On the Border

Mumbai Pune Mumbai

2010-10-12T19:02:00.001-07:00

Many aspects build up to make an enjoyable movie. Fantastic plot, technical brilliance, good actors are just some of many such. While Mumbai Pune Mumbai has a little bit of each of these for different viewers, it succeeds most as a movie which you can relate to; more so, if you happen to be from Pune. Admittedly, it does go over the top on some occasions, but thankfully such moments don't ruin the experience.

The premise of the movie is quite simple. It warms up the audience to an arranged marriage situation where a guy and girl are about to meet each other and goes on with their interaction through the day. They first meet when the girl arrives from Mumbai and interrupts a game of gully cricket to ask directions to the house where the guy lives. With some luck, she manages to find the right house but is disappointed to see no one home. With not much to do by herself in a new city and time to kill until the evening train takes her back, she agrees to spend time with gully cricket batsman guy. They spend the day together roaming all over town, connect, click and it's a happy ending.

Watching this movie with 3 other Punekars set up a lot of interesting discussions about .. what else - food! It is anyone's guess from an average desi's waistline that we love to indulge in gastronomic delights and Punekars are no exception. The movie starts off (food wise) in Cafe Coffee Day. How CCD manages to serve expensive swill, call it coffee and stay in business is still a mystery to me. From there on they visit more places like Saras Baug, Tulshibaug, Sinhagad, etc and every location shown brought back memories of favorite foods from the neighborhood. Bhel from the Saras Baug chowpatty, the old Jayshree pav bhaji; misal from Shri Krishna and lassi from Laxmi near Tulshibaug; dahi, kanda bhaji, gavraan chicken, jhunka bhakri on Sinhgad, the list just kept going.

I don't know if I enjoyed the movie because it evoked so many memories or whether it was watchable overall. In the end though, we added a few more places to eat at when we visit Pune this year ;)

Turn The Page

2010-10-07T16:55:00.000-07:00

Turning a decade older can do strange things to people. Some choose to question God why he turns people old, some prefer to let it slide. I chose to look back and assess and the only thought that came to my mind - You've come a long way, baby!

A lot happened in the last 10 years. I spent 4 years completing formal education, 3 years in complete financial freedom and 3 years in captivity ... err, being married.

Personally, many things changed. From never having lived away from my parents for 22 years, I spent the next 8 in a distant land. I went from weighing 135 lbs to 180 lbs, from driving a 35cc joke of a vehicle to a 3.5L gas guzzler, from carrying data on floppy disks to carrying data on phones. I made my first ever paycheque; and then some. I traveled extensively. Friends turned into mere acquaintances, and acquaintances, friends. As the years turned over, I saw myself trying hard to blend in when earlier I was trying to stand out.

The world around me changed rapidly too. We entered a new millennium. The global threat of terrorism thrust it's ugliness in our face in the form of 9/11. Train bombings, subway bombings, hotel bombings followed. Bush screwed with America twice over. Gay marriages were legalized. India elected it's first ever woman president; America it's first black president. Tsunamis. Earthquakes. Hurricanes. Oil Spills. Social Media.

The more things changed though, the more they remained the same. Tendulkar is still cricketing God. Ten years later, Laxman is still holding the Aussies at bay. Ponting is still chewing his finger nails. Afridi is still 17 years old. Kobe is still top dog. Derek Fisher's rainbow shots still find the pot of gold through the net. Lakers,under Jackson, still have a shot at a 3-peat. Oil, gold and real estate continue getting expensive by the day. Thalaivar still rules the Tamizh heart. Salman Khan is still debating marriage.

I guess I've rambled on way too much already. To sum up, the last 10 years have been a great journey and as I continue to grow, I continue to learn. The idea is to get better with age, but it comes with one caveat - growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional ;)

Here's to the years to come!

Post Title: Metallica - Turn The Page

Stay Tuned

2008-08-05T15:07:00.000-07:00

I am still around and alive and kicking. I dont have one specific reason for why I havent been blogging lately, actually I have quite a few of them =)) For one, I've been unbearably busy at work. It is tough getting used to the fact that I actually have to work to get paid and I no longer get paid for just showing up everyday (whatever happened to that plan?). So after I am done working the day I have no motivation at all to spend some more time in front of the computer screen. Besides, I dont think it is fair for the wife either that I dont spend time with her even when I am home. So that shoves blogging further below in the priority list. Someone may argue (if anyone were to, really) that I could do this on weekends. But dont you think I'd have better things to do on the weekends, especially when I've been married only for 7 months?!

Oh well. Enough with pointing fingers at Nupur for everything I do or don't. Truth is, she's been egging me on for the last few months to write - its just that I've been lazy (although the work part is really true). So without finding more reasons to cover up my lazy ass, I will make an attempt to write more regularly. Till then, keep watching this space!

Tashan - Movie Review

2008-04-28T15:21:00.000-07:00

They have the ishtyle, the goodluck, the pharmoola. What they don't have, is audience in the movie-hall. This, my dear phellows, ijh the sad ishtory of Tashan.

Tashan is the story of ... well, that doesn't really matter. It is a rehash and replay of classic cliche riddled Bollywood movies. The movie starts off with a Mercedes crashing off the roads into water and makes you wish this was where it all ended. Unfortunately, for the luckless few like me, who have actually paid to watch the movie, it is just the beginning. There on, Jimmy Cliff (Saif Ali Khan) goes on to explain the journey hitherto (downhill).

As the story goes, Jeetender Singh Makhwana aka Jimmy Cliff is a call center employee who trains people for their accents. Jimmy tells us that he has had his fair share of hot chicks so far and is beginning to look for 'the one' girl now. To quote him 'roj roj burger pizza khaake pet kharaab ho jaata hai .. akhir ghar ke khaane ki yaad ati hi hai'. Enter salwar kameez wearing, dripping wet Pooja Singh (Kareena Kapoor) in a cliched 'it was raining when we first met and I didn't have an umbrella' scene. Pooja is out looking for an English tutor and when she mentions private tutions Jimmy eagerly agrees. Jimmy, to much dismay, realises the tutions are not for Pooja, but for her boss, Lakhan Singh, otherwise known as Bhaiyyaji (Anil Kapoor).

Bhaiyyaji is expecting a foreign delegation in few weeks time and wants to be able to talk fluent English (like George Bush, nonetheless) to seal the deal. Against the backdrop of a larger than life replica of the Mona Lisa, Bhaiyyaji, wearing the most hideously designed suits ever, starts his English training. If you forget to park your brains outside the movie hall, you might wonder why he starts to practice nursery rhymes, but that's beside the point. Not that the movie has any point .. but anyways. While Jimmy trains Bhaiyyaji on English, a romance blossoms on the sidelines between Pooja and him. Rightfully cliched, Pooja is working for Bhaiyyaji to repay debt, but is also plotting for revenge. When Pooja hatches a plan to repay Bhaiyyaji with his own money, Saif joins in. We all know Pooja will run away with the money and that's exactly what happens.

Bhaiyyaji summons ganga kinaare wala help in the form of Bachchan Pande (Akshay Kumar). Bachchan, the recovery specialist, and Jimmy set off in search of Pooja and the money. Right before going to Haridwar to perform the last rites of her long dead father (murdered by Bhaiyyaji, ofcourse), Pooja manages to slip into a bikini and sing a song. Soon enough, the duo find her, and they set off on a cross country tour to recover the money that Pooja has hidden all over. While doing so, more inane romance blossoms, this time between Bachchan and Pooja. Just when you thought you've had enough cliches already, you find that this is a long lost couple, who were in love when teenagers.

Right around this time, you begin to wonder when the movie would end and start making plans for dinner. You are awoken from your reverie when you see a familiar setting which is claimed to be Bhaiyyaji ki duniya and you realize that this is the climax of the movie. Oh that familiar setting is from Tezaab, remember Pasha Khan and his den ... pretty much the same one. The movie inches close to an end after a long lasting, near comical fight and finally ends for real with the death of the villain, Bhaiyyaji.

And then, happy toh I lots being yesterday. Ok, tata, bye-bye.

Mandatory 1 Year Post

2008-03-23T20:47:00.000-07:00

It's been exactly a year now that I've started blogging, and like most bloggers do, I thought it's time I wrote a rambling reflective post. But who's got the time here to do that?! Since marriage happened, I have been running short on time at all places, no matter what I do. In effect, I have been at the receiving end of not-so-kind words from friends, family and colleagues alike. Now, one would assume, that this means I am spending a lot of time with the missus. I could be, but she doesn't agree. So while I am still trying to master the art of effective time management I am left with precious little time to blog. Excuses, I know, but that's my flavor of the season ;)

Strange, yet right

2008-02-11T11:10:00.000-08:00

Something's wrong. I can't concentrate on work, I can't seem to enjoy reading, I don't find any motivation to write, hell I can't even sit through a movie! These days there's just the one thought that has taken precedence over all. This Thursday, coming to an airport near me - Nupur! My wife is all set to join me after close to 6 weeks that felt like eternity. Never ending phone calls day and night, txt msgs, and IM kept us connected during this time, but electronic communication can only do so much and leave so much left undone. It is funny how two people can get emotionally entangled within such less time. This feeling is unkown to me yet something tells me this is just right, what I've been longing for all this time. Two months back I didn't even know this girl and today I am so excited to be with her that the feeling is inexplicable. That we've planned it for V-Day makes it even more special. It's been a long time coming for me as far as a special V-Day is concerned. The only memories I have of V-Day are the asinine celebrations in college which almost always meant nothing. This year, I am glad I will be spending the day with someone who means so much to me. Forget that damn day. I am glad, more so, that I am about to spend each day thereafter with the woman I adore. The countdown has begun, 3 more days to go!

Scary Thought

2008-01-23T15:36:00.001-08:00

If distance makes the heart grow fonder, what happens when those distances fall apart?!

Work

2008-01-16T14:33:00.001-08:00

When I went to school at Wright State, I remember this line on one of the professor's home page, 'Why work for a living when you can work for a passion?'. I really wonder how many people can righteously claim that they work for a passion. What joy it holds, I may never know!

With the performance review cycle going on, my manager and I sat down to have a quick informal discussion about how things were going, what to expect in the coming year, etc. Somewhere during this conversation we talked about how there's some things that we don't like doing and yet end up doing for lack of choice. My manager was quick to respond, 'I don't like coming to work! I don't like coming to work. Period. But every day I have to wake up and drive here and get busy. Do I enjoy it? No I don't. Will I keep doing it? Yes. There are some things in life where you don't have a choice at all. Right now, for me, this is one of them.'

I think I too am sinking in the same boat as he is. Somehow, I have a feeling that most people in IT are aboard too. Hell yeah, we need a job that pays the bills, we need the big bucks. That's what turns us into code monkeys banging on keyboards all day, staring at the computer screen till our eyes start screaming for rest. I know I hadn't signed up for this when I was looking for a job. To quote Peter Gibbons from Office Space "Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about about mission statements."

Would it have been any different if I had gone on to study something that I enjoyed more? Would it have been more enjoyable if I was working in the same discipline that I studied? Would I have enjoyed coming to work more than I do now? Would this really have been a better choice on all counts? I guess it's too late to find out.

Shaadi Ke Side Effects

2008-01-11T11:50:00.000-08:00

My last post explained in much detail what I was upto all of December. All went well, but given the number of things that happened in such little time I experienced a lot of side effects. Note that some of these side effects could be unique to my situation. Your experience may differ ;)

Shaadi ka pehla side effect: Talk around the clock
The wedding is fixed for 8 days later and you know that you don't know each other well enough. What do you do then? You talk. A lot. Till you're breathless, till you can't think of any more words, till your throat is parched, till you dread the thought of waking up the next day to start talking once again. And all this time, she listens. Might as well talk it up while you're given the chance. You know you'll be the one doing all the listening in just a few days ;)

Shaadi ka dusra side effect: Forced insomnia
No matter how much you love your sleep you have to let go of it in lieu of wifey dearest. Refer side effect#1, where wife wants to hear you talk and know more about you. That she holds her cards close to her chest should not be a concern, because once the floodgates are opened, you can run but you can't hide! With the timecrunch during the day, we had only nights to meet up. Every night we had dinner someplace and then chatted it up all night at the most lukkha places around town one can imagine. As it starts to get late in the night and you start yawning at the rate of 14 per second, this should serve as a signal to the wife that it's time for you to call it a day. Be warned that all such advances are conveniently overlooked and you will not be allowed to leave until she gets called in by her parents atleast 5 times. Sure you have to wake up early tommorrow morning and get ready to run around town some more, but so does she. If she can wait longer, you MUST.

Shaadi ke teesra side effect: Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
With all the jewelry and clothing that is part of a traditional Indian wedding you are expected to actively participate in jewelry and clothing selection for the wife. You may not be able to tell the difference between a paatli and a baangdi, but if you stand around chatting it up with the other men in the family, while the womenfolk hunt the perfect piece of jewelry, you're inviting trouble. Conversely, if you're out shopping and you happen to suggest 'I think this will look good on you' you can never tell which way things would go. If the wife doesn't like it you're let off lightly ' Ohh! Our choices just don't match at all!' or 'That one. Really?'. However, if the wife likes it, you're screwed. 'How the hell did you know this would look good? Have you already seen someone wearing this? Which girl was wearing this?' You know where this leads to.

Shaadi ka chautha side effect: No more eye tonic
Let's face it. No matter how much you love the one you're with, our eyes wander. We know, a thing of beauty should be appreciated. Make no mistakes - do not EVER try this with your wife around. Hell hath no fury like your wife catching you eyeing other women. Also, do not attempt to impress with witty sentences like 'Just because you're on a diet, does not mean you cannot take a look at the menu.' Rest assured, your wit will go unappreciated.

Shaadi ka paachva side effect: All we need is ~~just a little~~ loads of patience.
Patience is a virtue. If you don't have it, go get it from somewhere. If you have it, go get some more. You'll need all the patience in the world while the pieces of this puzzle (read, wife) fall into place. While you're working on that, another highly recommended suggestion is to start understanding what women say and what they actually mean.

Shaadi ka chhatha side effect: Run. Then run some more.
If you're a poor clueless soul living with roomies who suddenly gets married when he goes to meet family, I've got news for you. Run! There's so many things in this world that need to get done before you can bring your wife over to uncle sam's land. Find a new place to live in, move out of the old place, figure out what to do with the current lease, get all your docs in line for the wife's immigration process, ... it's a pity you'll be doing all of this while completely sleep deprived :P

Shaadi ka saatva side effect: Manage 2 fulltime jobs
You may or may not love your current job that pays the rent, but you've just been promoted to manage another one simultaneously. God save you, if you and the wife are currently living in timezones day and night apart. You can show up a little late on your day job, but skip a second on the other job and be ready for a tirade. All you can do is listen. No matter what you try to say, it will never get through.

Iss blogpost ka side effect: To be disclosed later. If you don't hear from me soon enough, please inform 911.

Post Title: Pyaar Ke Side Effects

I went. We met. We married!

2008-01-10T16:53:00.000-08:00

Last time I wrote, I had some idea that my India trip was going to be hectic but I had no clue of the final outcome of this trip. I knew my parents had some girls lined up for me, setting me up for an arranged marriage, so I was somewhat mentally prepared to come back engaged. Reading through some of the previous posts one can easily identify how uncomfortable I was with the idea of an arranged marriage, but I guess when you know it's right, you know it's right.

As it happened, in all excitement I boarded my flight home last month knowing very little what lay in store for me over the next 3 weeks. My ideas were clear - arrive at some decision by the end of the 1st week so we have enough time to get through the engagement (yes, I really was prepared mentally only for that part) or else we have enough time to go on a nice family vacation. My brother was about to join me in the US to begin his Masters and it would've been a while later that we could have gone on to spend quality time as family. Honestly speaking, I really was interested in taking that vacation =)) Don't get me wrong, but that's how guys are. Never ready to commit, always wanting to enjoy their days as bachelors, doing what they will not giving a damn about anything in this world. Getting married is a hard sell for us when we see what we're about to give up - and that's exactly why we don't give it up until we're absolutely certain she is the one we want to give it all for. During this trip, I was lucky to have found her. And now I'm back - a married man!

I landed in Mumbai late on a Friday night. Oddly enough, I was the only one around who was not complaining that it was too hot. Guess that's one of the ways San Diego spoils ;) Within a couple of hours we were home in Pune. It had been a long, painful 15 hr direct flight with my lower back starting to act up and I was glad to get some sleep before I got ready to meet the handful of girls who had been diligently sifted through the stack. My bro had recounted numerous instances when he was bored to near death after my parents tugged him along on some occassions, and I was only glad that I didn't have to relive his experiences. To add to his misery, he almost always was told that the two of us look very similar (like he hadn't been told so 10,000 times already). Needless to say, this was a lesson learnt for him to avoid going through the same process a few years down the line :))

The whole process for potential bride selection had been efficiently streamlined by my parents and they made sure that everything was in place before I reached India. Saturday afternoon I was scheduled to meet the 1st girl. My parents had met her family a week ago and as luck would have it they turned out to be long out of touch acquaintances. To add to coincidences, the girl's brother and his family lived in San Diego in the exact same apartment complex that I live in! Despite all the last minute rush, I had already met up with these guys in SD before I reached Pune.

Back to the story, on 12/08/'07 I met this 1st girl, we talked like long lost chums catching up and I went back home. Knowing. After that, one after the other, I met a few other girls. I don't think I should mention any details here - but what the heck?! One was too demure, another was below par, while a third was over the top. It really seemed to be going downhill after the 1st one and by Tuesday evening I felt like I was running low on motivation to meet the rest of the pack. Wednesday morning while talking to my parents, I expressed as subtly as I possibly could, that I knew where I wanted to go with this. Just as we were talking, 1st girl's mom called up to find out our thoughts after the 1st meeting. We gladly let them know, that we'd like to take this further and meetup once again before arriving at any decision. So we had another family meet and greet on Thursday, this time at our place. While the elders talked about ( who cares?) , 1st girl and I caught up some more like long lost friends. After a while I was certain that whatever thoughts had been crowded in my mind since the first time I met 1st girl were completely devoid of infatuation and I knew she was the one. After we walked downstairs, smiles plastered on our faces, both sides of the house confirmed that the two of us were ready to get married.

Stage set? If only, it were that easy. My mom and dad wanted me to get married before I left for SD on the 3rd of Jan. I think that they were worried that if I had enough time to digest what was happening I would never come back home to get married =)) On the other side of the house, there were potential roadblocks in getting this done though. Those folks had another wedding scheduled on Dec 28 and were busy with those preparations. Apart from that, if you rewind a bit, remember 1st girl's brother and family live in San Diego and it was not possible for them to come to India on such short notice. With further discussions on the topic between elders, we were left to our own. Not so surprisingly, 1st girl was reeling from the after effects of the conversation she had just heard. She wasn't mentally prepared to get married as yet, more so at such short notice and even more so leave the town and people she was so fond of to go live with a complete stranger in some place she had only heard about.

Friday evening I met 1st girl once again. We had a big long debate about what our choices were before stepping up on to the altar. Her family was hellbent upon getting this done later while my family was eager to get this done sooner than later. While we discussed our options between the two of us, our families discussed their stands and Friday night each family had come to a conclusion before both families were scheduled to meet Saturday morning. Saturday morning, once again there was a lot of debate between the elders of the families, with no side letting go of their stand. A few hours and a lot of convincing points later, from one Saturday to the next, our wedding day was fixed - for the Sunday in the coming week.

The chaos that kicked off cannot be explained in words. Every able member from each family was running around town to get things in line for the wedding. Piling on the chaos, my brother was scheduled to leave for the US on the 27th so there was a lot of stuff that he needed to get done in good time as well. While all the shops were open during the daytime, everyone was in different directions, in different shops trying to get to the end of the to-do list. Nights was the only time 1st girl and I got to spend time with each other and talk, talk and talk. Needless to say, given the race against time, I had to sacrifice my most favorite thing - sleep. I barely got 4 hours of sleep each night during the entire trip, with no regrets whatsoever. Against all odds, my brother-in-law's family was able to make it to Pune, well in time for the wedding.

Finally, on the 23rd of December 2007, I married ~~1st girl~~ Nupur to accept her as my lawfully wedded ~~1st~~ wife.

One for the road

2007-12-05T13:51:00.000-08:00

I leave for home early tommorrow morning. It's been quite an eventful year down in San Diego and I'd like to make the most of my near month long vacation. I have many things to look forward to on this trip and I leave with a sense of some excitement, some resentment, some anxiety, some fear (and a hint of nutmeg LOL) From the looks of things so far, this trip could end up finished before I can catch a breather, so I don't think I'll be blogging for the entire month. Besides, I should have better ways to spend free time in Pune ;)

Tossing the captaincy hat

2007-11-12T11:56:00.000-08:00

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. When the crown in question is for captaincy of the Indian cricket team, the magnitude of that proverbial uneasiness is magnified by a billion hopes. No wonder then that Sachin Tendulkar refused captaincy for the Test team. He knows what it's like to be in that position and to fail miserably so. With no other senior players ready to face this challenge, Anil Kumble stepped up and has been appointed the captain for India's Test team. An unconvincing choice really.

Anil Kumble is not one to shy away from adversity and he could potentially be a good leader for the team. His appointment as captain though, brings disappointment to the advocates of youth. Kumble's tenacity and commitment to the game is unparalleled. He has the experience and cricketing acumen necessary to wield the team out of tricky situations. Somewhere still, the general feeling lies that this was not the right time for him to be appointed captain, even if for a short period of time.

The other choice the selectors had was MS Dhoni, already leading the side in the other 2 forms of the game. Test series' against Pakistan and Australia would've been baptism by fire for MS Dhoni. The way he has been leading the team from the front in the ODI's, I don't see any reason why he wouldn't have been able to grow into this job too. Admittedly, Test cricket has it's own twists and turns by the session and experience is the only bankable factor, but Dhoni has the luxury of shepherding some of the finest cricketers in the country and he could have drawn from their collective experience in leading.

Stop gap arrangements never prove conducive and hence the selectors logic in appointing captain cannot be justified without actual results. No doubt Kumble will do a fine job, but therein lies a wasted chance for MS Dhoni. We'll wait and watch.

What the hell?!

2007-11-08T17:52:00.000-08:00

Last time I checked I was living in San Diego and not frikkin Seattle. The sun hasn't showed up in 2 weeks. Where's my Vitamin D, bitch?!

Price to Play

2007-11-08T16:16:00.000-08:00

It is human nature indeed to lament what it does not have and not celebrate the moment. We are in the midst of Diwali, one of the most important and widely celebrated Hindu festivals. Reading some blogs from people based in India (no I will NOT link them here) I seemed to sense a growing sense of discontent about this festival. Some rue the fact that the air will be heavily polluted, some seem to despair over not having enough time to celebrate while some still yearn for the Diwali when they were 10 years old. And then there are people like me, who want to celebrate, but havent been home this time of the year in the past 6 years. I am so pissed off, I'm not even wishing anyone a happy diwali anymore.

Yes Diwali was when I was home, with family. The aroma of good food in the house, the acrid smell of firecrackers outside it. It was when we had to walk the streets carefully watching all around not knowing when and where the next firecracker would explode. It was when I would wake up early in the morning to claim that it was me who burst the first firecrackers in the neighborhood, when I would try to sleep early in the night but couldnt because my neighbors kept bursting firecrackers all the way into the night. It was when I found one more reason to shop for new clothes and to meet friends and family over long lunches and dinners. It was when even passerbys on the street would wish you a Happy Diwali, when sweets and gifts were exchanged way past the festival days. Times when the streets were a sight to behold in golden hue, lit up with a million lights to celebrate the Festival of Lights that is Diwali. It was when the good times rolled.

All of this was then. And what do I have today? Thursday.

Post Title: Staind - Price to Play

Good guys always win ...

2007-11-05T10:32:00.001-08:00

.. or atleast that's what they'd like us to believe. Jab We Met is the story of Aditya (Shahid Kapur) and Geet (Kareena Kapoor). Of how Aditya loves Geet while Geet loves Anshuman (Tarun 'whatsup with his hair' Arora). Of how Aditya comes to terms facing the challenges in his life while also winning over Geet with his selfless love. And that's when you realise such syrupy, sugary, diabetes invoking froth only looks fit for the screens.

As the story goes, Aditya succeeds his father and is at a point in life where nothing seems to be working out for him. His girlfriend dumps him, business isn't going too well. In dejection, he sets off on a train to nowhere. Enter Geet, a sikhni from Bhatinda, who is on her way home from Mumbai. Geet's only mission in life seems to be ~~never missing trains~~, ~~getting married~~, ~~running away from home~~, living life by her own terms. She is as chattery as they come and starts to chat up Aditya. Aditya gets fed up of the constant perky chatter and gets off at one of the stations midway. Realising this, Geet gets off too to get him back on the train while the train is about to leave. No prizes for guessing both of them are left stranded. Geet blames Aditya for this and tells him she won't get off his back until she gets home safely with all her luggage.

On the Bhatinda bound journey Geet and Aditya get to know each other and Aditya unknowingly falls for Geet. Geet, however, is planning a runaway wedding with Anshuman. So Aditya leads her home and also runs away with her later on to get her to meet Anshuman in Manali. Leaving her with Anshuman, he returns to Mumbai and transforms his dipping fortune. Some time later, Geet's family comes hunting for Aditya in Mumbai and are shocked to know the truth about Geet running away. Aditya promises to bring Geet back. Somehow he manages to find her, a million miles away from her former self. Gone is the bubbly, chattery Geet. Instead we now have Geet, au naturale, dumped by Anshuman, working her way through life, taking it hard on herself for all her follies all along. When Aditya persuades Geet to go back home, Anshuman shows up and confesses that he still loves Geet and would do what it takes to marry her. Then the three set off to Bhatinda, more confusion follows and Geet realises that she too loves Aditya as much as he loves her. And thus the triumph of selfless love.

The movie rolls brilliantly in the first half and there are quite a lot of comic moments and not the stretched, slapstick kind. Of particular mention are Kareena's scenes with the TC, the station master and the motel owner and then there's one in the 2nd half where Tarun Arora goes nahi dekhni yaar mujhe ganne ki kheti =)) Kareena has done a laudable job in playing Geet. Shahid P Kapur, however, still looks like he is trying hard to be the next SRK. He is mostly convincing for his role but has the only single constipated expression that he has mastered while doing emotional scenes. It would certainly do him a world of good to fix that quick. Rest of the cast is passable, music - no clue.

To sum up, a movie with a done-to-death hackneyed plot, pulled up by decent acting, backed up with unassuming dialogues. Worth spending 2.5 hrs of time on.

Packed Weekend

2007-11-05T08:53:00.000-08:00

There are rare weekends when you get a lot done and still on Sunday evening you feel like you're ready for the coming week. This was one such weekend. Went to the office party on Friday evening, cleaned up the apartment on Saturday, went to the beach, watched American Gangster, gained an hour (of sleep) on Sunday, went to the gym, wrapped up my laundry, did my groceries, ran some errands, finished my weekly cooking, watched Jab We Met, all of this thrown in with a lot of talking on the phone and it was 10 pm on Sunday already! Time just ran by. And to think that I had no particular plans :)) I'll take more of such weekends :D

Let the music play

2007-10-25T19:05:00.000-07:00

Warning - Insanely long post. Heavily link littered for the benefit of those who could use some musical enlightenment ;)

A post about music on this blog should fall under 'knew this was coming' category, going by the numerous times I associate my post titles with song names and lyrics. So why now? Uhmm, why not I thought. Hence.

The early days

My oldest memories of music probably date back to the mid-80's. That was a time when tapes were the rage with a dual cassette player/recorder being the zenith of luxury. I don't know whether music was as easily accessible as it is today (legally or not) but there was quite a stack of cassette tapes in the house, courtesy mostly my uncles. Dad was never so much into music. Ghulam Ali, Pankaj Udhas, Anup Jalota, Mohd. Rafi, Sudhir Phadke, Arun Date, Asha Bhosle, popular filmi music and some english tapes thrown in for good measure, all jostled for space on that ever filled up rack of cassettes.

Moving on in to the 90's and cable TV spreading itself into everyday average households I was attracted further to music, latest filmi stuff mostly. I remember walking down the street to the music shop with either of my uncles. Here we used to sift through latest releases and pick a bunch of songs to be recorded onto a cassette. This saved the dough to buy an OST for a movie when only 2 out of 8 songs were worth listening to. Ofcourse, the recording was more expensive than buying an OST but it made economic sense to have only the good songs and spare your ears of the crap. My sense of rhythm was growing up on a steady diet of Bollywood fluff.

Inglish know you?

Somewhere down the years, I think 7th grade, I chanced upon English pop music. Like every kid my age then, I started off with MJ, Madonna and the likes. The list soon started to grow with more 90's music to include Bryan Adams, MLTR, Ace of Base and one off Canuc acts like Snow kept things interesting. This was also the time when our very own desi version of Vanilla Ice, Mr Baba 'Thanda Thanda Paani' Sehgal was churning out album after album with utmost sincerity. This was a time when rap was cool. Rap in Hindi, ubercool. Indipop was taking root and soon many artistes followed. Mehnaz with Ms India promised much but disappeared into oblivion too quickly. Her competitor in chief, Anaida, was a looker, but her looks only took her thus far. If only she had a voice to match her self-proclaimed patli kamariya things would have worked out much better. She too disappeared much like Mehnaz within the blink of an eye. Alisha Chinoy was the more consistent among the 3 female Indipop artistes of the early 90's. Acts like the Colonial Cousins came up and delivered a good song or two.

Moving away from Boyband litter

By the late 90's I was completely lopping up whatever crap was being dished out on TV, Channel [V] to be precise. Boyzone, Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync, Ricky Martin, Savage Garden were regulars on the playlist. To add to the English crap was middle eastern spice in the form of Khaled, Alabina, Tarkan, Araba, Cheb Mami and others I don't recall. Yes, I listened to all that crap too. At the same time, MTV had one show on Sunday evenings which played the latest in house/techno/experimental electronica with artistes like Josh Wink, Daft Punk, Chicane, Paul van Dyk, ATB, Groove Armada, FSOL etc and I began to completely enjoy this form of music. Apparently, the only place to lay hands on such music on tapes at that time in Pune was Vibrations on good ole' Main Street. Soon Vibrations was my temple with weekly visits and near monthly dosages of new techno music.

For those about to rock

It was all going well and good in much the same vein until the third year of engineering school when I was introduced to Metallica. I was a late bloomer on the rock scene but got hooked and caught on really quickly. Again, like most people, I started off with the Black album and just couldn't get enough. Soon, I was listening to a whole lot of Pantera, Sepultura, Sabbath, Van Halen, Iron Maiden and I found a weird sense of peace within the music that sounded like cacophony just some time back. Within no time, I had transformed myself from a happy go lucky trigger hippie to a serious headbanger. My love affair with rock music continued during my Masters and I found great music from alternative/grunge bands like Oasis, Nirvana, AIC, STP, Radiohead, RHCP, GGD, etc etc etc Ofcourse classic rock could not be ignored and I was also frequently listening to music from the holy trinity - Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple.

Back to the roots

One fine evening in the US I realised how much I missed listening to the Marathi songs that were played on the radio early morning as mom went through her daily household routine, radio in tow. I think I snatched all available marathi songs off coolgoose that night =)) In the meantime, thanks to my roomies, I was also being brought back steadily on the Bollywood diet.

More styles

During my techno/trance tripping days I had found some music from Infected Mushroom and Astral Projection. As soon as I got my first laptop I was ready for more music and Soulseek obliged. I hunted down an insane amount of psy trance and once again started jumping the happy hippie way listening to IM, AP, Skazi, Talamasca, CPU, Hujaboy and their ilk. With psytrance on, it's pole opposite, ambientcouldnt be far behind. Artistes like Shpongle, Hallucinogen, Ishq, Adham Shaikh, Aphex Twin, Kraftwerk etc soon found their way on to my hard drive. Aphex Twin also led me to exploring some more IDM, but some listening to Venetian Snares and Squarepusher convinced me that IDM didn't have so much of an I in it. Ambient naturally progressed towards an eastern influence and I found an artiste by the name of Karunesh. Karunesh was the tip of the iceberg for the whole asian electronica scene that I then discovered.

I listened to Talvin Singh's Butterfly and I knew I wanted more of this kind of music. I had earlier listened to OK but wasn't impressed back then. More digging around and I was listening to Karsh Kale, Midival Punditz, TJ Rehmi, Badmarsh & Shri, Niraj Chag - the whole asian electronica scene. I was so impressed by the marriage of tabla with electronica that I knew I had to check out what Indian classical sounded like by itself. Then came Ustad Zakir Hussain, Ustad Sultan Khan, Hariprasad Chaurasiya, Anoushka Shankar etc but I found it a little too bland for my palate.

A trip to the pind

With so much Brit influence in the asian electronica scene, I slowly moved towards the old Brit favorite, DnB. Bally Sagoo has incorporated a lot of DnB influence in his albums and while listening to some of his songs I started enjoying Bhangra. Soon I was all hands in air to the tunes of Panjabi MC, Juggy D, Lehmber, Malkit Singh and all their punjabi brethren. I couldnt understand a word of what was being said, for all I knew, the music was really cool :)

Choose one?

With so many different genres of music, it is no surprise that I find myself being thrown in all directions wherever I find new music. No harm in sampling new music anyway, like it - find more of a similar style, don't - trash it. Keeping this simple mantra at the back of my mind I have been enjoying all my music so far. Nowadays I often find that my mood dictates my choice of music. If I'm in a reflective mood, I listen to some alternative rock, marathi or some old hindi songs which make sense. If I'm in a chaotic state I turn up the music to some hard rock. In happy carefree moods I usually dont care what I'm listening to as long as it is upbeat, could be bhangra, could be electronica, could be classic rock or it could even be some jhatang bollywood music.

Well, as long as the music keeps playing, I'm eager to soak it all in. Let the music play ...

Post Title: Shamur - Let the music play

Marriage Misconceptions

2007-10-18T14:44:00.000-07:00

You can tell how much everyone is waiting for the weekend when we're out at Joey's Smokin' BBQ for lunch on a Thursday. As we were waiting for our food, talk veered towards marriages. C is about to become a father soon and has no plans for a wedding yet. He started talking about how both of them think it will be a big waste to spend a lot of money on the wedding and instead plan to do something on a smaller scale. Everyone seemed to agree with his point of view. S told us how a friend of his bought a boat with the money he had saved up for his wedding and just threw a small party at some local hotel later. Needless to say, everyone was in splits on hearing that. And from there on the topic of arranged marriages cropped up and I was left to defend all of their misconceptions.

R always thought that arranged marriages meant you just show up on wedding day and get married. You dont know who the girl is, what she does, your parents choose a girl and the deal is sealed. So I went on to explain how it works and not how he imagined things were. That left him a little relieved and he said 'yeah cos I was about to say. What if things don't work out for the two of you? Can you take her back to your parents house and tell them 'You liked her. Keep her in your house. I don't want her.' He was convinced though that this was a good system. 'Not like they do it over here. Call you each year on your birthday and go 'You're getting older now. Better get married' and I'm like what do you want me to do? Go to a bar, get trashed and start hitting on every chick I see there?'

C suggested that one should atleast get to see pictures of the girl before meeting her. So I told him, it actually worked that way. Ofcourse he had a brilliant idea immediately. 'So if you don't like any of the pictures that your parents send you, just call them up and tell them 'Can't come to India. My manager gave me a lot of work' Blame your manager, there's nothing anyone can do about it.' He knew what he was talking, he is my manager =)) At this point R asked if there was a lot of alcohol in marriages. I told him that in some communities it does, but not in ours. He went 'You know what you could've done then. If the girl is not pretty enough, drink till she starts looking pretty!'

If this was brilliant S had reserved the best for the last. 'So when you meet her can you take her to a beach or something? Get to see her in a bikini?' He definitely had the right ideas but I did not have the heart to tell him that desi girls' beach attire comprises of punjabi suits/jeans/capris rolled up to their knees. That would have certainly left him choking on his pulled pork sandwich. So I told him that the place where I live in India there is no beach close-by. He went 'Oh! Thats easy then. Tell your parents I want every girl to participate in a wet t-shirt contest and ask them to send those snaps over. Tell them that's how we do it in America!'

We finally finished off our lunch laughing our asses off like drunk idiots and drove back to work. I was definitely amused by everyone's suggestions on approaching arranged marriage with an American mindset.

Ramble On

2007-10-17T19:05:00.000-07:00

... 'cos still so much is left unsaid. My intentions are clear. I write purely to vent. It is poetic justice that I find such a beautiful song to go along.

Leaves are falling all around,
Its time I was on my way.
Thanks to you, Im much obliged
For such a pleasant stay.

I leave with nothing but pleasant memories. Of what should have been. Some bitter thoughts, but nothing against you. It is the bitterness from the situation that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Who's to blame then? Isn't you, isn't me, is it things that I can't see? Does not really matter. The end result is disastrous any which way. I think I should've known better than to go down the same road again; but I've made mistakes, I'm just a man. Everybody does. The important part is to not keep brooding over it and move on. I know my time has come and I thank you for the memories; self-constructed nevertheless. If there is one thing I should learn, it is to not take anything for granted before I move on.

But now its time for me to go,
The autumn moon lights my way.
For now I smell the rain,
And with it pain,
And its headed my way.
Ah, sometimes I grow so tired,
But I know Ive got one thing I got to do,

I can't stay in the same place any longer. I did. I waited long enough. You always tried my patience and you always won. Think about it. Did you win or did you lose? Did you enjoy testing my patience knowing that I spent sleepless nights with but the one thing on my mind? You never really cared. You always played me for a fool. What was that thing I said before? Ahh yes, I should not have taken things for granted. How naive of me. I should have seen things straight. My love for you never let me do that. There. I just said I love you. Was this what you were waiting for? I couldn't say this all along because I feared my love would go unrequited. But now there is no hope. Losing all hope is freedom. It's only when you have lost everything that you are free to do anything. Someone has rightly said love is blind. I'd like to add on - love makes people stupid. Ofcourse I was wrong. How did I let emotions win over my rational mind? That's what happens in love, no place for logic. Didn't I just mention love makes people stupid? Oh great, hindsight is 20/20 vision indeed.

I do smell the rain. You know how I hate the rains. It's been raining since you left me and now I'm drowning in the flood. You always knew how to break through my defenses. Always left me tattered and torn. Did you take a look at yourself in the mirror then? Who's shattered now? I know this pain that's headed my way. I've been through it once and I'm ready for it again. It won't bother me so much this time around. It's been but my only companion over the last few years. Infact we are quite fond of each other now. I feel ashamed for having walked out on you though. Your pain was a stranger to me and I do not have the time now. Because there's one thing I need to do ...

Ramble on,
And nows the time, the time is now
To sing my song.
Im goin round the world,
I got to find my girl, on my way.
Ive been this way ten years to the day, ramble on,
Gotta find the queen of all my dreams.

Got no time to for spreadin roots,
The time has come to be gone.
And tho our health we drank a thousand times,
Its time to ramble on.

I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again. I need to get far far away from this place that invokes all memories of you and I. You and I, not us. There never was an us. It hurts. But nobody said it was easy. I can't be stuck in the same place for too long. You know how familiarity breeds contempt. My contempt gets delivered overnight. And I owe it to myself to get the hell outta here. I have nothing to dwell on. I've learnt my lessons, I'll live through the pain. I'm young. Got a whole life ahead of me. I'm gonna go half the way across the globe and find my girl. I hope you find the strength to pull yourself out of that hole too. I don't have anymore energy to try and lift you out. One word of commitment from you and I would have gladly died waiting. You just never had any intentions for me, never gave me a chance to prove myself.

I aint tellin no lie.
Mines a tale that cant be told,
My freedom I hold dear;
How years ago in days of old
When magic filled the air,
Twas in the darkest depths of mordor
I met a girl so fair,
But gollum, and the evil one crept up
And slipped away with her.
Her, her....yea.
Aint nothing I can do, no.

You know I never lied. You know I never cried. But the thought of you and I not being able to make it till the end of our lives brought a million tears to my eyes and I cried a river. Did you know you had so much power in you? What was that line? No woman is worth your tears; if she is, she won't make you cry. I guess there is some truth to that after all. Too bad I chose to ignore conventional wisdom. And now that I know what I need, I also know what I can't have. And I can't tell anyone what it is. I can't proclaim my failure with any hint of self-respect left. My only saving grace is, I know I gave it all I had. God knows I gave it all I had. But it really is about winning and not how you play the game. Such talk is best left for the losers' locker rooms.

Gollum struck just when I wasn't there. Oh who am I kidding. I was never there. I thought I was, but I found out I was living in my own dreams. Gollum cast such a spell on you that you chose not to see beyond him. Such a shame then that while you cry in despair over Gollum I cry for you. Ofcourse I couldnt care less for Gollum, may his tribe burn in hell. But I did care for you. Too bad for you, you never realised what you could be missing on. But now it's all gone. Come to think of it, you still are in a better position. Atleast your feelings were reciprocated. Imagine how lowly I feel. But I guess I had to learn this the hard way and I'll do what it takes to get over this. I hope you too will find the srength to pull yourself out of this self-inflicted misery. Forgive me, if you may, for not being there in your time of need. I do wish you well. Now we can never get what could have been, but what we had will remain till eternity. And now, there's only one thing left for me to do ..

Ramble on,
And nows the time, the time is now
To sing my song.
Im goin round the world,
I got to find my girl, on my way.
Ive been this way ten years to the day, ramble on,
Gotta find the queen of all my dreams.

PS: An absolute waste of time trying my hand at abstract fiction. I know I can't do this well. Look at me pilfering lines from songs, movies, sitcoms and what not LOL Emotion is not me. I should stick to sarcasm.

Post Title: Led Zeppelin - Ramble On

Who would've thought .. it figures

2007-10-16T11:29:00.000-07:00

My song for the day. Sums up.

Post Title: Alanis Morissette - Ironic

Too late Too late

2007-10-14T11:21:00.000-07:00

Timing is everything baby! It's what makes the difference between ordinary and extra-ordinary. It's what separates the could-have-been's from the has-been's. Think of a box of mangoes kept too long; wait too long and the sweetness is gone. You might eat the mangoes nevertheless, but where's the fun?

That's exactly what happened with our Men in Blue. Lost their sense of timing, lost the plot and the series. One look at the scorecard might suggest they gave it all they had, but to what good is such an effort when there is nothing left to fight for? If you don't play to win, it's not worth playing at all. Now they might, just might, go on to win the last match in Mumbai (although history isn't in favor of the Indian Cricket Team while playing in Mumbai) and try to 'salvage some lost pride'. Instead, I think, they should search for their pride in some rusty salvage yard near Nal Bazaar after the series is done and over with.

A classic case of too little, too late. Hope Team India get their act together in the next series and don't leave all the efforts to the last minute.

Post Title: Metallica - Too late Too late

You can't fix stupid!

2007-10-09T14:30:00.000-07:00

Boring Monday morning, I walked into my cubicle. I was still half asleep even though it was way past 9 am. Don't blame me. No amount of sleep on the weekends is ever enough to bring a spring into my step to get to work on Monday. Every week, I suffer from a severe case of the Mondays.

As I browsed through the crapload of emails in Outlook I realised that the bossman was out of town for the week. Yay, I went for a split second without any tangible reason. I don't know what it is that when the boss is not around I feel more relaxed, because it's never like he's on my ass when he's around. This week though I didn't have much time to relax since there was a lot of crap flying all over the place which needed to be put back where it belonged. I had been delaying some things for quite a while now and had come to the conclusion that it had to be sorted out quickly. Technically, I have 8 weeks to get it done this year. At the end of the 8th week, I'll be on a monthlong vacation. Sweeeet!

Sipping on some green tea, I started working. Nothing gets me in the mood to complete work than the thought of an upcoming vacation :) Fifteen minutes later I got an email marked with High priority. This was sent by a user for whom I'd setup some Test cases for UAT. First thought - Daim! What did I miss now?! Then I went through his email and by the time I got to the end I fell off my chair laughing.

This guy was trying to logon to the system and was having issues. So he sent me stepwise screenshots of what he was doing and how he was unable to get in. Ofcourse the system was up and running. But how the hell can you login to a system if you hit CANCEL after entering your username and password?!?! I mean come on! That I am the system admin does not mean that I need to tell people to hit OK or press the Enter key on the keyboard to login. Isn't that basic computer sense? This coming from a 40 something guy who is a Business Analyst. Really? Gawd! How can someone not realise such a basic mistake after having attempted it a couple of times already and then while doing the same thing to take screenshots of the process?

Mr Ron White, your words are gospel. If something was wrong with the system I would've gone and fixed it. But "You can't fix stupid. There's not a pill you can take; there's not a class you can go to. Stupid is forever." Amen.

Sticky song

2007-10-07T16:53:00.001-07:00

I was out for lunch Thursday afternoon at a nearby desi restaurant where I heard this song for the first time and it's been stuck in my head ever since. I checked my Winamp counter, I've played it 11 times already. Add to it the number of times I've played it on my work computer and on youtube and it could total a scary number. While the song isn't all that great, the lyrics scream 'I'm a fucking loser' and it almost sounds like Atif pronounces bin as bill, there's something about this song that it's stayed on my mind.

To quote George Costanza, from Seinfeld "I can’t get it out of my head. I just keep singing it over and over. It just comes out. I have no control over it. I’m singin’ it on elevators, buses. I’m singin’ it in front of clients. It’s taken over my life."

I haven't reached that extent yet but here's the video off youtube.

Anoushka Shankar and Karsh Kale - Breathing Under Water

2007-10-06T12:25:00.000-07:00

Just as I was thinking of writing a review for this album, I happened to glance over to ET where Derek has written a truly mind-blowing review for this masterpiece [Link]

Words really fail to deliver any justice to this near-orgasm-inducing mish mash of sitar, tabla, electronica, soulful lyrics and stunning vocal acts that is 'Breathing Under Water'. Sunidhi Chauhan on Ghost Story ... oh my gawd!! Definitely the high point of this album for me.

Good thing I checked the website first, my literary skills would've never measured up to such standards :)) This is the first of Anoushka's albums that I've enjoyed completely and I pray this is just the beginning of more great stuff coming along the way. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some music to listen to.

The fiftieth !

2007-09-30T10:04:00.000-07:00

No rhyme or reason, this one's just one for the count. Finally I made it to fifty!

So Called Chaos

2007-09-25T21:37:00.000-07:00

Time waits for none. Another day, another year. Time lost, age gained. Everything else is stagnant. I don't know what I am looking for. Objectively I should be happy with the way things are. I lead a normal life, pretty much like average Joe. Work, play, have fun. Something is still missing. I don't know what it is. Or maybe I know what it is but I don't want to own up to it. It could be because I know what I want and I know I don't stand a chance of getting it. Why does it hurt so much to know that the one thing you always wanted is the one thing you can never have? Why do I still feel compelled to put up a brave front inspite of being on the losing end? Is anyone even winning? Would success taste sweet if I get it now or would I throw it all away? Who is at a loss if I don't get past these daemons? How long should I fight for lost causes?

Am I doubting myself? Never. Am I questioning the futility of this whole exercise? Most possibly. I can't tell, I don't want to tell. Whatever happened to the fun guy inside me? Did he grow old too? Or did he just leave town for a while?

I'm confused. Is this my Quarter Life Crisis?

I feel like destroying something beautiful.

Post Title: Alanis Morissette - So Called Chaos

Gotta love these coach-less wonders

2007-09-24T11:16:00.001-07:00

4:46 am - Got my wakeup call from Pune after India won the toss and elected to bat
4:48 am - Got my wakeup call from east coast after India won the toss and elected to bat

10 minutes later I sleep-walked into the living room, switched on the computer and started looking for a channel to watch the match. A few agonising moments and I found someplace which was broadcasting the game and I snuck up cosily with a blanket. It was coooold early in the morning! I struggled to stay awake as India struggled to force the pace early on. Caffeine ensured that I stayed awake and Gambhir played his part to make sure India did not lose the plot. At the close of innnings, India fell well short of the 180 odd they were hoping to get. It was clear that the bowlers had a job cut out for them. Fielding had to be right up there too. Over the past few games the fielding standards had been uncharacteristically high from this Indian side, lack of a penetrative 5th bowler was India's Achille's heel though and Pakistan knew well enough to exploit this weak link.

I was out of the shower in record time as India took to fielding. RP Singh had been impressive thus far and Sreesanth had a good last game (despite all the histrionics his performance was top class). RP got off to a great start with his 1st over wicket and India were right on. Sreesanth, however, looked like he had lost his mojo. His first over went for 21 runs and it brought back memories of that fateful 1st over from Zaheer Khan in the '03 World Cup final against Australia. India never got back into the game after that over and I bet every single soul who knew this piece was praying to God this wouldnt be a repeat performance. Luckily this wasn't a 50 over game and there were no Gilly and Hayden to send India on a leatherhunt. The Indian bowlers stuck to their job and Pakistan's batsmen played with overt eagerness to their own undoing. Ofcourse all of this did not end without the high voltage drama that can be expected from a India Pakistan match. Towards the end Harbhajan got clouted for sixes by that man once again, Misbah-ul-Haq, and it seemed like the match was slipping away as Sohail Tanveer got into his act too. Sreesanth and RP Singh got a wicket each and the last over was on to Joginder Sharma. Jogi had been sent to all parts of the park in his earlier games but had held his nerves to bowl a splendid last over against the Aussies in the semi-finals. The question was could he prove it wasnt about a single game. And prove he did, much thanks to the cheeky arrogance from Misbah who decided to play a fancy scoop behind the wicket. He was unable to get a single off the last ball to win the last game against India and this time failed to get 6 from 4 balls. Oh how this would give him nightmares for the next few years to come =))

Finally a young Indian team did what nobody had expected them to do. Win a 20-20 world cup. In a game relying heavily on power hitting, accurate bowling and spectacular fielding no one, including yours truly, had given this team a fighting chance. We were without the legendary star power that is an intimidating force for bowlers around the world and we had a first timer captain shepherding a bunch of relatively unknowns into uncharted territory. The relatively unkowns rose to the occassion and went all the way, each playing a significant part in one game or the other and gelling together to form a championship winning outfit. Who knew Rohit Sharma would bat as well as he did in his 1st game at the international level, who knew MS Dhoni would trust Joginder Sharma with last overs inspite of him being taken to the cleaners, who knew Joginder Sharma would justify MS Dhoni's faith in his abilities, who knew Freddie would get fingered so bad by Yuvraj Singh? But it all happened, and to good measure.

As the feeling sinks in, questions arise. India have been enjoying their cricket for the past few months and it shows in the results. They lost the one day series against England but it was one hell of a 7 match series. It could be argued that they played without the pressure of expectations and hence were able to perform. The most significant aspect, to me, is that India have done all of this without a coach. When was the last time any team won a major sporting event without a coach? Much has been written about India's earlier coaches and how there was always tension within the dressing room. The rifts between John Wright and Greg Chappel and the senior Indian players are now part of BCCI folklore. Whether it was due to a difference in idealogies or a difference in approach to the game or whatever other reason, the end result always failed to flatter. What it did was bring a lot of politics into play. After a hard day's fight out on the pitch the Indian team had to fight these internal battles off it. Was the no-coach a blessing in disguise for this team? Ganguly had mentioned not too long ago that at this level you do not need a coach. MS Dhoni and his boys proved Dada right. Dhoni did well to utilise his resources efficiently, all the players performed as was expected of them and well deserved success beckoned.

I don't think BCCI will be looking out for a coach sometime soon after this recent run. It's all good as long as the smiles continue and the victories keep coming. We got your back Men in Blue. Git 'er done!

What do, New York couples fight about?

2007-09-14T12:04:00.000-07:00

More appropriately the question should be what New York couples talk about. I'm not too concerned about the Yankees. What I'm interested in finding out is what do couples talk about, whether they're in New York or New Zealand or New Orleans or Navi Mumbai.

A friend of mine recently got engaged. To her luck, it is an arranged marriage. Now that they're engaged the couple is in the 'happy' courtship period. To begin with, I am not so comfortable with the way arranged marriages happen. You get to meet each other once or twice and then decide within the short time whether or not the other person is a good fit for a life partner. When you think you've got it right, you get engaged and then there's some time before you wed. What if during this time you find out that your partner is exactly what you were hoping s/he would not be? What if you failed to read the signs in those 2 meetings before you said yes? How long does it take before you can actually interpret all those signs in the right manner? Is there a way out once you realise what a schmuck you've committed yourself to? But I digress. Enough with my own insecurities and on to the story of the couple.

So it happens that both work the long hours and catch up in the evenings daily. Both hardly know each other and so it seems like there would be lots to catch up on and that they would not have enough time to know each other despite the long courtship period. Its been about a month now and it all seemed to be going well. Almost. As it turns out, her fiance, like most men is pretty reticent. I mean thats how its always been, right? Women talk talk talk and talk and men (pretend to) listen. But we have a new problem here when women expect men to talk. We can'd do that! We just aren't conditioned to do that! What do you think spawned that joke about the mothertongue? It's called the mothertongue because the father never gets to use it. Huh? Or that other joke? Why do you think that when guys talk on the phone the conversation is over in 30 seconds flat and when girls talk you wonder if you need a calendar and not a clock? Not saying that we can't hold conversations but its just natural that after some time of listening to the woman talk and trying to keep her interested in keeping the conversation going we deserve a period of silence. My friend does not subscribe to this school of thought. It was getting increasingly difficult for her with each passing day to meet every evening and do the bulk of the talking. Meeting up everyday after working till late left her little time for herself and to get her stuff done. To add to her woes, if she tried to bail out on one day, they would end up giving each other a piece of their mind the next time they met. All of this, during the courtship period. Things certainly weren't going pilaan ke mutaabik =))

Without playing the blame game let's try to realistically assess the situation. Guy is eager to make the most of the courtship period and get to know the girl but does not have the gift of gab. Girl is (naturally) glib and is also eager to know more about the guy. However girl keeps facing intermittent road blocks when she has to come up with topics to speak on every-frikking-day. I guess the guy can be blamed partially in this case but such a judgement begs more questions than answer the existing ones.

So how important is it to keep on talking throughout the evening? Is it really necessary to exercise the vocal chords in full blast all the time? Can't we have some moments of peace? Whatever happened to 'har baat lafjon mein bayaan karne ki jaroorat nahi hoti hai'? No? Not anymore? I know it takes the fun out of meeting up if you're not going to talk much, but what if you realise that you are committed to someone whom you cannot talk to for more than 2 minutes? I know, I know, my insecurities are coming in to play once again here, but spare a thought for this situation. What in hell do you do then? Alright, lets say you somehow manage to get through all of this and get married. What happens when the both of you come home after work and have nothing to talk about? Worse yet - wife stays home, husband comes home after a long day and wife starts nagging. Such an exciting prospect, innit?

Right now the way things are for most of my friends and I, we dont have a lot going on. There's nothing new or exciting happening any given day and we are pretty much slaves to the routine. Whenever I have conversations with my friends, all of us dread the 'aur kya' type questions. There IS no 'aur'! If things stay the same what do we talk about when we get home? Funny questions all, pertinent nevertheless. I guess I'll have to wait my turn to find how things pan out.

Post Title: Morcheeba - What New York couples fight about

Hearing without listening

2007-08-29T16:02:00.000-07:00

The other day I had a brief discussion with a friend who seemed to under-mine the importance of lyrics in a song. I agree the melody is what catches your ear first up but then the lyrics add a whole new dimension to the song. Not to say, I don't like music without lyrics, I could as easily be tripping over Astral Projection;) I'm not such the senti mushy types but this song gets me almost every time. Aww yeah, Oasis rocks! Now if only they had a video that did justice to the song, this could've turned out into a sobfest like Maps. But I guess that would be expecting too much from the Brits :P

Click here for the lyrics. My favorite lines?

.. Damn my education I cant find the words to say,
With all the things caught in my mind ..

Post Title: Simon & Garfunkel - Sounds of Silence

The Asian connection

2007-08-28T10:49:00.000-07:00

When I was living in Pune, sighting Asians on the streets wasnt such a rare occurence. Clearly, when I say Asians, I mean all the -ese : Chin-ese, Japan-ese, Vietnam-ese etc. Pune had a lot of international students all across its various colleges, and was also a pretty laidback city to hang out in, for tourists looking to get away from the madness of the bigger cities. Granted, those times I was so ignorant I couldnt tell a Nepali sweater-walla from a Japanese (well, almost :D) and they were all pretty much the same flat-nosed, noodle devouring, funny looking people to me.

Interaction with these guys was pretty limited, only if someone asked you for directions (and you could figure out what they were talking) This changed drastically when I came to the US. It was going on in much the older vein, until I registered for a class under a Chinese professor at school in Ohio. Now this guy's English was part of desi grad student folklore and we were advised by some old-timers to take a crash course in Ce-101, Ch-english 101, before classes began. Sure enough, the real fun started right in the 1st class. The professor went on talking about an-gay, o-gay, shesho votay with sho-rans and so many other things and half the class was clueless as to what was going on in a hardware design class. Our Ce-101 experts helped us figure that he was talking about AND gates, OR gates and threshold voltages with tolerance :)) We were more comfortable thereon in class and became experts in this brand of English quite soon. Thus began my first brush with the Chinese. I knew little then, that, hindi chini bhai bhai would become very pertinent for me in the years to follow.

Carrying on through school, I used to play bball with a lot of Chinese guys who crowded the courts in the evenings. I could never remember any of their names despite playing with them regularly, funny enough they managed to call my name correctly. The worst part of playing with these guys was they would never ever speak a word of English, and whenever they were calling teams I used to stand by the side, watching in all amusement until ball was in play and I was told which way I had to shoot :D Moving on from school, I thought I wouldnt be around Asians any longer and I could not have been more wrong.

When I moved to Chicago I was staying with 2 roomies, one a Vietnamese grad student and the other an oddball reticent desi who preferred to answer all questions in mono-syllables than go through the effort of speaking in complete sentences. When I first moved in, the guy who was moving out of that apartment told me that the Vietnamese fellow kept to himself and very rarely talked with the roomies. As the days went on I found that the Vietnamese guy was more communicative and the desi, uhh, he was not much of a people person. It was an odd little apartment with queer roomies around and the only saving grace was that I had a few friends around town. Needless to say, I was barely home on weekends.

Luckily, I was out of Chicago and away from those weird roomies in a little bit and I moved to Michi(n)gan for my next assignment. This time around I made sure I would not end up staying with stitched-mouth roomies. Although I was not living or working with an asian guy/girl, the asian connection was still present. I had a friend living at about half an hours drive away from where I was staying and I used to visit him once in a while. I wasnt surprised to find out that his landlord was Chinese, 3rd gen American nonetheless, of Chinese descent yet. The story was that they were classmates in grad school and he had been put up in her house since a long time. My friend also regaled me with stories of his alleged 'involuntary personal alliances' with her and being upto his game for all these years it was clear he was shooting blanks :P

Done with Michigan, I moved to Milwaukee for the next project. Yes, I spent a good part of the last 5 years in the Midwest. With my past experiences with asians, it looked like I could certainly step it up a notch. This time around, my landlord was Chinese and we had another Chinese guy living in the house. My landlord was a pretty cool guy, except in the evenings all he would do was sit on his ass and watch some Mandarin television programs on his big screen TV set. I had nothing to do when I got home after work and it was getting pretty frustrating to stare at the TV screen when I was not understanding a word of what was going on. Their informercials were not funny and I was not interested in finding a Chinese Lois either. Visuals, regardless of audio, can only be satisfying at such times. Thanks to him, I decided to join a local fitness centre to get busy in the evenings. The other Chinese roomie had his own share of issues. He usually went late to work and apparently his sleep would be cut short in the mornings when I took a shower. Not because I did a Himesh in the shower, he was a light sleeper. Somehow we worked things out, earplugs saving the act. I made a lot of Chinese friends in Milwaukee, courtesy my roomies, and it was fun while it lasted.

Early this year, I moved to California and I wasnt sure what to expect from this chinki konexion. I've now come to terms that this is a 'you can run but you cant hide' scenario for me, no matter where I am. No asian roomies anymore but my next door cubicle dweller teammate here is Vietnamese and another Chinese guy joined our team recently. The asian connection just doesn't seem to let go, we'll see how far it goes. Until then, I'll keep enjoying my Kung-Pao Chicken ;)

5 years and counting

2007-08-19T09:50:00.000-07:00

5 years back I stepped foot on American ~~soil~~ tarmac on this very day. Its been one hell of a joyride ever since. I faced my fears, lived my dreams, made some good friends, lost touch with some, lived through unrequited love, learnt to fight my battles on my own, survived, struggled, survived and struggled some more, lost count of how many times I moved base, surprised myself on occassions, smiled when my persistence paid off, cried when I ... well I never really cried ... but you get the drift.

I was going to write a long winding melodramatic post about life as it happened over these years .. but who am I kidding. Writing on such topics is not my cup o' tea, so I'd rather leave it at this. Here's to the years that come. Cheers!

Two guys, a girl and a Thai lunch

2007-08-01T19:07:00.000-07:00

One of the advantages of working in a young company is that even the seniors are not really 'senior'. The average age of our team of 6 could probably be 30. The vibe is really swell, everyone can laugh at the same jokes and its a great bunch of guys to hang out with. Typically all of us head out for lunch together and we're doing team lunches almost all through the week (except that we foot the bill and we do NOT talk about work). Today was one of the rare days when none of the senior guys from our team could head out for lunch as usual, since they were caught up in a meeting.

We'd been planning to go to Spices since last week and everytime something or the other was foiling plans. Today since the 3 of us had enough time on our hands we decided to head for the Thai place. Spices is notorious for its lunchtime rush and S had warned us well in advance that whenever we were doing lunch there it'd be best if we made reservations or went in late. We were already late heading out, so this was our best bet.

I was the designated driver for today since S had already driven yesterday. Not surprisingly, 4 out of us 6 drive coupes. The 2 who drive sedans reluctantly, are married. The place was a short drive off the highway but the hardest part, like always in SD, was finding a parking spot. Now this place has a huge parking lot with lots of shops in and around, but to our luck we were left driving around, debating whether we should switch plans and head to some other place nearby. After completing 2 rounds of the lot we found a spot, ironically, right in front of the restaurant.

A 10 minute wait and we were comfortably seated with lunch on it's way. I was feeling really adventurous so I ordered the Spicy Noodles. S stuck with her staple Pad Thai and L ordered Broccoli (!). My roomie had been here a couple of times earlier and had recommended the Thai iced tea. Usually, I'm not big on the whole iced tea thing, but since my roomie had (almost) sung paeans about it, I decided to give it a shot. I was glad I did. This was probably the 1st time that I enjoyed an iced tea, Thai or otherwise.

L has joined us about a month back so he started talking about how he was finding a lot of things unusual at work, stuff he'd never seen in other places he'd worked so far. S is the senior-most of us juniors, working for close to a year here now. She told us that when she started here she used to be at work promptly before 8 am. Soon enough it was 8:15, then 8:30 and now she comes in anytime between 9 and 9:30. She told us how she was getting late to bed (10pm!) almost every night and was snoozing the alarm for close to an hour everyday before finally waking up. I too am going through a similar phase right now (8:30) and I was glad to know that I wasn't the only one (slacking :P). All of us unanimously agreed that waking up early morning was a hard thing :) One thing led to another and our talk veered towards names.

L & S have closely similar last names. Oddly enough, L is of Chinese descent and S of Vietnamese. I had assumed that L is Vietnamese too, making this association with S's last name and I was surprised to find he's Chinese. He said he got that a lot because of his unusual last name and told that sometimes people even went so far as to ask him if he was sure he was Chinese and not Vietnamese =)) While we were on that, L got another of his name pronunciations right. We have a colleague at work and almost everyone comes up with his own way of pronouncing his name. S was happy to fill in with the right way to say his name. She said she hated it, growing up, when everyone butchered her last name and so she now has a thing for pronouncing names correctly.

The food arrived quickly after and it was delicious, totally worth persisting to find that parking space. Running through all the food quickly (it was past usual lunch time!) we trudged back to my car. On the way back I realised an interesting thing. A chinese, a vietnamese and a desi just had a hearty Thai meal :)

Munnabhai : Act III

2007-07-31T13:29:00.000-07:00

Sanju baba should've given judge Pramod Kode a jaadu ki jhappi before his verdict was delivered. Well, maybe now that he is sentenced to six years in prison, he could arrange to have his local florist send flowers to Mr Kode's house everyday. After all even the greencard mongers gave up against such valiant Gandhigiri tactics resorted to by the Indians waiting in endless hope for their applications to turn current.

It is really easy for me to sit ensconced in my cubicle and pass half-informed sarcastic comments on this topic. I still wonder whether this judgement was too harsh, in Dutt's own words a durgati of sorts; a sign of times to come perhaps. But then another train of thought argues that he got what he deserved. There's two sides to the coin and this debate can rage forever, much like Coffee - Toffee. Unfortunately there is no one answer here telling us it is coffee in a toffee.

Sanjay Dutt was accused of conspiring with the masterminds behind the 1993 mumbai bomb blasts which killed 257 and left many more injured, and for illegal possession of arms. Although he was cleared of charges for being involved with terrorists in 2006, he was drawn to court again in early 2007. Sanju baba had already spent 16 months of jail time immediately after the '93 bomb blasts, but justice seekers did not feel this was enough time behind bars for a person who had the worst of the worst misjudegments in keeping a AK-56 rifle for himself. Apparently, whether or not he used the weapon was immaterial; what went against his favor was that the weapon was part of the contingent which was used in these blasts. Did he know what was going on when he was given 3 AK-56's, 25 hand grenades and some more weapon miscellany? Perhaps not. But who in his right mind would want to help notorious criminals by extending such inexplicable favors? Then again who would want to attract their ire by refusing to 'park some weapons in the house without using them'? Granted, the weapons were taken away in some days, why did he feel the urge to keep one for himself? It is an AK-56 for God's sake, one of the most dangerous combat weapons! Did he intend to hang it on the wall like a showpiece?? He cited the reason for his act as 'for the sake of family protection'. Me thinks he was doing the sticky-icky then.

Dutt's intentions on keeping the weapon werent quite clear but he was sending mixed signals for sure. When he was asked to return to India for questioning his alleged involvement with the terrorist act, Dutt almost instinctively asked his posse to get rid of the weapon. An indicator that he knew some titbits behind this sinister monstrosity? Maybe. Whatever the reasons, it is hard to feel sympathetic for him. Caught facing the repercussions of a stupid decision he made 14 years back, he will now face 6 years of RI. Bollywood will miss one of its premier actors. 6 years from now, there's an 'inspired' theme for his comeback film. Munnabhai making the prison system a better place!

Run for cover Himesh, you've got competition!

2007-07-23T21:33:00.000-07:00

Apparently, Houston girl Mauli Dave has been creating waves in Sa Re Ga Ma this year. The lesser known Shekhar of the Vishal Shekhar duo has gone so far as to call her a performer! Uhmm I dont think I'd be shelling out money to watch a performer make a face like she is undergoing severe constipation everytime she hits a high note, but I'm no BappiDa to talk abt mujik. Besides, I'm sure some mutineers from SM would have a thing or two to say about the drapes, the trimmings and the carpet.

Check it out for yourself. Sorry :))

Modern Day Chakravyuha

2007-07-23T11:46:00.000-07:00

Many moons ago Abhimanyu was slain fighting his way out of the famed chakravyuha. The story has it that Abhimanyu had the knowledge of breaking into this formation but did not know the way to get out. In a valiant attempt, he laid his life fighting against all odds. Some of us desis living in America today seem to be caught in an identical situation. Although there are no warriors to slay, there is a vicious circle to break out of.

For the last many years, getting into America has been relatively easy. Young graduates rush into the country as soon as they complete their bachelors back home, on the premise of gaining higher education. Premise is a misleading word because many go on to complete their Masters/PhD's and then on to snatch lucrative jobs. This is the part where a desi is knowingly/unknowingly fighting his way into the chakravyuha. The way in is easy, for unlike the chakravyuha, this has been tread by scores of desis before. To get to this point, the best efforts come merely in the form of emulation.

Education completed, job in hand, desi parents get eager to see their offspring settled down (read married). At the risk of invoking the ire of the feminists, I will continue to write this from a guy's perspective hereon. Desi guy marries someone from the des or someone who is here and made it through the chakravyuha quite like him. First few years pass on comfortably and then the oft overlooked thought of returning to the homeland takes centre-stage. This is the point where our Abhimanyu wants to get the hell outta this place and does not have a clue on how to break free. Now the biggest question playing on his mind is, what is a good time to return? Like someone has said, it takes a successful man to know when to stop. Although desis are successful generally, I dont think they know when to stop and that's where they have to resort to survival tactics (err ... sachin, saurav, kapil dev, gavaskar, dev anand, amitabh, himesh :P ... quite a long list really).

For reasons yet unknown to me, a lot of people tend to think that when their savings exceed the $100k mark, is where the sweet median lies. In other times, 100k would've been a good strategery. Alas, the dollar keeps slipping and the rupee continues to get stronger by the day. What would you get for $100k today? Somewhere around Rs 40 lakh. Is that enough? Yes and no. The whole scenario depends on how well you have the setup back home. For most people it takes quite some time to get to that monetary level and a lot of American 'values' get deeply ingrained into the system. If you are some such, the first thing you would want is a house of your own (if you dont have enough privacy in your parental house and/or if you mind living with your parents). House-hunting is no piece of cake (and for 40 lakhs all you might really get IS a piece of cake). Realistically looking at the rate the value of real estate is booming in any big city, you would be a fool if you are hoping to buy a decent sized house with that kind of money. Consider the fact that you've been thinking of moving back for a while and with this plan in mind have never bought a 'house' house in the US. You would really want to buy a house in India then and not a condo (which are relatively easier to buy). This is when the desi realises that 100k aint worth jack.

Lets now look at the other side of the equation, the getting to $100k part. On an average, lets say a desi would probably make $80k a year. With household expenses, etc he can hope to save at the most $2k per month. At this rate it would take him atleast 4 years to get to this mark (unless ofcourse you work in Google, sell off some stocks and bang! there's a 100k). All of this is hypothetically speaking, that no other expenses occur at all during these 4 years (which is as impossible as Sehwag scoring runs these days). Now with a working wife things can get a lot faster, but the more money that flows in, your expenses remain proportionate. With so much cash flowing in, I dont see why anyone would'nt be tempted to trade in his Hindu Accord for a smashing new Merc and the wifey's Odyssey for a X5. Point is, money tends to flow out easily in this consumer driven market and it takes quite a while to reach whatever point in the bank balance you feel is good enough.

Say you dont want to move back home and you decide to buy a house here with all the money coming in. Good luck with that if you're living in a big city. Where I live right now, in San Diego, million dollar homes are everyday ordinary and for about $600k you might get a matchbox sized home. Lets assume you are foolhardy enough and decide to buy, you put the 10% down and the mortgage is easily around $5k monthly. Scary enough if either of the working duo quits/loses the job.

Now by the time you get to this point (let's say 4 years from marriage), you probably already have the green card, have a kid or two, have everything going on smoothly professionally as well as personally and there is no real motivation in throwing off everything that you've done so far and going back home just because the motherland beckons. You'd be hella lucky if you have a supportive spouse, but in some cases the ease of daily life here is too much to give up on and even if you are willing, your dear (now) old spouse might refuse to co-operate. Now you're stuck spinning wheels, contemplating what it would take to get out of this ever confusing chakravyuha and get back to the one place you would rightfully want to call home.

Inspired by a weekend phone conversation & countless thoughts thereafter

Skirting the exercise

2007-07-19T16:00:00.000-07:00

What really gets you off the couch and into the gym? Excess weight, gut flowing onto the belt, feeling physically weak, getting bigger or plain killing time? Whatever reason gets you into the gym and for some exercise, kudos to you. You should be proud just for the fact that you are not one of the many who say you want to get there, but just keep finding newer and newer reasons to avoid getting there. I love Nike's new store ads where they show a woman running with the print reading - 'Someone busier than you is running right now. Just do it.' Fact is, if you really want to do it, you'll do it, whether it is at 5am or at 11pm. I guess half the battle is having enough motivation to do it.

So I ran into an old friend the other day (lets call him K), and boy, he looked like he'd packed another 100 lbs since I last met him. I dont know whether or not this is a desi tendency to put on weight once you get here (I am one of those desis too :P) but the least you can do to maintain atleast some sort of self respect is not give stupid reasons for that excess weight. So K tells me he's been concentrating on his career lately and that he's been eating a lot of outside food since he barely finds time to cook. Yea right! Like show me one desi who isnt serious about his/her career and show me half a bachelor who doesnt eat out regularly. Then, my friend, I will listen to your excuses. I mean who are you kidding - your own self obviously. As if that wasnt enough, he comes up with the kicker. He tells me it wouldnt take him more than 2 months to get rid of the excess weight. Hee-haw! Ask people who try to lose weight how hard it can get to lose a pound, forget 40. I, for one, have forever been trying to get down to the 170lb mark in vain and God knows I've been trying!

Hitting the gym is much easier said than done. Why take all the pain when you can comfortably lounge on your leather sofa and laugh your fat ass off watching re-re-re-repeated episodes of Scrubs and Seinfeld? Yes, your old clothes might not fit you any more - buy bigger clothes! You might look *really* fat in the mirror - stop staring at your own image Narcissus! But please dont take the efforts to get off the couch and into the gym. Your knees might already be in a state of atrophy and might not be able to support any physical activity. Rest is important, so is the double cheeseburger with large fries and a diet soda. Oh how I pity such foos!

So if you're getting whatever form of exercise regularly, cheers to you. If not, thats okay too. Go eat some more.

Dhaai kilo ka haath is back!

2007-06-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

Sunny paaji plays the role of Brad Pitt's Mickey the Pikey as Munna in this liftoff of Snatch. Well, I just gave away the whole story for Fool n Final didnt I?? Now let me tell you what the rest of the characters match up to:

Turkish - Vivek Oberoi as Lucky
Tommy - Suresh Menon as (doesn't matter)
Boris the Blade - Arbaaz Khan as Moscow Chikna
Bricktop - Zakir Hussain as JD
Doug the Head - Asrani as Lalwani
Cousin Avi - Gulshan Grover as Chowksey
Franky Four Fingers - Chunky Pandey as Rocky
Bullet Tooth Tony - Jackie Shroff as GunMaster G9 (with apologies to the original Gun Master, Prabhuji Mithun Chakraborty)
Vinny - Shahid Kapoor as Raja
Tyrone - Johnny Lever as Malbari (sab ke uupar bhari)
Sol - Paresh Rawal as Chatur Chobey

There is no Sausage Charlie, no 2 gorgeous daughters of Doug the Head and JD does not have a pig farm like Bricktop. Instead we have Om Puri and Sharmila Tagore playing inconsequential roles (in retrospect, Sharmila actually portrays Mickey's periwinkle-blue-caravan-loving Ma). Doug the head is Sindhi and cousin Avi is Gujrati. Doug is in Dubai and Avi in London. The whole story takes place in Dubai. I almost forgot to mention Sameera Reddy and Ayesha Takia who make up the ~~eye-candy~~ female presence. Ayesha Takia also gives Shahid Kapoor a reason to bust some moves in song and dance routines.

Bullet tooth tony is Jackie Shroff as GunMaster G9. Gunmaster comes with excess baggage (under his eyes). Chowksey does not get a chance to return to London and is killed. While dying he utters his favorite line 'Bahu Saras' which reminds of Gulshan's similar act in Diljale where he dies wondering 'Uupar gol-gappe kaise khaoo?' Sunny Deol is back with his trademark line 'Ye Dhaai kilo ka haath jab kisipe padta hai na, to aadmi uthta nahi hai .. uth jaata hai'. One might have expected that 14 years from Damini, paaji must have pumped more iron and gone on to 3.5 kilos. Paaji disappoints. Atleast with the dialogues.

The storyline moves on similar to Snatch. Diamond heist, lots of people trying to lay their hands on the diamond, illegal fighting matches, etc etc. Nothing much to write home about this movie. Watch it if you want to experience how Bollywood can smash an original film to pulp.

Later!

For kicks and giggles, I checked out movie reviews for this movie on some other websites. Surprisingly, no one seems to mention its likeness to Snatch. Admittedly this movie is very confusing to understand with so many parallel stories going around but that wasnt the case with Snatch. Either that or I can digest really horrible cinema quite comfortably =))

To buy or not to buy

2007-06-14T13:33:00.000-07:00

Its been just over 2 months that my car has been paid off and now I dont seem to enjoy it as much as I would want to. The RSX has provided me immense driving satisfaction with its 5 speed manual but suddenly the 2.0L I4 155HP engine is too small for me, does not give me adequate acceleration and is no fun to drive. So here I am on the verge of being sucked back into a consumer loan, considering my choices trying to find which car would give me the best bang for my buck.

When I bought my car last year, I had no time to look around, test drive cars and gloat over my options. My '91 Mazda Protege died on me one fine Thursday evening in Michigan. The closest auto mall was in Troy and that was closed on weekends so I had only the day of Friday to buy a new car! I set out at 11 am after listening to a tirade from my PM on how he couldnt afford for me to take a day off given how tight the deadlines were and how he wanted me to compensate for this time by putting in some work on the weekend. Pucking SOB! Why the hell was I told that the project was in Pontiac and then made to travel 60 miles one way from Rochester Hills all the way into downtown Ann Arbor when I agreed to jump on to this?! My poor grad student car could not handle the onslaught and it broke down within a months time. It was absolutely stupid of me to spend $900 on repairs hoping that these would keep the car going for the next few months atleast. When I say stupid I mean *really* stupid considering that I had bought the car over a year and a half back for $850! It took all of 5 days for the car to break down once again and this time the only option left for me was to buy a new car after the local Midas gave me an estimate of $750 on the new repairs.

So with herd desi mentality I set out to buy a Hindu Accord. Certified Pre-Owned seemed a good bet since I was in no mood to spend any money on repairs on old cars and I did not have the gut to splurge on a new car. I was thinking maybe if I bought an Accord coupe it would set me atleast a little bit apart from your everyday sedan driving desi. To my luck, I did not find a single coupe within my meagre budget. Even if I was willing to spend a little further, apparently Honda Finance had some idiotic restrictions where they needed me to be a resident of the state atleast for the last year, provide complete documentation about my employment with paytsubs for the last 3 months and have a valid Michigan driver's license. Given the frequency at which I was hopping states that time, I had a Ohio driver's license, Illinois licence plates and auto insurance in Michigan. I did not have complete employment documentation since my visa was being transferred to the new employer and I did not have any paystubs from the new employer 'cos it had not been paytime yet. So the not-so-friendly guys at the Honda dealers refused to process my credit application and I left for the Toyota dealers next door.

No matter how much I hate the vanilla look on Toyota's I consoled myself saying atleast I would save some money on gas. I dont know what I was thinking when I was hoping to find a CPO Corolla or Camry. No one returns a Toyota! Those are for keeps! The only available CPO vehicle was a RAV 4 which I wasnt quite impressed with. Dejected, I walked into the Acura store across the street just for kicks to find what price range they were selling for. It was plain good fortune that they had this RSX available at just around the price I was willing to pay at that time. I took the car for a short spin. Happy with the deal I was getting (more happy that atleast I was getting something to drive around) I quickly signed up to buy the car. So glad I did. At 4 pm I was out with the new car and that has to be the most expensive thing I've bought within such less time. 14 months later, the car is mine and 2 more months later today I am looking to upgrade.

Upgrading from an Acura is a tough choice. Clearly, when I upgrade for performance and driving pleasure, it has to be something with a manual transmission. Auto trannys and huge powerful engines just dont gel well at all. The BMW 3 series is what comes to mind immediately given this scenario and the 3.0L I6 300HP looks like a clear winner. But the price tag hurts! For a similar price, if not less, another option is the Infiniti G35. 3.5L V6 306HP. Impressive. The Infiniti also comes with a ton of gizmos and gadgets (and its not quite as clunky as the Audi's). It has much more spacious and luxurious interiors. The Lexus IS 350 is a top notch performer but no available manual transmission. Ditto for the Lexus SC 430 (for $65k!! Daim!). But a bimmer is a bimmer is a bimmer and nothing compares.

Ofcourse given the price range I am looking at I could easily get a SUV. Heck the Infiiniti FX45's start at $37k. But I am not a fan of big cars. For zipping past quickly, the smaller the better. If my RSX came with an engine twice its current size and they shrunk the cars dimensions further I would still love it. Again, by desi standards once (whenever) I get married I will have to buy a SUV/minivan. Like someone rightly said, 'buy your toys before marriage' I am now eagerly hunting around for the best driving experience my money can buy. Lets see if/when this search culminates.

Times like these

2007-06-11T10:30:00.000-07:00

It's times like these, you learn to live again. Word.

Whoever thought of casting Tanushree Dutta in a lead role should be made to spend some time as a cell mate of inmate # 9818783. While 9818783 mulls over her past life, tries to stop acting dumb because its not cute anymore and thinks hard over what she can do to make the world a better place, she could possibly suggest Mr Sinha that limiting Tanushree's visage to brief appearances a la Hithcki or Signaal would be one step closer to a happier place we live in. No seriously. Watching Tanushree for over 2 hours couldnt be worse than spending time in the joint (with Paris, nonetheless).

Raqeeb is a movie where the leading lady manipulates the men in her life to get what she wants. The plot opens with Remo Mathews (Rahul Khanna) as an asthmatic who runs a large software company (what else) with Siddharth (Sharman Joshi) as his legal advisor and friend. Siddharth is quite the outgoing kind and is always pestering Remo to socialize and make the most of his life. In this quest, he sets Remo up on a date with Sophie (Tanushree Dutta). Few melodramatic filmy moments later, Sophie and Remo are married.

Marital bliss doesnt last too long for Sophie who runs into her ex-lover Sunny (Jimmy Shergill), a struggling actor. Sophie spurs Sunny on to killing Remo assuring him that they would lead a comfortable life ever after. Sophie has plans though. She double crosses Sunny and he lands up in jail. Then on we learn that it is not quite the lady who is manipulative, a greater devil lurks with a bigger plan and a verry filmy motive behind it all. In the battle of good against evil, evil loses once again and you are much too happy to see the closing credits.

To give credit to debutante director Anurag Sinha, the movie manages to hold your interest for the most part, though at times especially in the first half, it gets painfully slow. There are a lot of twists and turns all the way to a much expected ending. Rahul Khanna still needs some effort in the facial expressions department and a lot more in dialogue delivery. Jimmy Shergill looks horrendous in his long locks and doesnt do any justice to his role. Sharman Joshi delivers another stellar performance. Ms Dutta sure could use a stylist; a facemask would be a better alternative in the meantime. Support cast is passable with Vivek Shauq providing some titbits of comic relief.

Overall, not much of a recommendation, but worth watching if you have nothing better to do.

Post Title : Foo Fighters - Times Like These

Jeans

2007-06-05T19:49:00.000-07:00

How much are you willing to pay for a pair of your favorite denims? If I were in India, I'd say probably somewhere in the Rs 1200 - 1500 range. Here, it could be around the $50 mark. But if you check whats hap' these days, paying $50 for a pair of jeans is so passé . Take a look around in your local mall and you will be shocked to find the kind of prices denims sell for today.

Whatever happened to the ubiquitous Levi's you ask? Gone are the days when your favorite denims were Levi's, no one's wearing them anymore! Designer denims are the only denims to be seen in these days. Ofcourse this is not a new thing, blame Seven for all Mankind for starting the trend circa 2000. Although the name proclaims 'for all Mankind' it is a gross misnomer for more reasons than one. For one they started off with jeans only for women and then if all mankind were to strut around in your jeans Sire, wouldn't you want to make them affordable? While your everyday average pair of denims sell for anywhere around $30, a pair of Seven costs atleast 4 times as much. Surprised? Well, thats the price you pay for contemporary casual fashion! What started off catering towards the red carpet/high brow crowd has now crept into everyday office and on any given Friday you could find a lot of your peers sporting Seven, Citizens of Humanity, True Religion and the likes. I, for one, cannot bring myself to buying a $100 pair when something for half the price looks and lasts as good, if not better. I mean they are denims, people. They last and last and last until you get bored seeing the same pair or you grow past the waist size. There's gotta be a better way to spend all that dough.

Last weekend I took my parents to the mall closeby and while walking around in Nordstrom, mom liked the color on a pair of denims. What she forgot was we were in Nordstrom and then she was absolutely clueless about the price tags on designer denims. As luck would have it, she had picked up a Diesel and I had to give her a quick update on all things Nordstrom. Setting the jeans aside I took a quick look at the price tag, they were selling at $280!

Sex, Relationships and Urban Public Transport

2007-06-04T15:21:00.000-07:00

Life in a Metro - Movie Review

The first few minutes of this movie you could be easily fooled into believing that extra-marital promiscuity for the sake of career advancement is the order of the day in suburban India and thats what the movie could be all about. But dont let the comedic phone conversations between Rahul (Sharman Joshi) and some of his senior co-workers fool you into this verdict so soon. The plot weaves intricately in and out of the lives of a handful of inter-connected couples bringing forth shades of reality that is Life in a Metro.

Rahul is a call centre employee who in his own words '15 hajaar kamaane ke liye 15 hajaar Americans ki gaaliya sunta hoo'. He is set on making it big in life and is willing to go all lengths to win the favor of his managers to rise through the ranks. One approach he uses to do this is to allow his seniors access to his apartment to make merry with their colleagues while he roams the streets in the middle of the night waiting for them to 'come out' (pun intended). His neighbors, in the meanwhile, are in awe of his sexual prowess, screamers keeping them awake late in the night. Rahul secretly admires his colleague Neha (Kangana Ranaut) who is sleeping with her boss Ranjeet (Kay Kay Menon). Ranjeet is married to Shikha (Shilpa Shetty) and they are at complete loggerheads, living a life of compromise for the sake of their 6 yr old daughter. Familial ties do not however stop Ranjeet from having a no strings attached, physical only relation with Neha in turn for granting her out of turn promotions and perks.

Shikha's sister Shruti (Konkona Sen) is a 30 yr old virgin, waiting desperately for the right one. She manages to meet a few off marriage portals but rejects each one for not being her type. Debu (Irrfan Khan) is one such reject whom she ends up working with and falling in love towards the end of the movie. Neha and Shruti are roommates and somewhere down the line Shruti finds out that Ranjeet is cheating on her sister. In the ensuing scene, Ranjeet asks to be forgiven for his liasons with Neha but turns the other way round when Shikha asks to be forgiven for her short fling with Akash (Shiney Ahuja), a struggling theatre actor whom she meets once a week while on her way to visiting her dance teacher Shivani (Nafisa Ali).

Along parallel tracks there is a love story between Amol (Dharmendra) and Shivani, Amol back to spend the last few years of his life with his true love. In all filmy glory, Shivani dies before Amol and you are left wondering why the hell this part of the story was roped in in the first place. There is also an unnecessary gay association in the movie where Shruti is fooled to believe that the man whom she swoons for also likes her but in reality the whole relation is an act to cover his gayness in front of his parents. Shruti later goes on to realise (I dont know how) that she is in love with Debu and Debu has to chase her on a horse all the way to the train station right out of his baraat to mend her broken heart. Neha realises that sleeping with Ranjeet can only get her so far and that is not what she wants in life right now. She jumps out of the car while traveling with Ranjeet and heads straight to find Rahul. Rahul is about to leave the city dejected for no love when he is runout just short of the ~~crease~~ train station by Kangana Run-out. In the end, all (alive) find what they want in life.

Kay Kay Menon's portrayal of the remorseless MCP is first rate while Shilpa not latching onto the lust train sounds a little too sati-savitri. Shiney Ahuja plays the loser once again. Irrfan Khan has been given some good dialogues and he makes a competent performance as a lecherous 38 year old. Konkona Sen dilly dallies between the man of her dreams and the man unknowingly present in her life. Kangana Ranaut manages to look beautiful but lacks 'dimensions' and one can only pity Kay Kay's character to cheat on the bodacious Shilpa for a fling with Kangana. Sharman Joshi plays the ambitious lad quite convincingly and has clearly come a long way since his Style and Excuse Me days. The rest are trivial additions to the lineup.

The most irritating part of the movie is when 3 unkempt, dishevelled singers break into a song. While the songs are appropriately placed, have meaningful lyrics and carry the movie forward, looking at the same 3 people over and over again kinda makes you wish you had a squiggly line in your eye. All said and done, the movie is definitely worth a watch, although you come out hoping this is not what life in a metro is truly becoming in the motherland.

Post Title : Sex, Lies and Videotape

Is it just me ...

2007-06-01T13:07:00.000-07:00

... or is little Ms Kapoor looking a lot like little Ms Hilton in these snaps?

Taken from her latest flick: Kya Love Story Hai

These days

2007-05-31T10:38:00.000-07:00

I am not getting too bored to blog already. It is not yet a been-there-done-that thing for me. I've been running short on time since the last 2 weeks. When I started blogging a lil while back I had absolutely nothing to do in the evenings after I got home from work. Even an hour's time would suffice to write a post and I was easily finding fodder for posts, almost at will. Nowadays although I find fodder, I dont get enough time. My folks are here and week 1 was spent on their orientation with tiny details in daily life. Every other day we have been out at Von's in the evenings because I just cannot manage to get a grip on how much groceries are needed when it comes to full-fledged cooking 2 times a day; as opposed to kaam-chalau cooking once a week =)) By the time my folks were getting comfortable around the house we left for a short trip last Friday to come back late Tuesday night. Yesterday was spent half awake at work. And here I am today, still reeling from the after effects of the 1200 mile roadtrip, feeling a-miss having not updated my blog in ages - hence posting a quickie from work;)

Post Title : Bardot - These Days

11 from last week

2007-05-18T23:01:00.000-07:00

Random snippets of potentially useless information from last week which I felt like jotting down.

Saturday was Operation Clean House. Took quite a while to get everything done and at the end of the day the apartment looked like it was worth spending all that time on it. Simultaneous chores continued throughout the day, laundry, grocery shopping etc as every weekend and roomie and I were hungry by 6pm. Dined at Piatti on La Jolla shores, recommended by Chris, and got robbed of 3 hours and $60 for a dinner for two. Food was well worth the money spent, though one thing is fo' sho' - no more visits there without reservations.
Spent all of Sunday in and out of flights getting to Orlando. I was tired getting from one coast to the other and was worried how mom amd dad would hold up in their 1st ever transcontinental journey. Had a fabulous dinner topped up with a tiramisu on the second consecutive night wondering how I was ever going to succeed shedding those pounds off.
Monday was fun day. After a full breakfast and registration done at the conference, we headed over to Universal studios. Lunch at Hard Rock Cafe was followed by lots of rides in both parks. The Incredible Hulk and Dueling Dragons were awesome roller coaster rides; the Revenge of the Mummy on the other hand, could definitely use better seat restraints. I also got a caricature done there :D We headed back to the hotel @ 7:30 and I skipped the welcome event that was scheduled for the night and ordered room service ever so again.
Watched a lot of playoff games in the last week. Saw Ginobili go down with a black eye, Nash with Horry, Okur being pulled down by Jason Richardson. Playoff season and emotions run really high and you can definitely expect dramatic games, although this year an unusual lot of blood's been drawn in the Suns-Spurs series.
Was woken up by a false fire alarm at 1:30 am on Monday and had to sleepwalk through 11 floors down. Argh!!
Was surprised to find that the food quality even in top notch resorts is not consistent on all days. I ordered the penne chicken and tiramisu on 2 different days and every time both of them were served looking and tasting entirely different.
Sat through some enlightening sessions at the conference. Like most conferences this one had its share of duds too and I was unlucky to get caught in some of those. Met up with old friends from previous workplaces and got a fillin on who's doing what.
The dev server went down once again. Thankfully we could restore normalcy within 10 minutes but this particular problem continues to haunt us without any tracable clues and needs to get sorted quickly.
Wednesday evening drove back to Universal for the special event. After sifting through a quick dinner and a never ending lineup of desserts, rode the Hulk once again an innumerable amount of times.
Managed to get some value out of the last session of the conference on Thursday and then scurried to the airport. Lunched on awesome linguine with shrimp at one of the eateries in the airport lobby.
Reached San Diego after a 15 minute delayed arrival, picked up mom and dad from the airport and took the cab home.
:End Thursday:

I'll be blogging less frequently now with my folks here for the next 2 months. I'll still aim for atleast once a week, we'll see how it works :)

Bulletin board fun

2007-05-11T22:32:00.000-07:00

I love the email bulletin boards at work. People having no work always post something absolutely useless over there and it makes for an interesting read when you're looking for some amusement, sucked out of life by the daily madness at work. Ofcourse BB's in places I've worked before are nowhere as nearly hilarious as some of the desi service based IT companies but recently there's been lot of action on the BB at my current workplace.

There's this woman who posts almost everyday with lot of stuff to sell. She includes a long list of DVD's, CD's, books, knickknacks etc and sells them all for a buck each. At the coffee station the other day I overheard some guys talking,"Dude you should see her cubicle. It's all stacked with boxes and sh!t and all day people are walking in and out of her cubicle like its a frikking dollar store!" As if all the unwarranted attention she was getting wasnt enough, she started putting up 'Clothes for Sale' ads too. Everyday she'd put up a new dress/coat/jeans for sale with pictures attached. So now her dollar store was being taken over by a thrift store :) )

The icing on the cake still remained. When she was done selling regular clothes she started putting up wedding gowns for sale! And not one, not two, she put up close to half a dozen exquisite wedding gowns. More gossip followed, the woman in question being genuinely ~~hot~~ good looking. "Dude, why the hell does she have so many wedding gowns and why is she selling them off? Does that mean she's called off her wedding so many times already?!" "Yeah. I dunno why she's trying to sell them man. If she didn't like them why did she buy them in the first place? You think she brought them off the bulletin board from her old company? Hahahaha" "No. Maybe she bought them off craigslist. 'Hmm ... let's see who's selling a wedding gown today. Maybe I can make some money by selling it on the company BB'," (more manic laughter)

Looks like she finally caught in on the coffee station gossip. She's still trying to sell those wedding gowns but now the emails carry a little note in bold: "No, my wedding wasn't cancelled. I'm trying to find the right dress. Wedding gowns are not returnable (even with tags/receipt). "

Oh c'est la vie! I'm loving it :)

Eat sum dim sum!

2007-05-10T15:20:00.000-07:00

Last night a colleague of mine sent out an email inviting everyone to join in for some dim sum at lunch today. I wasnt sure what dim sum was so I decided to wait and find out before tagging along. All I knew was it would probably be some Asian food since he was Asian and hello! dim sum - sounds asian! So this morning while I was talking to people around updating my knowledge on dim sum, I found out that it was Chinese food which is served in a unique way. There are servers who haul carts along the dining hall with multiple food plates on them and you have to pick and choose from what's available.

I'm not big on Chinese cuisine and time stands testimony to the fact that the only edible Chinese food is served in PF Chang's. Jokes apart, I really cannot eat Chinese anywhere else and that is mainly because the smell of food in most authentic Chinese restaurants is really over-powering for my olfactory senses. So much so that my eyes become smaller and I start squinting LOL Now it would be interesting to find if sushi would push me into Turning Japanese ;) Anyways, so I was assured by my colleagues that the place where we were going to served good food and that I should try it once if I've never done it before. No harm in trying I thought. I was just about to find out how wrong I was.

As I walked in to the restaurant I was engulfed by the smell of dumplings which once again reminded me why I hate to eat in a Chinese restaurant so much. But no hurried judgement, I told myself, I had been assured that the food here is really good. So we sat down and promptly an Asian female rushed to our table and served us tea. Well, almost. It was actually a greenish brown concoction which I was told was tea. Before I could think whether I wanted to drink it or not one server, and a couple others after her, hauled a big cart each next to our table. D who was our dim sum expert for the day ordered a few dishes. Being desi I was limited to eating seafood and chicken and apparently the best dishes these guys served were pork based. I was informed that the seafood wasnt bad either so I decided to go for the shrimp dishes.

No authentic Chinese restuarant has silverware on the table and this one was no different. Luckily I did not have to display my inefficient use of chopsticks as M quickly asked one server to get some forks. She too was not so good with, "juggling food on two sticks before quickly throwing it in your mouth." I'd rather not go on to describe how each dish tasted. To me they all looked the same and tasted the same because they all really were the same seafood dumplings or chicken dumplings albeit in various shapes. A few dumplings later I was really full, though not happy with my first dim sum experience. My happiness was further dented when the cheque split up to $15 per head.

No more dim sums for me, I promised, as we drove back to work. As we trudged back in from lunch, another colleague of mine who had wisely chosen to stay away asked the other people,"So did you pop Amit's dim sum cherry?" Everyone burst out laughing as I told him, "Yes. And it hurt really bad."

Chaha Pohe # 1

2007-05-09T13:35:00.000-07:00

Its been a while now that this happened but I had to write about my experience. Maybe I'll get some tips from been-there-done-that people on do's and dont's. Alternately I could just end up wasting some more time writing random useless stuff :))

This dates back to my last trip back home in Dec 06. After a few days of fun, the obvious topic of marriage came up during one of our casual talks. My parents quickly convinced me that it was not all hunkydory when an arranged marriage was concerned. Gullible that I am (yeah, right!) I succumbed and agreed to .. how do I say this .. well, put myself out there LOL Task 1 accomplished, my parents got to the next step - spreading the word. In a few days time, I was setup for my first official chaha pohe program. Thankfully, that was the only one during that trip.

It so happened that one of the families that lived a few blocks over from where I live happened to know someone else who were also looking to get their daughter married. Stage set! A convenient date was blocked and we decided to meet over at our few-blocks-over-neighbours place. This soon became the butt of all jokes as soon as the neighbours son found out what was going on. That he was at our place everyday did not help! My brother, cousin and he ganged up against me to cash in on this opportunity to pull my leg to all of their hearts content. I tried to take it all in stride, shamelessly :P

In more ways than one, calling for an arranged marriage is like putting your weapons down while fighting and accepting defeat. Bright readers please note that the weapons I mention here are metaphorical. I don't know what signals we are sending to our parents when we do this. Is it:
a> Yea, you're gonna hafta take care of this thing too. Might as well get started.
b> Alright, I give up. Nothing happened for the last X years, do you expect miracles overnight?
c> You can tell I'm not much of a ladies man. But that doesnt mean I'm gay!
d> I'm sooo obedient and moral-debt stricken and I value my culture and traditions. I'll get married to whomsoever you want me to.
e> All of the above
f> None of the above

Whatever option you choose, truth be told, your parents have a job cut out for them.

Interestingly enough, the other day I had a conversation with my manager and when I explained the concept of how arranged marriages are set up, he went "Huh, so thats more like an assisted marriage." I voiced over as strong a protest as I possibly could against calling it assisted. At the same time I couldnt help but wonder whether arranged marriage was a euphemism for the singles' sake.

Anywho, getting back on track, on D-day around 5-ish we headed over to our neighbours place when we were informed that ladkiwaale aa gaye hai. I walked in to see a bunch of unfamiliar uncles and aunties and two girls who looked of marriageable age. As I sat down I was thinking, doesnt really matter who's who I gotta get out of here quick! Then the families were introduced to each other and I found out that the not-so-prettier of the two was who was out to get married and the slightly better looking one was her sister. With introductions also came first round of refreshments. Traditionally, I think this used to be limbu sarbat/panha or some such. We were served Coke. I usually stay away from pop and so I had to get me a glass of water. Not very surprisingly, it illicited comments about how these days people are more health conscious and yada yada yada.

After that it was time to play 'oh I know this guy, we went to school together' between the 2 dads. So they managed to play catchup on old times and found out that they did have quite a few common friends. In the meantime, I was pestering mom to get me out of that place. While this was going on, aunty served us pohe. Now first of all I'm not at all a pohe guy, I like upma better and second, I had long given up the good ole' habit of high tea that the British had passed down onto us desis and had caught up with breakfast over the last 5 years. My point being, I was not hungry and I was being served a non-favorite dish. So, much to chef aunty's chagrin, I managed to clip a lot of pohe off my plate and took my own sweet time to get through them so no one would bother to serve me a second helping.

During this time, aunty suggested that the girl and I could get together to have a small talk without the rest of them bothering us. I managed to fend that awkwardly since I wasn't really interested (what is that they say 'If beauty is on the inside, I'd rather see you inside out'. Yea, it was kinda like that, not so bad, but almost) After finishing off the pohe, the girl's mom once again suggested that the girl and I get together for a chat. Refusing the second time would've been really rude so I walked out onto the patio much against my wishes, knowing not what I was going to talk. If I was genuinely interested I could've bothered to come up with some questions; since I wasn't at all, I decided not to tax my brain. We talked for about 10 minutes, talked as in the girl kept bombarding questions and I kept answering/ducking for cover, and then headed back in. I think I kinda made 'not interested' clear with my lackadaisical attitude during this time.

No chaha pohe program is ever complete without chaha and shortly later, piping hot tea was served. I couldnt refuse tea. Tea, for a lazy instant coffee drinker like me, is luxury; if prepared by someone else and handed over - supreme! More generic discussions on socio-political issues between all parents followed while sipping on tea and I was stuck in awe of how the clock could move really slow at such times. Another half hour later, the saga ended and I merrily trooped back home.

Of celebrity restaurateurs ...

2007-05-03T14:26:00.000-07:00

.. heck, of Shilpa Shetty to some extent and allied rants for the other.

So Shilpa Shetty is the latest to hop onto the celebrity restaurateur bandwagon following the likes of the Tendulkars and the Zaheer Khans and some of her more illustrious counterparts from LaLa Land. I can already envision a leopard print theme on all fabric in the restaurant and probably a curry house which serves south indian curries as opposed to the good old CTM that Britain loves. Speaking of CTM, I dont know how good they have it up there in Southall and Bradford, but I have yet to come across *good* CTM in any of the towns I've had it in so far in America. And I've lived in the desi-est of places as Chitown and ATL! I cant really tell the difference in taste of one CTM from the other, its like all the restaurants across the nation go with one standard recipe. Come to think of it, its really not like I can't tell the difference, more like there IS no difference;)

Anyways so we'll wait and watch how Ms Shetty's attempts at cashing in on her newfound popularity in Britain turn out. It is no news that her 'popularity' ( y'know I really wouldnt call it popularity, its really more like familiarity - know what I mean?) in Britain stems from all the wrong reasons lately with the hullabaloo caused by Big Brother. The first curry house opens up in London and then she'll open up more branches. I wonder if Ms Shetty would dare open up a branch in Mumbai. Well she's been 'popular' here too .. thanks to Mr Gere. Yep, that was a classic case of hypocrisy and things blown out of proportion and comments interpreted in whatever-the-hell-way one would want and whatever more idiocy one could imagine. Effigy making could probably soon turn into a million dollar industry looking at the rate at which they are being burnt in India over the slightest of chances, y'know first the usual suspects - the cricket team, then Shilpa Shetty and Richard Gere, then someone else; protesters just dont seem to get enough of effigy burning.

Coming back to restaurants, I dont know what gives celebrities the idea to start a restaurant. Maybe they bank on it as an alternate revenue generating machine - if not the cricketing whites/glossy makeup face-cakes, I can always don an apron! Tendulkar started one and apparently eats there quite often. Zaheer Khan started one, now that was a good one - starting a restaurant in Pune is almost always a foolproof plan. The city has enough restaurants already, yet anytime you walk into a restaurant, you cannot easily get a table without considerable wait time. Ofcourse, owning a restaurant in Pune has its own disadvantages and ZK's recently got trashed by some zealots while India was on the losing track. If anyone were to open up a new restaurant in Pune, it'd have to be Italian. Despite having a truckload of restaurants, I dont think Pune has one restaurant which serves authentic Italian worth it's weight in .. err .. pasta.

Anywho, enough with the rants, imma get back to some work. These pretzels are making me thirsty!

No Regrets

2007-04-30T13:41:00.000-07:00

Alrite y'all. This is an inspired piece of writing after reading this post and listening to one of my favorite songs (although the title comes from another favorite song). I have tried to keep my writing as original as I can but some similarities are bound to occur since this is after all, well, 'inspired'. It is also my first attempt at writing a short fictional story with some mix of emotions. I would not be surprised, however, if this post does not come out as good as the original one. When it comes to emotions and sentiments, I am much like Chandler Bing, "I'm not good with that part. Could I interest you in a sarcastic comment?" Anyways, enough with the background already. Here goes:

*DISCLAIMER* --- All characters in my story are fictional and any koinkydinkys are entirely coincidental. This post has been written with the sole intent of exercising my fingers so please do not try to associate and/or read between the lines.

Late November, it was a wintry afternoon in O'Hare. Akash was all excited, eagerly waiting to board his next flight to London, on his way back home to Mumbai. He had already travelled a long way on his LAX-CHI direct and was now beginning to get edgy as the weather showed no signs of clearing up. He was pacing nervously around the flight information screen waiting to find the updated time of his flight. Few minutes and he was utterly frustrated to find that his flight had been delayed by 4 hours. With nothing better to do he decided to hit the Starbucks in the terminal, connect to his office network and finalise that proposal he had been working on. Somehow he had managed to get a longer vacation with the understanding that he would be reachable even while in India and that he was still billable on all his current projects. A long vacation was the call of the hour, this was no ordinary vacation. He was heading home to get married.

Strolling on to find the Starbucks he stood in line to get a fix of his favorite. In one corner, someone sitting sideways reading up on a book, caught his eye. She sure looked familiar. Could she be Priya? No way, he told himself. He knew Priya was on her way to Austin the very same day, flying out from New York. Curiosity got the better of him and he walked that way after grabbing his mocha, and sure enough, Priya she was! He greeted her with a warm hug and both were all smiles. 'Wha .. how come you're here? Shouldn't you be on your flight to Austin?' said Akash, after he got over his initial surprise. 'Yes, thank the weather. We had to make an unscheduled stop out of our way because of the bad weather. I still have a few more hours before we get back on.' 'So we do meet after all. The irony. We made so many plans of meeting up, none of them materialised over all these years and the weather gods decide to play their part'. 'Indeed' she smiled.

'Wow, though! You haven't changed a bit. How long has it been since we saw each other, 7 years?!' 'Yes', she said with a mischievous grin on her face , ' I wish I could say the same about you'. 'I know I'm not quite the guy you knew from college anymore. Hey you're seeing me 7 years and 45 lbs later. I'm a Complan boy!' and both broke off into a hearty laugh. At the crux, no one had really changed. Both were still the same, always looking for a chance to pull each other's leg and have a good laugh. They had been through 4 years of engineering school together. Always in the same group, hanging out together, studying, partying, living each day of their lives in each others company enjoying it all. Everyone thought they were the perfect couple, in their minds, they were nothing more than very good friends. Akash went on to complete his Masters and Priya was working with some company after they graduated. Throughout they never lost touch with each other, emailing, calling, doing whatever to fill in on the latest. Since the last 3 years Priya had been onsite. Their grandiose plans to meetup along with their friends never saw the day of light with someone or the other always bailing out at the last minute. After their last plans for Denver had flopped no one ever bothered to come up with suggestions and these good friends of yesteryears were left with the only option of electronic communication, although they were in the same country, coasts apart.

'So, how are you feeling? All excited about the wedding? Everyone at home must be so busy running around with the last minute preparations, isn't it?'. 'Yeah, I wish I could have managed to get more of a vacation, but you know how hard it is even to get 3 weeks off work.' 'Yes, I know. It is quite the same for all of us. I am worried about my next trip back home. I'm sure my parents won't let me return without atleast getting engaged to someone', she chuckled. Then they went on with a long winding discussion about how almost all of the people they knew were married by now, some even having kids already.

'Priya, can I tell you something?' 'Ofcourse you can! Have you ever Not told me anything?!', she asked with a puzzled look on her face. Akash barely managed a wry smile and said, 'Thanks for always being there for me Priya'. 'What is this about, Akash?' Priya sensed there was much more to this and was preparing herself for this unusual outburst of emotions from Akash. Did she really know Akash after all these years? She had never ever known Akash to get sentimental. 'Priya, I don't know if I should be saying all this, I dont know if this is the best time to be talking about but this is something I've always wanted to tell you. This was something I could never discuss on the phone and now that we're here ...' 'I'm listening', Priya grew serious.

'I still don't know why you said No'. Over the years, Akash had fallen in love with Priya without quite realizing it. He realized how he had been taking her for granted all along in college and how badly he missed her every single day of his life. Ofcourse, he had no time for misery, with classes and work keeping him busy beyond belief during his Masters but every now and then in a reflective moment Akash thought about Priya. He had promised himself that he would pop the question at the first opportunity he got after he was self sufficient with a good job on hand and a stable life. A good job was not on the horizon immediately for Akash but he was working his way up. Few months down the line, Akash thought this was a good time, he picked up the phone to reach Priya and spoke of his intentions. Priya took her time and refused, telling Akash she never thought of him as more than a friend and said it was best to let things remain. 'Did you ever think about us after that time?' Akash quizzed, 'Did you ever wonder 'what we could've been, if you'd only let me in?' 'Akash ..', Priya quivered, 'I'd told you I was sorry .''Don't be', Akash interrupted, ' you know, I thought about it and you are not to blame'

'If anything, I should be thanking you for understanding me. You know Priya, those were hard times for me. Later that month, I lost my job. I did not sit down and cry. I fought with intent and within a week I was on my next job. Your refusal spurred me on. You always knew me as a brash, slaphappy kid, never serious about anything, always living his life easily taking each day as it comes. I cannot blame you if you did not want to spend your life with me knowing me the way I was back in college. But I wasnt the same Priya, I had changed and you did not know. I had gone through a lot after I came here. When I got my first paycheque after doing the dishes in the cafeteria all week long, I realized the value of hard earned money. I worked hard, studied with a new found purpose. I realized I had fallen for you but I could not do anything about it until I had some sort of a respectable job. Looking back, I might've rushed into proposing having completed barely a year on the job. I had nothing to prove my case that I had changed. All I ever wanted was to spend my life with you and I thought that it was already late since your parents were looking out for you. I jumped the gun and I lost my chance.'

Priya would've never known so much was behind that thank you; and yet much more to come. Akash continued, ' But you know, I owed it to myself to ask that question. Remember, back in college I had asked Amrita? I did not know what I was doing back then. But with you it was different. When I asked you I knew what I wanted in life and I was on track for achieving it with everything going on for me. After I'd broken off with Amrita I'd never thought I could ever gather enough courage again to put myself out there. Once bitten, twice shy you know. But when I'd been stupid enough to do that when I had no clue, I knew I could not live with myself had I not asked you.We were best friends, we always got along so well. I would've never gone out on a limb and proposed if I had the slightest inkling that you never once felt the way I did. But like I said, you might have thought twice because you knew me as the Akash from college. I wouldnt blame you had you based your decision on that. You never knew what I had gone through after college and you never bothered to find out and give me a chance. In the end I had no regrets for having popped the question although I got rejected. I owed it onto me and I did what felt right at that time. I am happy that I found out it wasn't to be but I still can't figure out what led you to think that way. What matters more to me is that you are just a phone call away whenever I need you and I want to thank you for that. Promise me one thing, if you can - always stay the same.'

Akash looked into her eyes and it was Priya's turn to speak. '... I ... I don't know .. I don't know what to say. Quite frankly, I am stunned. You were right, you should'nt have opened up this can of worms. Sometimes I wondered too ... ' ' Boarding business class for BA-0652 to London', Priya was cut short by a crackling voice on the PA system. 'Ohh! For Goodness, thats my flight. About time!' Akash beamed 'Well, I guess that's about it. It was so nice catching up after all these years, time just flew by. Thanks once again for letting me speak my heart out. I don't know where I would be without a friend like you'.

Akash bid a hasty goodbye and boarded his flight to live the rest of his life in denial. As she watched Akash walk by, Priya wondered if she would ever be able to claim that her life had been without any regrets, and a tear rolled down her cheek ...

Post Title : Robbie Williams - No Regrets

Cricket WC '07

2007-04-28T15:36:00.000-07:00

I could write and write and write but that would be just re-stating the obvious. Magnificent innings from Gilly, great allround cricket from Australia and a good fight from Sri Lanka. Go on and celebrate Australia, your 3peat has given the right to be cocky.

Giggity giggity giggity

2007-04-27T09:16:00.000-07:00

Word of the day - Quagmire LOL

Useless post, I know, but Family Guy rocks!!

Mode : Repeat

2007-04-26T15:16:00.000-07:00

How many times would you listen to a song on repeat mode in one go? If you are anything like my roomie the answer to that would be 'until the batteries burn out'!

This ties back to my post where I woke up to James Blunt moaning You're Beautiful on a beautiful weekend morning (afternoon, whatever :D) I was lolling on my bed one fine saturday morning arguing with myself whether 11 am was early enough to wake up on a Saturday. I was quickly convinced that I could get some more sleep since I had nothing to do on that weekend anyways. About half an hour later, I realised that there was something playing in the background which was distracting me big time and I couldnt stay in bed any longer listening to that sound. Unwillingly, I crawled out of the bed and strolled out into the living room following the sound. There in the far end of the room was my roomie's laptop playing this song, again and again, with mr.roomie nowhere in sight. Cursing him I hit the mute button on his laptop, the only thing I could do to save my ears, since he'd locked the comp and gone away.

Since I was now out of the bed, thanks to Mr Blunt, and it was close to noon I didnt see any point in getting back to my (ever) incomplete sleep. About 10 minutes later, in walked my roomie, hands full with grocery bags.So dude was at the grocery store all this while, unmindful of the fact that he had left the house with his laptop on, media player on repeat mode and playing such a horrible song!

I was obviously cranky that morning, not having had as much sleep as I would've liked. Part of my crankiness could also relate to how much I hate songs such as this one, with the lovey dovey lyrics hopelessly moaning out how beautiful someone was. First, the lyrics claim the singer does not know who the woman is, second - this woman is with another man, and third the singer says he was high. Get a life crackhead! For all I know he could've dreamt about this beautiful angel he saw while he was high. Oh well. Showering praise on someone is not exactly my forte, high or not, and I hate songs with hopelessly romantic lyrics. And to think that my sleep was left incomplete because of this crappy song - Aaargh!!

Back to the topic, I asked my roomie to not keep playing songs in repeat mode and especially not this one. He told me that he liked this song very much and by default he always had his music player in repeat mode, so he would've never realised the same song was playing continuously even if he was around. Ofcourse he wouldnt realise that the same song is playing, but if such a sucky song were playing, I would definitely realise and be bothered by it! But evidently he really liked this song and he made a statement when he burnt the song onto a CD about 15 times to completely fill it up with the same song and played it in his car (thankfully) quite regularly.

Surprisingly this fellow isn't the only one I've met who likes to listen to the same song over and over again. Last year when I was working at Miller, I used to have lunch with a desi teammate (lets call him A) on most days. Miller was about the good times and we often ended up taking long lunches driving across town to get to the finest food places (as were available in Milwaukee). So whenever A drove, he always had one of two songs playing - one was a remix of a song called 'Mere Naseeb mein tu hai ke nahi' and the other was 'Ya Ali'. He always hit the previous button when the track ended and we listened to the same songs day in and day out. I was unmindful the 1st few times but soon enough these songs started getting on my nerves. I dont know what joy A derived from listening to those songs over and over but somehow I got the feeling that he did this more to irritate his co-passengers than for his own enjoyment. Really! 'cos there was this other guy (lets call him B) who joined us sometimes for lunch and he hated Himesh Reshammiya from the bottom of his heart (much like most people do). Whenever B joined us for lunch, A was quick to swap CD's and put on the choicest of Himesh's nasal tracks!

So that makes 2 people I know until now who like to listen to one song in repeat mode until they get absolutely bored with it or for whatever better reason only they might know. I don't have to worry about A now, cos I'm not in Milwaukee anymore. The only one I need to worry about is the 'repeater' in San Diego. Nowadays things are getting better though. I've educated him on the importance of creating playlists and I get to hear about 7-8 songs in repeat mode - easier on the ears than listening to one song 50 times in a row;) Next up I want to wane him off the repeat button, but from what I've seen (or heard) so far, I think this could take a while :))

Rain rain go away ...

2007-04-20T15:58:00.000-07:00

... don't come to me, just stay
On the fields, where farmers pray
Pour just there, if you may

Clearly, I'm not such a big fan of the rains. I'm not a good poet either :P

Suddenly a good looking weekend has been ruined by chances of a massive storm. And I thought, somebody once crooned 'It Never Rains in Southern California'! No wonder, we didnt hear much from him. If anything, he was definitely not much of a weather guy.

I was out for lunch today when it grew overcast and began pouring within the next few minutes. I thought 'Great! There goes my $15'. Luckily for me, I was indoors by then. As I watched from the inside, patiently waiting for my meal to arrive I could see people running all over the place. That's one thing I haven't yet figured out; what's the deal with running around when it is raining? Y're gonna get wet anyway! When you get to/from your car in 3 seconds as opposed to 5, how much of a soaking have you saved yourself from? 2 seconds worth, some smartass might answer, but can you tell a person who's been in the rain for 5 seconds from a person who's been there for 3?

So let it pour. As Robert Plant wrote for Led Zep,

"These are the seasons of emotion

and like the winds they rise and fall

This is the mystery of the quotient -

Upon us all a little rain must fall"

Top 10 things that bother me today

2007-04-19T17:03:00.000-07:00

Not necessarily in a particular order:

Indian cricket team remains largely unchanged despite recent wonders
My car does not have HiD Xenon headlights
It always feels like I've had insufficient sleep no matter how many hours I sleep on weekdays
People responding on orkut going 'u say wassup' .. ok - wassup? Addendum : 'u say?' Ohkayyyyy. What do you want me to say?
Adding people up on orkut. Its not like you win a prize or something if you have a zillion people on your friendlist. Ok, that could be me growing sick of orkut and yet not being able to stay away from it :P
Documentation, paperwork and bureaucracy
I have to shave every other day
Blogs ...... which .... are ... written .... like ......... this ........ get some continuity in your thoughts for fck's sake! What are we playing here - connect the dots to read the hidden message?!
Too much of the same thing over and over and over again, and another time over again. CIP - Sanjaya Malakar, Anna Nicole Smith, Abhishek-Aishwarya wedding, Shilpa Shetty, VT (ouch!)
One more day before it is the weekend :(

Later!

What's in a name?

2007-04-18T13:17:00.000-07:00

I really doubt if William Shakespeare would've asked the same question, had his name been abbreviated to Shaky or Shak, and he was commonly summoned by his colleagues with this newly christened name during his times.

Last night I was talking to my roomie and he mentioned that he had a new teammate joining him soon. To quote him, "बड़ा अजीबसा नाम है यार उसका. मुझे तो pronounce भी करने को नही आता है ठीक से ... mri-na-li-ni. पता नही मेरे colleagues उसे क्या नाम से बुलाएंगे".

Dude actually stuttered a couple of times before he could get the pronunciation right - this coming from a desi was surprising. I wondered if good enunciation was one more thing I had been taking for granted all along. Generally speaking this should not be the case, because I dont think any Indian language is devoid of complex words using multiple compound alphabets (jod-akshare), and that growing up speaking our mothertongue we probably come across such words with an alarming regularity (although we tend not to notice them).

In today's world, where by and large most things are going Americana, everything has to be short, quick and efficient and this process does not spare first names either. I really feel for my southie people with names like muthukrishnan, jagannathan, unnikrishnan, balasubramaniam, rajgopalan, badrinathan and the likes. I feel more for them if these guys are working in an American workplace. Ask any firang collleague to pronounce their names in entirety and they'd rather buy lunch everyday than go through the hassle of pronouncing these tongue twisters.

Worse yet are the desi-chick-goes-hip episodes. Here Radhika becomes Rads, Sunaina becomes Su, Darshana becomes Dee and Pooja becomes Poo. I mean seriously?! Poo?!? Dont even care to think what the original name means and what the new hep cool name is (smelly) like? Poor Shaky would probably turn in his grave to know this. This, however, is self inflicted idiocy of the highest order and no one can sympathize.

I dont know what it is that makes these firangs so _ _ _ (stuck for a word here, really) that they can't bother to pronounce names that are more than 5 alphabet long. So we have a lot of Eric's, John's, David's, Sean's, Bill's and Tom's (3 alphabets; even better!) as common names in Dubya-land. If the name is longer than that be ready to chop some off, Elizabeth becomes Liz or Ellie or Lisa, Suzanne becomes Susie, William becomes Will or Bill, Margaret become Marge. Why? If you cant pronounce Indian tongue twisters I'll give it to you, but why not make an effort to pronounce atleast familiar names completely? Just doesn't happen.

My point is, there is much more to a name (and especially, an Indian name) than Shakespeare could have thought about some centuries back. It makes you known, it gives you an identity in the crowd, it is what makes you You. So wear your name with pride and make sure everyone pronounces it right (easy for me to say, I'm lucky enough to have a short name LOL)

Freak Injury Specialist

2007-04-16T17:10:00.000-07:00

Growing up I have always been what can be descibed as dhadpadya (for lack of one apt word in English :P). I loved to play as a kid, and still do, and most of my injuries stemmed from freak accidents on the field. And then there were some which happened because of my general dhandratpana. Either which way, to this date it is quite unusual for me to be injury free for a long time. If I dont get hurt while playing I could easily cut myself with a knife while slicing vegetables ( and that's why I cook so infrequently - to reduce the probability of such accidents LOL).

In my early years, upto 4th grade or so, I used to play soccer in school during the hour long lunchbreaks. Soccer can get quite a physical game at times and it was commonplace for me to get pushed around or be tripping over someone'e legs, the puny kid that I was. This resulted in a lot of bruised knees ever so often, and a spanking from mom for not being careful while playing served as the clincher in most cases.

For some reason that I cant remember, my loyalties changed next year onwards and I've been a regular on the basketball courts ever since. We were among the lucky ones at Loyola, to have the option of choosing to play on a mud court, a tar court or a cement court but more often than not the mud court was ignored. As I would've liked to, changing the sport did not quite help me avoid injuries. Playing on a tar court I became a little more careful while playing but it could not prevent minor injuries every once in a while like a swollen/numb finger after failing to latch on to a pass correctly. I remember carrying atleast one hurt finger right through high school and the knee and elbow bruises provided some variety and kept things interesting (?).

Fast forward a few years to my first day in Amreeka. I had just landed in the afternoon and was stuck up for lack of company that evening at the place where I was put up temporarily. It was almost the end of summer then and walking out on the patio I saw a bunch of guys playing basketball on the court right across from my apartment. With nothing better to do I decided to join them for a while. All was fun until I got an elbow in the eye and was walking around with a black eye for close to 3 weeks! That was when I learnt that if I'm playing among firangs twice my size, it's not a bad idea to avoid driving in. Lesson learnt, I managed to stay relatively injury free over the next couple of years. However, my over-enthusiasm for the sport gave my roomies something to laugh about at my expense. If only such accidents could dampen my spirit I would've given up playing a long time back :P

Last December I was visiting Pune after 3 years and I knew I had to go do the Sunday morning bball routine with the folks I played with for a few years. So here I was, landed Friday morning and off to the courts Sunday morning. When I'd enquired earlier I was told that these guys still played at 7 am, what I forgot was 7 am was IST .. stretchable time. Sure enough by 8 am everyone was there and we had a good game going on. While playing I got fouled on and came down very hard, with a slashed knee, bleeding elbow and the index and middle fingers on my right hand twice their usual size. Even that did not stop me from continuing to play with the guys because I was so damn excited to be playing. When I showed up home in that state after the game though, mom, as expected, went 'काय, एवढा घोडा झालास तरी जरा लक्ष देउन खेळता येत नाही का रे?'

I brushed off the injuries avoiding visiting the doctor for something so minor. I knew the bruises would heal in a week's time and was hoping that the swelling on my fingers would subside in similar time. However when at the end of 2 weeks the swelling showed no signs of dying down I was dragged to the docs. It was confirmed that there was definitely no fracture on the fingers and that it was more of a tendon/ligament stress. I was advised frequent fomentation to help heal the fingers, if only I remembered to do it while I was home;) So it happened with me neglecting, things never got better and I left for here with 2 swollen fingers, hauling my suitcases with great difficulty.

It took close to 4 months for the swelling to subside and now my fingers are (almost) back to their normal size. I hope my long list of injuries takes a long stop after this last one. Till then I'll keep playing the only way I know, hard :)

Just Buried .. err .. Married

2007-04-11T20:51:00.000-07:00

As I write this I cannot believe 4 things:

1. A movie as soporific as Just Married can ever be produced
2. A movie can be so slow and boring that I have to watch a 2.5hr movie split up over 3 evenings
3. I have actually survived watching the mess that the movie was
4. I have so much time on my hands that I decide to write a review for the movie!

Just Married is a movie about a scary situation which I will find myself in sooner than later. Its about arranged marriage. About how couples struggle to cope coming to terms committing to spend the rest of their lives living with an absolute stranger. Well not an absolute stranger, maybe they've met once or twice before, as is the case of the protagonists of this film Abhay (Fardeen Khan) and Ritika (Esha Deol).

So it happens that these two meet at a common friends wedding and before they know it their parents have set them up to get married. They have a brief meeting once again before they marry. During that time Ritika is accompanied by her aunt who wags her mouth endlessly, like a kid high on halloween candy, and makes sure that Abhay and Ritika barely go through somewhat of a muuh-dikhai rasam. One thing leads to another and the newly wed couple is off on their honeymoon.

There-on the story starts to resemble the recently released snore 'Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd'. Our couple jumps onto a honeymoon bus and meet more similar couples during the journey and while at the hotel. Ofcourse every couple has its own quirks. One is an oldies couple who've been married for 30 years and constantly keep nagging each other, one is a bachpan se jaan pehchaan vala couple, one is a NRI couple; the girl with a la-dee-dah phoren accent, and one is a very happy couple who cant seem to keep their hands off each other (literally!).

As the film progresses it focuses on how Ritika, the homebred desi girl, finds it hard to get intimate with Abhay while Abhay tries to play sensitive and gives Ritika her own space and time to adjust. Abhay is eager to consummate the marriage and Ritika's comfort level with Abhay keeps on falling each day. Abhay loses cool and the already uncomfortable couple have a tiff. Then, no prizes for guessing, the rest of the story goes on to show the couple get back together and (probably) live happily ever after.

Stories of the other couples crawl along parallel lines to this story and none are really interesting. There is a slight twist where we find out why the perfect couple seemed so perfect. Mercifully no one is a superhero as was the case in Honeymoon Travels and you can only thank the script writer for that flash of brilliance (of avoiding the superhero trick I mean LOL) The climax is inflicted quite slowly and painfully on the hapless viewer and I can think of atleast one movie where a similar climax was executed in a much much better fashion.

Most performances in the movie are quite credible. Fardeen portrays the earnest, trying-to-adjust husband well and Esha plays the behenji types girl to perfection. Perizaad Zorabian struts her stuff gracefully throughout the movie; her hoarse voice serving the perfect anti-thesis to her gorgeous looks. Bikram Saluja mirrors a block of wood. Kirron Kher and Satish Shah end up taking too much footage. The rest of the cast is pretty much forgettable.

Some dialogues in the movie are extremely cheesy sugary rosogulla types and do not fail to give you the creeps. (I could've thrown in a sample line or two but I'll spare myself the agony of even skimming through that movie again). Too much cheese is never good, neither in food nor in a movie and the cheesiness becomes almost stroke inducing when the movie ends with a 'The Beginning'. I can never bother to write about the music for a Bollywood flick.

In a nutshell, a must-avoid-at-any-cost movie.

The end is the beginning is the end

2007-04-09T21:03:00.000-07:00

The title of this post might sound confusing to some. As is my wont this one is also related to the music, but thats not what it's all about today.

Today it's all about me, its about zero liability (well, for whatever amount of time). It's that day officially when I am debt-free. Go me!

I'm through completing the last installment on my RSX so I owe no one not a single dime anymore. No financial obligations took a long way to come, first getting over the credit card debts piled up through grad school and then the car, and now I plan to enjoy it while it lasts. Knowing me it wont be long before I'm deep in another pile LOL

In the meanwhile, I'm gonna bask in the glory of my new-found financial freedom. Here's to a new beginning (or an end).

Good Friday

2007-04-06T08:52:00.000-07:00

I don't care what is so special about this Friday that they decided to call it Good Friday. As far as I'm concerned, Friday Good : Monday Bad!

Fridays are better nowadays, especially at the new workplace, 'cos it is bagel day :) Which means I can skip breakfast at home, which means I can save 10 minutes in the morning, which means an extra 10 minutes of sleep! What more could I want from the last day of the week? A big, fat paycheque perhaps ;)

बुलंद San Diego की बुलंद तसवीर

2007-04-05T19:28:00.000-07:00

It's not often that I get excited spotting desi stuff in Amreeka, especially not in California, where you can expect to see almost any desi thing that you could ever want (or not). But last night I saw something so exclusively desi, that I just had to post up.

I was returning home with my roomie after a hearty dinner at PT. On the way back, we decided to stop over at Von's for a quick few that we needed to pick up. While my roomie was going back and forth trying to park his car in the straightest possible manner (almost an obsession for him) my eyes fell on a little red shiny thing paked in the lane right across from us. It was a scooter (not an uncommon sight nowadays) but there was something very oddly familiar about it and I couldn't quite put my finger on what exactly it was. So still sitting in the car, going through the parking ordeal, I pointed out "अरे वो देख, Bajaj स्कूटर!" Bear in mind, that from where I was looking I could not see the front side of this scooter. I was very curious to find out what exactly was so teasingly familiar about the scooter, so as soon as the parking saga was over, I walked up to the scooter to check her out. To much surprise, Hamara Bajaj it was! A shiny red Bajaj Chetak!

After I got over the initial surprise and stepped into Von's a lot of questions ran through my mind. Who would want to buy a Bajaj Chetak in Amreeka? More importantly, why Bajaj? Could this be some desi guy who is so patriotic (?) that he wants to ride a 'Made in India' scooter no matter what part of the world he is in? Or could this be some gullible firang? If the owner was indeed desi, riding it would be a piece of cake for him. But would a firang know what it takes to start a Bajaj; the infamous Indian 'Tilt-A-Bajaj' trick? Would he know that the tilt could go either way, depending on the angle of the slope where the Bajaj is parked? Would he know that he'd have to clean his spark plug a gazillion times with the amount of oil oozing onto it? And the clutch wire? Who would replace that for him when it breaks every few months? Could a Bajaj consistently be driven atleast around the 45mph mark without the engine over heating?

Thinking about such inane things I walked back to the car after the groceries were done. The Chetak was still parked right there in all it's shining glory. For a moment I thought that we should wait to find out who the owner of that Bajaj really was ;)

PS: The snaps aren't the best quality 'cos they were shot with my Nokia 6233, but you can still see the Bajaj Chetak sign.

मराठी असे अमुची मायबोली

2007-04-03T22:15:00.000-07:00

I *really* want to be able to write in Marathi. However, my thought process fails me, my lack of propah vocab hampers and I am unable to pen my thoughts on to paper with any kind of fluency.

Wandering around in the blogospehere, I came across this blog and it fueled my urge further to be able to write in Marathi. I could give a tooth and an ear if I can effectively write with the apparent simplistic writing style that the author of this blog has.

When I come face to face with my fear of not being an able communicator in my own mothertongue is when the sh!t hits the fan. While I can manage daily spoken marathi very fluently and never have issues understanding it, it breaks my heart to know that I am losing command over one form of the language. To be fair to myself though, writ Marathi has completed it's 14 yr exile from my life. After I gave up Marathi for German in 8th grade, I have never ever written in Marathi, not that I can remember. Naturally, there is a huge void to fill in and it will take it's own sweet time.

Someday I hope to be able to get my thoughts back on track .. until then, Daim! Sh!t!! Sucks!!!

PS: Pardon my French in this post, it's the frustration!

Another day in paradise

2007-04-03T21:04:00.000-07:00

You know it's gonna be one helluva long week when you wake up to realise it's just Tuesday. As I went to work this morning, I was about to find out what lay in store for me. Inspite of hitting snooze twice, I somehow managed to get to work by 8. To my chagrin, white BMW guy had once again beaten me to my favorite parking spot; cursing him I pulled up into the next spot available.

The first hour went by quite normally and I was just about beginning to think - hmm it's not so bad after all. But that's when the routine madness was about to set in. So a user calls me up and tells me Cognos isn't working. I go yeah it is, it's all up and running, I'm working with it right now. She explains that by Cognos she meant that one of her reports was 'acting up'. When she ran the report in the standard HTML format, the result set gave her a summary of 174 rows and when she exported the report to excel she was getting 178 rows. Excel, according to her, was magically adding up 4 rows to the total. Then I had to explain how the first four rows in the spreadsheet were report header, report title, column name and a blank row and then she found peace in life (and hopefully a little embarassment too). This is why I love all business users - they make us IT folks look like the smartest mofo's that ever walked this earth!

Sometime later my manager stopped by and told me that although the HR due date for the 'Employee Performance Planning 2007' was later this month, he would like to see the first cut of my goals by EOD. Coming from a consulting world, I had never ever been through this before and my only goals for each year would be to stick to the current project and spend as less time as possible on bench. Ofcourse, my manager was totally aware of this and it led to a long unscheduled one on one. During this, I was explained how individual goals should line up with department goals which are in turn lined up with corporate goals. We white-boarded potential initiatives that I could list as my goals and at the end of an hour agreed that the list was too long :P However, that gave me some direction to get this BS done and out of the way.

As soon as we were done there, we broke for lunch with a coupla other teammates. Nice as it was outside, we decided to hit one of the places at La Jolla shores for lunch. Hogging on a smoked salmon sandwich and getting our time in the sun, we reluctantly returned to work after a relaxing drive by the oceanside.

Most of the afternoon was spent getting things off that white-board onto paper and completing pending tasks. As is anyone's guess, the comic moments kept cropping up alongside. I'll leave the technical crap out of this one, but essentially a developer was trying to view what he did not have access to, and he thought he should, since he could see it on his team mates computer but not his. After I rerouted this request, the DBA's helped take care. At the end of the day, I did manage to turn in the 1st cut of my Performance Plan to my manager. Hopefully, that's one monkey off my back until same time next year:)

Post Title : Phil Collins - Another Day in Paradise

कहीं पे निगाहें कहीं पे निशाना

2007-04-01T16:30:00.000-07:00

The more I play darts the more I feel bad for the likes of Bipasha Basu, John Abraham, Twinkle Khanna, Fardeen Khan etc. How can these guys ever enjoy the simple joys of the game of darts; squints or cockeyed that they are LOL

I am not claiming to be the best dart player ever and along with my roomie am on my way to make a sieve out of the wall that the dartboard hangs on. Check out how way past bullseye, or even the perimeter of the dartboard some of our darts have struck gold :D

Good for us that Gables charges a flat rate of $25 for holes, otherwise we were up for a bigtime penalty. Suddenly I feel like I'm living in college dorms!

A day's worth of work

2007-03-29T21:23:00.000-07:00

Cast & Credits (in order of appearance)

Cathy - Sr Mgr Financial Systems (from yesterday)
Tim - My manager
Bob - Visiting Instructor
Joe - Resident SME for Global Safety
Pat - External consultant working for Finance
Sally - Mgr Financial Systems
Kathy - I don't know who
Tom - External ETL guy working for external contracting company
Ben - Resident ETL team lead
Dave - Director of Operations, Manufacturing Facility
Rick - Resident Sr DBA 2
John - Resident Sr Architect
Annie - Resident Sr DBA 1

Note: All names have been changed to protect identity.

I got to my cubicle around 10 till 8 today morning, prioritising the things I had to get done. Ofcourse there was the string of emails from Cathy last night which had to be taken care of. Cathy is the kind of person, who despite being a business user, likes to play very hands-on (a little too much as I found out to my horror) and wants to be involved in every detail related to reporting and planning applications. So as that string of emails with the little red exclamation mark goes, Cathy here, was having issues saving her changes to the metadata model (!). The moment I read that email last night I called Tim and expressed my surprise as to how a business user was involved in modifying metadata models. I mean all the reports could break down if she effs things up! Tim replied helplessly that this was a battle he had lost a long time back. So business users can modify metadata as and when they like, and when their reports dont work like they should, we get BlackBerry'd in the middle of the night. Joy! Obviously Cathy also does not like to wait for such things, so by the time I got to my desk she had sent another email in the morning asking me if her access privileges had been modified yet.

Then I docked my laptop and realised I had to pick Bob up from front desk at 8-ish. Sure enough 8:00am I got a call from Frontdesk telling me Bob's here. Scrolling through emails, I got to frontdesk and brought Bob along. Bob is the trainer for a day long session we have organised tomorrow for the Global Safety folks and is here a day earlier to study the data and setup samples for training. After the 'so how've you been? Good! How about you?' I walked Bob to his cubicle for the day. Then I realised that the loaner laptop that I had requested for Bob had not yet reached there so I called up Heldesk to get that fixed. Till then I walked Bob to my cubicle and started explaining to him how our environment was setup and things we expect he'd go through during the training session tomorrow. The loaner reached my desk as we went through this and now it was time to set Bob up with Joe. Joe would explain the backend database which would help Bob understand the metadata model better and design effective samples for tomorrows training. That done I started walking back to my cubicle.

On his way to work, Tim called me up to discuss the scene with Cathy's request. He told me that he granted the requested privileges and asked me to speak to Cathy about it specifically stressing that this took time because Finance wasn't the only group we are working with and requests are dealt with in the order they are received. Getting back to my desk I got this out of the way and read through more emails that'd been shot during that time. Some more time and I started working on that long overdue report request. Before I realised it was 11 am and time for me to run into a meeting with the Finance users Cathy, Sally, Kathy and the consultants Pat and Tom. This was a meeting that had been postponed by 10 days, so I had no clue what to expect when I walked in. There was a big discussion about some ETL changes that needed to be done and an hour later I walked out of that room feeling, 'Gosh, that was a waste of time!'. I walked by Ben's cube and asked him why none of the resident ETL guys were in on the meeting, turned out he had no clue these changes were being planned!

I was getting hungry now and I drove Bob along for a quick lunch to the Quiznos down the street. It was a gorgeous day and felt great sitting outside nibbling on the Cabo chicken. While having lunch Bob regaled me with stories of his surfing adventures and his various successful career gigs. Post lunch, I was cruising along on my report when Tim stopped by and pulled me into a meeting with Ben, Dave, Rick, John and Annie. This was to discuss the design of a scaleable database system to support our new manufacturing facility and enable advanced reporting off the SCADA systems. All the people in the meeting, except me, have been working for about 8 years at the least, so one can only imagine how much of the discussion I was involved in. Silence is golden indeed!

That done, I got back to work and Cathy sent another email with the little red exclamation mark in the corner. Apparently one of her ETL loads was failing on her and she needed to get that fixed and in the meanwhile needed the Dev environment pointing to the production database so she could carry on with her work. This was my 2nd shock of the day. Why was Cathy modifying ETL jobs?!? Why did she even have access to do this? So I leaned over into Ben's cube searching for answers. Ben went, 'I have no frikkin' idea dude!'. Wow! I decided to not bother about this and kept chipping away at my report. I checked for time and it was 4:45 pm already. Frick! I had to implement and test user security for tomorrows training! 45 minutes later, with more ridiculous emails floating around, I completed this task and called it a day.

Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub)

2007-03-28T21:17:00.000-07:00

While this is the name of one of Groove Armada's albums, it also happens to be the theme of Mr Hot & Mr Kool.

Yes, my unfortunate tryst with B grade Bollywood movies continues. Now B grade might conjure up mental images of a skin flick with Payal Rohatgi (who else?!) in the lead role, but dont raise your eyebrows just yet. This one is B grade stricly for the quality of the movie and is devoid of sleaze. Ofcourse, when I 'picked' this movie up I was mostly aware of what lay in store. Like all other times, my sole objective for watching this movie was getting through 2 hours.

The movie stars all newcomers in lead roles and some familiar support cast. And so the story goes that two good for nothing losers from some dehaat in India land up in London overnight listening to advice from a local quack. They land up a job in some company called LeLe undergarments (why am I writing this?) whose owner, Shahbaaz Khan, is always hitting on one of the employees Pooja De. Time for Corny joke 1 -> Mr LeLe: Pooja De De .. Pooja: Kya du? While you go 'Jeez!' listening to this you can tell that there are more of such corny jokes coming along and thats the only aspect where the movie does not disappoint =))

Back to the story, Zulfi Sayed (who?) aka Lakshmanprasad something becomes Lucky and Yash Pandit (again, who??) aka Prem Amar Tripathi becomes Pat after they land in London. Now that they have a job they start looking for the 2nd most important thing that they'd set out in search for - a woman in their lives. Lucky thinks he is geting lucky with a girl but suddenly loses interest in her after Pat cons him into believing that she is indeed seeing Pat and not Lucky. Along the while, Pat actually falls for Pooja (yes Pooja De De) and then the movie winds up after sorting out all the confusion.

Khalid Mohammed, my favorite movie critic and columnist, once wrote reviewing for Anupama Verma, 'Anupama should stick to modeling; clay, that is'. I'd say the same for Zulfi Sayed. He carries a deadpan face throughout the movie and delivers all dialogues without bothering to emote once. Yash Pandit on the other hand emotes like he's filling in for Zulfi too and ends up hamming most of his scenes. The ladies are extremely forgettable, both in the looks and acting departments.

To sum it up, I got what I was looking for from the movie, something to kill 2 hours with. Watch it if you have absolutely nothing to do;)

Thus ends my first attempt at reviewing a movie. Ripping it apart to shreds feels good!

S'more 10dulkar bashing

2007-03-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

That's right, it's Tendulkar bashing time once again. Almost every desi who has ever played cricket fancies taking a dig against Tendulkar blaming him for team India's dysfunctional performance in World Cup 2007. Such are times. Like I said in one of my earlier posts, this is going to be hard to get over so soon and sooner or later I had to write again on this topic. Alright, alright, I know cricket is a teamsport and it is unfair, almost idiotic, to blame an individual and it requires a collective effort for a team to win such a big tournament, but then blogging is all about freedom of expression, innit?

So what prompted me to write once again about this? Kobe Bryant! Yes, he of LA Lakers fame. Following the NBA on and off, I have always been a big fan of Kobe. Not so much of the Lakers as much as Kobe though. Infact a few years back while I was rooting for the Sacramento Kings I had a hard team keeping loyalties when the Lakers played the Kings. Years later, the Lakers are a different team but Kobe is still the same, if better. If anyone's been going through news you might have read that Kobe has been averaging 54 points per game over the last 5 games! That's what I call a team player, that's what I call a champion. One who takes the onus on himself to make things happen to take his team to victory no matter what the circumstances. Not one who walks off the pitch clean bowled the third ball he faces when his team is in dire straits. How many times have we seen Kobe rain jumpers and lead the Lakers to a victory? Endless. How many times have we seen Tendulkar play an innings of substance and lead India to victory when it was most needed? Can't really tell, can ya?

Now it is beyond doubt that Tendulkar has the numbers behind him to warrant a place in the team, but how long can Team India bank on a player who clearly appears to be past his prime? Everytime Sachin is written off he comes and scores a big hundred, adding to his humongous tally, piling on personal records and his critics go a hiding. But where does that leave the team? Does it get them back on the winning track? Does it make them feel good as an outfit? Does this one hundred warrant that Sachin is 'back' and that he will be firing on all cylinders in all the matches to come? NO! Some might say, such is the game of cricket, the game of glorious uncertainties (Note to self: Stop using cliches). But when Sachin is getting out cheaply, do we see any intent on his part to make things happen and lead his team to a better position? Cut back to Kobe man who dishes the ball around (more nowadays post-Shaq) when he realises his jumpers arent quite kissing the net. I have never seen a man more win-hungry than Kobe; except for a certain Schumi, that is. Everytime Kobe walks to the middle his eyes burn with intent, you can almost see in his eyes how much he hates to lose. A lot of times critics have blamed Kobe to be very selfish, not being a team player; but why complain as long as the team is winning? After all, its not really about how you play the game, it IS about whether you win or lose. That's what makes great players, champions of the game. The Dwyane Wade's and the LeBron James' may try but I don't think they can quite match Kobe in what he does.

And Sachin? I think I've made my point(s) already. I just hope he does not go through the ignominy of being forced to retire from the game, being dropped, 'cos that would be a huge shame.

I'd love to end this post with a hilarious fwd that I received this morning.
Two people to blame for India's world cup failure:
1. Indira Gandhi (for creating Bangladesh)
2. Hanuman ( Not destroying Lanka completely)

Je kya hai be?!?

2007-03-27T10:17:00.000-07:00

Youtubing for a bit last night I came across this video :)

I miss thee Channel [V]. The Channel [V] of yore, the one with all the SS Sodhi ads, Banjo Macho ads, Punjabi Santa Claus', Udham Singh, Laila Rouass, Kamaal Sidhu, Sophia Haque, Nina Manuel ... the one which played 'good' music ... not the crap that is being dished out today :x

Transliteration - एक नम्बर!

2007-03-26T15:39:00.000-07:00

नुक्तेच ब्लँग्विश्वात पदार्पण केल्यामुले मी अजूनही बरयाच गोष्टिंशी खेळून पाहत आहे आणि एखाद्या लहान मुलाला खेळणयांचया दुकानात मोकाट फिरताना जो आनंद मिळतो तशीच काहिशी माझी अवस्था आहें ॰ जरी ही विन्ग्र्जी मधे लिहून त्वरित मराठीत भाषांतर करण्याची सोय असली तरीही एक गोष्टं नक्की की ही प्रक्रिया आहें भलतिच किचकट॰ ह्या एवढ्या ४ ओळी छापता छापता माझा बिचारा जीव सुकला!

मराठीत ब्लॉग लिहिणयाचया माझ्या उत्साहाला तात्पुरते तरी विरजण लागले आहें , पाहुया पुढे काय होते ते!

रजा असावी ...

Fact of the Matter: Typing these many lines and correcting the spellings, trying to get the finer nuances of the language right, took me well over half an hour। Even now the Marathi is not completely up to the mark in some places but I just ran out on patience। I should try installing the Baraha editor and blogging in Marathi but I'll leave it for some other time. Besides, I just realised the fact that I am starting to struggle with the language :(( For evidence, check out the verbatim translation of the sentence : 'One thing is for sure, the process is very cumbersome.' Not at all happy about this!

Who tastes dog food? How do we even know its good?!?!

2007-03-26T09:15:00.000-07:00

Regular viewers of Seinfeld would possibly laugh right out of their chairs remembering Elaine mouth these lines. While this post has nothing to do with dog food or its taste or Elaine or Seinfeld, it does have a similarly irrelative question that crossed my mind browsing through the news this morning.

And the question is : Who works in banks these days?

This is a time when every other guy you know seems to be working in IT or something related to it. Mind well that it is not necessary to have a technical background to get a freshers job in any of the IT companies. Infact (surprise surprise) some companies actually run print ads asking specifically for people with non-technical backgrounds. Within all my friends on orkut I can only point out a few who do something radically different and I envy those guys for it. I would say it is safe to generalise that ours is a generation whose income is driven mostly by the IT boom and its widespread reach into even the smallest of corporations. Today the scene back home is such that straight out of school grads pocket jobs anywhere around the Rs. 25k per month mark working in an IT company. Anyone having such a good income can be easily considered financially stable and .. ahem .. marketable. Very unlike the generation of our parents. If you look at those folks, a very wide cross section of people they know would most probably be working in banks or some kind of a financially related institution. Naturally, at their time I'd assume, a bank job was considered to be a very good job. So, if 2 and 2 indeed make 4, yesterday's job in a bank is today's job in an IT company!

Which brings me back to my original question, who really works in banks these days?

Update: When I read the news earlier this morning there was something which said Citigroup was opening up more banking centres in India. By the time, I got to the end of writing this entry, news is they're actually cutting down on abt 15,000 (!) jobs.

Template Woes

2007-03-25T12:47:00.000-07:00

I'd started off the blog without bothering too much about the decor, in line with my usual way of keeping things functional. Last night I had some time on my hands and I started tinkering around with the look and feel of the blog trying to 'personalise' it. No wonder then that even one template failed to catch my eye. This was bringing things to the other end of the spectrum, from mere functional to hoity-toity.

Most of the standard templates that Blogger provided had one or the other point which went against their favor (Robert, इनमें से एक भी ठीक नही है! किसीकी नाक टेढ़ी है तो किसीकी आँख!!) I almost always hate the plain jane looking interface with a black background, hell I dont even like black backgrounds on my desktop! So getting that look on the blog was out of the question. Towards the end of an hour and having had enough sifting through atleast 10 templates I finally settled for the current one. Not that I am all too happy with it but this one's atleast about okay. This one has too much grey in it. Grey, to me, is too dark depressing and gloomy. I can go on and on about how I hate overcast grey skies, gloomy weather and the rains but I'll try and stick to the topic for now.

Maybe on another day when I have some more time to kill I'll look around and pimp my blog up ;) Tic Tac Blue it is until then!

(What's the Story) Morning Glory

2007-03-24T12:26:00.000-07:00

Last night a forgettable Friday was capped up by an even more forgettable movie. For some reason, I decided to watch the new desi movie, Hattrick. Now most desi movies are forgettable but this one had that little extra special element. I dont know what irritated me more about this movie - the fact that I stayed up late to watch a crappy movie, that it was really a bad movie or that it had such a bad print that I felt like cracking the screen on my laptop.

Honestly, I cant even remember the last time I watched a rip which was so terrible in quality. And not that it was one of those low size rips, it was a full 700MB, yet it failed the bar. Dont get me wrong, there's been so many good rips out there with low size, like Anthony Kaun Hai, 350 MB yet really good but this was just an utter piece of sh!te. After crawling through the movie, I checked back on DT, and there were loads of comments echoing the same. Which reminded me to always look through some of the comments before greedily snatching any new movie that is on offer!

The movie itself was nothing great. The theme was quite boring, more so after India's dismal exit, and though the cast was great they could only do so much to hold together a paper thin storyline। Rimi Sen was all about the hotness as expected and she did a fine job - at looking good ;)

Rewind to a couple of hours back this morning when I woke up to James Blunt's You're Beautiful (more about this tragedy in a later post) After going through the usual strings of emails and news and hanging around a while on orkut, here I am blogging listening to BF & N in the background. Now I have to decide what I want to get done this weekend (which usually amounts to nothing much). One thing I definitely want to do though is get to Walmart and get that dart board I've been wanting ever since! After last week's fiasco, when the set did not contain any darts at all, I hope I get a better one this time and spend some time honing my skill at darts :D

Later!

PS: 12:30pm on a weekend IS morning. It's morning according to the MDT timezone, the MY Daylight Time timezone LOL

How I saved $60

2007-03-23T21:01:00.000-07:00

Like countless of my desi brethren out there I sit dejected tonight. The feeling is still sinking in, India dropping out of the World Cup without even qualifying for the Super 8's is not an easy thought to digest. They had been labeled 'commercial favorites' (whatever that term means) to win the World Cup after all. I mean, I am one to call a spade a spade, so realistically speaking India was going to drop out sooner than later. Looking at the previous few games India had played, it would take a fool to bet his horses on this Indian team. But still, given India's on-paper strength, it would've been another audacious foo' to write them off so early in the tournament.

Pakistan had already ensured on their part that this would be a boring World Cup. They played themselves out of the competition way too early and denied us the privilege of whooping their a$ses out of the World Cup. For most, the best part of the World Cup had been lost. We know most times our team isn't in the capacity to actually win the World cup, so defeating Pakistan in a World Cup match serves as our comfort blanket. Most Indians would agree, that given our team strength, beating Pakistan is more important than winning a World Cup. This time this wasn't to be. Little did we know that the Indian team was going to put up a show that would make Pakistan look like the best team in the world. They got snapped up by Bangladesh and returned to spank poor hapless Bermuda to all parts of the ground. In another part of the Caribbeans, a spin wiz was smacking his fingers anticipating the contest to come. India were, again only on-paper, the best players of spin.

India had the privilege of playing 3 of the best one-day players of modern times in Tendulkar, Dravid and Ganguly (hats off for his great comeback). Uthappa was looking fairly comfortable and promising at the top along with the big three. They had a dependable middle order with the return of Yuvraj Singh and the big hitting Dhoni. The tail had shown in previous games that it could wag and do its bit. The bowling was as has always been (read, not that great). Given this, it is hard to analyse what really went wrong. First the capitulation against a bunch of teens and then this - making a mess in a do-or-die match. I'm sure reams and reams of paper will be wasted on this, experts making a comment and another, trying to express their POV; to no use nevertheless.

Due credit to Sri Lanka though. Murali has always been one of the best spinners and the way he made easy meat of some of our players only provides further evidence why the man commands respect no matter what kind of a pitch he plays on.

Unfortunately, I wasnt able to watch the match (and do NOT intend to watch the highlights) so I cannot comment on the quality of cricket that was played, but with a reputation at stake one would imagine that both teams would have gone and played their hearts out in the middle. Not true with one big man though, Tendulkar. I am too insignificant to talk in dishonor against the great man but I cannot help but express my discontent. Historically, Tendulkar has never stood up and counted for the team when it has mattered the most and today was no different. Getting out on the 3rd ball he faced in a do or die match is not taking responsibility. When so much is at stake one would expect the senior players to stand up and take charge. Here, our man walks in and out. I'm sorry, but that is just not becoming of a man who is regarded as the greatest Indian player to have picked up the cricket bat. What plays on his mind in such big games, only he can tell. I was at work following the match and when Tendulkar was out I was .. I was .. I cant really express in words what I felt .. that feeling was well beyond words. The only thing that came to my mind, after getting over that shock, that could come any close to what I experienced was Ramgopal Bajaj in AAA going "रवीना की माँ, मैं आ रहा हू!" Jokes apart, from then on, it was just a matter of completing the formalities for the Sri Lankan team. With the Murali threat looming large, none of the middle and lower order batsmen could have done much and thats exactly what happened. Oh well!

All said and done, I am not angry, nor am I the least bit frustrated. I feel sad. Sad for the 3 best players of the Indian team who took India to such glorious heights over the last decade and a half. For them to bow out of the game without a World Cup against their name is utter injustice. I will never say that the team did not try their best and this pic below speaks for itself.

My heart goes out to the big 3.

R.I.P Glory days of Indian cricket ...

Ohh, and I almost forgot! I'd promised myself earlier this week that I'd pay to watch the matches online after India advances into the Super 8's . Waiting for the outcome of today's game, I saved $60 ;)

Here I come ...

2007-03-23T10:03:00.000-07:00

... finally an entrant into the world of blogging. One of the things I've always gone back and forth about for a long time now has been writing a blog. Gosh, I dont know, must've been atleast 6 years now that I've wanted to, but never really did start blogging.

Like I'd once mentioned to Rohan, blogging is the natural effect of someone having a lot of free time on their hands. Go make your own assumptions =))

As with most bloggers, I will try and update frequently, but it's not really done till it's really done, now is it;)