Yes, the inevitable and expected has happened - the Indian Cricket team failed to make it to the second round of the WC! As expected, there are loud protests, the usual stone throwing, effigy burning and police security outside the cricketers' homes (all this is becoming very repetitive and boring though!) The usual blame games have started, the media doing countless postmortems, and calls to sack everyone from the captain to the coach to the selectors, players - everyone! Thankfully, no one is asking for the masseuse / physio's heads :-)
I read a very good article in the print version of the STOI yesterday, where the author has stated that maybe instead of we losing, the other team won! It was the better team of the 2, better prepared and had the skill + manpower to win! I agree with the dude completely. For all the money that the Indian board has, it has failed to do the basics right and the result is there for all to see! No point in me dwelling on those as everyone in India has an opinion and knows what ails India cricket and what needs to be done (except for the people in power!).
The main point I want to make is - it is about time we as a nation stopped being so obsessed with cricket and according the status of God to our cricketers. We cannot put impossible expectations on 11 men and expect them to go out each time and thrash the opponents. And when they fail to do so, we need to accept that is just a stupid game after all and a loss is not the end of it - at least not for the aam junta! Come on people, get a life, and if you can't stop indulging vicariously through 11 men and then try to slaughter them when they fail to live upto your expectations!
-uv.
p.s. looks like playing for the country was after all not enough "inspiration" for Harbhajan Singh and the rest :-D
Monday, March 26, 2007
Saturday, March 10, 2007
7 years ago!
Just read an article The Bubble Burst! according to which today was the day 7 years ago when the beginning of the end began! Yes folks, this day 7 years back, was the last time the dot-com saw heady highs. After that, it was all downhill which saw many people suffer big losses! Some lucky ones made a fortune and got out unharmed, but those who held on to their stocks dearly are regretting it till this day!
7 years hence, most companies have recovered from the dot-com burst. One of the few remaining companies was Sun Microsystems, and going by recent developments and the rise in stock price (investor confidence?), it also seems to be on the recovery path!!
Of course, today we have Google, which has changed the rules of the game and is considered one of the few serious challenges for M$ !! And there is a lot of stuff open sourced (Sun being at the forefront) and available for free! And Bangalore is now supposed to be the place where the boom is! The question I have pondered over for sometime now is whether we will see another burst - this time in the Silicon Valley of India? Will not dwell much into that one for the time being, since as they say - make hay while the sun shines ;-)
-uv.
7 years hence, most companies have recovered from the dot-com burst. One of the few remaining companies was Sun Microsystems, and going by recent developments and the rise in stock price (investor confidence?), it also seems to be on the recovery path!!
Of course, today we have Google, which has changed the rules of the game and is considered one of the few serious challenges for M$ !! And there is a lot of stuff open sourced (Sun being at the forefront) and available for free! And Bangalore is now supposed to be the place where the boom is! The question I have pondered over for sometime now is whether we will see another burst - this time in the Silicon Valley of India? Will not dwell much into that one for the time being, since as they say - make hay while the sun shines ;-)
-uv.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Inspiration!
With the Cricket WC round the corner, at least one blog on cricket is inevitable! Today morning, on way to work, was switching between radio channels - they also, like tv channels have this uncanny timing of all stations airing ads at approximately the same time! So, I settled on one ad which was about some dude recounting the eng vs ind match where eng needed 200+ runs to win on the last day...and how the crowd started chanting "chak de phatte!" and it "inspired" him and he went on to take 5-31 and help India win (all this while I am wondering who is this dude!!). Turns out to be none other than Harbhajan Singh! Then he says, it's World Cup time and what are you going to do this time to "inspire" him and the team again!
And that is where I have a problem! Is getting payed lakhs of rupees as match fee is not inspiration enough, is making crores through endorsements is not inspiration enough and above all playing for the country is not inspiration enough ??? that the idiot wants us to shout "chak de phatte" to inspire him?? I hope that is not the attitude our team has gone to the WC with! Else, coach Chappel's bold statement that we can reach the semi finals will remain just that!!
Anyways, me being another one of those die-hard patriots when it comes to cricket and esp WC, I am going to support the Indian team as usual (hoping they do not disappoint as always) :-)
As one of the many ads (obviously on cricket) says, "Come on India, deekha do!"
-uv.
p.s. in case you are wondering which product HS was endorsing, it was Seagrams!
And that is where I have a problem! Is getting payed lakhs of rupees as match fee is not inspiration enough, is making crores through endorsements is not inspiration enough and above all playing for the country is not inspiration enough ??? that the idiot wants us to shout "chak de phatte" to inspire him?? I hope that is not the attitude our team has gone to the WC with! Else, coach Chappel's bold statement that we can reach the semi finals will remain just that!!
Anyways, me being another one of those die-hard patriots when it comes to cricket and esp WC, I am going to support the Indian team as usual (hoping they do not disappoint as always) :-)
As one of the many ads (obviously on cricket) says, "Come on India, deekha do!"
-uv.
p.s. in case you are wondering which product HS was endorsing, it was Seagrams!
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Disturbing!
We have this joke alias in our company where some dude keeps sending daily mails called Sip of the Day. I have accumulated over 70 such mails (shows how sincerely I work :-p). But today for a change, I decided to read the latest one and saw a link for the Anatomy of a Suicide Attack Reading the blog and seeing the pictures was very disturbing...scary! The kid shown is smiling after making the bomb, not caring about the fact that soon he himself will be blown to pieces by the bomb he has made! And the fact that there are hundreds of them around is not comforting at all!
After all, in India as well, bomb attacks have become very frequent and easy to execute. The Mumbai local train blasts and the blast on the Samjhauta Express being fresh in memory! Those were planned by terrorists, but now with such videos available on the net, it could be possible for anyone with access to materials (or some ingenuity) to make bombs and kill people! (There was a comment on the above blog that even in the US it's easy to do such things - we all know of instances where kids have managed to procure guns, go berserk and kill innocent kids including themselves!).
Once again, I may sound too pessimistic here, but off late, every time I try to be positive and optimistic about things, some thing like this comes up and the optimism quickly disappears :-(
-uv.
After all, in India as well, bomb attacks have become very frequent and easy to execute. The Mumbai local train blasts and the blast on the Samjhauta Express being fresh in memory! Those were planned by terrorists, but now with such videos available on the net, it could be possible for anyone with access to materials (or some ingenuity) to make bombs and kill people! (There was a comment on the above blog that even in the US it's easy to do such things - we all know of instances where kids have managed to procure guns, go berserk and kill innocent kids including themselves!).
Once again, I may sound too pessimistic here, but off late, every time I try to be positive and optimistic about things, some thing like this comes up and the optimism quickly disappears :-(
-uv.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Laughin all the way to the Bank!
I wish it was me! But I am talking about none other than Ms. Shetty! Meet the bollywood superstar (as per various websites, including the BBC!), who is actually disappearing from the Hindi movie scene...suddenly appears on some random show in the UK....and out of the blues, one day we read that the show is facing allegations of racial discrimination!! and whoz the victim?? u guessed it...our "superstar" of course! the public outcry that followed in the UK and India had to be seen to be believed! every politician tried to use the incidence to his/her advantage...in India, people resorted to their new favorite pastime...burning effigies!
i, in the first place, could not understand, how some idiotic people in some show calling a nobody in India, hurt the pride of a country?? How and why should that affect us in any way? How come we are so intolerant of such a thing? That too, when we come from the land of the Gandhi!! The amount of print and media coverage this event got in India and all over the world was ridiculous! The one person who benefitted the most from all this was Ms. Shetty! She got a lot of sympathy, she became an instant celebrity worldwide...shez got offers from the US, the UK, Singapore (do they make movies there???) and of course our very own bollywood! Plus, she won the show and got a cool 1 lakh pounds prize money plus another 40K appearance fee! translates to over a cool crore odd in hand after taxes (assuming our GoI does not show it's largesse and takes it's "pound" of flesh!)...and on the other hand the poor Goody female lost all her fortune which she had made because of one of the earlier versions of the show!!
coming to the point, what did the people gain from this whole episode? NOTHING!! all they ended up doing was to blow a stupid issue out of proportions, waste their hard earned money in sending sms's to ensure ms. S won her fortune and became world famous and more importantly lose a lot of valuable time over a non-issue! But that is how we are! we wont protest bad governance, lawlessness, rising prices, bad infrastructure, ridiculous taxation policies etc...but we have all the time to protest racsim, the death of a dictator 20 days after his death (so what if cost the life of an innocent 11 year old?) or the exclusion/inlcusion of some random cricketer from the Indian cricket team!
As they say, "Mera Bharat Mahaan"!!!
-uv.
i, in the first place, could not understand, how some idiotic people in some show calling a nobody in India, hurt the pride of a country?? How and why should that affect us in any way? How come we are so intolerant of such a thing? That too, when we come from the land of the Gandhi!! The amount of print and media coverage this event got in India and all over the world was ridiculous! The one person who benefitted the most from all this was Ms. Shetty! She got a lot of sympathy, she became an instant celebrity worldwide...shez got offers from the US, the UK, Singapore (do they make movies there???) and of course our very own bollywood! Plus, she won the show and got a cool 1 lakh pounds prize money plus another 40K appearance fee! translates to over a cool crore odd in hand after taxes (assuming our GoI does not show it's largesse and takes it's "pound" of flesh!)...and on the other hand the poor Goody female lost all her fortune which she had made because of one of the earlier versions of the show!!
coming to the point, what did the people gain from this whole episode? NOTHING!! all they ended up doing was to blow a stupid issue out of proportions, waste their hard earned money in sending sms's to ensure ms. S won her fortune and became world famous and more importantly lose a lot of valuable time over a non-issue! But that is how we are! we wont protest bad governance, lawlessness, rising prices, bad infrastructure, ridiculous taxation policies etc...but we have all the time to protest racsim, the death of a dictator 20 days after his death (so what if cost the life of an innocent 11 year old?) or the exclusion/inlcusion of some random cricketer from the Indian cricket team!
As they say, "Mera Bharat Mahaan"!!!
-uv.
Monday, January 08, 2007
A Year of Hope
Happy New Year everyone!! (yeah, i know itz a touch too late, but what the heck!!) Sadly, the old year didn't end on a good note, nor did the new one begin very well...and no, i am not referring to the "brilliant" performance of Team India!!
First we had the shocking discovery of remains of about 30 odd kids in Noida...cannibalism in India! what was shocking was the apathy displayed by the cops and the CM who reacted as if it was a daily affair! Just because they were the kids of the aam junta, the authorities have shown their typical don't care attitude. as someone mentioned, if it was a vip kid who had gone missing, the entire police force would have been swooning over Noida and random people would have been arrested and harassed on the basis of slightest of doubts.
Then we had an equally shocking incidence (and again the helplessness of the authorities) at the Gateway of India on new year's eve in the financial capital and my beloved city - Mumbai. Yes, it was shocking and shameful that a lady was molested by so many people in the heart of the city and the million cops standing guard did not even notice!! Stating that the revellers were drunk and that the girl invited trouble by wearing short clothes and being present at the Gateway is just not acceptable!! India is a free country and you can do as you please, but that does not mean you go and molest/eve tease women! and the excuse that they invite it just does not cut ice with me! oh and yeah, this is the same place where a girl was murdered in broad daylight and no one had tried to save her! (guess hardly any one remembers that incidence...even i had forgotten it until i read about it in the paper yest :-(
on similar lines, we had another incident a few days back, this time in the IT capital - begalooru (when will our politicans do some real work and not rename cities??). a bouncer in a pub in the heart of the city (brigade road for those who know) throws a few drunkards out who were - you guessed it - eve teasin a girl in the bar... the next thing the poor guy knows, those same drunkards are waiting for him with knives and the kill him on brigade road!!! what is this world coming to! first, there is hardly anything to do in this crappy city. you have malls, multiplexes and overcrowded bowling alleys/coffee shops/pubs for leisure/entertainment! on top of that the stupid cops go and close all hotels/cafes/pubs by 1130. and then you have such incidences where you are no longer sure if you are going to return home alive!!
(you may think i am over reacting, but i dont think so considerin the rate at which techies are being targetted and the dislike the locals have for techies!)
and the last piece of bad news - 2 rounds of inhuman killing of 60 odd people in Assam. the second one being carried out after assurances from some minister that the ULFA is a dying movement in Assam! I know now that our government has been largely neglecting this part of the country (North East) and that the army has been time and again indulging in behaviour that goes against human rights (most of this does not get reported!), but there was a peace dialogue going on and as usual our govt seems to have screwed up! And if it cannot protect it's own citizens, then what is the use? Similar things are happening in the valley as well and we are alienating all these people...
well, i know i have, as has been my attitude of late, very pessimistic about the future of India, but i dont see any signs yet of things improving any time soon! Anyways, herez still hoping that I am wrong and the country and it's people have a gr8 year ahead!
-uv.
First we had the shocking discovery of remains of about 30 odd kids in Noida...cannibalism in India! what was shocking was the apathy displayed by the cops and the CM who reacted as if it was a daily affair! Just because they were the kids of the aam junta, the authorities have shown their typical don't care attitude. as someone mentioned, if it was a vip kid who had gone missing, the entire police force would have been swooning over Noida and random people would have been arrested and harassed on the basis of slightest of doubts.
Then we had an equally shocking incidence (and again the helplessness of the authorities) at the Gateway of India on new year's eve in the financial capital and my beloved city - Mumbai. Yes, it was shocking and shameful that a lady was molested by so many people in the heart of the city and the million cops standing guard did not even notice!! Stating that the revellers were drunk and that the girl invited trouble by wearing short clothes and being present at the Gateway is just not acceptable!! India is a free country and you can do as you please, but that does not mean you go and molest/eve tease women! and the excuse that they invite it just does not cut ice with me! oh and yeah, this is the same place where a girl was murdered in broad daylight and no one had tried to save her! (guess hardly any one remembers that incidence...even i had forgotten it until i read about it in the paper yest :-(
on similar lines, we had another incident a few days back, this time in the IT capital - begalooru (when will our politicans do some real work and not rename cities??). a bouncer in a pub in the heart of the city (brigade road for those who know) throws a few drunkards out who were - you guessed it - eve teasin a girl in the bar... the next thing the poor guy knows, those same drunkards are waiting for him with knives and the kill him on brigade road!!! what is this world coming to! first, there is hardly anything to do in this crappy city. you have malls, multiplexes and overcrowded bowling alleys/coffee shops/pubs for leisure/entertainment! on top of that the stupid cops go and close all hotels/cafes/pubs by 1130. and then you have such incidences where you are no longer sure if you are going to return home alive!!
(you may think i am over reacting, but i dont think so considerin the rate at which techies are being targetted and the dislike the locals have for techies!)
and the last piece of bad news - 2 rounds of inhuman killing of 60 odd people in Assam. the second one being carried out after assurances from some minister that the ULFA is a dying movement in Assam! I know now that our government has been largely neglecting this part of the country (North East) and that the army has been time and again indulging in behaviour that goes against human rights (most of this does not get reported!), but there was a peace dialogue going on and as usual our govt seems to have screwed up! And if it cannot protect it's own citizens, then what is the use? Similar things are happening in the valley as well and we are alienating all these people...
well, i know i have, as has been my attitude of late, very pessimistic about the future of India, but i dont see any signs yet of things improving any time soon! Anyways, herez still hoping that I am wrong and the country and it's people have a gr8 year ahead!
-uv.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
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.
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.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
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
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
Friday, November 03, 2006
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.
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.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
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.
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.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
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.
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.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
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!
Please vote for ur friendly neighbourhood super hero - The Maven at:
The Daku Times
Thank You!
-uv.
p.s. regular blogs will resume shortly!
Thursday, September 07, 2006
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 :-)
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 :-)
Friday, August 25, 2006
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.
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.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
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.
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.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
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
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
Saturday, July 29, 2006
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!!
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!!
Sunday, July 23, 2006
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.
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.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
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.
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.
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