Procrastination!

Yep, I am guilty of procrastination! Or maybe it is plain ol' winter hibernation! At least when it comes to blogging :-p My bro has a poster at his home saying "Procrastinator's Creed" and lists (if I remember correctly) why it is a good thing :-D

I have thought of many things to write about in the last 2-3 months, but have been plain lazy (on the odd ocassion too busy with work) to put my thoughts down, thus depriving this world of my WISDOM...lol!!

Some of the things I had considered blogging about: Cricket (disaster in the ODIs vs RSA, return of the prodigal (??) son - Dada, how much lower can we stoop, why are Indians over-reacting..etc etc). Then of course we had the classic cases of justice finally being delivered when 2 of our esteemed MPs were finally sentenced by a court of law and the shock waves it sent through the whose-who of Indian politics! Or the drive back from Mumbai to Blore - night driving has never been this fun before! Or I could have written about pink pajamas and the school bully I fell in love with!!

Hopefully, I will be able to come out of hibernation and write on some of these topics (maybe new ones)...or I could continue to procrastinate and keep depriving the world :-D

-uv.

Floccinaucinihilipilification!

Yeah, try pronuncing that first!! It took me umpteen attempts to get it and even then am not sure if I am saying it correctly or not :-D To know what it means, check out www.dictionary.com (or google or any other site u like!) :-P To give you a clue, it kind of describes what I write ;-) And before you jump to any conclusions about me becoming a word maven, let me be honest and point out that I discovered this word by chance - for a change I read one of the vocab newsletters I have subscribed to! To use it in a sentence (the best I can do as of now) : "I shall not tolerate the floccinaucinihilipilification of my ramblings!"

Which brings me to the other word I learnt: Weltschmerz! Don't scratch your head - it is not someone's name, but a word of German origin! Can be used to effectively describe one's feelings at the current state of affairs in our country! Yups, for some reason, sitting here, I rarely feel optimistic about the future of our country!

And lastly, a welcome to the one n only Motasaheb to world of blogging! he finally agreed to hear poor JJ sarkar's repeated pleas and has guest blogged on his blogosphere! In true Motasaheb style,the blog showcases his unique gift which uptil recently only we blessed Trojans had witnessed! Now the ROW can also experience the same at:
priteshs.blogspot.com !

-uv.

p.s. am a little technically challenged when it comes to pasting URL links, so readers will have to take the extra effort in opening the sites mentioned above :-p

Reality Shows!

"Screwtiny" screamed the headlines in Mid-Day today!! Yep that's the new rage in our country - Reality Shows!! It all started with KBC, a legally borrowed copy of WWTBAM! Of course that show had the Big B as an added attration and it was enjoyable initially. It however, got boring as time went by and to sustain audience interest, they gave away a crore to some chap from Bombay! Later we had many clones, all of which bombed.

Then our TV folks started aping all sorts of reality shows from the West ranging from who dares wins to the weakest link (a highly irritating neena gupta hosting the show). A good show was the Indian Idol (legal copy of the American Idol). But our audiences made a mockery of both the editions so far. In the first one we had a truck driver reaching the last 5 courtesy the audience largesse and in the second one the lesser deserving dude won because the people of his state voted for him in large numbers! Which raises the point : is it a good idea to have the audiences voting for reality shows? I have seen this happen in lots of other reality shows where a person from one particular region has lots of people voting for him and he wins and the deserving candidate loses out! Even kids have not been spared!!

On another dance show, where small time celebs participate, a couple took rigging to new heights by buying 200 sim cards and giving those to their friends n relatives so that they could vote for them!! Thankfully some better sense has prevailed and at least in the next episode of tat show the judges score is going to get more weightage!

And coming back to the headlines for today, it was about a new show being launched today - Big Boss (another copy - y cant we ever get original??). 13 celebs (supposed to include the likes of Rakhi "Item Girl" Sawant n Carol "wardrobe" Gracias!) locked in a house somewhere in Madh island for about 3 months! Of course the particiapnts were supposed to be kept top secret but all major newspapers had a list of the participants :-D The publicity stunt undertaken - the celebs were asked to undergo an HIV test - reason : ur guess is as good as mine ;-) Lets see how this one shapes up!

But to sum it up, not entirely sure if our audiences are mature enough to take into consideration the opinion of the judges and make the right choices! But am not really complaining, since these shows have given people some alternative to the torture that Ms. Ekta Kapoor has been sujecting the audiences to :-D

-uv.

One just for Neta!!

This one's mainly for Neta! Yes dude, just saw your comment about sannata kyon and thought would write a blog! Btw, we had a dude in 'SC whom people used to call Sannata!! if you asked him a question, chances are you mite get a reply after a lot of processing. at the same time he was also known as google since he was a moving database of sorts!

Have been chilling out in Bombay for the last 1 odd week. Celebrated Diwali at home and for a change contributed a bit to the nosie/air pollution :-p but it was fun nonetheless!! of course it wasn't incident free, since a cop came and took one of the dudez from my building to the police station for allegedly violating the 10pm deadline! All he was doing was help a kid burst a tiny cracker!! And this when there were people all around bursting much louder crackers all around the neighbourhood!! Luckily for him some chap in one of the wings knew the local MLA and using his influence managed to get the kid free. As they say, It happens only in India! :-D

And yeah, for a change drove from the IT capital to the financial capital. Must say it was an awesome drive (barring a little stretch that is still under construction). Some of the roads and the scenery gave the feeling that we were back in the US of A! Awesome fun! It is a must do for people who come from the US and can drive a car with gears :-p

There you go neta..a blog written just because u ordered :-D

-uv.

Future of India - Not so bright after all?

Kind of a follow up to my blog about the I-Day. My friends S n S had mentioned that our nation is still very young and things will take time to become right. I had sort of agreed then, considering that 60 is a young age for a nation.

But some of the events since then have again made me wonder if we will ever grow up. For starters, we have 2 states - Maharashtra and Karnataka, fighting over a town (or is it a city?) Belgaum. K'taka decided to have it's assembly session there (at a small cost of only Rs. 450 crores) just to show to the people that they care. Not to be outdone, Mah responded in kind by having it's own get together (for lack of a better term) with the Dy CM of Mah the chief guest! I don't get it - why are we internally fighting over a small city when there are tonnes of more pressing issues that need to be addressed? Why waste so much of the taxpayers' money on something which could have been conducted in Blore at probably half the cost?

The other incident, has taken the reservation obsession 5 steps further. The h'able (?) education minister of k'taka has gone ahead and closed approx 2100 schools because they were not following the govt directive of "having Kannada as the medium of instruction"!!! About 1.25 lakh students are going to suffer because of this. It gets better though - schools being run by wives (yes you read it right) of IAS and IPS officers flouting the norms have not been touched! And the piece de' resistance : all these students are to be accomodated in govt run schools! The TOI carried pics of about 4 such schools - the best one had 2 floors, 11 classrooms for students of stds 1 - 7 and it was right next to a pile of garbage bigger than the school building! About the rest, the less said the better! And if this is not taking 10 steps back for every 2 steps forward, then what is?

And yes, the govt of k'taka has taken a leaf out of mah(?) govt's book and decided to go ahead and rename Bangalore as Bengaluru! As if the change will make all the city's problems disappear! (Maybe they have Harry Potter on whom they are relying to do the magic?)

The other thing, which was probably not given much importance, is the withdrawal of truce with the ULFA (For those who don't know: it is allegedly a terrorist org in the NE ). Now that region is one of the most neglected part of the country and govt really needs to be sensitive and serious about resolving the dispute. But no, they go ahead and break the truce which could lead to a loss of even more human lives. Instead our GoI decides to fight terror by joining hands with Pak and the ISI!!!

Moving to less ridiculous stuff - a colleague was mentioning how she bought some property and had to get the registration done - she had to wait for 3 hours in scorching sun and her work didn't get done. I told her why didn't you give 100 bucks to the peon/clerk and get your work done. Her reply stunned me - She had already paid 1000 rupees as bribe and yet the concerned person didn't do her work!!

If things continue at this rate, and people don't raise their voices soon and let politicians get away with murder, I don't think the future is going to be very bright! (And this is coming from a person who generally has a positive outlook towards life in general!)

-uv.

Stop Press!!

Folks,

Please vote for ur friendly neighbourhood super hero - The Maven at:


The Daku Times

Thank You!

-uv.

p.s. regular blogs will resume shortly!

Ganpati Bappa Morya!!

Yes, I am back - in blogland and more importantly in beloved Bombay!! Landed yesterday afternoon, on the day of Ganesh Visarjan. It was surprisingly a very cloudy day and apparently had been raining since the previous night. Took an auto and in no time reached the outskirts of borivli - the entire journey uptil tat time took abt 20 odd mins; a journey which even at 1130 pm on Friday night takes 35-40 mins, such is the magnitude and importance of this ocassion!! On the way, saw the first of the Ganesh processions and got goosebumps on my hands - I was, afterall back in Bombay for the visarjan after a gap of 5 years!! The band playing, the weird ranti dance of the people and above all the idol of Ganpati bappa in the truck - simply awesome!!

On the way saw a few more processions and the last one was where a really huge idol was being carried in a truck and the truck had stopped on a flyover slope - I could not figure out how they had managed to stop the idol from rolling down! And the best part was the folks ahead were dancing (or shud it be playing/doing??) to the lezim tune!

In the evening headed towards the local Siddhivinayak temple and boy was it a nightmare! No space for the auto to move, random people becoming traffic constables and diverting traffic and soon all hope of reaching the temple was lost...we decided to return home but the auto guy got lost and we ended up bang in front of the temple!! There I witnessed (surprisingly for the first time ever) the idols being immeresed in the pond.

With respects paid to Mumbai's beloved deity, it was time to return home...while walkin and searching for an auto I got a taste of the changing times....instead of the usual drums/bands playing music, there were huge speakers on tractors/tempos blasting bhangra/pop/remmixes and people dancing like they do in discs!! And the piece de' resistance was one particular procession blasting out - hold ur breath -
Hips Don't Lie by Shakira!!!!!!! I wasn't sure if I should laugh at this or feel sad!

Anyways, the festive season has started in India and Navaratri is next up...in the meantime I shall enjoy my stay in Bombay before I return to the dull n boring work life...

Ganpati Bappa Morya, Pudchya Varshi Lavkar yaa!!

-uv.

p.s. wud recommend the daku times as well...most of the stuff is related to my frndz and our activities at da workplace, but is still worth a read :-)

More ridiculous stuff!

Just when I had thought that I would have some free time and hence be able to blog with more regularity, boom! I get dumped with more work! In fact the way things are shaping up, I could be drowned in work till Nov end , which of course means not being able to go home for Diwali :-( But I guess that is the life of a techie!!

Got some very interesting comments on my previous post about the state of affairs in India and how we are still a young democracy and with time we will eventually mature. Well, all I can say is, Neta I hope that your words come true! Maybe you could become a real life neta and take the lead :-D

In the meantime, our MPs stooped to new lows, and apparently came to fisticuffs on the floor of the parliament! Some more idiots resgined since their demand for a separate state was opposed by some parties giving outside support to the govt! The quota issue has re-surfaced and students are being subjected to lathi charges and water jets being sprayed! This is democracy? Where you cannot even voice your protest? and if you do, you are beaten up? I think the day is not far, when if these kind of things continue, someone somewhere might actually try a RDB!!

Oh and the Bombay High court has extended the ban on A movies being shown even on DTH! Every time something like this happens, I think that we cannot stoop any lower, but someone somewhere manages to outdo the others! I cannot find any rationale behind this decision. In a country like India, very few cities would have DTH in the first place. And even where it is there, am sure hardly anyone subscribes to it. And even from those, hardly anyone would be watching those A movies! Even if they are, they are mature adults who should have the right to decide what they want to watch! And if the concern is that kids might watch it, then it is the parents' decision on whether they want to subscribe to such a channel or not!! Why the hell should someone else tell me what to watch and what not to?? There is just way too much moral policing and "Talibanisation" happening in our country! and the best joke is: tv serials and music videos have not been included in the ban :-D

Enough of company time spent on blogging...after all therez tonnes of work to do! But I guess i will take it easy, with it being a Friday evening and my manager attending some managers' meeting (never really understood what do so many managers get together and disucss? have not really seen any visible change around me :-D) so mite head home early and just relax !

-uv.

Another I-Day gone by!

Yep, can't help but write about this, though am late by about 4 days :-D

Was reading some article in the TOI where the dude mentions that India has become like a 21 inch TV for most of us. The reasoning being that if you turn on the TV at any given instance, depending on what is being discussed, the same set of people are asked their opinions! And as per some poll conducted a few days before the I-day, the top most issues concerning people seem to be corruption, population and whether India will become a super power or not!!

Frankly, I have not been watching tv of late (and it feels good, believe it or not!),
so will go by what the dude wrote. But I kinda agreed with his point that the issues of concern for most people seem to be the ones mentioned above (not sure if people really care if we become a super power or not!) and if something goes wrong, blame the damn politicans :-D

Sadly, after 59 years of independence, for every step we take forward, we seem to be taking 10 steps backwards! One of those I already mentioned in my previous blog - people opposing English!! Corruption as always is on the rise (k'taka and esp blore seem to be very high on the list here). Terror is fast becoming a way of life all over the country. Projects/privatisation are being opposed by idiots who don't seem to be knowing what is good for the country. Religion and votebank politics is ruling the roost. And inspite of being led by 2 of the most qualified people in the country, they are powerless and helpless (cases in point being: passing of the OoP bill even though the prez sent it back and who can forget the quota issue!!).

Of course there are a lot of other things I can ramble about but some of those are for another day! Personally, for me also I-day has become just another holiday and it was a very welcome one at that!! In my locality back home, there was the usual function where the flag was hoisted followed by some games and snacks n tea. Talked to another friend here and seems the same things were done in his locality as well!
Not the ideal way to celebrate (is there a reason to do so?) but that is how it has become!

The optimists may point out that not everything is bleak and gloomy as far as the future of the country goes, but there seem to be more negatives than positives and I sincerely hope that the optimists are right :-)

Anyways, the holiday is gone and the weekend is also half over! Hoping for the best for the country!

As they say "Sau mein se ninyanvein (99) beimaan, phir bhi Mera Bharat Mahaan!!!"

Jai Hind!

-uv.

Long Absence n the English Language!

Yeah, been ages since i blogged...have got an earful from a couple of my loyal readers (read close friends :-p) for not having done so! but that is how work life is! the last 2 odd weeks have been really hectic; had to go to the office even on weekends! for the time being, i now have some breathin space and hope it continues to be so!

neways, had gone to get lunch today afternoon, and while waiting there was glancing through some magazine called swadeshi or something. one dude had written a letter to the ed regarding some article in the previous issue. The issue apparently was how in India too much emphasis is being place on the English language and the local languages are suffering due to this. I for one, do not agree with this at all!

The writer had mentioned that how the British had introduced it for their own benefit and how the other laguages suffered and now we should not give it so much importance!
I agree that the local languages may have suffered, but I think that we should thank the Brits for teaching us the English language! Today, India ranks as one of the most attracitve destinations for FIIs, we are an emerging IT super power, Indians all around the world are prospering and at some level India is shining (debatable but tat is another disucssion!).

And I think that we being good at the English language has a major role to play. If we just consider the example of the IT/BPO industries, the single biggest reason for our success there would have to be the fact that we have such a large population of English speaking people (cheap labour being one of the others :-D ) which no other competitive country can boast of. China has cheaper labour, but their people cannot utter one sentence properly. They are trying to rectify this by teaching English at the grass roots level, and in our country we have people protesting against it being the primary mode of education! I mean, how dumb can we get? Why do we want to lose the tremendous advantage we have? What will we gain by forcing kids to learn in the local lingo?

I have nothing against regional languages, but seriously speaking, how many of those protesting will send their kids to schools where the regional language is used as a medium of instruction? I think hadrdly any! I personally have experienced how tough it is to learn such languages,even to speak them...forget having to study all the subjects in them! In fact, I think it goes back to the independence period, when our first PM royally messed it up when he divided the states on the basis of language. That is what has given rise to the ridiculous demands of present day!

Anyways, enough ramblings abt the English language...time to welcome the gr8 - one n only - JJ Sarkar, who has made a grand entry into the world of blogging! now that he has made an appearance, i might have to leave the field :-p
for the uninitiated, he is one of the powerful personalities from the gr8 land of Sion , Mumbai; the uncrowned King of that region :-D

-uv

p.s. sorry sarkar, if u feel offended :-p

Good Old Days Part 2.1

Time to recount the second year memories! Thanks to the 2 leos S n S for reminding me of some of them :-D
The second year started with big g marofying major fight to get a transfer to the comps class. he had after all comfortably topped both the sems in the entire tronics branch! in spite of that he had to battle with the mgmt to get the coveted transfer! And if I remember correctly, it was almost a month into the sem that he achieved it :-) Of course the immediate effect of big g moving out was that the rest of us immediately showed our true colours and moved to sitting at the back of the classroom - the LLBs :-D

Sem 3 also saw some new profs coming to teach us, starting with Shikha who was one of the better profs in the college. Then there was Ms. R. Shah who tried to get people's respect by threatening that she was there till sem 8; unfortunately for her it backfired - she had no clue who she was dealing with and then we could threaten her saying even we are there till sem 8!! we also had vernekar (actually was there in FE also, but forgot to mention him) - again one of the better profs but a lil weird in true sakec style. And finally we had the grand entry of the one and only - Kotak!! This dude gave the initial impression as if though no one in the world cared for you as much as he did and that he was the most approachable and helpful person in the entire college. But soon everyone realized that the impression was just an illusion and the real version was much worse. In fact in due course of time, calling someone Kotak became the worst bad words to give to someone :-D

Somewhere along the way, sem 2 results came out and unfortunately some of the folks got a year drop and there were also new faces - people who had got a year drop previously came and joined the class. We had people like nitin pai, kavin shelat, shalaka (may her soul RIP) and one interesting sample who went by the name of siddharth - who again landed up in my group for some of the practicals! and also the one n only mr. ashwinikant (not sure if i got the name right!) who as far as i remember had such a strong physique that if he gave one punch to someone the dude would never get up again!!

sem 3 was also the sem when neta became a part of the grp and i got friendlier with moi moi aka psk! it was during this time that we would go to his place, and i would try my hand at playing the guitar. I had even learnt to play the first 1-2 lines of chura liya hai tumne (my leo buddies will of course have a different version of this :-D ) and then we would go again after about 2-3 months gap and i would have to re-learn those 2 lines all over again!!

then we had our group finally befriending one of the members of the B4(Borivli 4) gang! and we came to know what an amazing image they had of us! of course one of the best remembered instances was bunking class and going to watch hyderabad blues! goes w/o saying that the movie was amazing! and since we had forgotten to take a few people along, their reactions had to be heard to be believed!! but it did get me talking to julu - yeah though we were in the same practical batches the whole of first year we had hardly talked !! and she till day regrets tat decision and misses the first year when i had been a meek and silent fellow and talked to her on a need basis!!! :-D

-uv

p.s part 2.2 mite take some time, work life suddenly being very very hectic!!

Brief Absence

Been only 10 days, but seems like it's been ages since I blogged :-p
These past 10 days have been quite hectic..suddenly loads of high priority bugs to fix, having to look into other peoples' issues, the usual round of meetings!! Also, had cousins visiting, which meant most of the evenings were busy eating out at good restaurants and for once not having to swipe the card...had uncle to take care of that :-D

And yeah, in between some smart asses in the GoI decided that some blog sites should be blocked and the even smarter asses in the respective ISPs went ahead and blocked the entire website!! So much for democracy and freedom of speech and expression!! It seems when this happened, India joined the elite group of countries like China, Pakistan, Saudi (and 1 more random country I dont recollect!) which censor the Internet!!! What a great club to join!!

Also my friends have been debating about the bomb blasts and the subsquent (and expected) inaction by the GoI..for some strange reason, I have been a passive participant in the whole argument! But has been very good to read and have a feeling, like most such arguments/discussions I have seen/participated in the past, this one will also come to nought, with people just indulging in "mental masturbation"!! (There I finally got a chance to use that term, thanks to chin bhai :-D)

Anyways, hope to be more regular now...probably will continue with the good old days series:-)

-uv.

Good old days - Part 1.1

Yes, I will continue some more with first year memories :-p Thanks to my buddies I now remember some more things which I can write about :-D

There are a few more characters that need to be introduced as well as mention some of the "amazing" teachers we had (can't really call them professors but will refer to them as profs since itz easier to write! :-p). I shall start with the dude who was the roll number before me - Gautam Tolat aka GT. He was one heck of a dude, a fellow gujju and a big fan of Hitler!! He was in almost all my practical groups for 4 yrs and I used to have some really interesting conversations with him :-D

Besides GT, there was a certain Sarita Tayshete and of course Subbuda! And in the first year, in Chemistry (if i remember correctly) there was Julu aka Aunty aka Ms. S! In these particular practicals, there was julu, sarita, subbuda and myself. And it was one comical group we had. I was then the very silent dude who still had trouble talkint to girls (kinda hard to believe for people who know me now ;-)) , julu who loved to talk (as i was to discover much later!) , ms. tayshete who was a weirdo like most people in sakec and subbuda who was also kinda like me. And in most practicals, the 2 boys would religiously do the pracs (just joking!) while the 2 girlz wud just stand n chit-chat!!

And since I have mentioned Chem, how can one forget the prof - S.N Singh! Still can't forget how he would stand in the class with a chalk in his palms and talking about vaater!! And shouting at big g for coughin in the class!! and asking the class to note down what he was saying as if it was some great gyan he was giving us!!

Then we had the 2 mechanics prof - J P SIngh - a quiet dude whom you could barely hear and Pawar - whose favorite dialog (as per my observations) was "Take 3 readings" - the take spoken in a very nasal tone! The mech lab had instruments which resembled the ones Einstein /Newton themselves must have used for their own experiments!

The Math dept was the best dept with Mrs. Hegde being the best teacher of SAKEC. Dahake came distant second and was another amazing character. One of his best one-liners was when he told some dude "You were born like this only!!" was absolutely hilarious when he had said it :-D
We had the amazing Krisboy who would do a wonderful mimicry of him and some of the other profs!

And who can forget the Commn Skills prof Mrs. N. D'souza! The only silver lining in an otherwise dull existence :-p A course which was the most boring to attend was made worthwhile thanks only to her :-D Too bad she left after a year!

Oh and we had the great M.B. Shaw (ex prof VJTI!) who would make us come at some unearthly hour in the morning to learn engg drawing! I have already desrcibed how "good" i was in this one and shall not venture there, but this dude thought he was some God doing us lowly mortals a favour by coming all the way to Chembur to teach us drawing. Frankly I don't think we cared 2 hoots for who he was :-D And his famous dialogue would be "Agar bhagwan bhi sikhane ko aaye, to bhi Shah and Anchor ke bachhe kabhi time pe nahi aayenge!" :-D There were 2 side kicks - a Khan and I think Ramesh who would teach drawing and Ramesh also doubled up as the Workshop prof! I think we had made some sofa leg and some metallic crap as part of the workshop course and had to write some 100's of pages of nonsense fulfill the requirement! Of course, we had the ever dependent Chin bhai who did most of the drawings for me :-D

Somewhere in between we had the sports week, where I think our class somehow reached the semis (or was it finals??) of the cricket tournament and in classic Indian team style flattered to decieve :-p Of course the cricket being played was box cricket which had some really stupid rules! But we had the most amazing tug -o-war team (girlz of course!!) led admirably by the captain - Rash whose strength and violent nature me and more so Suren were to discover during the later years :-D And I don't recollect who the others were in that team but I think they were the undisputed champs for the 4 years that we were there!

Coming back to Verve , the college fest, thanks to Neta for reminding that he had participate in the singing contest (solo and duet with Ms. Nair) and I think didn't win?? But he did win Dumb C along with Suren and someone else. Suren had also won the quiz with AK aka Bond (or was it in some later year??) All in all for the first year, we had shown major enthu in participating and winning quite a few of the events!

I think now I definitely do not remember any more about the first year and will write about the 2nd year next :-)

-uv.

I Am Angry!

Yes I am freaking mad at the recent happenings in Bombay. First it was 26/7 last year when rains wreaked havoc and the inept government didn't do anything. To make it worse, almost the same thing repeated about a year later. It must have been a feeling of deja vu! This time the rain gods were a little more kind and the rain was split over 5 days and was not as bad as the previous time. But thanks to the BMC, the people out there must have felt no different! In fact the misery lasted for 5 days! And again all the idiotic CM did was to blame the BMC!! I stil can't understand how the people of this great city let the CM go and not beat him up!!

Next what followed was even more ridiculous...a statue is smeared with mud at 430 am in some godforsaken part of Bombay (or was it New Bombay?) and the entire city is held to ransom by the Shiv Sena. Buses are burnt, shops are broken, people are forced to down shutters and rush home! For what? a statue of their leader's dead wife being insulted? I for one don't even know who that lady was or what her claim to fame is apart from being the Sena supremo's wife. I agree the act was a stupid one. But how can the Shiv Sena justify what it did? The ex-CM Mr. Manohar Joshi goes on air saying no one can get away after doing such a thing! They even warn the govt to arrest the concerned in 24 hours!! what a joke!! I had just one question for them..what were the sainiks doing when the miscreants were smearing the statue with mud? they were after all transporting it to some place as per some report I saw on tv. If they did not react or do anything doesn't that imply that they plain did not care and do not consider the lady in question as their own mother?? so why such a reaction?

And the last incidence which has really angered me is fresh in everyone's minds. It immediately brought back the memories of 1993. And had me worried as well when I came to know one of the seven blasts happened in Borivli! Worst was I could not reach anyone in Bombay and for a little while had no clue if everyone was ok. Luckily no one I knew was hurt. But hundreds of innocent Bombayites lost their lives. 200 odd if the govt is to believed. 200 is the number of people that must have been there in just one bogey during that time of the evening! As usual the people of Bombay showed the spirit of the city and rushed the injured to the hospital without waiting for the authorities to arrive at the scene. Once again, all the govt could offer as an excuse was intelligence failure and a paltry sum of 1 lakh for the dead and 50K for the injured!! How about guarenteeing the safety of the citizens? Or for starters, the basic amenities and infrastructure which we rightly deserve? After all 40% of the income tax collected country wide comes from Bombay alone!!

I just hope that the people of Bombay wake up soon and realize that the govt is not going to do anything to improve their lot unless we the people take some drastic steps. Also am proud of the resilience shown after another cowardly act by whoever did it!

And am finally done with venting my anger :-p unfortunately vented a bit of it on a friend yesterday who sportingly just listened to it patiently...thanks! up rishi ate it ;-)

-uv.

Stage Fright!

We have a Toastmaster's club in office, which decided to organize a speech contest. The President of the club happens to be my cubicle mate and also a very good friend. He got a little carried away by my natural talent of blabbering a lot and felt that I would be a good person to participate! I kept resisting, but he went ahead and registered me anyways!

So there I was, bullied into participating and needing to talk about myself for about 3-5 minutes! And the speech needed to have a dash of humour as well! After spending some time on deciding what to talk about and failing to come with any good ideas, my blog came to my rescue - I decided I would talk about "What's in a name?"!! :-D I was still apprehensive about going and speaking in front of an audience and had once last chance as I had a meeting scheduled at exactly at the same time. But I had a colleague stand in for me and off I went to face the music!

As it happens at Sun, out of 900 odd people only 8 had participated (read that as 7 and 1 forced!). But surprsingly the number of people who had turned up to witness the event was quite large. Anyways, we had to draw lots to decide the order in which we would speak and as luck would have it, I was the last speaker...kinda like how I would always have the last roll number in school :-) The contest started off slowly but soon picked up pace and speakers 5-7 really raised the bar! Finally the moment of truth arrived and I walked up to the dias. Till that point I was super confident and then it happened. Panic struck, I got nervous, hands started sweating and I began mumbling some nonsense! I was speaking in front of a large crowd after a gap of 11 years - the last time was in school in an elocution contest - and the result showed! I ended up creating some part of the speech on the fly, cracked some lousy jokes and basically made a hash of things :-D

So as I had expected, speakers 5-7 won, and was glad that my colleague won the first prize :)
I ended up with a participation prize - a Toastmaster's clock!!

-uv.

p.s. the best part is, I use a blog to give a speech and then write a blog on the speech i gave :-D

Good Old Days - Part 1

Time to go down the memory lane and re-count the experiences of my engineering days at Shah and Anchor Kutchhi Engineering College (SAKEC for short!). A lot of it is hazy now, but will try and pen down the events as I saw them and remember them. Some of it might not be accurate, so folks who remember it better, please feel free to correct it :-)

Here goes recollection of the First Year at SAKEC!

Story starts sometime in July 1997 when I finally joined the electronics branch of SAKEC. I still remember the first day of college when my friend Nilesh(or ND) and I took the double decker 90 ltd for Chembur and arrived for day 1. Our other friend from junior college, the one known as Big G and also the one responsible for me choosing this particular college arrived late as usual :-) Anyways, we reached college checked out our roll numbers and entered the classroom and took a seat somwhere at the back. Here we bumped into 2 dudes from Ghatkopar - Chin bhai and Subbuda. We immediately became friends and started talking as if we knew each other since ages! My buddy from junior college classes, Suren was also in the same class. Over time befriended AK, niloy, krisboy, inderjit and a whole bunch of people and above all Neta!

One of the first things which we checked out was the female crowd and needless to say, it was disappointing! I think we forgot that we were no longer in junior college (which had a commerce section and another commerce college which was known for it's crowd ;-) ) Well, things started going on smoothly and we got busy with the assignments and practicals and journal work. Life had suddenly become too hectic and it was a huge transformation from the junior college days, where at least I had led a very chilled life :) Soon sem 1 exams were on our heads and we had no clue how to go about preparing for it. Had about a month's preparatory leave (PL) where we joined our first set of crash courses. That is where we really came to know what the syllabus for the courses was :-p The rest of the PL was spent in collecting notes and going through those as well as some books. Anyways, the exams came and went and I was sure I would flunk in at least 4 of the 8 subjects :-D Everyone was guessing how many KT's they might be getting and it was a tense period of sorts.

After a brief break (long vacations were now a thing of the past!), college resumed and also the anxiety over our sem 1 results started increasing. But soon the work load of sem 2 increased and people kinda forgot about the results. Also, learning from my past mistake I had enrolled for regular class for engg drawing and going for the class every weekend in the most screwed up part of Dadar was a nightmare! Of course matters were made worse by my inability to comprehend what was being taught! I could never imagine the various views of an object and hence could never complete the drawings and would often wonder why on earth was such a stupid subject being taught to electronics grads in the first place?! Same was the case with subjects like mechanical drawing, chemistry and workshop!

As it happens in engg colleges, out of the blues one day the news came that the results were going to be announced that day. The anxiety came rushing back and everyone was tense. The result board was finally put up and after much jostling and fighting I managed to locate my number and saw a 0.224 P next to my name. I asked someone around if it meant I had passed and someone said yes! I could not believe it and in my happiness ended up hitting the dude next to me :-p After the crowd had subsided I checked again and came to know I had passed with grace marks :-p I had utilized the entire 10 marks available for, what else but engineering drawing :-D And then came the biggest shock that I had managed to get a first class as well :-D
So much for the fear of 4 KTs :-p Sadly, not all my friends had managed an all clear and there were lot of sad and crying faces around. Also, I was not good at consoling people in such situations and had no clue what to say to them. But netaji was good and he did a good job of it!

No sooner had the results come, sem 2 exams were on us and the whole scene of sem 1 was repeated. This time round though I was sure I would flunk in at least one of the papers! I still vividly remember how grossly under prepared I was for Physics and when I got the q paper, I found I hardly could answer 1 question! I relied on my 12th knowledge and also on the BU funda that if you write some nonsese, you might still get through! I followed that principle and wrote a lot of nonsense making up new physics fundas along the way, reading which am sure Einstein, Newton and the rest might have turned in their graves! :-D Also, in spite of all the classes and study sessions with big g, I managed to screw up engg drawing yet again :-D Needless to say, the break between semesters was going to be spent in a lot of anxiety and nervousness yet again :-)

And somewhere in between all this, we attended our first engg college fest, called VERVE. Had participated in quite a few events, and with some luck had managed to win an event called Tintoretto or 20 questions as it is more popularly known. We also had neta and julu (more about her and her friends in future posts) participating in the singing contest (or was it in the later years?)

Overall, the first year was a very hectic one and it passed by real quick and it was time for one of our last long vacations we would get in our life!

-uv.

Road Rage!

Had been thinking about writing on this one for quite some time but kept putting it off. Yesterday the PM while in Bangalore to lay the foundation stone for the Metro Rail project, mentioned that people in this city seem to be very rude while driving, I thought time to pen my thoughts as well:-D

Road rage is something which most people in the big cities seem to be suffering from nowadays. Alas, I am no exception and have ocassionally shown signs of this rage! I particularly get irritated when the idiotic 2-wheeler guys change lanes without checking or when they are coming out of a side lane and just merge on to the main road without looking and breaking! I wonder how they can be so careless and put their lives, so to speak, in the hands of others??!! And when they do such idiotic things, I have found it very difficult to control my temper and not let loose a verbal volley :-P

People also get very impatient while waiting at signals and start honking the moment the signal turns green or at junctions where there are timers, when about 5 seconds are still left! Do they think the person in front wants to stay there? Or do they think he is deliberately waiting there to block you? Of course he has also seen the light turn green and is going to start moving! This is something I don't do, though I have been honked at when I keep waiting till the light turns green :-D Once I stopped a little abruptly since the light had just turned red and a taxi dude, probably thinking he is driving an F1 car, swerved around me and ended up grazing my car and scratching it! Surprisingly, I didnt get as angry as expected and after shouting at him a little bit moved on!!

Anyways, the reasons given for rash driving/road rage included the usual ones like people are leading very stressed out lives, they are always in a rush to reach somewhere, very little time and on and on. I think it has more to do with people, especially here, lacking basic civic sense and respect and understanding of others! Also, more importantly more than half of them can't really drive! It is more of a bhagwan bharose driving! A friend had once told me that the way to drive in India is to worry only about traffic ahead and on your right. I asked him what about the traffic on the left and hez like dude, you will be on someone else's right hand side ;-)

The other day I was going with a friend on his 2-wheeler and he did not know what brake lights were!! This I came to know after he had just managed to avoid hitting a Qualis!! And he had been riding his scooter for 6 months!!! I asked him how did you manage so long...and his classic reply...distance suddenly kam hote hua dikhta to he would brake hard and stop!!!!!!! Needless to say I was stunned on hearing this and then spent the next 5 minutes showing him when cars around us were braking and how to spot it!

An alarming statistic reported in today's paper was that blore registers the most number of 2-wheelers per month in the whole country! If this trend continues, then there will be utter mayhem out there and driving would really become a battle best not fought :-D

-uv.

Vacation at last!

Finally I took a 4 day break and went to some place other than Bombay!! :-D Kaushik bhai aka the Big G (hereafter referred to as BG) had come down from Bombay and though he had planned his trip almost 2 months in advance, me being me, finalized our destination only about 24 hours before our journey :-)

So we headed out towards Coorg, a district in Karnataka. We boarded a bus for Madikeri (or Mercera) and reached there at 545 am! The first task was to find a place to stay and we went from 1 lodge to another, each one being more expensive than the previous one by a 100 bucks! Big g even went and tried for home stay with no luck! Eventually, we just took one and went and crashed!

The first destination we decided to cover was the Abbey Falls and time being a constraint, decided to take an auto. This is where BG showed his amazing bargaining skills and convinced the auto dude to take us to and fro for 25 less than what he wanted :-) Again out here, the auto dude asked me "Sir, you know Kannada". Standard reply: "Kannada gotilla!". And his standard response: "Hindi gotilla!!" :-D But unlike the auto dudes in Bangalore, he was a sporting chap and tried to converse with us in whatever little Hindi he must have picked up. We reached the falls, all set to go and splash in the cold water, and to our disappointment going near the falls was not allowed! Not a great start to our vacation! But we anyways decided to go as close as we could ( me encouraged by BG) and taking cue from us, lot of other people followed suit. And guess what? here also we bumped into the typical gujju family on vacation :-D After taking the necessary photographs we scooted from there and returned to base!

And I had one of most amazing thalis i have had ever. The owner of the hotel himself was taking and serving the order and was one of the most polite persons I have seen in this part of the world! We immediately left for Kushalnagar from where we took another auto to go to the Tibetan Monastery. When we reached there, some prayer was going on and there were tonnes of monks sitting there reciting in such sync, it reminded me of kids reciting poems in kindergarten!! But somehow felt good and peaceful out there. I directed BG to some monk and asked him to get some info as to how long the prayer would last and went off to explore the place. I returned about 15 minutes later to find him still chatting with the monk who seemed to have a bored expression on his face by now :-D When I joined them, the monk seemed relieved and quickly disappeared from there!

We roamed around for some more time, bumped into the same gujju family again! BG again began chatting with them while I like always vamoosed from the scene! Before returning, we decided to check out some shops. BG was looking for some particular bell which generates music when you rotate a wooden stick around it's base. There was this huge lady manning the shop who demonstrated how the thing works. Poor dude kept on trying for 5 mins, but the damn bell refused to produce any music! I tried for like 15 seconds and voila! beautiful music a la mozart filled the air !! ok just kidding, but the point is I succeeded :-D There was another female who got fed up with our attempts and gave us a meditation bowl to try with. And I am not exaggerating when I say this, but it took my pal all of 20-25 minutes to get some sound out of the bowl!! i tried a couple of times and didn't succeed, so the lady gave me a heavier bowl and this time it was definitely Mozart! The fat lady was in the meantime, trying in vain to guess my name! We were like...this should be fun! Most people, as I have written earlier, can't get my name even when I tell them, and she was going to try and guess it!!! hahaha! i tried to use this to get some discount on a t-shirt i liked, but soon found they didn't have a single one in my size! By now, BG had succeeded in producing some sound from the bowl and then in vain tried to bargain for it, so we moved on and tried the other shops, which as it turned out didn't have the so called bowls!

Anyways, we were planning to return to base camp when the auto dude suggested we go to Nisargdhama - it has deer park, elephant ride, the cauvery river flows there and also some cottages n trekking thing. We reach there at 6 and come to know that the place closes at 5! So the auto chap talks to the gate keeper(my guess is he told him that u can fleece these buggers!) and for double the entrance fee (10 being the normal rate) allows us to go in :-D we explore the place, find the deer park, see the cauvery and after an hour are out of there! It was 7ish and pitch dark and no auto in sight! We start walking on the highway barely able to see the road trying to stop any bus/auto which passed by without any luck! Finally we find an auto and reach Kushalnagar and back to Madikeri. The hotel where we had lunch had already closed, so we start our hunt for a place to eat and find this udupi joint which is open. Here I got another pleasant surprise when the waiter turned out to be a very nice and polite person. He patiently repeated the entire menu for us twice, when getting water for us ensured that it was clean, and said you are welcome when we said thank you!! I could not believe my ears when he said that!!

Day 1 ended with us timing the route for Raja's seat so that we could plan day 2 accordingly. Next day we reached there around 10ish and I witnessed one of the most beautiful sites I have ever seen!! It was nature at it's best!! There was a light drizzle, a thin fog cover, cool wind and of the most breath taking views I have ever seen. You gotta see it yourself! We stayed there for almost an hour and reluctantly dragged ourselves out and on to some shopping where again BG demostrated his bargaining prowess. This time even I joined in and the shop keeper got so fed up of us that he told us to give whatever amount we wanted to :-D We jumped on such a generous offer and ended up buying so much that we had trouble carrying it around :)

Well we had by now decided to head to Mysore (not in our original plan) and took a bus to reach there. By the time we reached, we had just enough time to cover one place there and to my bad luck we decided on Vrindavan Gardens! Had heard a lot about that place and must say I was very disappointed by what I saw! They have not at all maintained the place and it seems to have lost all it's charm and beauty. The only saving grace was the musical fountain and I am glad to say, it compares well with the one at Bellagio, Las Vegas!

On returning to Mysore, our last stop was Hotel DasPrakash, where apparently dosas originated! Getting to that place was like another trek which I undertook grudgingly, but must say it was worth it. The food, especially the plain dosa was amazing! And then I tried out a couple of dessert items and they were yummy!! (neta, this is being written keeping you in mind ;-) ) Finally we took a bus back to "namma bengaluru" and landed here at 130am. And here I got to see the final part of BG's amazing prowess. The way he argued with the auto dudes was a lesson for any one who needs one in the art of bargaining! He managed to get us home for less than 1.5 times the auto fare , that too when they were demanding more than twice the normal :-D

The real adventure happened in the evening when BG's flight first got delayed by 5 mins then an hour, then 2 hours and eventually got cancelled and re-scheduled for the next day! We drove to the airport and he fought and fought and argued with the airline guys till they agreed to put him on a flight early next morning! We reached home and slept at 130 woke up at 530 and were again on our way to the airport by 6. Once again, I created a personal best by dropping him at the airport in 20 mins flat (distance of 15kms) and was home in another 20! BG eventually reached Bombay and I got back to the daily grind here!

-uv.

p.s. link to photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31949654@N00/

What is in a name??

thus wrote the great shakespeare! well, after my experiences, i tend to agree with him! rather, having seen how my name has been butchered over the years, i have been forced to agree! (unless you are from the movie/tv industry where it matters a lot to people!)
For reasons unknown, my parents decided to name me Urvish - a Sanskrit word meaning the King of Earth!! I guess their hope must be ki kisi din beta bada hoke bahut saari property ka maalik banega :-p

Anyways, this is more about how over years, people have failed to understand my name the first time I have told them (many take 2-3 attempts and some never get it!) and how they have come up with their own versions. When I was in school, thankfully my teachers got it right. But that is where my joy ended! I happened to be a bright student then, and coming first in class was the norm! So every year in my locality, they would give some prize to the dude who came first and when they would announce my name, it would be "Urvashi"!! The first time it happened, I let it go thinking it must have been a mistake! But it happened again the following year as well! And I got freaking mad...dude, the name is written in gujju for you, and you can't even read that?! and how come u get only my name wrong?! neways, next year another dude was a compere and he did the exact same thing!! i had finally learnt to read gujju and figured out the dudez must be mixing up the "e" matra on the "v" with the "sh"(try reading that in Hindi!!) ... personally, that is impossible to do! well the fallout was, i stopped going to collect the awards!

then came college and I started hearing new flavours - Urvesh being the most common! One could in fact count on finger tips how many people got my name right at the first attempt! I heard one of the best ones in engg - Gurvesh!! Me and my friend could not stop laughing! I could not understand how the person in question ever heard Urvish as Gurvesh!! Then came Purvesh, again not sure where the dude heard a P sound, and finally Urvanish!! Of course I had long stopped getting bothered by all this and the number of people who had got it right at the first attempt had still not touched double digits :-D

I thought in the US the trend would stop, but no siree, the same kept happening over and over! The Americans, because of their inherent inability to pronounce Indian names properly, would say it as Ervish! At work also, there was a dude who butchered it even though all he had to do was copy paste my name from an email!

As life moves on and I meet new people, I am sure I shall be hearing at least a few more interesting versions. :)

-uv

Stop this Abuse!

Off late, have been reading of a lot of cases of rape/molestation all over India (our capital seems to be leading). Just read about one more where an 11 year old was a victim and is now pregnant! The moment I read about such things, my blood begins to boil. What sort of a person would do such a deed and that too to a small girl?! The dude in question has been arrested and if tried would get a few years of RI and might get out again. That is enough punishment for such a crime? Definitely not!!

Sometime back, we had a cop in Bombay, commit such an act in a police station in one of the busiest areas in south bombay - marine lines. That is the place I used to pass by everyday on my way home from college. When I had read about the incidence, I was too shocked to react. I could not fathom how the constable managed to commit such an act in that place?! I mean, there are so many people passing by there even at midnight, surely someone must have heard the noise?! The good part was he was arrested and convicted. The bad part, he got only 7years RI (that is the max our law prescribes!). even worse, it seems he had already served a year while on trial, so he would not have to serve that one year, plus some days are anyways dedcuted bcoz of some govt bonanza, and if he shows good behaviour, some more time deducted...eventually, he would be out in about 5 years time!

That is all the punishment for ruining the entire life of another person? Cant even imagine the mental trauma that girl must have gone through! And she might have to face this same person again 5 years later when he is released! What would happen to her, if that ever happens?
Our human rights activists protest capital punishment and in such cases, even if it were handed out, I dont think it is enough. I think, the punishment has to be much more severe, much more gruesome and shocking that it should act as very strong deterrent. We could take inspiration from the arab countries here maybe, and flog/stone such people in public, humiliate them or something even stronger so that the next guy who thinks of committing such an act, would think a thousand times before doing it and then not do it!!

Unfortunately, I know something like this will never happen. Our law is too weak and the whole process is so freaking slow that the victims, who show the courage to come forward and report, hardly ever get justice. Unless she happens to be someone of foreign origin! In such cases, justice is meted out speedily! Can't understand our obeisance to the white skin! I am not saying that they should not have got justice, am glad in their case it was delivered speedily. But why not do the same for women of our country?! Why the double standards, the lack of concern for our own people? I guess this is part of another issue, where we Indians discriminate against our fellow contrymen based on skin color, caste et al!

Till we inept indians do something about this, the women will have to take the matters in their own hands, and hit back at men guilty of such crimes!

-uv.

Bangalore Experiences - Part Deux

Continuing...

There is one thing abt blore that is quite similar to the US and very unlike bbay...after 930 ish in the night, most places are deserted...if you want to have dinner, then good luck finding a place which would be open at that time! of course, off late i think the situation has improved, and you will experience this after 10 pm :-p Also, the blore cops, in their eternal wisdom, have decided that all pubs/discs/hotels tat serve alcohol shud down shutters by 1130! (not tat i frequent pubs/discs :-p)
again, contrast this with bbay, well i dont think i need to say anything here...after all it is known as the city that never sleeps!

returning to the topic of m g rd and brigade rd, that is where most people seem to go and hang out...in fact on weekends, it is so bad that there is no place to walk on those roads (for those who know, it resembles bhuleshwar area in bbay!) there is a decent bowling place there,but itz usually crowded like crazy esp during the weekends, a couple of theatres, few coffee places/pizza joints and some very expensive stores!

then in other parts there are malls (i hate malls!) a few multiplexes, where you usually dont get tickets! there is a mux where they have a special screening area, where they charge you a whopping 500 bucks for a movie! wat u get for 500? a reclining seat - almost 180 deg poss from wat i have heard (u can go to sleep if it is a lousy movie) and something to eat!

among other things u can do : go pubbing (useless if u r not into drinking like me!), go to a disc - most have a restriction of couples only (so not really an option!), go watch a play - ticket prices are sky high! ummmm.....ummmmmm.....can't think of anything else to do here!!

in fact, a typical evening conversation in office between me and aps goes like:
me: dude, bore ho raha hai.
aps: same here dude!
me: chal, kuch karte hai (think abt the mountain dew ad!)
aps: yup , lets do something.
me: but kya?
aps:ummmm...
me: hmmmmmmmmm...
aps: movie?
me: auto nahi milega/ ticket nahi milega/ no movie worth watchin!
aps: go to barrista/ccd on mg?
me: udhar bhi baithne ko jaga nahi milega!
aps: ummmmmmmm
me: hmmmmmmmmmmm
aps: lets go out to eat?
me: dude, already 7, auto nahi milega/ jagaa nahi milega! mila, to late hoga, aur raat ko phir se auto nahi milega!
aps:ummmmm.
me:hmmmmmmmmmm
aps: to phir tu tere ghar ja, mein mere ghar jaata hoon, tv dekh, book padh, jakh maar aur so ja!
me: sounds like a gud plan, lets do it :-D
aps: nothing to do in this lousy place man!
me: yeah, but tell me wat wud u do in bbay?? (very valid q rt?!)
aps: many things, but worst case, i wud go to the beach and chill out!
me: yups, apne sheher mein therez is something or the other u can do man!

after tat itz off to home, do some tp, eat, sleep n back to office the next day, and the above conversation is repeated for the umpteenth time!

to counter our allegation, local friends suggested u guys need to find galz...hmmm..gud suggestion dudes, but galz are not commodities u find on the road and pick one n get them home! so where do u go to find one? the reply comes: goto a disc (but u need one to get in there in the first place!)..goto gym...nah already tried tat :-p goto the other one, itz better!...nah, too expensive! goto a dance class!!! what?! itna desperation bhi nahi hai! aur yeh kaisa city hai where there is nothing to do if you don't have a gal wid u?!

anyways, i don't think it would be fair to not mention the few gud pts this city has...one the weather is good, it's not as hot as bombay...but the rate at which the city is growing and with pollution levels increasing, that could soon become a thing of the past (already this summer was bad!). and the other thing is, compared to bombay, the travel times are less..yeah weekends it is really bad here as well...but at least for me, travelling is not all that bad...after all worst case of 45 mins from office to home during peak hours is nothing compared to the 1.5 hrs i wud take to reach from college to home in the evening!

with that, i shall cease to crib about the "garden city" until i remember more pts :-p

-uv.

Bangalore Experiences - Part 1

Warning: Involves lot of blore bashing - so if u r localite/someone who loves blore, plz stop here!

It was a gloomy afternoon in March in NJ when I got the call saying "glad to make you an offer"! soon had told all my frndz and whoever I talked to would keep praising blore like it was paradise on earth and there is no place which even comes close! So I pack my bags, those huge ones folks travelling to the states carry, land in bbay and after a brief stay take another flight land at the blore hawai adda...i am finally in the Silicon valley of India! from here I start the inevitable comparison with Bombay! bombay airport at that time sucked royally (only marginally better now), but this was even worse...is this the image we convey to the outside world..to people coming from the real Silicon valley? the ones who have brought all this business here??!!

over the weekend, my cousin showed me around bangalore, whatever he could and the 2 places we saw first are what most people usually see...yup M.G. Road and Brigade Road!!! i thought to myself..this looks promising...should be a gud city to be in (little did i know how wrong i would be!).
anyways, the next step was to find an apt...and the first place i picked was koramangala...saw a few houses, which looked either like kholis (bbay lingo) or were really huge places...but the rents they asked were ridiculous...moment u tell them u work for an IT company, that's it! be ready to shell a fortune to rent one...anyways, i ended up in a place close to where one my friend's stayed...the area reminded me of the place in south bombay where i grew up and in a jiffy i agreed to rent the place...

once i settled down into my new place, and got into the (now boring) daily routine, issues start cropping up!

first come the auto guys: either they refuse to come to ur destination, or if they come, their meters are faster than their autos! u try to reason/argue with them and they will pretend they do not know hindi! a normal conversation wud go like:
me: aapka meter fast hai..
ag (auto guy): %$#@$# (something in kannada)
me: kannada gotilla (the only kannada word i knew then)
ag: hindi gotilla!!
me: meter fast...paisa nahi dega
ag: (miraculously starts understanding hindi!) meter correcta, paisa do!
me: nahi dega!
ag: meter correcta, $%$%#$(no clue wat he uttered!)
me : (fed up by now, come to mandvali) itna chahiye to lo!
finally he takes it and goes!

this became routine, till one day i finally got fed up and stopped arguing with them and started giving them what their meter showed! after all, who wants to start the day with an argument!
also, they never come short distances, usually very rude, never return small change, loot u when it rains and then it got so bad that i wud have to walk almost 1 km from office b4 i wud finally get one guy to agree to come to my place (after promising him 10 bucks more than the meter!!)

to compare this with bbay, no auto dude will ever refuse(very rarely they might), even for 500 mts they will come, are polite and always return the smallest of change!

next come the shop owners:
they seem to be one lot who are not interested in making money! you go to any shop, and in true indian style start bargaining..u tell him that u get it cheaper somewhere else and u will go n buy from there, they are least bothered! of course, all this is assuming he shows enough interest and shows the whole range of stock in his store! the nightmarish experience i had when buying a dvd player and then finding it not working..whoa! the store manager ( a localite) ended up fightin with me over the phone and even had the nerve to cut the call! i then talked to the store owner and blasted him off and he apologized to me but the manager didnt! i was like, dude, watever happened to the fundas of "customer is the king" and "customer is always right!" ??

again comparing to bbay, u go to any store, and u will find that they religiously adhere to the above 2 principles..even after hrs of haggling, if u dont buy anything from them, they will not mind! in fact, the competition is so fierce there, they go out of their way to make life easier for u...for eg, in case of provision stores, u call them and order say just a bread packet, they will deliver it at your doorstep in no time and free of charge! and if the stuff is not gud, they will take it back, get a gud one and re-deliver!! that is customer service! and the same applies for medical stores, ice-cream parlors, hotels...the list can go on and on!

to be cont'd.....

The Devil's Advocate - 2

This one is not about me..more about the show by the same name on cnn-ibn hosted by Karan Thapar...he had our esteemed FM Chidambaram on his show today and the topic was about the government's decision to go ahead and implement the 27% decision, and PC endorsing the quota policy.

The dude had a good chance to really grill and (for lack of a better word) check-mate PC. But our FM turned out to be much smarter than i think thapar anticipated! of course, he screwed up the interview by constantly interrupting PC....the fm got so bugged, he kept saying you either let me finish or go on to the next q!

the point is he was justifying reservations...for example he claimed 69% reservation has worked in TN and all the other southern states...so it is a good thing and should be implemented in the rest of the country as well! and also that the percentage of reservation should be decided based on the %age of population the OBCs form...what nonsense!! just because tn has huge obc population (read vote banks) and the govt claims it works, is no justification to implement the same in the whole country! plus, how do u accurately determine the %age of population belonging to obc class in the whole country??!!

and if for a minute, you accept the FM's argument that reservation helps, then why not introduce a clause, that in a family it can be availed of only once? and why have such a huge percentage in higher institutions? and shouldn't it be based on financial circumstances than the caste one belongs to? isn't this dividing the country on basis of caste which is as bad as (if not worse than) dividing on the basis of religion?

these are a few of the points i think Mr. Thapar should have raised rather than the child like quibbling (to quote PC!) which he did...he seemed like a kid who was all excited at the opportunity he got and he squandered it badly!

-uv.

Return to India!

Was chatting with manguess (ol' engg buddy) yesterday after an eternity! and we started talking about my decision to leave the US and return to India. The question was did i regret the decision?? w/o blinking, i replied no!!

going back in time, i still vividly remember the 10 odd months I spent in the US jobless! lot of time was spent in scuttling between the east and west coast, gathering miles on Delta :-D well, the OPT period was coming to an end, H1's were fast disappearing and the only 3 options were: goto a desi consultant and get an H1 done, re-enroll in school or return back to India. Now, I was totally against the first option, second option - i was in no mood to study further, even if it was to extend my stay till i get a job! So the only viable and preferred one was to return home. The glitch - I didn't have a job! As things turned out, got to know abt my current job through my roomie, apped, gave some interviews and lo behold! 2 days later they gave me an offer!! I jumped on it and was back in India!

been little over 2 years since I took that course changing decision and came back. When I had gone there, I had never even in my dreams thought that I would have to return to India and that I would end up in Bangalore! before that, the southern most part of India I had seen was South Bombay...because that is where I grew up! so yes, i was a little apprehensive about staying in b'lore, but then I had heard so much abt the city, I thought it should be fine. About my impressions of this place and the experiences here, that is for another blog.

The bottom line, I am glad I came back. One of the best part is, I can go to Bombay whenever I want! As big g jokes, i have a plane pass from blore-b'bay (on the lines of local train season pass most bombayites possess!) :-) advice to manguess was : just chill, if you want to/have to come back, don't think too much and just do it! after all "Mera Bharat Mahaan"!!

-uv.

p.s. as an addendum to yesterday's post, till i find my hidden talent, people might have to bear with my "other natural" talent :-D

Natural Talent!

Suddenly there are a lot of things i can think of putting down here..and am having hard time deciding what to write about!!

a few days back , had written about my decision not to irritate people and as expected, my friends reacted by ROFL :-) was discussing it with one of them, and he mentioned why suppress your natural talent!

tat got me thinking...most ppl have a talent, a flair for something or the other...quite a few friends i know are good at writing (damn creative at tat), good poets, painters,singers and god knows what else! on my part, i have been trying hard to figure out since years what talent i have ! school days, i used to be decent at drawing, but never considered it seriously. sports - not my cup of tea - i call myself specialist #11 batsman in cricket :-D , singing..less said the better! the one thing i was good at was the english language, but that is not talent, and even that eventually got screwed!

so as my friend mentioned (motasaheb is wat i call him), the only real talent i seem to have is to "pakao people" and even there i feel there are tonnes of people , whom i know, much better than me :-) motasaheb being the best example! in fact, we had a pact that we will not pakao each other, but gang up against others...and some poor souls really had the most torrid times of their lives!

but now tat i have decided to "curb this talent" (not sure how long i can do it :-p),
it is back to the hunt for that hidden talent!!

Another weekend here!

the football wc finally got underway. had gone to friend's place to watch. started with the usual daru session...no i have not started drinking, just the ocassional sip, still have not been able to figure out why people love beer! the match was good in the sense that both sides were playing positively but German defense left a lot to be desired!

then came the drive back home..set out deciding it will be a leisure drive, ended up setting a personal best...12 odd kms from k'mangla to m'waram in a lil over 14 minutes :-p the drive has driven away my sleep, so i guess i will end up watching the other match as well...hope itz as good as the other!

-uv.

The Devil's Advocate!

Just realized that the date today is 6-6-6...the devil's number! reminded me that some of my friends(mostly females!) think that I am the Devil's incarnation! Now, I for the life of me can't understand the reason for this ! Ok, just kidding...i do know why they feel that way...when someone eats your head, irritates you to the point where you feel like breaking all the bones in the person's body...then who can blame them if they feel that way?! :-p

in fact one of my friends, who sits next to me in office, normally a very quiet and patient fellowm, got so bugged once that he lost his temper and tried to pay me back in kind! since that day, i have decided i shall not irritate anyone! (i can hear some of me friends ROFL!) but i shall let my actions speak...after all actions speak louder than words!!

and to keep my word, i shall not irritate by rambling about my natural talent ;-)

-The Devil!

Indians as natural sportsmen?

Was reading the BT (Bangalore Times) today and there is an article which claims Indians naturally excel at certain sports! Now when I read this, I could not stop laughing (with all due respects to the sportspersons playing those sports).
What was even more funny is the sports which they picked and the reasons they gave. Here is the list:
1. Tennis:
Yeah, this was the first one mentioned! seems we have many youngsters come up with club culture, so it helps! What crap! Goes on to say we have stars like Sania, Uberoi sisters, et al...Hullo?? How many of them have won a grand slam? for that matter how many Indians have even reached the finals of a grand slam? (not counting doubles here)
joke: seems we are better than the Europeans here becaus of our "club" culture :-D

2. Golf:
Advantages we have: does not need strong physique, great concentration (yoga helps!) and mental toughness!! again, how many Indians have won a major golf tournament? yup you guessed it right - Zero!

3. Badminton:
Probably the only sport of those mentioned where we had some good international quality players. though not sure if they ever won a championship of significance!

4. Hockey:
Shall not even comment about this. The state of affairs since the last 2 odd decades speaks for itself!

The thing I could not figure out is, why BT chose such a topic? What was going through the head of the dude who wrote it and the ed who approved this?? Do they have such a dearth of topics? In fact even cricket, where we are currently in top 5 in both forms of the game, does not strictly qualify as a global sport and hence cannot be considered(thankfully they didn't!!).

On a side note, another thing beyond comprehension, why is Rahul Mahajan issue being given so much coverage? What has he done to warrant such attention? I tend to agree with Amir Khan when he says our news channels are now more like entertainment channels!

-uv.

What Democracy this?

Am in a mood to vent off some anger and frustration at the recent happenings in my beloved country!

First is obviously the ridiculous resolution to introduce 27% reservation in institutions of higher learning. I can't understand the logic of this one at all. If you are so worried about the OBCs, SC's/ST's et al, then make sure that you provide basic primary and secondary education (along with food, homes, and other necessary facilities - where is the 2% cess I pay on most things going anyways??) and also if necessary the undergrad education. But if they want to study further and enchance their skills, the only thing they should be provided with is financial assistance, and this they can easily avail from banks - the GoI need to worry about it.

There is a certain section saying that merit should not be the sole criterion since these folks are at a disadvantage. Well my question to them: Would they be willing to go and get themselves treated from a person who became a doctor, who was not qulaified to be one, but just because he was from the reserved cateogry, managed to get in?? I bet these same folks would not lurk anywhere close to such a hospital!! In fact, if it were to be made compulsory for doctors to declare how many attempts they needed to pass, there would be only a handful of them left in whom people would go confidently! Yes, even docs get KT's :-D

The other thing that is worrying is the increasing religious intolerance. And sad to say, people of my community, which apparently has the image of being one of the least aggresive of the lot, is at the forefront! They have banned Amir films already(yeah there is call to withdraw all his older movies as well from rental stores!). Now, the Big B, hrithik et al have also spoken in favor of the Khan. so will they go ahead and ban their films as well? Your guess is as good as mine!

The biggest joke of course, is the call to ban the Da Vinci Code. I mean, the book was released over 2 years back, almost the whole world has read it, the movie has not been opposed by the Vatican, yet the morons in our country want the movie banned!! in fact, even though the GoI has cleared it (it should not have got involved in the first place!), govts of TN, AP and Kerala have still gone ahead and banned it! Can anyone explain the rationale behind this? what possible political mileage can one get out of doing this?

The last thing, is the double standards of the Left! On one side, they oppose privatisation, divestment, liberalisation, basically anything good and progressive for the country and on the other hand they go and implement these very things in WB! Also, they steadfastedly refuse to join the government at the centre! They want power but not the responsibility that comes with it! Only recently discovered their logic for these separate view points...it seems in WB, they are in the govt, so they can ensuure fairness and equality in the process of privatisation! Hullo??!! If that is the case, why not do the same at the Centre, you nimcompoops!!

anyways, i think have vented most of my frustration for the time being :-p time to follow the french open now :D

-uv.

Rest Day!!

A concept quite common long long ago in test match cricket, where after 3 days of cricket, there used to be a rest day!! (cricket afficiandos, correct me if i am wrong!)
well, i had thought i wud also have a rest day...after all, how many different things can one think of and write everyday?!! not someone like me, who is not as gifted as my close friend, neta, who btw hates the concept of blogging :-D the dude wrote an entire blog as to why he hates the very concept, and i as usual was mighty impressed with his writing! (this blog being for all audiences, can't paste the link here..the title is not a suitable one!)

anyways, went and saw X3...to be avoided by people who have not seen parts 1 and 2 and who do not like sci fi movies, or who look for more than entertainment!!

have a deluge of meetings tomorrow so, shall force the rest period now!

be prepared for ramblings about my anti-reservation stance!

Kick butt have fun!

tatz the motto of the ex-CEO of my co! n folks in the office here really take it seriously...the "have fun" part that is! how else can u explain 2 foosball tables in the office...both of them always occupied...people waiting to pounce on it as soon as one set of folks finish a game...and people not being deterred by the fact that the handle on one of the rods is missing and a serious threat to the nail on ur thumb!!
they r too busy kicking butts of their opponents!

wish our sportsmen (women) had such enthu n determination! our latest tennis star loses in R1 of a grand slam, and all she has to offer are excuses...yeah agreed itz not easy to compete at the highest level...but when u get to represent ur country...rnt u expected to put in more than 100%??? at least tatz wat our ckt gr8s like gavaskar seem to suggest!! (personally, if they start playing 365 days a year, either ppl will stop watching cricket or if they dont : India Shining will become a thing of the past!!)

also some anti - tobacco week / day happening... people trying to convince butt-heads to kick butt! well , if people want to smoke and kill themseleves, so be it! itz a free country after all!! (recent events do not give that feeling, but that is the topic for a future blog!)

17 crore jackpot!

nah...sadly it wasn't me who won it...some 50 yr old chap from kolkatta has apparently won a 17 crore (11 after tax deductions) jackpot!! the highest neone in India has ever won!
got me thinking...wat wud such a dude do with so much money??!! i mean 11 crores is huge!! the closest i have heard of anyone getting such money n spending it is in a movie!! in the movie(malamaal - copied from the english movie bruster's millions), hero inherits 330 crores ... condition being he has to spend 30 crores in 30 days w/o buying nething (property etc) for himself...

but tat was a movie and this is real life and 11C is no joke...i mean, put urself in tat dudez shoes for a moment, and think...wat wud u do if u got tat kinda money?? (if u r in bombay, n plan to buy the most expensive flat, this wud cover just half of tat!) but say u buy a decent property, decide to go on a world tour, buy everything u had desired for...and even gave some part to bhai log(protection tax folks!).... still u cud end up with enuff to last ur lifetime!!

personally, all i cud think of doing was investing the bulk of it in business/stocks!! .... itz in the blood afterall :-D

The Blues that weren't

nothing to do with Team India :-p thtough am glad we lost da series 4-1, but cud not figure out y dravid said he missed ganguly??!!

was thinking of commenting on amma's comments yest, but there were too many other things to talk abt...first of all, i don't think u can call me lazy, just b'coz i never wrote my assignments in college.. i had tried to do it sincerely once, but it was just wasn't worth it! and copyin from someone and doing a precis of assignment was no easy task :-p it used to be quite an effort condensing the girlz' 10+ page assgns into 5 odd pages :-D ditto for the expts! (nor can it be called plagiarism...since no one used to do original work anyways :-D )

another suggestion she made was...hold ur breath...comment abt the saas bahu serials!! i cud not control my laughter!! i was like ammoi...when i go home to Bombay, from 9-11 pm, i just shut my self up in my room and goto sleep/read mid-day, while my ma watches all the K soaps.... i just cannot tolerate it!! and mind u, i have tried watching some of those torture serials and i just cud not!! the worse was when my cuz n aunt came over to my place here and when they wud watch those, i cudnt go to another room also..my cuz was studying...and blore is a dead place by 10pm!..i am like God wat sins did i commit to deserve this!

but from wat i have heard, the scenario is the same in almost all the households all over...even dinner time gets affected! of course the biggest joke was, when some yrs back a frnd had told me tat therez a yahoo grp dedicated to the biggest K serial of them all...i was too shocked to react! and the biggest tragedy.... i land in the US and my roomies cuz picks us up and takes us to his place in Artesia(desi capital in so cal)...after resting for a while he asks us if u want to watch any hindi serials...n the option he gives...no prizes for gueessing...ksbkbt!!!!!!!!! had it not been our first day in the US, am sure both of us wud have ran back to the campus as fast as we cud!

oh, i seemed to have digressed a lot from my title :-D was actually gonna say tat it turned out to be a chill day at office and not the nightmare i was expecting!

so there, i think i have not been lazy, not plagiarized anything (no assurances though) and written abt a topic abt which i thought i wudnt have anything to write about!

Weekend Rantings..

well first of all half apologies to the friend i cursed yest...it seems he went for the movie, but after eating something during the interval he fell sick and had to leave the movie half way thru!!

so he decides to go today morning and guess wat?? calls me at 845 and somehow convinces me to come along for the 1045 show today!!! so to answer my own q...ppl like me go for 1045 shows on weekend mornings!!!!!!!!! thankfully the movie was good...so it was worth it! kajol looks stunning and amir is gud as usual...the best part was the movie tix were for just 40 bucks!! yeah such theatres still exist in today's multiplex culture(2oo bucks for this one!!)...so u get to enjoy the complete movie experience...crowd whistling, calpping, passing interesting comments...reminded of the gud ol' days!!

also watched BI2 and the pink panther on vcd...bi2 sucked and tpp was tp!
the race was gud as well..though still cant figure out why ferrari asked the GOD to do something so stupid! i mean..worst case he wud have been 3rd on the grid? tat too with GOD at the wheels, they cud have easily come 1st! but gud to see he managed 5th.
neways, end of another weekend...back to monday morning blues tomorrow...though won't have enuff time to waste, with tonnes of work already waiting for me :(

More ramblings

Nice lazy weather to start the day...was woken up by a friend who called to say that he is giving the classic kalti and going for Fanaa alone at 1045 am! who goes that early for a movie on a sat morning?! i just mumbled something and kept the fone...actually a miracle tat i even remember the call :-p

am glad didnt stay awake the whole night to watch the lousy match...for once i had predicted we will win a series comfily and we lost it comfily with 1 match to go!! lots of angry reactions and calls for heads to roll will follow in desh as usual!

neways, time to think wat to do for lunch as well as the rest of the weekend...

back l8r!

The First Post!

With google challenging the might of Microsoft, and coming up with amazing products one after the other, had to try this out as well, just like its other products!( i know i am late in trying this out..but as they say better late than never!)

the look and feel seems better than that of microsoft (had only posted twice in a year out there!)

so lets see how the new innings out here goes!