a devil out of any chick. All I could understand of this ‘chick’ thingy was that I’m supposed to choose good over bad (shoes included)…but hasn’t that been the case ever since!

Picture Courtesy: www.oficinadeestilo.com

Failure to Communicate...

The faster communication's getting, the longer people take to get back. The closer the world's shrinking, the further people are drifting. Phones, pagers, cell-phones, e-mail, text messaging- the closer it gets, the harder it becomes to put your point across.

The other day I met someone with regards to a writing job. Don’t you just get bad signals while talking to someone; I don’t mean on the cell-phone! The more we talked it kept getting tangled. I had decided that I’ll not work for a price lower than what I’d set for myself. I stuck to it. The person had decided what my worth was and he stuck to it. Though finally we came around and agreed to come mid-way; from where I stand, I now realize that I did most of the walking! We agreed upon the price and the work. I was waiting for an advance; don’t commence till I don’t get half of the money. One week later I was still waiting when I thought of checking what’s causing the delay. Nothing was causing the delay; according to the gentleman we still needed to meet and iron out the rough edges with regards to money and work, etc. We met again and agreed upon the mode of payment etc.

Guess what? Three weeks later we are still e-mailing back and forth to decide what the matter really is. All this while the deadline remains the same which ostensibly means it doesn’t make a difference even if I get the advance three weeks prior or two days before the deadline- it remains fixed. I then made up my mind to get all corporate and stuff like that- don't get mad, get even; don’t loose your cool; for every 1 minute of anger you loose 60 seconds of happiness! All these age old proverbs swarmed my head for had it been any other situation till now I’d have lost the zeal to do any work but my friends advised me not to approach this job like any other job and be calm. This being the financial year’s first job, I agreed to let it become a new start, a fresh beginning and I continued to be Buddha like.

Bad move.

Some people just don't learn! What ultimately happened was that after three weeks and a million e-mails later- I finally lost it.

I made it very clear, crystal clear; explained it to the person that it’d be best to get someone else to do the job. Why did I do it? Frankly I lost all the eagerness to read, decipher and reply inanities sent by this person in the garb of e-mails. And also I had a bad cold; only Gods and creatures from science fiction remain unaffected.

The minute I hit the send button on the mail I realized that I have opened a new can of worms! Now allegations and counter allegations will follow. Well you can't blame me and even if I tried, I can't blame me! The first time we met we discussed the price and the job. The second meeting we discussed the price and work. Third meeting we discussed price and work. But like they say life has a way of working out and in this case it did work out. Only not for me as much as it did for the other person here! For as of today more than four weeks have passed- the deadline hasn’t changed, I didn’t get paid my full advance and I’m still writing the article!

Why?

You ask why? I realized it’s easier to do the work than to try and explain to the nut case the reasons why I said no in the first place! And also that I had thought about the work so much in my head that it felt like I’d already done it even before I started! So I have received a part of the payment and am almost done with the writing. I have duly informed my client that I shan’t part with the work till I get the remaining part of the payment and that too in cash no less!

The funny thing about everyone is that when they narrate an incident they are the protagonist! Can’t blame anyone for wanting to dramatize, why wouldn’t anyone want to be the nail instead of the hammer. I’m fretting about people’s attitude towards work and more importantly the inability to communicate. But I’m sure that there exists another, hopefully as interesting if not more, side of this tale. Wouldn’t I love, just love to see what’s on the other side?

Some times people just don't get it. You quote a price and they will evoke the friendly ghosts of your ancestors to get a discount. This gentleman in context cried his heart out and poured it in an e-mail (Grrr) that I wasn't dealing with the situation as a friend should. Now, considering that we never met before how the hell could I treat him like a friend? And I thought I was the only one who over-dramatized things. He should have known better for at times my friends bear my brunt way too much and he’s lucky to have been spared. Like my father would have summed it up for me in a way he does best; what did you learn from this experience? Well…I learnt that I’m crazy and I ain't the only one.

shopping list

Mark Tully, the celebrated BBC correspondent, wrote a book and titled it, ‘No Full Stops in India’. According to me the country has no full stops but lacks comma, semi colons, colons and everything that would punctuate. There is something about us Indians that makes us want to go on and on. Every city is unique in this characteristic. Like in Mumbai in any gathering you would get one person who’d lay claims to playing a great role in every film that gets made or every TV show that manages to get on air. Similarly there’s always someone who’d know every model, designer, etc. In Delhi it’s the politicians who are on the preferred list. A friend of mine notices the number plate of a car before messing with someone; he has some strange discretion of knowing the kind of person one would be from the number that their vehicle has. So never mess around with someone who drives a fancy car and has a number like 8888!

Last night I was at a gig, my brother was playing with his band. By the way while we are at it the band is called SOAP and has some nice talented people in it. They play with passion and they know their stuff. Though, like everything else in this world, there’s a great deal of improvement that the band could undertake but this is not about them! I love the band and would love it more if I knew what they were playing, am not musically attuned you see. But they sound great and amongst many great tracks have one called, ‘Mahalakshmi Junction’ that is really great!

Anyway I was at the gig, the place was called Haze and that’s what shrouded the truth about the place. I have been there twice and have no clue weather it’s a pub or bar or god knows what. So I was at a table for four with a friend of mine and we had the band’s stuff lying on one of the chairs and one chair was vacant. Then came a group of some beautiful looking people and the waiter took one of our chairs without asking and was eying the other one when we got to know how he managed to have the audacity to do such a thing. You see the beautiful people knew the owner and the owner didn’t give a f##$ if some paying patrons were to be left chair less. Here I was paying for my drink and still I wasn’t half as important for the owner as he had some friends over. Not only that all the waiters were hovering around only that table and didn’t give a damn about anything or for that matter anyone else. In Delhi it really matters if you know someone and if that someone happens to know someone more important then buddy, you can have your cake and eat it too.

We have started believing that in India money and connections can buy you anything. The government and people who want you to invest and believe in this country don’t want you to think like that but that is not the real picture. You have the connections; you got anything that you want- from a gas connection to a election ticket. People kill people here and on the basis of connection and money get away. I think that’s fair after all what is money there for? To buy! So let’s buy everything; you pay for kids to get into good schools then you buy certificates if they turn out to be dumber than you and then you buy them a life. My father does it and I am sure as hell I might end up doing that for my child as well.

Someone thing tells me that if were still a British colony instead of fight for freedom we would have just bought the darn thing. We have the money why not put it to good use! We are one of the fastest growing economies and pretty soon we are going to be a super power (I don’t say that, the CIA did a darn study and no wonder they are pissing in their pants, must be true!) Let’s buy a permanent seat at the UN Security Council and while we are it how long can a country of one billion hearts beat continuously for an Olympic gold- let’s buy the darn medal! Why not buy the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and the land that China has and lemme see do we have some more land disputes!

One school of thought would say that one can only buy if there’s something to sell…oh yeah? Well I did economics in school and trust me I know a thing or two about it- I once sold a cigarette to a friend in the middle of the night for 100 bucks! If people have the green to make the scene there’s no price too high. That L.N. Mittal spent money like water on his daughter’s wedding and got Shah Rukh Khan to shake everyone’s leg. So yes, I think India is shining, smiling and counting…I’m not crying that I don’t have the money to spend frivolously but hey what example are you setting. This is a country of millionaires and everyone would try to out do that Mittal gentleman now. Almost like the time Zee TV had a game show with a prize money of 10 crores to counter the 1 given by KBC!

By now most of you must be thinking poor guy didn’t get his drink on time and see what he made us go through! But think about it. Did you know that one street in Delhi is called, ‘Chaudhary Jhando Singh Marg’ do you even know who the hell this guy is? According to people one of his relatives paid some money and got the name changed. And by the way this street is in the heart of the city!

Go figure!

It is good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's good too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven't lost the things money can't buy.

loose ends

it’s the strange time of the year and i’m feeling very strange. i have notice that during january to april nothing moves. some people are busy getting back in the groove after partying and most people are waiting for the financial year to end, so they are busy making plans.

most people and i’d include myself in this list too, who make plans, are a crazy bunch. the funny thing about plans is that once they get wasted you can make them all over again. and the world has given us a million dates, opportunities to make plans. some times i sit and wonder do plans really work?

the biggest thing that i ever planned was my life! contrary to the poems, idioms and songs that suggest otherwise i too, like many of us, fell to the noble thought. my reasoning was quite simple- ‘it must pay to plan ahead for it wasn't raining when noah built the darn ark.’ the only hitch that i see in planning is that it’s quite flexible, the flip side of being the master of your own destiny. you end up changing it. most often than not the people involved, the external factors, the X f*#$kers are the ones who screw you around. like you are doing a film for someone and they don’t pay on time. i know some one will say that paying late is better than not paying at all. ok i can buy that but then if you need some dough right now what’s the point in sighing that you have oodles but its’ just people didn’t live up to your plans. there’s always the X factor.

i once read somewhere that hitler’s mother almost aborted him. talking about plans the only way i can sum up is look out for the loose ends…it’s the loose ends that you tend to hang by…

functionality

Most of us have ended up becoming a product of our functionality. In this day and age if something don't serve no purpose, out it goes. Everything and everyone has to do something worthwhile or else you ain't worth anyone’s while.

The other day I was walking along the fort area in Mumbai. The imposing gothic structures which have seen many things pass are just a mute spectator these days. Most of the buildings are falling apart and with them a certain heritage is passing away but does anyone really care? Well they do if you would serve a purpose. Most the action has moved into the suburbs these days and people fret and fume about going to town.

There is something about the fort area in Mumbai and CP in Delhi that makes me feel very proud. Many won't agree with that because in some way feeling proud of such places and such structures would mean that one is proud of the past. While that is not really a problem, what is a problem is that fact that somewhere liking this kind of past would mean being proud of the British. I won't go so far as to say that I am proud of our British past but I would surely accept that we had a British past! After all 20th century is closer to us than ram rajya!

There should be a certain sense of what shall I say pride, though a very big word but for the lack of any other, in what we have been through. Isn’t it only sane to say that the past teaches us everything about the future? The British exploited us, like any superpower does, and when the juice ran out they did the same. The funny thing is that though most of us would lead the charge of patriotism it’s rather stranger that most of what we are is a by product of being British.

Maybe the British too left India as it ceased to be of any functional importance.