My Perfect Lover

This one’s for Scout & RTD2

Side Note to anybody from MBS who is reading this: No, I’m not in love with her.

So since it was my birthday last week, I threw a party. Now I hate throwing parties, but Bombay Boy forced me into it, saying something about freeloading off other people and their parties, and not throwing one in return.

So the highlights of the party included lots of debauchery. A certain woman walked in and announced loudly to everybody that she broke up with her boyfriend, to anyone who would listen. <SARCASM>I wonder what she was trying to achieve by that admission</SARCASM> . She walked away with a partner towards the end of the night…

The French Finesser decided to avenge the mess I made outside his apartment last week. His bathroom was taken, and I was awfully drunk, so I tried to make it to the elevator, and failed, so threw up right outside his doorstep – hey at least it was outside. But he still had to clean it up, so he was pissed off. So when I threw my party, he walked into the bedroom, and threw beer all over my bed while I was otherwise occupied, the son of a bitch.

I attempted to smoke my first cigar along with my Birthday Twin (the Balinese Beauty), which we received as a joint present.

The Sexy Singaporean was drunk, and throwing herself at every man. And the irony of it, the day she was finally throwing herself at me, I had to resist her, because of my decision (see below).

I got twenty-f-ing-seven birthday bumps. Ouch. My back hurts.

Ok enough rambling, it is also after this debauch party, which will go down in history for a lot of people, that I discovered a woman who comes close to being my perfect lover. I would not have thought that such a woman could exist. But she does:

1)She shouldn’t be too thin, nor too fat. Just a teency-weency bit on the plump side.

2)Her birthday should be on the same date as me, so that I never have to remember it.

3)She should have no qualms about calling me up, asking me to dinner, and then picking me up in her current boyfriend’s Toyota Camry.
4)She forgives ..ahem..’poor performance’ with the following quote:

In my experience, it takes three trials & three errors to know a woman’s body

(It was the first try).

5)She appreciates that you don’t get something for nothing, so in exchange for being helped with her Stats homework, she sends porn, without being asked to.

6)She’s blunt and forward enough to say: My boyfriend is out. I’m alone. Come over.

7)That she’d rather spend the cold winter day half naked under covers, than doing anything remotely constructive.

I never realized how fun much it is, to be ‘The Other Guy’.

Oh and on an unrelated, self-promotional note, there’s this post (Sniff, sniff, sniff)

Further From The Womb, Closer To Death

Happy Birthday to Me

This Voice just turned 27 (you wouldn’t be able to tell it from the writing, I know I know). I was about to say that I feel old…”VERY OLD”…but it’s been done before

And as I go through the 2 year old list of things that I was supposed to have done (reporduced below):

A quarter century has passed me by, and I still:
1)Don’t own an island in the South Pacific
2)Don’t own a villa on the Med
3)Don’t run a multi-billion-dollar company which threatens to own the World
4)Don’t run that Indo-American Film & Theatre Production House with my aspiring director friend (Anita), and closest non-relation (VeriKa)…
5)Haven’t got my MBA

And so I blog instead…..

So what’s changed? Only #5…. …well it’s on its way to being crossed out…

Still Labouring Like A Pompous Ass

Ah the blogger I hate the most, caught with his pants down…

The fact that me and Atanu Dey dislike each other is well known. I’ve called him a fucking bigot with his tongue in The White Man’s Arse on Desicritics mailing lists, and he’s responded by calling me a cretin and other stuff.

So imagine my joy at seeing this latest post of his.

Why joy – well it’s because he’s been saying that Freedom of Speech doesn’t matter (yet) for India and Indians previously. Read this post and the post it fisks
So let’s see. First, it’s more important to get our people well-fed, so the lack of democracy doesn’t matter, but now all of a sudden, we are being criticized for not implementing our freedom of speech laws enough.

Gotcha.

Sorry, just in case it isn’t clear, this is what the Supreme Emperor on India’s Lack of Development said in a previous post:

I am sure there are those who will immediately retort that the Singaporeans don’t have the freedoms that are normally associated with a liberal democracy. And I am also sure that the person making that statement is sitting comfortably well-fed in his nice office or home accessing the world wide web for knowledge and entertainment. For the average schmuck in a third world country, he would any day trade in his imaginary freedoms for a decent shot at a full stomach, a roof over his head, and a chance to get his children educated. After the average schmuck has achieved those basic necessities, he would ask for all sorts of goodies that a liberal democracy provides. And that is when the society should become a liberal democracy.

The sequence is important.

But now all of a sudden, we have a reversal of stance (because he will take any opportunity to put Indians down, in favour of the Yanks, the epitome of Human Evolution).

The main stream media will probably not have the guts to tell it to the leaders like it should. We, the average citizens, have to speak up and express our disgust at the craven surrender of our freedom that is at the core of being a free human.

So what is it the average citizen of this third-2.5-world country should be doing? Should s/he be giving a shit about Democractic freedoms or not? Oh wait, the previous post said average “shmuck” and this one says average “citizen”. Shmucks and Citizens are different species. Duh.

Happy Belated BlogDay

Yea Yea Yea

This blog turned 2 years old on the 10th of May (see the category “First Post”). In that time it has gone through makeovers, sting operations, abusive comments (and abusive posts), rants, ramblings, gratuitous pictures of women and other various oddities.

I wasn’t quite sure how to celebrate BlogDay. Should I just dedicate one of the 10 beers drunk on the 10th of May to my Blog? A picture of a cake? A rant? Should it just be ignored?

Couldn’t decide.

So instead, I’ll leave you with a picture from a recent road trip.

Now, that, my friends, is an Apostle. Well, it’s one of Twelve..er…Ten..er..Eight? Basically there were 12 limestone formations, called the 12 Apostles, along a road called The Great Ocean Road in Oz. They, unfortunately, are crumbling away, but that leaves for some breathtaking rock formations.

(more posts coming soon, as the road trips have come to a temporary halt…)

End of Term 1

Only 3 more to go…(Celebrating a small victory)

And what a term it’s been. At the start of this term, the introductory Prof said

Celebrate the small victories

So I am. Another prof said

Despite anything anybody may have told you or you may have heard, may I just say that Australia welcomes you, and with open arms

What a contrast from my introduction to America, which went something like this: “Stupid Immigrant, feeding off our government, stealing our jobs, daring to criticize the greatest country on Earth”. Of course, 75% of the 70 people in the MBA class are International students so maybe it’s pandering to your audience.

Went for lunch to an Italian Restaurant on Lygon St. with Freddy Mercury, the Sexy Singaporean and a few others.

This is Freddy Mercury. A Parsi/Bawa from Chennai, and a reasonably good friend of mine. Knows English and Tamil, and something which pretends to be Hindi. Has seen almost no Bollywood movies ever. When asked to sing a Bollywood song, this is what he broke out with:

Mera Haathi Mera Saathi, Kab aayegi tu

Thus causing enourmous howls of laughter. While we’re on the subject of haathis, the serious lack of Punjabis and North Indians here has also led to a corruption in the name of the only reasonably decent Indian restaurant around here. It’s called Kake di Hatti (complete with the picture of little baby ‘kaka’ wearing a red turban at the entrance). But when Freddy attempted to say it:

Haathi ka kakka? Haathi ki tatti? Kakka and Tatti?

Well regardless, the food was good. He lives in the same building as me, and his flatmate is Bombay Boy, whose pic I haven’t put up yet, because all the ones I have of him are too embarrasing (sleeping with hairy belly sticking out, bending over to get pen but looking like he’s giving his neighbour a BJ, you know that sort of thing).

(Gratuitous Pic of Sexy Sing below)

Ignore the guy next her. He’s Dowry. As in, he’s a sticky close friend which caused Bombay Boy to remark “Yeh to Dahej mein milega” – i.e. if I were to marry the SS (no thanks), he’d be along in the Dowry. Anyway, so we were walking to the restaurant for lunch, when SS yells “Look at that, there is a DILDO growing on this tree”. So we dismiss it as a regular SexySingaporean-ism (of which there are too many to quote), but then I look up, and sure enough, a large fake penis is hanging from the tree. And it turns out, that there are four of them. In Australia, it seems, they grow on trees. I shall take a picture and post it up soon. I took one with my cellphone, but it didn’t come out right

Hmm, what else… In order to foster “teamwork”, “people-skills” and other stuff, you’re put into groups of 5-6 people at the start of term, and then are forced to submit a few group assignments in your various subjects. Those groups are called Syndicates, and here’s my syndicate, doing what it does best. Drinking.

There are a few more posts coming, just thought I’d whet the appetite. I have 2 weeks of break, and nothing to do during those 2 wks, so expect a few rants and stuff.

In the meantime, I leave with my regular diet. A jug of beer, and potato wedges with “sweet chili” and sour cream. Sweet Chili has no chili and lots of sweet. It’s a popular flavour here in Oz. You even get Rice Cakes with that flavour. (ignore the ciggys. I’m a non-smoker)

Ta for now, for a day or so.

Message for Scout – I have answered this tag before, but was gonna answer it again in a different way. So hang on.

A Word about Blogrolls

And sausage rolls
With each change in my life, I find a change in my audience.Despite being being Bloxually Inactive, I’ve been linked by a few people lately, and I just wanted those people to know that I haven’t updated it out of sheer laziness – have mercy – my exams are less than a week away, and the end of Term 1 is nigh. You can expect a self-congratulatory, decadent, reminiscing type of post around then (which I formulated last night, but put off due to guilt – studying and all that).

That’s all I had to say.

What about the Sausage Rolls? Well nothing really. Sausage Rolls in Australia are basically the equivalent of ‘non-veg’ patties in India, only the internal constitution is mashed beef/pork (and you were expecting something phallic instead weren’t you).

Anyway, they taste really bland and awful, and the only reason I mention them is to give a nice sub-heading to go with the heading. Sometimes, I do things just for the esthetic appeal you know.

And finally, there’s this:

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

A Bundle of Mandal

RANTY RANTY
More crap

If Aditya Sarma does immolate himself, all those igniting this unwarranted frenzy will be responsible for it.

So it’s ok to be a farmer and commit suicide. That’s alright. Then you have the sympathy of a certain bunch of people. But if you happen to be student wondering why his life just got harder, you’re a moron. (Note: I think that anybody committing suicide is a stupid thing to do, and have no sympathy for any of them).

Lastly, all those opposing “Mandal II” should tell us whether they are non-OBC. Upper castes are no doubt meritocratic (which is why sons inherit fathers’ businesses), and they are no doubt oblivious to caste (just see the matrimonial pages), but there is the hint of vested interest here. And if you are opposing reservations because admissions will become tougher for you, you won’t get the point of affirmative action anyway.

Mercy. The beauty of being TTG, is that he doesn’t know what his caste is.

As Vulturo (welcome back BTW) says  I don’t have many Dalit friends, because I have never bothered to dwell on their caste. I don’t know. I don’t know how many Brahmin friends I have either. (I am however, painfully aware of the number of Muslim friends I have, but that is another story, for another day).

Then there’s this . It just keeps getting funnier and funnier and funnier.

Albert Krishna Ali. LOL.

A businessman who refuses to rent a flat in Gaurav Apartments, would he ever give a job to a Dalit at his office? Unlikely. He will say that “they” lack “talent”, are not educated enough, and so on.

After comments like this, some of us are expected to carry on with ‘intelligent debate’. Anybody, who has spent even a second working somewhere, knows what a rarity professionalism, and hard work and talent are. A businessman who refuses to hire a Dalit solely on the basis of his caste will be out of business really soon – especially if 50% of our country is really meant to be lower caste. Honestly, I find that hard to believe, because it means we are all guilty of some really twisted logic. It means that the clothes we wear, the food we buy and the air we breathe is all tainted and polluted by the lower castes as they must be slaving away in factories and offcies and the like. Shit. But somehow, we don’t seem to mind it.

Will I hire somebody from IIT after I know he’s a Dalit now? No. Simply because I know that this person got in on relaxed rules, while the rest of them had to suffer through it. I will discriminate against him/her. Actively, whereas before this point, I would have not bothered about the caste of anybody from IIT. I would have hired the one that got the best grades.

But not anymore, sorry.
Last part – Personal Attack

I’ve personally met Shivam Vij at a Delhi Blog Meet. It’s funny, here I stand, along with a whole bunch of other people, being accused of discriminating against people because of something intangible they are born with or something (hell I have no frikking clue what the hell caste is. It makes no sense to me. I can understand racism, but caste-based discrimination makes no sense to me at all). But when I met you at the blog meet, it was YOU who turned your nose up at me, because I happened to live in ‘South Delhi’, the ‘posh’ part of town, and you were the one who sat there judging me.  Interesting.

I refuse to submit to the will of a pawing-clawing kleptocracy which puts “Equality” <- a disgusting concept when applied in an economic sense over “Merit”. “What use do we have for merit anyway”.

Some Administrative Stuff

Addressed in order of the comments received

On Ayn Rand
She’s a (deceased) crackpot bitch, who believes that men should rape women as the only true act of love or something (please, spare me the lectures on how I seem to miss the true nature of what she’s been saying). However, at the same time, she managed to articulate that which was always present in my mind, and probably in the mind of a lot of other people. Which is how it is – some of the greatest psychos in history also came up with some of the most interesting theories. Am I a fan of Ayn Rand? No. I read Atlas Shrugged (exactly 4 times, which is very low for somebody like me), and for the most part, the book is shit. It is one long rant (and considering my pedigree, I know a rant when I see one). Some parts of the book are good – specifically the thoughts that go through the men who were working for Taggart Railways before the accident in the Tunnel. That one portion of the book sums up things in India so well, that the rest of the shyte the book is filled with is forgivable.

The Fountainhead on the other hand, is brilliantly written, and nice and taut. No ranting, interesting dialogue and stuff. I wish more philosophical/ideological books were written with that tone.

On Moderation (Comment Moderation, not Alcohol)
My comment policy is as follows – every single comment that anybody makes shall be published EXCEPT comments that reveal my e-mail address, physical address, telephone number or other confidential personal information. Personal attacks, cursewords, attempts to defame, and really brainless attempts at creating an analogy between moderating comments on your blog (private property) and being in support of government regulation shall be allowed to go through. Of course…this moderation is ‘faith-based’ – you have to take it on faith that I actually do let defamatory comments through.

So in case the intelligence-impaired are still asking why retain moderation at all – it is to maintain some control over what is currently my intellectual (the word intellectual being used extremely loosely) property. The concept of private property/intellectual property, unfortunately, is not comprehensible to communists, so this idea may go straight over their heads.

On Calling People Fornicating Jokers (Cop Out)
Who exactly was being called a Fornicating Joker was intentionally left ambiguous. This was for legal reasons.

On mentioning the WTO
I never said that the aforementioned people were talking about the WTO. I brought up the WTO.

On Unintentional Humour
This post is either in jest or is out and out trolling/flamebait.

On Mandal II
Thank God Australia is offering citizenship so easily. Bye bye India, I’ll come back when you come to your senses. (ok not really, I miss Chicken Tikka too much – plus I have to vote the current government out of power).

How the other half bullfaeces

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming..
So here’s the original article.

It’s full of the usual moralising, self-righteousness and other rubbish, not to mention the fact that comments are closed.

Ok somebody is lamenting the suicides of farmers. Fair enough, lament away, whatever floats your socialist, state-owned boat.

But then you quote lies, and stupidities:

The new wealthy in India are quietly abandoning the state: paying for their own private police force and playing golf at private clubs. There appears to be little concern about supporting public services or about the poor who are stuck with decrepit hospitals and schools.

Oh yes, little concern about supporting public services. WHen we want roads built, then we’re just concerned about find a new place to honk our horns. When we want more electricity, then we’re displacing villagers in Narmada. You can’t win. The poor are ’stuck’ with a lot of other things too, why do you only restrict to hospitals and schools? And apparently, it is my fucking fault that the hospitals in Vidharba, if they have any, are performing poorly. I’ll try and put this about as mildly as can. Fuck. You.

The arrival of new pesticides, genetically modified seeds and swanky tractors that soak up increasingly expensive petrol has pushed up the cost of the production.

This part is just hilarious, and proves just how the author is full of shit. Full of it. He has no clue what he is talking about.
Tractors. Run. On. Diesel. Diesel is subsidised heavily, because it is more expensive than Petrol, and the government, in its infinite Socialist wisdom, decided to make Petrol more expensive so that the “rich” could subsidise the poor. Second – apparently these new tractors are gas-guzzlers. Oh yes, let’s go back to the olden days when you were using bullocks. One part of the TheOtherIndia cartel might get pissed off because of cruelty to the bullock. Furhter, is the idiot author trying to imply that the tractors of yore were more fuel-efficient? My ass.

Vidarbha’s farmers, unprotected by market controls and tariffs, have to compete with growers from the European Union and US who are subsidised to the tune of billions of dollars a year. The last vestiges of Indian government support were withdrawn a few months ago. The result is that Indian cotton farmers have become impoverished in a few short years.

Oh those poor little unprotected babies. WIll somebody please get them a nursemaid? They are unprotected. So what this seems to imply is that they should be protected instead of the fact that it is the EU and US farmers who should be UNPROTECTED. But you see, India and the rest of the world has been unable to negotiate a fair deal for its famrers because it needs to do that at this thing called the WTO, which is Satan’s latest incarnation as far as our OtherIndia friends are concerned, so nothing ever gets done there except of fighting off protesters who could have been better off preventing women from being molested on our streets, and nagging the MCD into filling up its potholes.

A bunch of fornicating jokers.

Journal Entries

Based on previous posts, I think you can expect low quality from this one too…

This blog is hereby renamed “Tarun’s boring life and sordid lovelife journal” from here on in. There’s not much left to blog about. See, the thing is, one gets so drained from the classes, that one is no longer in the mood to be angry and ranting – plus being frustrated in other aspects used to help fuel the anger. In case it isn’t clear, here are the classes I’m taking for this term:

• Accounting (for Managers) (Argh)
• Managerial Economics (Argh)
• Data & Decisions (i.e. Statistics. Argh)
• Marketing (for Managers)
• Managing People for High Performance

As you can see, it’s enough to keep one busy. So instead, I’ll just narrate the events of a party last Friday.

So I lied when I said I wouldn’t be mentioning the Sexy Singaporean again, I figure I’ll de-introduce her gradually. 

So this Friday was ‘Fiesta Latina’, yep a Latin Party. When the Peruvian Pair (which consists of the Perfect Peruvian and her husband (unfortunately)) invited everybody to this party, I fired back with “WHen I do the Salsa, it looks more like the Nacho sauce, and less like the actual dance”, but the Husband replied with “Don’t worry, all of us will just be hanging around the bar anyway”, so I said ok I’ll come too. 

So I walk in to the party with my flatmate, and check out the scene. Tis a nice party.Observe if you will, in the corner sits the Sexy Singaporean, in a pink top and a towel skirt. What pray tell is a towel skirt? I have no idea, but it looked like she’d wrapped a towel round herself, so I call it a towel skirt. 

Now, in the “Dummies Guide to Picking up women”, it states that you should “play it mean, keep them keen”. SO that’s what I did. I danced with every woman that night except the SS. Net result? Well she danced with recently-made friend and fellow classmate – Bombay Boy (who is in direct competition with me for this woman. He’s a hardcore Shiv Sainik. We’ve had a lot of almost-violent fights, but more about that some other time).  Anyway, nothing happened between the two of them, and Cinderella-like she disappeared at midnight, like she always does. 

So because I’m a total bastard, today I send her a message saying: “I’m hurt. No, not only am I hurt, I am deeply offended. You didn’t even dance with me at the party”.

Her response: “You didn’t ask”.

Note-to-self: Don’t mess with 28-year-old Singaporean woman.

(Once you’ve got up off the floor laughing, allow me to continue with this journal entry).

So mid-way thru the party, the French Finesser decided to play a trick on some of the other guys hanging around the bar. He tells the bartender – 3 shots of tequila, and three shot glasses with water please. Bartender returns with the request. This tequila happened to be clear like vodka/water and not yellow like the one I’ve known. DOn’t know why. Maybe this one had no piss in it Anyway, net result, French Finesser had 3 shots of water, and another classmate of mine (a Parsi dude who looks like Freddie Mercury-who-was-also-Parsi-BTW) ended up having to be dragged home by me and Bombay Boy.

So after the party, we all wandered around an area in Melbourne called ‘Brunswick Street’ which is where everybody hangs out to grab their Souvlakis and Slice-of-Pizzas after some hardcore clubbing. Suffering from a major ‘Munchies’ attack, we’re trying to hunt down a place to eat, and we run into LastGermanStanding Boy and girl-mentioned-in-previous-post-who-rubbed-up-against-me-at-the-local-bar. (There are reasons for not mention her nationalistic alliteration – I don’t wanna ruin her rep). 

LastGermanStanding Boy is obviously making a move on the very drunk woman-mentioned-above, and in the middle steps TTG and tells her: “You’re a very mean girl. You just danced with me once tonight”.

So girl unlocks from LastGermanStanding Boy, and locks on to Tarun and starts kissing him and cooing: “Is this mean? Is this mean?”. Ahem. Tarun is a little taken aback, and most hot-blooded males’ reaction is to pounce. But as has happened to me on Numerous occasions I tend to freeze and get shocked that here’s a woman actually behaving like she’s attracted to me (or very drunk? Heh). Now LastGermanStanding Boy is standing there with a very I-wish-it-was-WWII-and-you-were-a-Jew look on his face..and I was dying of starvation. And TTG thinks equally with his stomach as much as his you-know-what.

So he tried to have his cake and eat it too shall we say, by dragging girl with him to pizza place, but girl stayed rooted due to drunkenness. Drunk Girl? Pizza? Drunk Girl? Pizza? Argh. Pizza. Well in all fairness, LastGermanStanding Boy got there first.So I had to unlock, and leave Drunk Girl to LastGermanStanding Boy, and go on and eat not-so-good Pizza and drag Parsi friend home in a cab. 

The End.

Note to Thungachi – I have been getting your e-mails, and apologies for not replying. I do have a lot say and will reply in another day or two – PROMISE!

Heteromosexuality

Argh

Apologies to those who were expecting more frequent blog-posting, the but the issue is that people in my business school have discovered this blog, and some of them read it too. Most of them save it for a weekly class we have called “Managing People For High Performance”. As you can expect, it’s best to be surfing the web during that class (We have wireless net access throughout the school, and laptops are allowed – nay required- for many classes).

Farewell-la

Here, we say goodbye to The Sexy Singaporean. She will no longer be appearing on this blog – mercifully she hasn’t discovered it yet… I think. Why goodbye? This is why:

You go out to a Thai Restaurant with her,  The Incredible Indonesian (otherwise known as the Balinese Beauty – see the previous post for pictures of SS and II) and the Magnificent Malay( who has not been photographed yet).

Anyway, so over an unfuckingbelievable dinner, the Sexy Singaporean proceeds to make fun of one’s lack of biceps, and punjabi amount of hair…She even offered to wax me…

Sigh.

Another Moan-And-Groan

I’ve discovered why it is that I’m single.

Note-to-self- when sitting on a bed in a woman’s room, if that woman is sitting next to you, and she’s previously told you she thinks “she’s falling in love with you (just kidding”), and she mentions something about how some of the girls got together and voted yours truly one of the better-looking guys in class (second to an Italian), and she’s been teasing you about being gay (and you shoot back with – “well let’s go to a private room and I’ll show you just how gay I am”)…you’re supposed to make a move. Otherwise, she ends up going out with a guy whose name, if pronounced as it is written, would be slang for masturbation. But it’s not the woman that bothers me, it’s the principle of the thing – i.e. missing the signals. 

2nd Note-To-Self

When a woman starts rubbing up against you in the local bar, mentioning how “she doesn’t have game” and you compliment her and tell her that she has lots of game, and when she makes you promise to come back when you go to the bar to get drinks, and ahem, continues to rub up against you, it’s a signal. Argh. 

WTF?

(and Laugh Out Loud)

Ok, WordPress (or some mysterious hacker – whom I shall call Fucker just because I’m an abusive bugger) keeps displaying a “Happy Diwali” post at the top of my blog, even after I’ve DELETED the bloody post.

Well I can’t be bothered to fix it, I have an exam at 9 am tomorrow – yes on a Saturday. Sniff Sniff.
A belated Happy Holi to everybody.

And a 1% chance with the Sexy Singaporean. Went for dinner with her yesterday. Asian women are all the same, be they South Asian, or Southeast Asian. Over some ‘Mee Goreng-no-seafood-no-egg’ (basically chicken and spicy thick noodles ), she went at me rapid-fire:

“Where’s your family,do you have any siblings, why did you leave America, do you like it here, will you go back, where is home for you, why do you want to work in singapore, don’t you likie Australia, Singapore is expensive if you’re single, when can I see your apartment”.

Phew. I wonder what the results of that evaluation are (no I didn’t show her my apartment. It’s dirty.)

<!– –>

Saturated Silence

Well I’m the hated TTG anyway….

So the Blank Noise project is going full swing.

TTG will remain silent about it, because he’s not an Indian woman, and unfortunately belongs to the category of men who should be gay, but for some reason, at the last minute, turned out to be straight. Examples? A woman comes over to your house and you make out. Then she steps into your bathroom for a shower, comes out in just a towel, and expects that you won’t want to sleep with her. Yes, that was the first time in my life I contemplated rape, but only in my mind. There’s more where that came from, but I won’t go there. Instead, I’ll focus on something that none of the other Blank Noise articles have: Solutions.

1) Legalise Prostitution as a legitimate business (In Australia, a company that owns brothels, debuted on the local stock market).

2) Legalise Pornography

3) Legalise Homosexuality

4) Outlaw Single-Sex education

5) Have serious classes on Sex Education, starting from 7th Standard i.e. when most kids are 11 and on the cusp of Puberty.

6) Do something about the shyte they show in Bollywood movies in which the eve-teasing guy or the annoying guy in the plane seat gets the girl, . Plus also try depicting Sex in a tasteful manner on screen, and leave the rape scenes out, for fuck’s sake.

What lies at the root cause of all this molestation, and lechery? Convention (and actual research) puts the blame on culture, and how it’s all about power. I’d like to add a few more things to the list:
One of them is the criminalisation of something that is completely normal. It is perfectly natural to have a sex drive, contrary to what some of the more extreme voices out there seem to be saying. I think about S-E-X about every 3 seconds(or less). And trust me, it’s far more imaginative than any porn movie you’ve ever seen. But the thing is – is there any socially/morally acceptable outlet for that sex drive in our country? The answer is a resounding NO. Well the results of that are in everybody’s face.

Another reason that I’d like to pose is lack of self-respect/feelings of inadequacy, and frustration (yes, this comes from one’s own experiences). The people who fall into this category usuall feel impotent in some way or another, disenfranchised. And this, again is the outlet. Education, and employment will probably help to some point to get rid of this (counter-argument of course is the cases of dowry deaths and other things that happen in high-income and high-education families), but then the stuff mentioned above will help even more, in my unhumble and NRI-ified opinion.
DISCLAIMER:This is all the output of my deranged mind, and may have no factual basis whatsoever, these are just my obeservations and theories.

More nonsense

(and a picture)

Melbourne, from my balcony

Ok, so since I have wasted far too much time being me, the Sexy Singaporean now looks on me as a brother. Argh. And the other e-mailer, well it looks like she really was just kidding. Women are just out and out weird.

In the meantime, done some more assignments, read a few blogs, and went to a few parties.

Benefits of Globalisation and the Internet.

Quotes of the Year

Yes, I really don’t have anything better to do. Sorry guys!

Quote of the Century
“You blow me, I blow you!”

Context: I walked in to the b-school canteen, trying to avoid 2 of my friends who are some serious nicotine junkies. So I was just kind of bitching about smoking to The Sexy Singaporean. So she says, in her singsong Singaporean accent: “Ya, I don’t like it when people smoke either, so when they start smoking, I start smoking too”… So I’m saying “…Ok…and why is that…?” And then she starts gesturing wildly in front of her face with her two fingers in a “V” and she goes…”You blow me, I blow YOU!”. Was in splits for the rest of the day. Kept repeating that comment to everybody until people started looking at me funny.

The second quote is a bit of mystery. I can’t quite figure out whether I should “do” anything about it. Well it’s not a quote – it’s an e-mail:

you’re so funny man. i think i’m falling in love with you or something. no just joking not inebriated like you. well just wanna ask if you could forward the picture you sent me to K. i accidently deleted it and she just wanna see it that’s all. oh by the way data&decisions on monday was so confusing nobody explained it to me like you did. i think you should do a part time here. hahahaha. see ya

Is that a hint? Or is it just somebody being funny (it’s a very gorgeous South-East Asian girl). Any ladies reading my blog out there, please to comment and help me. I’m very dumb when it comes to these things (or over-smart?)

ButterChickenLit is where it’s at, man.

Oh and here are some responses to the comments on the previous post

Autumn Stone – do u live in Melbourne? If not, not much point in getting my e-mail eh?

Brown Magic – no ma’am this is me passively looking, not actively. If I were actively looking, then I would be doing things very differently. I didn’t really expect the bartender to call me back. It just a “Fun thing to do when you’re 7 beers down”. As for the Nepali waitress, to quote Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman, the day you stop looking is the day you die.

RT – didn’t think you’d be much impressed, pleasantly surprised. As for sounding like my mother, ok so I confess I could have been a little bit more intelligent about my spending habits, but it’s hard when you’re used to getting reinforcements at the end of the month

Karma – sorry for dropping of the map, net access is limited, and have been busy giving exams and stuff. This leaves me with limited time, and I use that more to say what I want than respond to other people – because the “Say What I Want” is therapeutic.

Parth – where have ya been!

Pareshaan – apologies – see the comment I left for Karma

Rambling Again

Of Memes and Other Things
As much I’m not aiming for IndiBlog of the year, the HUGE drop in IndianBlogger ranking from around 6-12 to 40 hurt my ego a lot. It’s probably the only thing that motivates me to blog

It’s been an interesting week.

My Marketing professor is one of those energetic type dudes, who likes to hammer his points in.

I’m down to the last few dollars in my bank account, and have no way of getting more money for a while – some people might consider this some sort of revenge on my rants, and that now I might figure out how the other half lives. No, because I’ve been here before, went hungry for a week and a half in America. Not fun. Ah well, I’ll get by somehow.

Fellow students got locked out of their apartment in our building. Instead of
shelling out the AU$150 that the locksmith charges to unlock your apartment, they called another student who was an expert mountain climber and used to be in the Swiss?/Belgian? army. He actually went to the floor below (the fourth floor) and climbed from one balcony to the other, and walked in and unlocked the apartment !#$@$!#@$!@#@$!@ Crazy foreigners!

My flatmate has a bit of a gambling problem, 3 nights last week, he was over at the Crown Casino playing Blackjack. And everytime, his system worked. He’d play, then lose, then take a break and get upset at having lost so much, then go withdraw some money and then come back and win double. He now has enough to buy himself a new laptop. I wish I’d “invested” in him.
My flatmate….a late 30s to early 40s retired American Army guy! Used be a colonel! The reason I get along with him, and some of my newly-made friends get along with him is because he thinks like a frikkin’ Desi! He knows every possible way to break the rules and get away. Always good to have an Army guy with you.

I’m still thinking about the cute Nepali waitress I met at the Mexican restaurant the other day. I think I’ll have to go back there…

Walked into a club called “255″ with 3 other guys. These 3 guys were determined to pick up a woman, whereas I am on a ‘Sanyas’ these days. I’m least bothered about women. I wants an MBA, and I wants it badly! Anyway, so this the story, told from an alcohol perspective. I parked myself at the bar, and notice that the bartender(ess?) is kinda Indian-looking.
I order a beer.

After beer 1 – Hmm, those losers are dancing around looking for girls, and I’m not even a little buzzed. More beer!

After beer 2 – Still not buzzed! There must be compensation for Liver Damage dammit! More beer

After Beer 3 – Hey who is that hot Indian girl dancing around? *Eyes follow indian girl, and she ends up being a bartender as well!* Dancing bartenders. What will they think of next? More beer.

After Beer 4 – Ok, the hottest women here are the bartenders. Now they’re most likely not single. How to get their attention… *lightbulb goes on*. More beer.

After Beer 5 – Signal the bartender and ask her for a piece of paper and a pen. Gives me a funny look and comes back after 15 minutes with the materials. I write “It seems that the only attractive woman here is behind the bar. Would love to get to know her better. [My Mobile Number]”. And fold it up and put it in my pocket, laughing at myself for being silly.

Finally, my other friends give up their search for women and decide to leave the club, as we’re walking out, and I put the piece of paper in the bartender’s hands (she gives me a quizzical look) and walk out.

(And no, she hasn’t called me back. Duh! I wouldn’t call me back!)

And now finally, we get to the Meme. RTD2 (Curbside Prophet, see sidebar) was curious to know about the 8 points of my “Perfect Lover”. Well…this is a really difficult one, but I’ll try my best. I’ve realized that I’m a slut. I have very few standards that a woman has to meet. Ah well.

Ok first, if it isn’t obvious yet, the gender of my lover is female.

1) She has to have spunk, i.e. she’s not a dull wooden stump when you talk to her
2) She has be intelligent, simply because I am, and bimbos tend to leave me for the Alpha males. Bugger.
3) She has to have courage – courage to say she’s attracted to me (are there any women out there who are?). Also courage to tell me when she’s not. And I’d like a woman who isn’t afraid to make the first move.
4) Oh and she has to be able to watch Star Wars (episodes IV-VI) with me, whenever I feel like, and enjoy it as much as I do.

And that’s basically it! Now you must be wondering where looks come into all of this. Well, I’ve disvoered that when I like somebody, they start looking “prettier/sexier” and vice versa when I start hating them. My ex-girlfriend, or should I just call her my ex-friend-who-lied-to-me, would win the Ugliest Cow competition hands down, beating even Princess Camilla. But obviously, when I was with her, I didn’t feel that way.

Sorry RT, you must have expected a lot more, but there it is! Or maybe I don’t know what I want, which would explain a lot. Or maybe I’m just in Sanyas phase right now, and looking to own a BMW more than win a woman’s heart right now.
(Wow, I’ve turned into an asshole…… Turned into? I always was!)

How This Individual Rants

We’re gonna rant-y like it’s your birthday, we gonna sip bacardi like it’s your birthday, and ya know we don’t give a [bad-word-for-fornicate] it’s not your birthday!

So here lies the Lull before the Storm. I got runner’s up for my Presentation on Blogging – the prize was a Chocolate Frog. I don’t have class till Monday. This gives me 2 days of
Free Time.
I intend to:
-get my assignment written and printed before the due date of the 6th.
-watch a cricket match between Australia and South Africa live at the MCG (tix cost 30 Ozzie dollars or 900 rupees), and fail the Tebbitt Test (look it up on Google, too lazy to link).
-And blog/rant about a few things…well one specific thing.

A bunch of bloggers, who have issues with being labelled (let’s call them The Typist Cartel for now, shall we), has decided to get together and create a new blog. Now while I have immense respect for all of these bloggers, it’s a respect that extends to all creatures great and small for being part of that thing called Life. But you see, life is sometimes filled with people and things, whose purpose you may tend to disagree with. I always feared the result of Typists banding together to form a blog, and my fears were confirmed.

So, to quote an Ayn Rand character who shows up at a meeting of architects:

“I wanted to witness the birth of a felony”

and here we are, witnessing it.

Let’s start this off with the following:
“In this new team blog, we will step out of the air-conditioned comfort of the Metro to look at what we don’t want to look at; to confront A Reality Called India, to understand this Reality, punch it, kick it, make it speak, to let it weep through its emotions rather than maul them in statistics.”

It has not been explicitly stated (and based on past blogging history, nothing will ever be “mauled” with a direct statement, or “statistic”), but do I sense that the New Delhi Metro is not a part of India? The Metro is not a reality. It is not the Real India. In order to be Real, again, you have to be poor. You have to be dying. You have to be suffering, in pain, miserable. The Metro was not made by real people. It is not manned by real staff. It is not driven by real drivers (yes I know the Metro is partly autonomous) who have families and lives. All of these people have been dismissed in one go, because they (may) have enough to fill their stomach at the end of the day. The Criminals.

So welcome yourself to the Real India – where even positive achivements, and feats of engineering, intelligence and organisation are converted into daggers of guilt to be pointed at your well-fed gullets. Feel guilty for not having to beg for food with decapitated limbs. Feel ashamed, because your father has enough to pay for your education. But. Do. Not. Rejoice for the fact that you are alive, and have been given a gift that other people have not been. Don’t make the most of your life, because there are other people who aren’t able to. Your time is not yours. It belongs to the people in the slums. It belongs to the Real India in the village where food is made on dried cow dung.

Once upon a time there existed some Typists, and some Regular Human Beings (RHBs). The Typists dragged the RHBs round and round, shouting “You don’t see, you don’t see, you dont see!”
“Look down that dark well, look, look, LOOK!”, screaming and using their bare hands to force the RHBs to look:
“Keep your head buried in the well. Do not look out into the sunlight. The sunlight is Shining. It is Fake. The Rays Burn us. They force us to look to a place we are not used to looking. For we have been looking down this dark well for thousands of years. And we will smite those who dared to look at the Sun with the guilt of other people’s failure.

The RHBs looked down that well. And they saw what they expected to see. Darkness. And then possibly, the Bottom – If they Shone enough Light on it.

How the Other “Half” lives.

Once(2001), while waiting for the company bus, I saw a man come out of his hovel, walk down the sloped side of the sewage canal, lift his loincloth, and release 4 rancid turds into the sewer. I was disgusted, but I retained my morning’s breakfast.

The Other half has to suffer the indignity of of shitting rancid turds out in the open.

Once I was walking on the street, and I saw a policeman come out of nowhere, and start slapping a fruitseller.

The other half cannot buy its way out of police brutality.
The other half uses a discarded cardboard box for shelter.
The other half looks like you’d look if you were a skeleton
The other half cannot go buy a cup of coffee just because it feels like it.
The other half has to scrounge around the garbage dumps of new delhi to find scraps of vegetable peels to make up its dinner, while you eat Pizza, you selfish, evil scum.
The other half has to stand at a street corner in freezing Delhi winters, and boiling Delhi summers, to wheedle one paisa out of your smooth moisturised metrosexual hands
The other half has never known the joy of a brand new bicycle, or the feeling of clean sheets.
The other half will never make it to university or even school, because your callous disregard for the other half’s live got it kicked out onto the street corner.
The other half doesn’t know what the Internet is, because it has no electricity to run computers.
The other half digs into the bottom of shit-filled toilets to find some semblance of water to clean itself with.
The other half only consists of males, because all females are killed in the womb.
The other half has to secretly peep at the televisions in shop windows to get a glimpse of that other magic world which is oh-so-familiar to us Rich Criminals.
The other half does not have enough money to purchase the one tablet of aspirin which would get rid of their malnutrition-induced headache, and we haven’t even got to the other symptoms of malnutrition yet.
The other half gets used as guinea pigs by unscrupulous Multinational drug companies.
The other half breaks ships in Alang
The other half cleans your floors.
The other half has 8 mouths to feed, including itself.
The other half is at the service end of the Mafia’s stick
The other half gets its land (which it paid for, of course) stolen, by money-grubbing capitalists.
The other half scrapes the muck off your boots and uses it for food.
And on.
And on.
And on.

So tell me, young/old person, with money in your wallet, and food in your stomach. Have I inspired you to action? Have I lit a fire under your rear end and got you to stand up and yell YALGAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Are you motivated to do something? Do you feel empowered? Have you become enlightened after looking at the bottom of the dark well? Do you feel good knowing that there are people out there who will not attain your standard of living in this lifetime? Does it make you think that you should get out there and do something? Did I show you some Hope at the bottom of the Well?

There was once a very strict schoolteacher, who would not let the kids out to play. This left all kids very dulled out. But some were richer than others, so they scraped by with a little extra toys, hidden in class. When the school teacher found out about that, she took the toys away from the rich kids, and admonished them for having fun while their peers suffered. Then one day, the school relaxed the rules, and allowed everyone out to play. The rich kids rejoiced, for they now had access to their new toys, which were previously locked away from them. The poor kids didn’t see any difference. And when they wanted to go play with the Rich Kids, the Rich Kids kept making all of these different rules which were deemed Unfair. Then one day, a Typist observed this, and decided to help out the Poor Kids, and also point out that a relaxation of the Rules had not helped the poor kids get any happier. So they started doing the job of the Schoolteacher, and insisting that some of the rules be put back in. Now when you have typists doing the Schoolteacher’s job….what incentive does the SchoolTeacher have to help improve the situation?

That’s right folks, the solution to Poverty is to contribute to (or work for) an NGO. So that the Government no longer needs to do its job, for there are all these volunteers out there doing it instead. For free!

Sorry, I apologise. I’m just being mean and beating up on people who are doing things with the Best Intentions…. and we all know that it’s better to pave Roads with Good Intentions than Foreign/Local Direct Investment, Straw Men and other Logical Fallacies. Right?

Some Pictures

Call it a little advertising for MBS (Melbourne Business School)

School Sweet School

Pub Sweet Pub, right next to School Sweet School.(Clearly MBS has its priorities right!)

Home Sweet Home – Trinity Apartments, which is also right next to the School and the Pub. Will show more pics from inside my apartment – it’s got a gorgeous view of the city, and is in the angle, second from the top. I’ve ended up sharing with someone, however. (It’s a 2 bedrm).

Ahem. These signs are found in all Public Transport – note the circled part…..how the F am I going to survive in this country?!?@?!?@?!!@###!

So it’s bright Summer’s day and you’re out with your family friends. You go to a place called Sugarloaf Resevoir, and you sit down at the restaurant, and order a cup of coffee. So yer sitting having coffee, and you see a bunch of ducks walk by in the distance…..so you take a pic. And have your family friends laugh at you for being a FOB. BAH!

Observe if you will a Sexy & (Bold) Singaporean – or rather The Sexy Singaporean. On being told that I was taking pics to send back to India, she made the following pose, with the following quote: “Let me show off my boobies, to piss off all the women, and entertain all the men”. She’s a real tease I tell you. “I’m single, but not looking-la!”. But most of the men are chasing after her – even the married ones! Oh, and she said that a handsome man like me should be acting in Bollywood movies. *Grin*

Now we have the more coy Incredible Indonesian. She was almost going to be my flatmate, until I found out that she has a boyfriend(outside of MBS). Bah! Oh and the fact she doesn’t really wanna live another guy…I wonder why…

Class Participation is 20% of your final grade. This means every prof needs to know your name. Hence the big sign in front of my seat (do you really think I’d be sitting there advertising it otherwise..? Ok…maybe I would be…)

OK, I think that’ll do for now, I have a 10 minute presentation to prepare (and the topic, of course, is Blogging!). So I shall leave you now, after having wasted more time on this than I should have (I am soooo scroooooed).

Buh-bye. Next post will have some city photos.

What I learned In The City Part 6

Melbourne – Updated!

Theme Song: Boulevard of Broken Dreams by an Ozzie Cali Band – Green Day (Don’t you think Men-At-Work would have been just a bit TOO predictable?)

Okay continuing on with tradition:

1) (Most Important) – Cellphones cost the same in Australia as they do in India, and cheap prepaid means genuinely cheap prepaid. I even have 20 free international minutes, which I’m NOT going to use to call any of you suckaz. Can you handle that America? Ozzies know that there are other countries in the world, and that people might actually want to call people in those countries…they might even COME from other countries…

2) People in Australia are FRIENDLY. (but not friendly…at least I haven’t tried that out yet…). They’re also down-to-Earth. They know there is place called India out there – and that it consists of people who are good at Cricket. They’re even #1 in Cricket. They even believe that the world is round, that humans descended from Apes, and don’t need a label on the textbooks that tell them so, and that 0 degrees Longitude lies at the centre of a world map.

3) As mentioned in a previous post, the women are hot, and the men are not, so ignoring something a certain freelance Delhi Journalist said, I have a chance – with the WOMEN.

4) Melbourne is a Beautiful, with a capital B, city. Why? Because it is the first time I have EVER seen a drive-thru LIQUOR STORE ANYWHERE in my life. The cars drive in, they place their orders, and they drive out. Oh. My. God. (but one of my fellow MBA scohorts says that this exists in the Southern part of USA too). Oh did I mention there’s a Casino (Called the Crown) in Downtown Melbun? Haven’t been there yet, but how else is a broke student supposed to earn some money? Oh did I mention it has a nice skyline and great countryside by the suburbs too?

5) All the veggies and the Meat here looks and tastes Fresh, whereas in another continent across the Pacific, that shall remain nameless, the veggies and the chicken tastes like shit.

6) Melbourne is home to flies. Yes, you heard me correctly. Flies, in the summer. Not just any f-ing flies but fucking stick-to-you-until-you-contemplate-suicide type flies. At first I thought I’d brought them over from India, because Oz has a very fragile ecosystem (read Guns, Germs & Steel by Jared Diamond), and so they don’t allow anything organic into Australia. And I mean ANYTHING organic. It’s a wonder they let me in!But no, flies are native to Australia, and they come out when the temp goes over 27 degrees.

7)Apparently, out in the suburbs, you have to watch for Kangaroos crossing the roads in the
middle of the night. (I hope they hold hands and look both ways).

8)You just get a positive vibe from everybody here. You can sense that here lie people who are at peace with themselves, whereas in another continent-across-the-Pacific-that-shall-remain-nameless, you could sense the unrest of their souls. On the other hand, I could be talking Shit.

9)For some reason, Ozzies don’t like bathroom privacy. All the urinals were open, with no divisions between ‘em. I ended up suffering from a lot of stagefright. My poor kidneys. Following on from this, there are NO LOCKs on any internal house doors, including bathroom doors! Of course, all the Indians I met had kundis installed on their bathroom doors.

10) The Indians. They’re not Confused Desis here. I wondered why for while, and then I realized that they all migrated here in the late ’90s and early ’00s. So they don’t have any “I came here with 8 rupees in my pocket” type stories or “we didn’t do that back home in my village-called-New-Delhi in India when I was your age” type stories. They’re very chill, just like the Ozzies. I swear I saw a Tomato tell me to “have a gidday, mate” at the local Safeway. Further, even though we are very far away from India (it’s a 12 hour flight between Bombay and Sydney), I’ve never felt cut off from India like I did in America. (This could be because my cellphone works here, and people from India have been freely SMS-ing me and vice versa). I think it’s also because Ozzies haven’t cut themselves off from the rest of the world either like some other nameless continent across the Pacific.

11) Victoria Bitter is Australian for Beer, not Fosters. But to me, it tasted just like Fosters, only it was served in a bottle that looked like it should have been used to serve Phenyl or Cough Syrup, not Beer. Will try and upload pictures.

12) Australia’s Labour Laws are awful, much worse than India’s. I can just see the Typist Cartel jumping for joy and using Australia as an example of how strict labour laws can work, even in a free-market economy. They’re wrong, of course, and I have a post which will explain why coming up, once I move into my apartment. Oh I have a Parsi flatmate who looks JUST like Freddy Mercury. I swear it. I also have a flatmate from Bombay, but we all know what Bombay people are like. They’re not worth mentioing. Ouch.

13) Since we are so far south here, it’s possible even for Brown people to get sunburnt here. Weird. More UV rays, and less of the other stuff! My nose is PINK!

Hmmm, did I mention I’m only 10 minutes away from the MCG. That’s rights folks, stop wishing me a painful death!

Saket it is not called CatBlogging when Men do it, it’s called any one of the following:

KuttaBlogging, ChickenLit, DesiChickenLit, ButterChickenLit.

And guys there will most likely be a drop in post frequency (as may already have been witnessed). What with MBA studying, and chasing after hot Peruvian, Singaporean and Australian women, I just won’t have the time – unless I find something to piss me off (which seems unlikely in this country). Feel free to keep yourself occupied by sending me abuses in Hindi, or reading my older posts, or reminiscing to your Grandkids about how there once used to be this elite blogger called TTG who shook the establishment by its very foundations..”Lekin ab to woh sirf dil hi dil mein rehta hai”…or not. I might post something, but it’ll most likely be purely for me, and my small band of masochistsloyal followers….which is er… what I always did, so what’s changed really?

TTG-on-the-barbie

Salaam Namaste from Melbourne(short post)This not a what I learned in the City post coz I ain’t really seen the city yet.

But from what little I have seen of Australia, I love it.

What i love even more is that Dual Citizenship between Australia and India got legalised last year. So this means that when they do institute private sector job reservation quotas in India, I won’t have to change citizenship to Pakistan, I can just flee to Australia instead.

Oz seems like America without the stupidity.
Ozzies don’t think they’re the centre of the universe – they even know there are other countries outside their own.

Ozzie women are hot, and ozzie Men are not. This means I’m in with a chance.

Imagine an America where everybody drives on the correct side of the road, and you have Australia, complete with suburbs and wide freeways going thru the middle of nowhere. They even have roundabouts here.

Now I just need to find a place to live…I wonder how long I can depend on my family-friend’s hospitality.

Oh – and most importantly – the cellphone service here is just like India. The true mark of civilisation – fully regular decent GSM 900/1800, no incoming charges, and cheap prepaid. Joy.

Ignore the read more, you blasted people from the lands Up-Over.

Oh and that’s “Mel-bun” not “Mel-born”. Wokay?

Virtual Stupidity (which is very Real)

A change of subject to lessen my gloomy mood

First, before I move to the core of my rant, I’d just like to add as a side note, that Sepia Mutiny should be disqualified from the IndiBloggies Nominations. I’m not saying this because I was banned from them or because I dislike them – in fact I actually don’t dislike them, I ENJOY reading them.. HOWEVER, since it is Sepia Mutiny’s stance that they are a South Asian Blog, and not an Indian blog, what place do they have in an Indian Blog Award? Further, I recall (but cannot find the links to) a discussion on SM where when they were told they had won an Indian award, they specifically said ” But we’re 2nd-Gen Americans not Indian” or some such thing, with a mild amount of contempt (which may just be imagined by moi). So yea, I don’t think they should be part of these awards.

Update – Abhi Responds(it’s also in the comments):

Let me put it down in writing so that you have a place to point to next time. Sepia Mutiny is an American blog that has 6 Indian-American writers (although we have had, and will have guest bloggers with other South Asian heritage who write really well), and focuses on topics and issues that would be of MOST interest to South Asians living in North America. However, we cover many topics relevant to South Asian diaspora communities and to those still living in countries in South Asia, which primarily includes India. The society that I live in will always view me as both American and Indian (after they’ve asked me “where you from?”), or American and South Asian (if they haven’t asked).

If you want to be petty about this feel free to do so as long as you now have the correct information to cite. We, and I, appreciate any award we are even considered for. The true reward however is in knowing that even one person enjoys what we write (equally rewarding would be if girls would throw their underwear at us while we were on stage).

If that’s the Official take, then I eat my words, with a little garam masala to boot, especially since I’ve been trying to find the “We-re 2nd-Gen, not Indian” comment thread but failed. So I don’t really have a leg to stand on.

Now on to the Main Feature

You may have read this in today’s Editorial Column of the TOI.

Question 1: Does anybody else see some sort of perversity when it is teachers and professors of English which rise up to abuse Globalisation? Isn’t English the first whipping-boy of Globalisation?

Question 2: Why are all English teachers Communist? Is it part of the curriculum?

When I read the first para of this article, I thought the man was actually being sensible, and saying that It is better to maintain a road than to rename it with a Nationalistic name. I was about to say, good boy, and give him a doggy biscuit…BUT. He’s saying the opposite. He’s saying a name-change is important.

Time, then, to ask Shakespeare’s question — what’s in a name? Because, clearly, something is.

It used to be called Priya Square, but in these heady, headlong days, that name itself might well be retro now. Particularly in Priya Square. This is the open space in front of the Priya multiplex in Delhi’s Vasant Vihar.

It did? In what period is this? The Jurassic? For as long as I have been alive, it has been called Basant Lok….and as far as I know…IT STILL IS.

With large stores emblazoned with the iconic brands of international consumption — Nike and Baskin Robbins and Levis and the inevitable McDonald’s – his enclave in south Delhi is an enchanted space for a certain kind of young person — because as soon as one steps in here, as one bubbly young thing was heard remarking loudly, India khuttam! Across this magic threshold, India stops, and one is instantly transported to, well, Byzantium, with…

The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees… and soft, relentless, muzak in the neon-lit arcades of the shopping mall. It’s not true, of course.

India is still present, in the famished shapes soliciting alms, the dark children with stick-like limbs, weaving unseen and unregarded through the throngs of the well-heeled, devouring their ice-creams and their accessories with hungry, angry eyes.

In the Dummies Guide To Countering Globalisation (in India), the first sentence reads as follows:

Thou shalt remind those who are “more fortunate” and “lucky”, that all their HARD-EARNED money, and enjoyment thereof is a cause for guilt, for there are those who are not so lucky.

The second sentence reads: “Thou shalt make the oft-claimed statement that The Real India consists of famished shapes soliciting alms. Other stereotypes abound, please look for them in Rohinton Mistry Novels, Arundhati Roy’s work, CNN or Naipaul.”

Remember folks, those of you who have enough money and food to read this blog – WE ARE NOT REAL. WE DO NOT COUNT. WE ARE NOT THE REAL INDIA. WE ARE FAKE. WE ARE THE ILLUSION. WE HAVE NOT CONTRIBUTED TAXES TO THE ECONOMY. WE HAVE NOT COME BACK WITH OUR IVY LEAGUE DEGREES AND TRIED TO APPLY THE KNOWLEDGE HERE. Our crime is that we have money, and hope, and food in our stomach. Let us all collectively hang our heads in shame for not being born famished and begging for alms. No, I mean really. Please. I don’t want to see a single person happy, or wanting to buy a new pair of jeans, until every single iota of humanity in this country and the world is rolling in money. Just kill me now, the guilt is just too much to bare, O Venerable Ivory-Tower Academic.

The CII ideologues are vastly more sophisticated, but even in their accounts of that globalised future which is simultaneously desirable and imminent, the transition from an all-too-present present to the gleaming, glamorous future is always visualised as smooth and streamlined, lubricated by a miraculous coincidence of desire and possibility, so that everyone gets what they want, and there are no losers and no costs.

Everyone gets what they want? There are no losers? Is that what the supporters of Globalisation say?
Ok, since the Typist cartel has forbidden us from using a much tossed about term, I shall use the Hindi equivalent, and say that the above statement simply shows the creation of a Bhoosa Aadmi.

There bloody well are lots of losers. With more free trade, the customs officials at our points of entry have less ways to harass, as there is less (or no) duty to be paid. They’ve lost “revenue”. With more globalisation/liberalisation every company attempting to sell a substandard and shyte product ends up having to either go out of business or find ways to improve – or resorts to our good ‘ol friend corruption + protectionism to keep the rest of the world out.

That this infantile fantasy should have acquired so many adult believers is one of the great mysteries of our time.

That there are adults out there incapable of forming rational arguments is not one of the great mysteries of any time (yes this comes from personal experience. Let it go).

The call-centre hacks who acquire slick tele-identities along with their shaky accents are common knowledge. One can easily imagine the damage caused by the social dislocation that results from working a graveyard schedule to suit the convenience of customers in American time-zones — so that the only other people one can know are the similarly afflicted, other denizens of the night-world in which they are Bob and Carrie and Chuck and Robbie, au fait with cultural trivia derived, I’m told, from a pedagogic exposure to Friends.

One can also easily imagine the damage caused by the social dislocation that results in being 20-something and UNEMPLOYED. But better a famished Indian with his begging bowl extended, than a Cyber-Coolie caught in this INDENTURED “Servitude” eh? I mean the air-conditioned cubicles, home-drop sumos, pizza parties, the extra cash in their pockets, the additional work experience, the call centres competing for workers, they must be so humiliating for these people, since it is all in Service to the White Man. I mean if you had a choice between begging for Money from an Indian, or working for low Wages for a White Man, which would you choose?

C’mon folks, let’s be patriotic here, and Hold your Head High! I might be a pauper, but at least it is Indian Communists who are giving me my alms, not some filthy pig shmuck capitalist exploiting White Man. I feel so much more Indian now, and happy. Who needs heaters in winter when you can be begging on the street corner hey? Heck money can’t buy everything. What did you really need a bed, food, clothing and shelter for anyway? All that counts in the end is Good Karma.

Don’t you know, at these evil call centre places, they stand ready with whips in their hands, and you’re chained to your desks like in the old days of Pax Romana. Sure they had to Row before, and now you have to Type and Speak, but it amounts to the same amount of torture RIGHT? Oh how I long for the Old Days, when being in the mid 20s meant having to BEG ENGLISH PROFESSORS FROM DU for references so you can scrounge around for a job.

How dare the arrogant youth of today actually feel optimistic and frivolous because they can make some money when Some People have been Left Behind. How dare they enjoy their lives, when we all know that the freedom fighters of yesteryear fought to ensure that we would always remember misery and suffering and death and destruction, and continue to sacrifice our lives at the altar of Misery. Didn’t you know that’s what freedom is about? That there are now happy and carefree people in this country – it’s a travesty I tell you. The world is going to the Dogs. That there are content people in this country. A sin. A Shame. How. Dare. They.

Let us all please please please return to a State of Mass Misery, as that produces the best results for removing poverty. Youth of Today, please abandon your dreams of fast and easy money. Stop being so Shallow. Please Grow Up. The world is a miserable place, and therefore you must be too. Abandon the hope and expectation that comes with youth. Please, for the sake of Mankind, don’t strike for faster, harder, bigger, stronger, more – well not until there is Nobody Left Behind. In the meantime please satisfy yourselves by donating everything you earn to Charity, so that you can partake in some mass poverty. Please don’t buy a cellphone with the money you’ve saved last year, when you could help put Billoo through school. Besides, once Billoo has been through school, he can follow your example too, right? Have you no shame for claiming a right to the money you worked for? Oh and what would you really do with a 15,000 rupee a month job anyway? Isn’t this a rich country with parents who provide everything for their kids. Sheesh. The kids of today, I tell you. Spoiled, stupid, and educated. Don’t you think your time could be better utilised harassing the women outside on the street, or murdering old people for the money in their cupboards? What are you doing serving The White Man in this office? Have you NO shame? You are destroying Indian traditions. What next? Will you outsource the Mahabharat to Bengalis (shudder)?

You bunch of cyber-coolies. Filthy. You dare to earn money when there are real coolies out there suffering in the railways stations? Usurpers! Traitors!

Dare I say it….yes, I dare – Won’t Someone Think Of The Common Man? *Wrings hands and beats breast – then proceeds to go teach ENGLISH*

A few side notes:

1) McDonalds
This so-called symbol of Globalisation, is a symbol of Localisation. the McDonald’s in India, is LIKE NO OTHER McDonald’s anywhere else in the world. The American McDonald’s does NOT deliver food to your home. The American McDonald’s DOES serve pork and beef. It DOES fry things in LARD (or did until a Hindu sued them). The American McDonald’s does not serve a Veggie Burger (but a Vegetarian burger made out of Soya. Yuck). The French McDonald’s serves beer.
So much for having a common Global Identity.

2) Pesticide in Coke.
Yes, Coke is an EVIL Multinational for serving you soft drinks full of pesticide. But I’m curious. Have you ever taken a sample of the groundwater your local-non-evil-multinational-owned-but-government-run Water Board provides you with? How come you don’t drink it straight out the tap?
Why didn’t the CSE choose this for its crusade? Why did it instead pick on a corporation, which had been kicked out of India before? Do you not pay the Water Board? Isn’t water more important than coke? Do you serve every person in your family coke from the minute they’re born to their death? But why is there no crusade against the Water Boards – oh wait – Occam’s Razor right – the water that the local boards provide MUST BE CLEAN, and don’t cause any water-borne diseases. Right? Coke is Evil, and the Delhi Jal Board a Noble Service Provider. Like the Buddha, I have received my enlightenment. Under a cold tap.

3) I’ve got this far without a single cussword. I deserve to be rewarded, lauded, applauded. Now my post is only as abrasive as TravelTalesFromIndia’s comments.

Obituary

Farewell to my Naani

Bye bye Dayavati Chandiok, we lost you a few hours ago, at the long-lived age of 92. Or something. We don’t remember when you were born, but we know it was Karva Chauth then, and it was somewhere around the early 1910s

Pet-murderer, Hindi Teacher, Freedom-Fighter, and Mother to so many.

How many people live long enough to actually hold all 7 of their great-grandchildren in their arms?

How many people live long enough to have 6 kids, 14 grandkids and 7 great-grand kids?

You will be missed – by the pigeons you tried to run over when you tried to learn to drive one of the first cars to have ever been bought in New Delhi.

You will be missed, because your cakes always turned out to have too much butter in them, which would turn to ghee after a bit.

You will be missed, because everytime you would meet any of us, your first question was: “Kya Khaoge?”, even if we’d just come back from dinner.

You will be missed, by your last pet, Julie, the Tibetan Spaniel, who has outlived you, while the poor parrots, chicks, and cats did not.

You will be missed, because although you could not see too well, you could bluff your way through any game of Flash, even till this Diwali.

You will be missed, because you used to eat Pizza, and drink Cognac for your colds, till a few months ago, despite all the doctors’ warnings through the years. Well you were right and they were wrong.

You will be missed, because you believed that drinking Gol Gappe Ka Paani was the best way to eliminate sluggishness and perk somebody up. And you proved it too.

You will be missed, because you taught me how to read and write Hindi. For this I shall be ever grateful.

You will be missed, because when everybody else had abandoned my physically-impaired cousin for lost, you made him go to school, you taught him when you had to, you had sent him to America, where he learned to play the drums, despite his impaired fingers, where he worked for the White House, where he lives, with his wife.

You will be missed, because you gave your teenage servant Surinder a second chance after he was caught stealing. You taught him how to read and write in Hindi and English, and I’m sure he’ll remember you, when he sits with his wife and kid, or when he goes to the Cement company he works for now.

You had to be mother to two of your grandkids, after their mother divorced your son. From not being able to walk due to the trauma, to their present jobs, the kids made it, because of you.

You saw the burning of Delhi, the loss of your friends some 50-odd years ago. You fought along with the others, to liberate this country. And fought on for so long afterwards.

I cannot grieve for somebody who gave so much happiness to so many people. Somehow it seems wrong. I think it would be more appropriate to go out and have 5 Gol Gappas. I don’t think that’s trampling on your memory. I think that’s honouring it. I think it’s what you helped to make happen.

If I ever live to be 92, I want to be just like you.

Goodbye.

What I learned in MY City

It was gonna happen eventually.

Delhi, OH Delhi, I will miss you so.

From the Fashion-Ramp that is M-Block Market, G.K. 1 to the 21st Century Metro train running over Rohini and Dwarka.

From the Tihar Jail in Janak Puri, to the Shipra Mall in Ghaziabad.

From the HCL office in Gurgaon, to the Times of India office in Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg.

From the the dead Muslims lying in our parks, to the burnt Hindus floating in the Yamuna.

From the wide roads of a British-Built capital, to the narrow roads of an old Mughal City.

From the Snobbery of South Delhi, to the Punjabiyat of Karol Bagh (formerly Carol Gardens, I shit you not).

From the Embassy Restaurant in Connaught Place, to the McDonald’s opening up in subterranean Train Stations.

From the murder death and devastation that is New Delhi Railway Station to the murder death and devastation that is the Indira Gandhi International Airport.

From the gazillion cycles clogging up Kapas Heda, to the 8 Porsche Cayennes, 35 S Class Mercedes and the Bentley Showroom in the Government-owned Ashoka Hotel.

From the pucca Army sahibs to the nouveau-rich Buntys and Montys.

From Rajinder da Dhaba to The Great Kebab Factory.

From National Highway 8 to the Grand Trunk Road.

From the borehole to the Delhi Jal Board

From the invertor to the BSES Rajdhani Power Company.

From Connaught Place to Nehru Place

From the cycle rickshaw to the “World’s Largest CNG-Powered Bus Fleet”.

From TTG to Sheila Dixit

From Vikas Marg to the NOIDA toll bridge

From Mall Road to Shopping Mall (MG) Road

From the Delhi Golf Club to the Classic Golf Resort

From the corpses of the Archana and Savitri movie theatres to the PVR Europa Lounges

From sting operators to attractive blog-journalists

From A Saket Resident, to a Resident Saket

From 47 degrees to 5-Metre-only visibility.

From Delhi Bitches to Honest Policemen

From Car Pool Partners to a Lack of Partners (1, 2)

From The Rules of Delhi to Delhi RULZ!

(From reading more, to ignoring the read more)

A meeting of Brains (and TTG as well)

Delhi Blogger’s Meet Report

Alas, this was the last Delhi Blogger’s Meet that yours truly attended. I don’t know when next I will meet more of this new and growing tribe. The meets till date, have been action-packed and drama-filled. Ah well.

All credit should be given to Vulturo for organising this Avatar of Delhi Blog Meets, i.e. “Bombay-Style” bloggers’ meets. Thanks man!

So.. a report…

for once, me and Saket didn’t end up as the first one’s at the meet (venue was the Barista IN CP OUTER CIRCLE, N-BLOCK).

So blasting “Starry Eyed Surprise” by Paul Oakenfold all the way to CP, I got there by about 7 pm (The meet was scheduled for 6.30) when many of the bloggers had already shown up.

I don’t have a list of all their URLS, but I’ll mention those I do know, and point you elsewhere for the rest, as when I get that info

So…

Came in sat down next to Aishwarya. On her Christmas post, I’d mentioned that I thought I’d discovered the secret to Happiness. Well, let me revise that to I think I’ve discovered to Contentment. It’s not an intense happiness, but one that can keep you going for a long, long time, and enables to you drive your car at 120 Km/H while singing at the top of your voice. I do that a lot these days. If you see a Hyundai Santro tearing down the streets and somebody yelling off tune…you’ve encountered TTG. I would reveal the secret here too, but I think it’s precious, so if you weren’t at the blog meet and your want the secret to Contentment, you’ll have to sleep with me before I give it you…and I’m Hetero, so sorry guys, no secrets for you (Said in the tone of the Seinfeld Soup Nazi).

Met Amit Verma (the Great), and was upset to find him a quiet soft-spoken fellow who behaved all decent and civilized and stuff. C’mon man, you’re the most popular blogger in the Indian Blogosphere (by Technorati rank and other such metrics). Be loud and bombastic and full of bluster.
But he wasn’t, so that responsibility was relegated to me instead.
Considering my past fisking and 1 abusive comment, he was nice to me. Ah well, what can you do. Considering what the Typist cartel has been saying about him these days, my stuff is all way back in the past.

I read his cricket posts on CricInfo way back when, and when he decided he would start blogging, I started following that too. He started MiddleStage and that time, I was a naive innocent young blogger, and thought that the picture of the man on the left sidebar was his. (As it turns out..it’s a Picasso. Whoops).

We discussed how to go about getting visas to Pakistan (he is going to cover the test matches for UK Paper, the lucky !#@#!#@#!

I met Chandrahas of MiddleStage too. He was what I would call a quiet chap. And I am wary of quiet chaps because they end up doing this.

Shivam Vij of Mall Road was the host, didn’t get to talk to him too much. In fact I didn’t get to talk too much to most of the people.

I did harangue Jabberwock for his dislike of Galouti Kebabs, and dislike of Ajay Devgan in Company.

And I confess here that I am the author of the “Jabberwock, shock, stock, cock” poem. Heehee. Hey it was funny at 2 am in the morning.

I spoke to Monica, of In Small Pieces and gathered that she works for a for-profit?? Human Rights organisation that I kept calling BreakFree instead of BreakThrough. Yesterday, I was all set to leave a nasty comment on her blog, only to find that she had only enabled comments for Team Members. HOW RUDE! But today, comments are enabled for everyone, so joy of joys, I went and left a comment.

Who else was there? Vulturo joined us a little late, there was a dude called Amit Gupta, and a guy called Arun Verma (no relation to Amit Verma).

Dhiraj of Bodhi Shop showed up, and two bloggers, who shall remain nameless thought he was purty sharp-looking.
Speaking of nameless bloggers (Dilip D’Souza), he sent us an SMS to say he was there in spirit (and undercover).

Codey showed up much later, and I woulda liked to talk to him, but he was monopolised by Nikhil.

I will avenge myself on Nikhil by not linking to his blog. Nikhil belongs to that other faction of Delhi Bloggers, who were very upset that Saket usurped their title and position. So Nikhil’s function at these blogmeets is to be sarcastic and contradict everyone. At this particular meet, he would raise an eyebrow everytime I would say anything to eM, and bitch about me to Codey everytime I would say anything to anybody else…Or at least that’s what it seemed like.

Hmmm the queen of “ChickLit” blogging/CatBlogging(eM) joined Saket in his accusation of calling me a CatBlogger as well!

They claim that my usage of ellipses (the “…” everywhere), “So” and “Fuck” put me in that category.

eM decided to coin it “LadLit” blogging. However ladlit sounds like Crud to me…so I hereby rename the male version of Chicklit blogging to ChickenLit Blogging. Since I’m a hairy Punju, I’ve decided to take it a step further and call it ButterChickenLit Blogging. Or even KuttaBlogging.

Wow, the rest of the Blog Meet Details can be found at Vulturo’s. Never realized they went for dinner afterwards! I, on the other hand, head to head home early.

Delhi Bloggers, I will miss you all. It’s been fun, insane and one heck of a rollercoaster. I don’t expect to write much from Melbourne, but I might.

I’ve got one or two rants left in me, and a sentimental post about Delhi languishing in the drafts section while I figure out if I wanna release it to the big,bad,harsh world.

Farewell for now!

Complexity (and Delhi Blogger’s Meet Announcement)

Lots of rambling

STICKY POST. Updates (however sparse, below)

I’m panicking. I have to book an airline ticket. I have to find a place to live. I have to pack. I have to fulfil a few goals I’ve recently set for myself. I have to meet a few people, and defy a few curfews

I’m suffering from ‘CrapBlogger’s block. (Do crapbloggers actually suffer from blocks? Do androids dream of electric sheep? Does the crud that develops in the corner of my eye every morning have a name, or is it just called EyeCrud?). Some people have ACTUALLY called me up and told me they check my blog first thing in the morning for updates. Guys, I really have nothing to say these days. So I’m filling in with autobiographical stuff instead. Maybe things’ll change in the New Year, or maybe when I get to Melbourne… who can say.

Amit Verma is going to be in Delhi on the 2nd of Jan, and there is going to be a Delhi Blog Meet in his honour. Saket/Vulturo is heading back to Bombay to take up his new job the day after. And it will be the last Delhi Blog Meet that I will be attending for a while as I go off to Melbourne to sell my soul (get an MBA) and qualify for a lower rung of Hell. Hey at least I’m in the VIP Lounge. The Lawyers and Socialists, Delhi Auto Rickshaw-walas and MCD officials are still a few levels below me :-p. I wonder if I’ll get to meet Nehru when I’m there…
Anyway, come one come all, to see the Tamasha, when Free-Marketeer Amit Verma clashes against Shivam Vij, and also has his impressions of TTG changed.

Mere ex-rival ki shaadi hai.
Ok here’s some boring personal information. Since I went to high-school in Delhi, I have more High-school-related stories while I’m here. So anyway, in my High School (twas a very SMALL and Private school), there was a competition between some of us…sort of. The guy who was #1 in class had held that position throughout, so we never challenged his might. But the #2 position was up for grabs, and there were 3 people in contention for that slot. By the time we graduated, I was the one who got it. Ha. Without even putting any real effort into it. But there were two other guys vying for that slot. One of them was like me, a not-much-effort-type dude. But the third guy…he was insane. He used make a note of all of OUR grades after every exam, he used to slash his wrist when the woman he loved wouldn’t return the lurrrvee..he used to get help from IIT professors to study Physics (and I still beat him. Stick it in yo-face!). (In school, he had a thing for a woman who is now a newsreader on one of them fancy English-speaking channels, I think it’s NDTV 24×7).
Anyway, he’s getting married this Jan, and it made me realize that my time is coming soon too. You see, I’m 26. This means that by Indian standards, I have hit marrigeable age. Many an old crone has checked me out from head to toe and asked me pointed questions about my job and salary filing it away for future match-making. Mercifully, my parents want me to actually be “settled” before I get married, so they keep pushing away offers, saying that their son has to get his MBA before he can get married. This means that I have till May 2007. The day I graduate, I will probably be expected to get on a horse and ride to Verma’s Banquet Hall (or the Maurya Sheraton..). Somebody is gonna have to explain to my parents that I don’t plan on getting married until I’m 35. And I would like to have slept with the woman before I marry her…. The thing is, that I’m a late bloomer. I had my last milk tooth out when I was 12. I learnt to walk when I was 2, or something. Right now, I have not learnt enough about women to prevent ending up as my wife’s bitch. I’ve just barely escaped a Delhi-Woman’s grasp and her mind games (and her new Italian Sausage). And women who don’t want to hold power trips over you are a rare and beautiful breed (you know who you are )
Does anybody else foresee a little family trouble on the horizon? Argh.

Okay, I’m publishing this post, but I’ve realized that the quality of this blog has really really really degenerated. Don’t expect me to write again until something/someone lights a fire under my ass. I’m off to play SimCity4. Goodbye for now, and may you all have a Happy New Year.

The Shame Of It All

Sad New Year’s Story…This is what Saket would call catblogging.

Something about the change of year brings me bad luck…

So…since about 1991, I haven’t celebrated a decent New Year’s Eve party. 99% of my New Year’s “celebrations” are bizarre occurrences. Let’s add a another pathetic one to the list….

So I go to an …acquaintance’s place for a party…I know this acquaintance somewhat. It’s been a brief acquaintance. She knows I like her in a non-platonic way (although…the feeling is not mutual). I decide that I will make out with her before the end of 2005 (or in the wee hours of 2006).

So I get to her place, complete with a half-bottle of Tequila, sit down, hang out, drink and talk.

The usual stuff, you know, like drinking games, and small talk.

Enter Big Annoying Stupid Tall Assholic Retard Dude. (or BASTARD, for short). Every attempt of mine at getting the woman alone, is thwarted by BASTARD. I go to the kitchen? He goes to the Kitchen. She wants to get to her secret stash of Vanilla Vodka (eww), I come along….and BASTARD barges in as well.

So this is not going so well, but TTG decides he’ll find a way to dispose of BASTARD…

But he doesn’t. Instead….BASTARD manages to get the woman alone…and then they disappear out into the balcony for about 20 minutes…

Possibility #1 – They went out to discuss Nuclear Physics, and why Einstein might be wrong.

Possibility #2 ……It’s New Years. Acquaintance is Lonely….

Anyway, so while this is happening, alcohol is inducing brain-stew in my mind. I’m thinking: “[Bad-word-for-fornication]!I have failed in my attempt to display my evolutionary mastery over the other primates at this social gathering. I will be relegated to a group of low-quality hunter-gathers. Alas! Woe is Me!”

TRANSLATION: “FUCK! I suck! I’m a loser!”

After hanging out at this party, all of the people were supposed to head on to another party elsewhere. But TTG had to sit down and take stock of the situation:

There are no single women here (there were only 4 women including Acquaintance, and the other 3 came with their boyfriends – this country has too much COCK I tell you!). Acquaintance has found her partner for the night. The party we’re going to may be no better..so…is there any point in hanging around here?

Further, being curfew boy, I have actually had a gazillion arguments with my dad this past festive season…
Is there any point in risking worse relations with my father without any potential for “action” tonight?

The word NO came blasting through the ethanol-induced haze in my mind.

So while Acquaintance and BASTARD were busy discussing the Benefits of Gene Therapy and Effects of Global Climate Change alone outside, TTG decided to put on his shoes and get his goonda jacket.

“Where are you going?” asked a sloshed chap.

“Oh just to go get something from my car” I replied.

And he drove back to his Cousin’s party…with his ‘tail’ between his legs.
Of course Acquaintance being a naive woman with oh-so-friendly intentions and all calls TTG about 30 mins later, wondering where he’s got to:

“I thought you said you were going to spend New Years with us” said she.

TTG’s mind is screaming – “YES, BUT IN A DIFFERENT WAY!”. But instead his voice responded with “I did spend New Years with you”. (I was at her place till 1 am).

Awkward pause…..”….Ok….” said she.

“Ok, bye” Said I.

The End.

Waking up today in the morning, hungover, and scrooed, I realise maybe they were just discussing Particle Physics, however unlikely. But it’s too late now. Argh. To be free of Self-Esteem issues and to just have a good time. How difficult is that really? Now, how to face Acquaintance after all this? (Mercifully, I’m leaving soon!) Alcohol, you’ve betrayed me once again in my hour of need. That’s it, I’m turning to Cocaine instead.
New Year’s Eve/Day you’ve done it to me again too. But no matter. The rest of the year will be better. I think.

Now that all’s been said and done, I can even go forth and reveal who the acquaintance is.

But as you can see, they WERE discussing particle phsyics. Ah well.

Yea, Me Too

A Year End Post…

Look 2005 has gone. Welcome to 2006.

The End

Ok hmmm, do I have any New Year Resolutions? No, not really.

Any past regrets from the last year? Some.
Anything special I want to share about the past year? No, it’s all on my blog anyway.

What the f am I posting for then? No Idea.

Happy New Year everyone!

What did I do last year for New Years? Well I’ve been back in India since February 2002. But between Feb 2002 and September 2005, I have had no social life (part of this is because of a very unhealthy 3-year long relationship with a nasty female canine – yes, Bestiality…). So…last year, me, my sister, my cousin and his wife went to a restaurant called ‘Ploof’ in Lodhi Colony and had dinner. After dinner, we drove around like a bunch of fuckfaces, and ended up celebrating New Years on Aurobindo Marg, midway between Jor Bagh and Green Park. Now just like there is a Barista ‘Creme’ in South Ex, an upmarket Barista, there is the Cafe Coffee Day Lounge in Green Park….all the waitresses there (and I mean ALL of them) wear the shortest skirts I’ve ever seen and all have bleached hair and all are tall and model-like. So after celebrating New year’s on the middle of the road we went to the CCD Lounge and had a coffee there.

Twas the strangest New Year’s ever. This year I hope it will be better spent.. let’s see how it goes..

The Sepia Mutiny Spat…

Anna wrote this

So I wrote this in the comments section:
2 · TTG on December 29, 2005 06:12 AM · Direct link

Blah blah blah blah. At the end of the day we’re all Americans, whether we’re Canadian or mexican. What’s an arbitrary line drawn across a map? At the end of the day we’re all white, whether we’re French or German, Allied or Nazi, what’s a little skin colour there….oh…wait…this is Sepia Mutiny….but I assume the Sepia refers to a time period, ya know like sepia-tinted photos. Why stop at the Sepia colour. We are all great apes at the end fo the day. I recommend you really get politically correct, and rename this site: Additonal-Melanin-Coloured-Primates-From-A-Part-Of-Pangea-Mutiny. Why do you stop at Sepia. How dare you not include people from the rest of Asia. From the rest of Eurasia. From the rest of the universe. Why is your arbitrary separation more sensible than mine? Especially considering Pakistan & Bangladesh are only 50-something years old. India is far older.

As really difficult as this seems to be to comprehend – the Idea of India is a very very old idea, far older than you my dear. And it is not the prejudiced, exclude-the-muslims-and-pakis-type idea that some random commenters seem to believe. It actually does stand for something. It is a place of refuge, for parsis, for tibetans, for buddhists, for nepalese. It is a place where Hindus and Muslims, despite everything actually do live together. It’s a place which spawned at least 17 different reformist movements. Stop f-ing diluting my country’s name with a bunch of jihadis. And you’re right, Pakistani food IS very similar to Indian food….that is because it bloody well is Indian food, for [bad-word-for-fornication]’s sake.

http://25worldcountry.blogspot.com/2005/09/south-asian-my-ass.html

So she got pissed off and wrote this:

7 · A N N A the Orthodox on December 29, 2005 08:30 AM · Direct link

Stop f-ing diluting my country’s name with a bunch of jihadis.

Yeah? I could ask you to stop f-ing with my identity, my processes of self-definition, my memories of my late father on this day when I lost him, just a few years ago. Where does that get us? I’m not trying to fucking dilute a damned thing, got that? And if that paki food which jihadis eat is so familiar to you b/c it’s INDIAN then guess what, those jihadis are Indian and part of your ancient concept, too. If you want to claim it, claim all of it. Where does this get us? Did you even READ the second part of my post? We are coming from wayyy different places, that’s why we’re never going to agree, that’s why the nastiness towards us is pointless.

Anna’s post and TTG’s response, illustrates that there *is* a difference between Indian-Americans and Indians. A failure to recognize this is usually the precursor to a full-fledged flame war. Differences between Indians and Pakistanis may not mean much in the American context as evidenced by the fact that many second-generation and even first-generation immigrant desis are happy to identify themselves as “South Asian.”

Sigh. I was honestly hoping that I was clear and not offensive, I don’t want to be flambed, not today of all days. Did you read the second part of my post? If someone as nice as you didn’t understand what I wrote, bleary-eyed in the middle of the night/morning, then I’m fretful. This is what I was trying to say: I totally grok the huge difference between “them and us”, that’s why I talked about not being able to understand the other’s backstory, after not living anything close to it.

If second-generation desis feel irritated by the failure of many recent arrivals to recognize the “American” component of their identity [I am not suggesting that Indian-Americans are schizophrenic in that they have two distinct parts to their selves:-)], then they should recognize that attempts to emphasize the “unity” of all South Asian identities can irriate many Indians/Pakistanis/whatever.

Thank you so much for being so diplomatic and kind with your words, I really appreciate that. I do recognize that our stance can irritate “them”. Do they realise the same? Are they tolerant enough to agree to disagree? Or is this too addictive and easy a meme to give up, since the rants which include possessive statements about anatomy are too fun to write? What kills me is this– do they think that we love India any less? That we aren’t as proud, that we don’t cherish her history and beauty as much as they do? Love isn’t a finite resource. I can love India AND still have some pink, heart-shaped stuff to spare.

So then 70 comments later, I figured I needed to give a response, so I wrote this:

Cool.

a) My post was not ill-tempered, it was littered with exactly 2 cusswords. Maybe I suffer from Tourette’s syndrome, comprendo?

b)

Yeah? I could ask you to stop f-ing with my identity, my processes of self-definition, my memories of my late father on this day when I lost him, just a few years ago.

Ok….this….is just sad. I made no reference to your father, his thoughts, or anything related personally to him. I addressed a very general problem, and as my blog post itself indicates, this is not a new debate (that post was written months ago). You brought up the topic of South Asian-ism, not me. You didn’t expect to flamed about this? Seriously? Why mention it at all of this was a post more about your father?

c)

What kills me is this– do they think that we love India any less? That we aren’t as proud, that we don’t cherish her history and beauty as much as they do?

Your ‘loyalty’ to India is never being questioned, nor even examined. You’re a 2nd-gen. In my eyes, you hold an American passport, and to me, that makes you American. I would expect you get angry when somebody spit on an American flag, or abused America. I would not expect you to go give your life for India, or to defend it, or to ‘love it’. If you do, great. If you don’t, great. The point is this, can you let the people who live, work, die and pay the taxes in India speak for where they feel they belong? Maybe you are referring to a common identity in the US, if so, I respectfully, kindly, and non-ill-temperedly ask you to refer to it as an American-South-Asian identity. When you guys in America dilute the Indian identity, it HURTS us. Hurts us professionally, socially and in more ways that you can fathom. There is no reason. None. Not a single reason, why ANYONE from India should be fingerprinted while entering the US of A, or doubly scrutinized while applying for a visa. I am asking you as an Indian – has my country done any harm to yours? Has my country vehemently opposed America and asked for all Americans to be killed? Why am I being bracketed with the rest of the people who are? Is it because Americans refuse to see a difference, or because people who have Indian origins refuse to acknowledge a difference? And I am going to say it again, to the person who says that the concepts of India and Pakistan are a COLONIAL hangover. Buddy, you need to go speak to Ashoka and Akbar. They might give you a concept of India, which predates White People Conquest, ok?

And if that paki food which jihadis eat is so familiar to you b/c it’s INDIAN then guess what, those jihadis are Indian and part of your ancient concept, too.

Show me an Indian suicide bomber/terrorist/jihadi, and I’ll eat my words, whether they taste Pakistani, or Indian.

Let people who want to call themselves South-Asian continue to do so. There’s no point in trying to convince those who have already made up their mind. Instead, it’s better to concentrate on those Indian-americans who have not formed their identity yet. The ones who are still in school or college. The ones whose minds can be molded. They are the ones we are working on, and changing their mentality successfully so that they don’t want to associate with anything Pakistani or Bangladeshi (Sri Lanka is just fine).

MoorNam, this is a bizarre statement. Sri Lanka is not fine. In Sri Lanka, they specifically wanted to escape the nonsense that occured on the Mainland, and thus turned Buddhist to a great extent. They also wanted to be different. Plus…they aren’t Indian. They’re Sri Lankan. I am not stating their need to separate themselves as either a negative or a positive, but as a fact.

We are coming from wayyy different places, that’s why we’re never going to agree

But then why stir this hornet’s nest at all – and just let. it. go. You brought it up. Not me.

Anna, my calling myself Indian does not cause the amount of hate directed against Muslims/Pakistanis/Bangladeshis/Anybody else to spread. I am not exhorting people to go out and kill the non-Hindus, or all the Pakistanis/Bangladeshis. While some of the commenters who want to specify themselves as Indians DO want that, I don’t and have never said that.

I am simply asking the world to recognise, that Indian does not = Pakistani. What is so wrong about this? I am not saying we can’t live in the same world or the same dorm room. Let’s just recognise there is a difference, and take it from there.

No difference between a Pakistani-American and an Indian-American? Great. I wish all you American-South-Asians and your fingerprinting and your samosafests well.

And just tell me this – if it’s ok to call all of us South Asian, is it then ok to call Muslims the same, and ignore their national boundaries? Shouldn’t we then scrutinize all Muslims everywhere as possibly being Jihadis?

After all Muslims also share a common culture right? Regardless of national boundaries?

Please, let’s recognise the differences. An Indian Christian ain’t the same as an Eastern Orthodox one, and so on and so forth.

I don’t believe recognising a person’s differences means you can’t “Share The Love” with them. It just makes your world more colourful, and diverse.

Further, while my initial post is not the most respectfully worded, what I do object to is the tone of condescension in the Sepia posts that seem to so totally just dismiss the FOBs back here.

They didn’t know what it was like to be the only Indian, hell, the only Asian, fcuk it, the only non-white kid in school. They didn’t have classmates circle them and make “oooh-wah-wah-wah�? noises by quickly touching their lips with their fingers, over and over again, in some horribly insulting mimicry of a misnamed kind of Indian. They didn’t walk a mile in my moccasins. So they don’t know where I’m coming from, just like I can’t even commence imagining what it’s like to walk a few kilometers in their chappals. I just think if you give me what’s on my Christmas list, this blog (ahem, and this world) would be an even awesomer place.

Do YOU know what it’s like when 5 bombs go off in your city, and maybe you have lost your loved ones? Do you know what it’s like when the car park of a shopping mall might just turn into a blood bath on any given day? That something as simple as watching a movie might be the last thing you ever do? Do you know what it’s like to live in the fear that anyday, people might just barge into your college and start killing Science Professors?

And then to have your so-called “betters” sitting halfway across the world decide to pronounce judgement on your values.

South-Asian-Americans, please keep to yourselves, mind your own business, and let the Indians take care of India.

Last time I checked, the most popular investment destinations were India and China, not South Asia and China. Should we donate some of that money to our South Asian brethren in the spirit of brotherly love, like-mindedness and Brown Skin? Would that make the world a better place do you think?

I’m going to repeat it again – the Idea of India is far, far older than that of South Asia. South Asia was imposed upon us by a bunch of morons, and now you are taking it further.

* * *

I have been banned by the Great Sepia Mutiny Overlords, in their infinite wisdom of assuming that my comments are abusive. NOTE: This is may be due to some other weird reason

You are not allowed to post comments. Please refer to the comments policy in the Add comment section in every post.

So while I wait for my non-static AirTel DSL IP to change, the post stays here…

Update
(see Comments…)

Wow, I never thought you guys would actually care!

Isa Da Heppy-Burday

(Punjabi for Merry Christmas)

I am on strike. I simply refuse to rant. It must be the festive season. Actually, maybe it’s because I’m just generally Happy, with a capital H these days. I regret to inform you that I’ve mellowed out…well let’s see how long it [bad-word-for-fornication]-ing lasts.

Observations:

The fastest a Hyundai Santro Xing (not the eRLX model) can do on the NOIDA toll road is 140 Km/H before the Engine says Uncle (and Aunty too).

The fastest a Honda City (new model, but not VTEC) can do on the NOIDA toll road is 180 Km/H but then I ran out of Toll Road. Boohoo.

It’s cold.

Patrix, your 2 posts on your return to India sucked. But not for the reasons that Vulturo is afraid of. Oh if I were just a little unhappier, this post would be a rant

A blogger who shall remain nameless(not Dilip D’Souza) actually dared to reject a comment I had left on his blog one day. And it was the most innocuous comment too. It said: “Hey Samit, nice meeting you at eM’s Party. BTW, since I’m referring to you on my blog, just thought I’d let you know”. Just publishing it here so that the truth is not lost to anus of blog history. Or something.

Saket’s new name is 12DrinksAhead. Further, the !$#@#!$@#! dared to call my blog a ‘CatBlog’, when he was only OneDrinkAhead. I swear by the blood of a squished malaria-bearing mosquito, I will have my vengeance, and then some.

Aanchal, nice Christmas/Birthday party.

Last of all, The Trump Card – This is what I bring out when I’m on my last ditch attempt at getting a woman to date me:

Me, aged 2.5 years old. Photo pasted in passport which got me to Hong Kong.

“See..now if you go out with me, we might fall in love and get married, and then YOU could have a baby as adorable as that picture”.

Little TTGs running around all over the place. Oh what a fantasy!!!!!

ignore read more (after you’re done pulling my cheeks…ahem, the UPPER ones!)

Oh and a question to the rare people who actually visit my blog:

“King Kong” or “Chicken Little”? Which would you see and why. Discuss.

More random stuff

Of Horse Woman, and other trivial matters (I ripped off somebody’s blog name! The shame of it all I tell you!)Ok, so first off, I’ve been terribly sick with a cold for the past 3 days. Why? Because I haven’t bought new winter clothing since 2000. The connection? Well I only have two sweaters, and two sweatshirts. The sweaters make me look like a grandpa (they’re my dad’s), the sweatshirts make me look gay. So whenever I go out, I wear a shirt, with a T-shirt underneath and my gangster jacket (If I’m unshaven, I think it makes me look like a goonda). Thing is, that isn’t enough for Delhi weather these days, so I got an awful cold, and have been totally out of it.

Related to that point, is cold medicine. Cold medicine makes one drowsy. Along with the sleep come some of the most bizarre and intense dreams. Having taken the first dose of medicine after a trip to Turquoise Cottage, I dreamt about TC the whole goddam night. The only thing missing in that dream was a wild orgy. But that could be because I don’t remember all of it…. The next day I was re-reading Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead just because I can, and the dreams were full of people talking in those solemn mind-reading tones you find in those books.

I’m going blind.
NO, not because of masturbation, you freaks! Because my monitor is on the blink.
Here, take a look:

The image is squished. Can anybody tell me if 17″ monitors are available for around Rs. 4000 anywhere in South/Central Delhi? The sardarji we buy our computer stuff from tells me that a shitty 15″ comes for 4600, and I think he’s ripping me off. Looks like I’ll have to get my butt to Nehru Place soon…

The Return of HorseWoman.
Who is horsewoman? HorseWoman is a woman I met 2 years ago. She’s my mother’s cousin’s girlfriend’s daughter. I’m completely serious. Anyway, I met her, and I thought she was hot, but I was very much into my ex-girlfriend-who-wasn’t. Since there wasn’t much happening with my girlfriend-who-wasn’t, we decided to take a break. During that break, I called up horsewoman, and met up for coffee, because I wanted to show my girlfriend-who-wasn’t that she shouldn’t be taking me for granted. Biatch. Now horsewoman is very hot (tall and fit), but there are a few issues…if you haven’t guessed it yet…she’s obsessed with one thing, and one thing alone…Do I really need to mention what it is she’s obsessed with? And I mean obsessed. Her phone’s wallpaper has horses, the sms tone is a horse neigh, there are posters up in her room, and of course, she is an expert rider….ahem… the er… fact that she’s good at riding studs….is the part that appealed to TTG. (Plus the fact that horse-riding breaks hymens…so…..). Look, this is a male blog. This is how this male thinks. Get over it. Anyway, so we’re out for coffee, and we run out of things to talk about really quickly. Now TTG knows something about everything, so he usually mentions a buzzword here and there, and that gets the conversation flowing….but when it comes to horses…I had to give up. After asking idiot questions like “What kind of horses are native to India – did they originate in Arabia” and other such stuff, I had to quit. I almost reached a point of desperation and was about to ask her loudly in the middle of Barista: “CAN WE GO MAKE OUT NOW? We’ve talked for 30 minutes, that should at least equal a tentative first kiss?”. But I restrained myself. Anyway, to cut a long story short, me and horsewoman met once again, we went out to Steel with her friends, but Horsewoman is a decent woman who doesn’t drink, and she didn’t dance much, and she didn’t seem to want to make out either…so after Steel, I drive her back to her place…and instead of opening the door and getting out of the car…she’s sitting there waiting….awkward moment, because I’ve already decided that (yech)I’m still in love with my girlfriend-who-wasn’t and can’t really get myself to make any moves…so she’s waiting…and I had to just like say “OK, well BYE…” and then she opened the door and left. HorseWoman, I just want you to know it wasn’t your fault.

I think HorseWoman suspected I was psycho, because after that night, we never went out again, but she did call me over to her place a year later to do some psych tests for her project (her undergrad major was psych)…This must have been some form of revenge…(trust me, it wasn’t an attempt to seduce me).

Anyway, after that she disappeared, and we didn’t speak to each other again, until I figured I’d re-establish contact with her this September, in an attempt to get over my ex-girlfriend who wasn’t. So we finally go out for coffee today (after 3 months of phone-tag. She’s busy in IAS coaching classes, and playing games, clearly!)
She’s as hot as ever, and she no longer just talks about horses. She’s looking at a few potential men right now to get into a serious relationship with. I tried to convince her that you’re only young once, and flings are the way to go…but she didn’t seem to buy it. Sigh. And now I’m on my way to Melbourne.

Update:
I’ve just realized…that to this day, I have never asked HorseWoman what her last name is…or even when her birthday was/is….Just goes to show where my priorities lie…

Which brings me to my last point. I got my visa today. Yay. AUSTRALIA, HERE I COME!

FUQ-Us

The Meaning of Life (FUQ-Us)

Is 42, but I’d rather 69…ooh did I just say that out loud?

Ok so this is not a post about the meaning of life.

So, TTG, what is this post about then?

Well, lately many people have unasked me lots of questions, so I thought that I’d make up a list of Frequently Unasked QUestions…or FUQ-Us

You lame-ass bastard. Couldn’t you find a better joke to make?

No, Mysterious, Abusive Alter-Ego, I could not.

So get on with it then.

You’re in bold, so… you ask the questions…

Ok, Question 1: What the FuQ-U does your blog title mean anyhoo?

My blog title – Voice From A 2.5-World Country – is a shockingly clever attempt at highlighting the fact that India is no longer a 3rd-World country, but a 2.5-World Country. For some reason this title is too clever (or causes too much disbelief amongst the unwashed masses, ‘typists’ and “don’t-label-me-free-market-hater”s).

I started this blog in 2003, when “The India Story” was just beginning, and there was a lot of negative publicity about India, and severe lack of awareness in the country of my Alma Mater (Sam Uncle). Before setting up this blog, I used to have this circle of friends whom I used to e-mail – I would send them pictures of India which they would not find in the MSM. Pictures of the NOIDA toll bridge, a few malls, GK-1 M Block Market, The whole New Delhi Area (Raj Path, Rashtrapati Bhavan, e.t.c), and of course, pictures of me, complete with the rants. Unfortunately, some of the people I e-mailed were American, and they took offense at some of the things I said, and decided to Reply All to my e-mails, giving me a sound cursing (which was visible to my friends too). So I abandoned the e-mail idea… then when I read about this thingy called Blogging one day, I went to Blogger and set up an account (2003). But I realized I had nothing to say, because I was too busy dealing with a woman who I thought was my girlfriend-but-wasn’t. So the account lay idle for a year, and lack of sex (ok actually, it was the fact that Google was giving gmail accounts to active bloggers..) basically frustrated me enough to start writing in May 2004.

Anyway.. so this blog was meant to give you a “different” take on living in India.

“You take the average of 1st-World and 4th-World” blah blah

I didn’t ask for a whole treatise. Question 2: Are you gay? (not that there’s anything wrong with that)

No. Are you?

No. Question 3: What the F is up with your Alias, and that funny little logo thing?

In my dark past there are a lot of incidents. Some of them I have revealed over jugs of Alcohol, and others I have not. There was a particularly nasty incident involving me in my high-school days, which I will not recount (but will mention that it has something to do with the girls’ bathrooms), that left me with an Ironic Nickname. That nickname was Tarun (The Great). TTG. One day, when me and my friends were not busy making the art teacher cry by drawing boobies instead of pears (and getting -20 on blank pieces of paper), I was just doodling around, and came up with a way of putting TTG together. It was true art, I tell you! So that’s where the logo comes from. I’m sorry if you were expecting a better story. I don’t live to impress YOU, comprendo?

Uh-huh. Question 4: Why do you rant so much?

Why not? We all blog because there’s something lacking in our lives (or so I believe). It could be a Mercedes we’re missing, it could be a boyfriend/girlfriend, or, in my specific case, it could be a lack of people with ears which are strong enough to withstand my ranting, cursing, loud voice.

What do you have against Dilip D’Souza, Deesha.org and the other blogs on your former “Blogs I Dislike/Disagree With” list?

Nothing personal. I started out by blogging less, and commenting more. Commenting and flaming was fun, but it started losing its charm when people started remembering my name. It really lost its charm when they started ignoring my comments. So sulking, I I started posting more often (big mistake!).

Question 5: Why are you so obsessed with Anoushka Shankar?

a) I have nothing better to do
b) She is a ‘Famous Person’ and I was actually only one degree of separation from her
c) Actually, I am in love with Norah Jones (because of her voice, SEXY, DUH), and I figure I could use Anoushka to get to Norah…eventually…

Who is terah475?
I don’t know, but anybody who can write that many poems in my comments section needs to be mentioned.
What kind of a last name is “Pall” anyway? Why the double L?

Sigh. Long story. Pall is actually Pal. But ancient, inherited school-leaving certificates determine your name. So it’s Pall. Further, Pal is actually just the middle name of my long-gone Paternal Grandpa. I won’t reveal my last name, because that would reveal my caste. HA! And no, I am not even remotely Bengali.

Who is John Galt?
Find out for yourself…
Okay now lemme cheat and ask you an FAQ, instead of a FUQ-U. Is there something up with you and eM?

There is absolutely nothing up between me and eM. A really,really,really long post has been written on this…and it’s languishing as a draft, while I await my visa. Once I’ve skipped town, the whole story will out (don’t get so excited, it’s not half as interesting as you think).

I Don’t Want A Simpler Life, Thanks

These rants, they just keep coming and coming…

Spoke to a Cynical Lawyer Neighbour the other day. He is considered some sort of local expert on e-commerce here in Delhi, and he had to give a speech on it some time this week. When he found out that I’d worked at Amazon, he figured who better to get the scoop on what e-commerce was all about. So we talked for a bit (B2C, B2B, ICU ILU, ILU, er.. wait.. sorry, wrong acronyms)and ’twas actually an interesting discussion…and at the end of it all, he says: “I see us heading towards a more complex world, one in which the Haves will just sit on their fat asses, while the Have-nots will carry on toiling as they always have. Now you can order every bloody thing off the Internet..blah blah bark bark bark woof woof woof moo moo snort snort snort”

(So much for respectably presenting an opposing point of view).

There is another bunch of people which long for simpler days (I assume many of them have grey hair, but when one ASSUMES, one makes an ASS out of U and ME, haardeehaarhaar). They long for the days when we weren’t surgically attached to our cellphones, when a rotten wooden stick would be enough to spark a child’s imagination, and s/he didn’t need ‘BeyBlades’ or Pokemon Cards (don’t even get ‘em started on First-Person Shooter games on the PC..RamRam)….

Ok, now I know this will cause a few guffaws…but unfortunately, you see, XBoxes and Playstations, Cellphones and Digital diaries…these things are the product of this thing called Intellect. And you see, the thing about Intellect is that it doesn’t remain stagnant.

The FACT that just looking at a rotten piece of wood sparks a Child’s imagination is what prompted that kid to grow up and design an XBox.

I read somewhere about somebody lamenting the fact that the world has changed and that with the advent of the cellphone, we have all lost our private lives and people have become rude…..no.

The guy who was rudely talking to somebody on the cellphone is the same guy who would have been making flatulence symphonies before the advent of cellphones. He would have been the guy who sat at the back of the Globe Theatre and laughed at the people who were crying when Romeo bhaiya died, while munching on almonds or something (whoops, that was me).

He is the same guy who cut in front of Mugga and Wugga when they were in line to slice up their piece of Wooly Mammoth and Sabre-Toothed Tiger.

Technology doesn’t make us more annoying, we always were annoying! (Note to Self: PLEASE LAY OFF ALCOHOL. It has seriously [bad-word-for-fornicate]ing loosened my tongue, and caused me to reveal things I would normally stuff into the recesses of my mind. Well there go my chances of running for Supreme Military Dictator of India)..

So just like I cannot survive for 15 minutes without my cellphone, Mugga & Wugga were probably regretting leaving their spiked wooden clubs at home that day….

This is called the Relentless March of Technology. It’s usually advisable to do as Humans have done over the milennia and ADAPT to these changes(or perish). Yes, a cellphone is annoying in a movie theatre (and apparently has caused some trouble for steamy after-school oral pleasure-seekers as well…) but for some people it might be the difference between life & death.

Name-Calling

I’m bored. This is a pointless post. You’ve been warned.

To all the people who took the courtesy to respond to my previous post – I’m tired of arguing – if you want to construe that as not having anything to argue back with, so be it. I have more pressing concerns “write” now, than the all out Libertarian Cartel-”I’m a Typist/I Support Free-Markets-But”-ist Cartel War raging away in the blogosphere.

Page 3 of Blogging

I have been called many things by many people lately.
The Times of India, that esteemed and venerable old publication called me an Elite Blogger (and if the TOI said it, it must be true. I just wish they’d put me in their “December Babes” section).

The GreatBong called me The Recurring 2.49999999

Vulturo has given me the Best Ranter of the Year award.

A woman going by the alias of Small has christened me Curfew Boy (and she thinks I have big cheeks). Bugger.

Jayesh (of booletpoints) called me the Page 3 of Blogging, and a New-Generation Indian…

A blogger who shall remain nameless (not Dilip D’Souza, this time) has said that I am a “crapblogger”, who has trouble forming cogent arguments, and who swears too much…

I would just like to address the last name-calling by saying that… YES – I AM A crapblogger Art and Stuff
Went to the DLF GOlf Club on Saturday for a little ‘Wealth Management’ party. (Not my wealth, my dad’s….)
An Australian-Indian woman, going by the name of Manasi Scott tried to entertain all the old fogies there. She tried to get them to sing along with her when she started singing ‘Kaisi Paheli Zindagani’ from Parinita…you know like walking off stage and going to tables and stuff…then she switched to Walking In Memphis…surreal… Anyway, while I was there, they had this little art exhibition, where the best of the best had put their stuff up. Now when it comes to art, I know exactly 2 things:

1) That MF Husain wanders around barefoot
2) That Paresh Maity proposed to my sister a long time ago when she used to work for Art Today (she refused).

So I saw this painting by a woman called Sabia called “Chess”, which had a woman kneeling on a chess board (the picture will come up soon. It’s cumbersome to transfer stuff off my mobile phone…). Somehow I want to get a copy of that pic and put it up on my wall. I’ve lost my mind, I tell you.

Mini Blog Meet
Anyway, I had nothing to do this weekend (which should be clear by now) so when Saket called me, I raced off to NOIDA to share a pitcher of beer with him at Geoffrey’s… Talked about this and that, and then we were joined by Aanchal and a guy called Gaurav, who is a close friend of Aanchal’s… so you could say that the Elite Blogger’s Cartel had a meeting, but we were missing River. Anyway, we just talked about this and that, and I had to strenuously deny a few rumours and things.

Happiness (and Freedom) as it turns out, is driving/tearing down the NOIDA toll bridge at 120 Km/H (75 Mph) singing “Don’t Lie” by the Black Eyed Peas and “Yellow” by ColdPlay at the top of your voice – so loudly your voice breaks and you end up with a sore throat… ahem.

After that, I went and had dinner with Nishel (the woman in the picture I put up 2 weeks ago) and Colombian woman A and American-Indian woman S, all of whom have been mentioned on this blog before. Beware folks – when 3 sexually-liberated women get together for a conversation, make sure you’re not eating anything that looks even remotely like a phallus….you will be sure to lose your appetite..

Another type of Paralysis

Snogalysis: n. The inability to engage in a conversation with a person because the only thought going thru your head is: “Growl! I wanna make out with you!”

Was there a point to this post? No.

Oh yea…also..

How to discretely compliment a woman, and end up looking like an ass:

See the comments to this post.

LOL!

Update – More Page 3 of Blogging (and, coincidentally, art)

Went to an art-exhibit today. Who’s art? It was Anoushka Shankar’s ex/not-ex boyfriend’s(N) younger sister’s art exhibit.

So we’re viewing the art (me and Tango), along with N…and then Anoushka herself shows up.

…

I’m crushed. She’s so not attractive in person. Argh. She could literally pass fer any other woman on the street. They do some sort of make up or something in most of her news photos. Argh. Fallen idol and all that.

Anyway, so she comes up to us, and she’s met Tango before, but I’m new, so I shake her hand and say “I’m Tarun, and I know who YOU are..”. Awkward smile and laugh (probably thinking “Okkkkk weirdoooooo”), she mutter’s “Hey” back, and then she wander’s off to talk to N’s parents.

The End.

Ari Ari Ari (Adipa!)

My Theme Song

Ok, so the last few posts have been absolute crud, and this is because, I am actually suffering from Blogalysis/Rantalysis

Blogalysis: n. An inability to blog brought on by having too many topics to blog about, and not knowing which should be brought to the fore.

Rantalysis: n. An inability to rant brought on by feelings of immense anger/hatred/frustration felt on reading a Socialist/Communist/”I’m in support of Free Markets but…”-ist

Anyway, so since I’m suffering from these -alyses, I decided to pick another frivolous topic.

If your blog had a theme song, what would it be?

Now, while a lot of people will give profound and spiritual answers (some song by Dylan, or The Doors, or Hendrix, or U2), you have to understand, that I’m Punjabi. So instead, I’ve decided that the honour for the TTG Blog Theme goes to…:

Baraa Barsi – Bombay Rockers

Basically, if I were a little more shameless, I’d have that song playing in the background everytime you visted this blog, but I have some standards, however sparse, so I’ll just ask you to pretend it’s playing everytime you visit my blog.

Baraa barsi is some Punju folk that the dholwalas always sing in Punju weddings. They make up verses, each dedicated to family members, (so when they sing the verse with the word ‘Mama’ in it, the Maternal Uncle bounces out of the circle into the middle and does the Indian Wedding Uncle Dance (usually with some Scotch in his hand, OF COURSE).

ooooookkkkkkkkkkkkkkk…..that being said, The Bombay Rockers have of course, remixed it in their Punjabo-Danish fashion, and I hereby declare it the Theme to Voice From A 2.5-World Country.

Now if I was a famous blogger, I’d have started a new Blog meme, and tagged 4/5 people. But you see, I am an elite blogger, and therefore, have no such pretensions :-p. But if you DO get inspired by this post, remember to link back, complete with bend-over-backwards-praise.

BTW, Yes, I am fully aware about Operation Duryodhan (Gratuitous Link), and I have nothing to say, because all has been said about that. And of course, there was the whole goddam after-party post

I even wrote a whole rant about it…but there were so many cusswords in it, that I got a notice from Blogger saying I needed to pike down (ok, not really).

The Yumnam Effect

A “Page 3 of Blogging” style post…

Went to a party last night. Met Samit Basu there. The conversation went as follows:

Me: Hi
Samit: Hi.
Me: You’re Samit? Samit who?
Samit: Samit Basu.
Me: Oh cool, Duck of Destiny right? Congrats on your Book Launch. By the way, I’m TTG
Samit: Ah yes of course, you’re the Elite Blogger!

Samit is a lot younger than he sounds on his blog. I was expecting a 36 year-old, and got a 26 year old instead.

Anoushka Shankar is back with her ex-boyfriend (the one she’s been with fer 10 years or so), the old half-breed Goat! Will these two lay off each other and give the rest of us a chance. “Tango” (friend and blog commentor) is gunning for the boyfriend, and well we all know about me. Tango was meant to sell me to Anoushka tonight…but she(Anoushka) was liplocked…

Hmmm what other gossip do I have….none at the moment…

My Name Ain’t Mud (Or Keechad either…)

A simple solution to an idiotic problem

How to oppose the change of name to Bengaluru…er… insist on calling it Bangalore…and correct your children, your children’s children and the dog’s bark too when they say Bengaluru.

When the fuggers and buggers of the world decided to rename Bombay to Mumbai, I decided to perform a little civil disobedience. I still call it Bombay, and will continue to do so till I go to my grave – which based on my recent driving skills seems to be much sooner than I had forecast

Call me an angrez, or that I was born with a topi on my head whatever. Middle-finger extended, I say Bombay.

The same goes for Connaught Place. It’s f-ing Connaught Place, not Rajiv Chowk. In fact, half of Delhi doesn’t even KNOW that CP was renamed Rajiv Chowk, because we will always know the place as CP.

And Bang-Galore. Why would you ever want to change the name of place with a name like that? Is Bang(C)Ko(c)k being changed to Bengukoku?

So c’mon folks, go back to your (eeeesh) Gandhian roots, and Quit Bengaluru.

Jai Bangalore!

Oh yes, and I just remembered….er….Indian Airlines….is being renamed….Indian Airlines!

YAY!

Yes, I KNOW it’s only being renamed to “Indian”. But envision the following conversation between two intellectually-challenged people (one of them being me :-p)

Me:So what airline are you flying by?

Anoushka Shankar(for want of a better name. She’s in Delhi, performing in Elevate as we speak.., and I’m this close to getting her number..): Indian.

Me: Indian Airlines?

Anoushka: No, just Indian.

Me: ….but that’s an airline..so Indian Airlines…right?

Anoushka: Shut up and kiss me you fool!

[CENSORED]

Social Ambiguities

nd other randomnessSex is like Cricket, you’re only as good as your last performance
Sex is like Cricket, the REAL deal is the 5-day game
Sex is like Cricket(for men), wood is a necessity, as are balls.
Sex is like Cricket, why settle for 4, when you can hit 6
Sex is like Cricket, without protection, you could be out for 9 months
Sex is like Cricket, you will be punished for blocking incoming balls with your leg
Sex is like Cricket, if you’re not in sync with your partner, one of you’ll get run out.
Sex is like Cricket, everyone wants to be (Wo)Man of the Match
Sex is like Cricket, you really ought to Pace your Innings (you might not get two!)

Ok, just thought all that stuff up on the spot (no, really!).

Additions by RTD2

Sex is like Cricket, practice makes perfect.
Sex is like Cricket (for straight men), you’d really like to bowl a maiden over.
Sex is like Cricket, sometimes a silly point can be dangerous.
Sex is like Cricket, it’s easy for me to get stumped in both.
Sex is like Cricket, it’s all (Indian) guys think about

***

So… you go out for dinner with people from the Business School you’ve just got into. They’re paying for it. Do you go against the crowd, and not order the set dnner? If everybody else is having White Wine, do you go for the Red? (if you’re me, you say Fuck It and do so…).

Anyway, today I meet my ex-Car Pool partner for dinner (her name is M, she’s been on this blog before). I figured I’d give her a nice treat and stuff, and we could sorta say goodbye properly. (Besides, she’s an attractive Bong women, and TTG likes having dinner with attractive women, Bong or otherwise )
So the thing is, she’s (happily) married. And we’ve not had any physical contact ever (duh). Is it appropriate to give her hug? A handshake? (More on handshakes later – I hearby declare shaking women’s hands to be illegal. You might as well just stamp a sign on my forehead saying “I AM NOT MAN ENOUGH TO BE GAY EVEN” rather than shake my hand…). Been wondering about this for a while – HEY I’ve had nothing better to do for the past month, OK!

In other news, what do you get as a birthday present for somebody you’ve met recently? It can’t be too cheap, because you don’t wanna look cheap (although maybe a birthday card would do). It can’t be too expensive, because a)You’re a miser, and the person doesn’t merit an expensive present yet :-p, b) it might freak said person out. But you wanna get on this person’s good side Problem is, what’s too cheap, and what’s too expensive? And this isn’t a close friend. Shopping for close friends, at least for me, is next to impossible! Argh! Well ‘cept this one time when I got my closest friend an answering machine – and that was a strong hint, because that pig never used to return my calls (this was in America, about 4 years ago – SMS hadn’t been invented there yet, I’m serious!, plus we were broke college students, so we couldn’t afford cellphones). I suppose tying a red ribbon round me in my birthday suit, and jumping out of the birthday cake and saying SURPRISE! is not a good idea? Yea, didn’t think so. Ah well.

Social ambiguties, I tell you. They’re annoying.

Still Rolling On The Floor….

Ha ha ha ho ho ho….

Aekta and eM had asked me to put up a post of ‘6 Reasons why I’m still single’ or something like that which listed my requirements. I wrote that post (was quite crappy), it’s still saved as a draft.

Then I managed to get access to secret documents, and was just going to post those up…but then decided against that.

Then about a week ago, I had come home very drunk, and written a post which was all wallowing in self-pity – it’s also still saved as draft.

But then I woke up in the morning today…. and read the TOI front page.

My question to you is this: How can you run a military dictatorship….and be called….

PALLOO

Go Palloo! Palloo, Supporter of terrrorism? No wonder Bush dismisses all of India’s claims….he’s probably sitting in the White House thinking… “Naw, not sweet ‘ol Palloo….”

end of post

The Honda City That Ran Over Self Help Books Part 2

Responses to peoples responses

DISCLAIMER: Whatever I write is straight out of the contents of my head. I don’t do any research, because that would require me to stop being lazy. ALSO – VERY VERY VERY LONG POST

Ok first off, some general statements.
The reason that the initial post prompted such a (typical) aggressive reaction from my part was because one of the main things that is holding this country back is fear and resistance to Change.

Sure, everybody is afraid of change, but we are especially afraid. Every new way of doing things in India is greeted with a “Sigh, I long for the old days” type post. A new flyover is built? There goes the scenery. A new shopping mall comes up? There go the days of Lala personally ordering a product for you from his Kirana shop.

Further, it was an attack on capitalism…which of course, is really going to get my Goat.

Ok I was going to say a lot more, but instead, I’m just going to respond to the comments:

Beg to differ, but Lakshmana wasn’t cured by a Mantra, rather by medicines. Ayurveda places the stress on the healing properties of food and herbs, not on incantations and mantras. Indeed, there is no prescribtion of mantras for diseases, instead pratical advices on diet and exercises. Where exactly did you get this idea of mantras solving diseases?

The point behind the statement of being cured by praying in Sanskrit was an attempt to refocus where I feel our priorities should lie. It was sarcasm, saying that it seems in the olden days of “Brahminical Restraint”, more emphasis was spent on chanting than medical science.

FURTHER, had you mentioned that the young people should learn Sanskrit because it helps them to decipher ancient texts on Ayurveda, which we could then combine with Medical knowledge, western or otherwise, my post would not have been half as vicious. But no. You said they learn French instead of Sanskrit for better Global prospects. What is so contemptible about that? These people are doing what they have to do survive. To spit on them is almost downright shameful.

They are being forced to conform to a global order that has been created not by their choice. You want to know why? Because their ancestors were busy learning Sanskrit to pray better instead of learning the arts of diplomacy and global warfare.

Instead of spending time getting to know thy enemy, we were busy stepping on our own people, finding new ways to keep ourselves chained, and weakened. The bottom line is this – we would not have been conquered by people, no matter how technologically superior if we had been a lot less idealistic, and a lot more practical. In an ideal world, the youth of today would know the Vedas like the back of their hand. But they don’t. Because they need to eat, make a living, prepare for the future. It is this which I object to. It is the same thing behind Socialism. In an ideal world, the babu who is going to give you permission to set up your shop should not be corrupt. But he is. The question that needs to be asked is why do you have to go to a babu to set up your little shop?

By learning French/English/”Western” Economics, we are preparing ourselves for dealing with the outside world, which we are very much a part of. Would learning Sanskrit help us in this regard – YES! But not so that we improve our rituals. It would help us in deciphering the ancient texts so that we could see what advice they give, sure. But the advice in those texts is meaningless if it does not help me in my Here and Now. Yes, the ancients envisioned all sorts of cool things, God as a form of Energy, Dhritastra was the first dude who got to listen to the Radio, flying machines, examples of what a lack-of-family-planning can do (Duryodhan, buddy, I don’t envy your family affairs. Just the sheer amount of weddings to attend must have got you nervous on the day of battle. Can you imagine having to have Mutter-Paneer at every one of those dos. I’ll stick to the Pasta Station myself. Sheesh).

But I ask you this – did you allow the youth of today to question those texts, like I’ve done above? Or did you stuff it down their throats and make it inaccessible to all? We are not allowed to question the ‘ecosystem’ that comes with believing in God. Why not? Who are you tell me what the ecosystem consists of. My ecosystem consists of me and God. And anybody who gets in the way of that will suffer the consequences.

I once had a vicious argument with a friend of mine – her family has their own personal guru. (I’m sorry R, this has to be said). To me, the fact you listen to a ‘guru’ is contemptible. I’m sorry, but I’d rather listen to the man who helps sweep the plastic bags and cow dung off the streets. Or the woman in charge of Delhi who said she wants to privatise liquor distribution because she fails to see why it should be the government’s job to sell “vice” to the people. These are my gurus – not to say they’re perfect, but they bloody well are better than some damn fool whom I have to pay have come live in my house and grace my presence.

I once visited a Hindu temple in Long Island, NY. They had their ‘Guru Ma’ in the temple. She was driven in, in her LINCOLN TOWNCAR (complete with leather seats, Brahminical Restraints were optional that day). She preached to everybody how they were more devoted than people back home in India (this is probably too. I came across more severe pockets of conservatism in America than in New Delhi). She then proceeded to auction off a good-luck ‘chaader’ (sheet, I don’t know the correct phonetic spelling) for US$10,000. My teeth are still suffering the consequences of the gnashing they suffered while I observed this happen. US$10,000 which could so easily have been spent in keeping the lights of New Delhi lit, and possibly giving some good luck to women who would not have been molested in the dark.

My question to you is this: Who decides what the aberrations are in Hinduism, and what is the truth?

Pareshaan -

If you note carefully, I do not dismiss all of our roots. But I am tired of being told to keep going back to them. And where does the either-or come in. Why can I not learn French AND Sanskrit. Why can I not see some BOOBIES in Hindi Movies and also read up on Ayurveda (and Kama Sutra )?

While I won’t argue about whether my outlook is Westernised or not (it probably is, based on my background) I want to say that whole-heartedly agree with the Shift in Attitude part. We need to be able to question – or dismiss – parts of our past, if we so choose. But we aren’t allowed to, by the self-styled guardians of our “culture”. (Kind of like self-styled Elite bloggers). Actually, would love for you post on this, and respond in the comments, there is a lot I’d like to say about what you’ve written….

Parth – again, I see nothing wrong with learning Sanskrit. What I object to is the mutual exclusion that seems to come into play.

And of course, the flippant references materialism. Aquiring a few tanks and guns is going to go a lot further than Brahminical restraint. So is aquiring a few computers and cars and mobile phones, and fibre-optic cables, and railroads. And microwave ovens. And condoms. I think the Brahmins forgot some their restraint there…

P.S. Jayesh, I’ve tried to keep my attack as impersonal as possible, and it should be taken as such, so apologies if it seems to be too personal.

P.P.S. When you were referring to the Page 3 of Blogging, were u referring to me? If so, I’m touched!

Update
Well we’ve got ourselves a whole discussion here. This is why I love blogging!

Pareshaan weighs in

And so does Vulturo

Extra Extra!

Bloggers converge on Capital for blog meet

Dear Mr. Yumnam. Thanks. Without you, our meeting would not have been so successful. Vulturo also toasted to you.

So, this meet was much bigger, and I got to meet a lot of interesting people. I wanted to link to all of them myself, but instead, I shall point you to Three Drinks Ahead for a list of the attendees.

A much more accurate, and well-written report chez Vulturo’s

This bloggers’ meet had a Manipuri, and it had reporters, but no Manipuri Reporters.

Swar(nalata) was the first person to show up, and then Saket, and then Me. (Aanchal’s auto broke down, so we had to act as substitute hosts till she turned up).

So me and Saket grilled Swar a little bit, and found out she was a Bangalore blogger, taking a vacation here in Delhi, although she’s spent a lot of time here before. And she’s into theatre, which is ultra cool! This was the only new person I got to find out about in any detail

Then Nikhil showed up, got a call on his cellphone and disappeared. So we then had Gaurav and Ashish show up. Since these two were kind of new we started discussing general stuff – why do you blog, how do you blog e.t.c.

Then the Host showed up, and so did Nikhil and Jai Arjun Singh. I was somehow expecting him to be a lot taller . I wanted to have much longer conversations with Jai, but due to circumstances I didn’t get around to much of it.

That left Abhishek, Shefali, Aditi, Prathamesh, River, Prakriti

(All of whom I did not get a chance to talk to, but really wanted to get to know better. Dammit, 15 people in one blog meet really does become unmanageable).

We did manage to take a snap poll of who was communist, and who was capitalist. Everbody did a little introduction.
Jabberwock and Vulturo had a passionate argument about Egoism/Objectivism.
There was some Microsoft vs Open Source that was thrown around (Sorry, Firefox rules!)

but you see….. I had some other business to attend to…

eM

So Vulturo joked that there would be sparks flying tonight. Why?

Well this exchange should tell you why.

I was actually very curious to know what eM looks like in person, and as it turns out, so was she.

I expected her to be what I like to call the “Delhi” girl stereotype. I was expecting her to be dressed in black, with hair till her shoulders, and one of those very small black purses, and sort of half-expecting her to be Punjabi. (Yes eM, only half-expecting)

But she wasn’t any of those things (pleasant surprise).

Hmm…dare I get a little personal?

She had short hair. She was smaller and thinner than I imagined. And of course, very expressive eyes. Somehow the eyes stay with me.

She was expecting me to be shorter, thinner and bespectacled. (Can somebody say the word geek?). Blue Balls(Anti-Climax)
Alas, dear readers(if any), contractual obligations prevent me from mentioning what some may consider the most interesting part of the evening. At some point, it may be blogged about, but right now it has to be bottled up. This is by a mutual agreement, which could be broken at any time. The thing is, we both use our blogs to talk about stuff freely and frankly – but there seems to be an unwritten rule that at this point we won’t. But so many events last night were blogworthy. Ah well. Irony. Cannot blog about that which you wish to say the most about. This is the risk you run when you physically meet other bloggers, putting faces to their blogs.

I’ll just say this – I need to compile a list of 5 desert-island movies, music and books so that I have them ready when somebody asks me. Right now, I sound like an ass saying my interests are varied! (But they are!!!)

Oh and I need to take a few songs out my playlists……

Disclaimer: This post may be edited and updated as and when the author feels like

PostOnTheRun

Phew! Much Too Much Happening!

Ok, I don’t know if I’ll ever get to blog about the hings I wanted to blog about this week, so I’ll just jot them down real quick:

1) My Father’s best friend passed away this week. They’d been friends for 30 years. Death remains a mystery. The seed for a blog post is there, but I don’t have the time to get around to it

2) Me and ‘tango’ (see the comments for for on the last few posts so find out who Tango is) went to see a film…called….’The Film’…and we had the WHOLE THEATRE to ourselves (no, nothing naughty happened). Have to blog about this too

3) I have an ISB interview on Saturday/Tomorrow/Today depending on when you’re reading this. This is the 3rd time I’ve applied to ISB, and the 2nd time I’m being called for an Interview – but really, what do I have to lose?

4) Saket/Vulturo has been selected to be part of the IndiBlogger’s jury. This is good – we have ‘one of our own’ on the jury. Now I won’t need to resort to bribes to make sure that the award swings the way I’d like to see it go – in this light – I would like to propose that the IndiBloggies should function like the Oscars, not the f-ing FilmFare awards. Let everybody who is a blogger, propose who gets nominated, and who gets voted. This is a massive logistical task. I’ll do it once I have a well-paying MBA job hopefully 17 months from now – but in the meantime, couldn’t someone else give it a shot?

Anyways, I have to run now, tata and all that.

Help Wanted

Looking for a host(ess)

Wanted: One (fe)male blogger/semi-blogger/undercover-journalist-from-a-reputable-newspaper to host a Delhi Blogger’s Meet.
Said host must be Elite, to carry on a newly-created tradition. All non-elite bloggers need not apply.

Candidates must have a thick skin – as you may receive significant Press Coverage, equaling that recieved by middle-finger-invoking-Team-India-Coaches!

Candidates must also make claims that his/her blog meet represents all of Delhi, so as to offend the maximum number of people possible in the shortest possible amount of time.

Blog meet is expected to be on either the 3rd or 10th of December, but the Host is free to change this date.

Host must also decide upon an interesting venue.

Previous Blog Meet info can be found below:
September 2005
October 2005

and … of course…

November 2005 Update
This position has been filled (see comments). That was QUICK!

DhanyavaadDena

Thank You
Ok, so I’m not American. I don’t even really like Turkey (it tastes like fake Chicken, if ya ask me). And Cranberry Sauce…er…I can take it or leave it alone.

Anyway, thing is, lately I’ve made some new friends here in Delhi (yes, it’s possible :-p).

They consist of the following – an ABCD woman – S, a regular American dude (white) – M, and a Columbian woman (who’s lived in Washington, DC for awhile) – A.

Cold Turkey
So the thing is, these crazy foreigners were really missing Thanksgiving (well A wasn’t). So they figured they’d hunt down some place here in Delhi that would be doing a Turkey dinner.

The response wasn’t very encouraging – None of the 5-Star hotels knew what Thanksgiving was, and no turkey dinner there. The American Diner wasn’t hosting anything special for Thanksgiving either. It turns out there are only 2 places in all of Delhi (India?) which serve turkey – The first is Subway. The second is the Oberoi Charcuterie in Vasant Vihar. (Well there may be other places, but these are the only two I know).

So anyway, S succumbed to a viral, so she was out. That left me, M & A. I told them that since they don’t want to be eating Butter Chicken on Thanksgiving, we should go to The Olive Bar & Kitchen (yes, it’s the Delhi version of the Bombay one).

So we get to the Olive Bar & Kitchen place, which happens to be hosting a private party in the outer area.

WPP
It is at this point where I shall now discuss WPP – White People Privilege.
My two friends got to the place before me, and on entry, they were asked if they had a reservation, to which they replied that they did. After being asked that question, they were let in to the Olive Bar, and instead of proceeding to their table, they gate-crashed the private party (which was easy to do, because you had walk through the pvt party to get to the inner part of the restaurant). So they were munching on free kebabs and wine for about 10 minutes, until I arrived. Now as fair-skinned and ‘non-Indian-looking’ as I am (there will be a rant about this soon), I’m still Indian enough (is it the beer belly? ). So not only was I asked if I had a reservation, I was escorted to my table personally, so that I could not accidentally get to the free wine/food. Now, my friends had to join me inside, because we weren’t part of the private party, but I lied pretty easily, and told them my friends were from the party, so could we just attend the party first, and then eat dinner later? There were no arguments or anything – this could only be accomplished due to my friends being foreigners. I’m sure I’d be refused if we were all brown!

The Blog Mafia
So we had a delicious dinner at Olive…and midway through dinner, I spot a North-Eastern-looking shrimpy-boy standing outside, in the private party…. yes, it was my Nemesis – none other than James (Bond) Ranjan Yumnam. So I point him out to my two friends (who read the whole story about this), and M – who is about 6′ 3″ or so, and well-built says “Let’s go and kick his ass dude”. I was a little hesitant at first, wondering what I’d see in the paper tomorrow, but I came around
So me and M walk up to the Old Goat, and my friend proceeds to trash the guy’s ethics, and says how he’s surprised that he can make money out of lying so much, and then terminates things by calling him a cocksucker. (I stood silently by while this happened). We then proceeded to return to our dinner.

An interesting night….

Restoring one’s faith in Humanity…

Back to being me again…

Phew! Mercy! The visits have dropped off again. So… where was I before this whole mess started. Let’s see, I’d just finished hitting on The Compulsive Confessor. She was ‘impressed’ by my attempt, but she refuses to meet me Awwww. Ah well – her loss.

Now, let me tell you a common tale. It’s 4 am in the morning. You’re driving back to Delhi (from Gurgaon) on the M.G. Road. It’s just you and a (female) friend (no she seriously is just a friend!). So maybe you’ve abused a bit too many substances, or maybe it’s 4 am, or maybe it was just meant to be. But a bit of road divider had come off (you know, one of those huge stone blocks you keep wishing your car doesn’t hit)…. and your lovely Honda City goes right over it, causing both the right hand front and back tyre to puncture. And the rims ended up dented….

REALLY luckily, you manage to drag your car over the border, into Delhi. Right at the border, there are the usual slew of 8 men from the ‘Banas Sands’ company, who are responsible for collecting the toll from all commercial traffic entering delhi, and about 3/4 traffic policemen…

Now this situation, can get real frikkin’ messy in this city. It’s just you and an attractive lady, in a semi-big car. It’s 4.am. You wouldn’t pass the breathalyser if anybody tried to test you with it.

I rolled down my windows, and asked the guys if they had a spare jack (because my jack appeared to be busted). The policeman came up to me, and said, what would be the point, both my tires are busted (badly). He said why don’t you just leave the car here, and try and arrange for alternate transport. Now the thing is, I actually have a curfew of 1 am. And this curfew is based on faith. My parents are old. They sleep early. And my dad cannot see very well at night what with the high beam and all. So I really didn’t want to call home and ask for help.

So I asked the policeman if he could arrange a lift somehow. And he did. Without any comments about what happened to the car, without passing any curious comments about who my lady friend was, without asking for a bribe. He stood at the border, and attempted to flag down passing vehicles. 2 of them refused us. But just then, a call centre cab drove up. It was going to East of Kailash (my place, and my friends place are on the way). It was populated with a driver, and young woman who works for IBM.

I pulled out my wallet and was about empty the contents (80 rupees worth) into the policeman’s hand (as I figured he would expect it). He refused to take anything, and said, just come back early tomorrow to pick up the car.

We got into the cab and drove home (and I’m forbidden from going out late for a while… ah parents…!).

(We came back today to pick up the car, which was sitting exactly where it had been a few hours ago).

The point of this story? It’s 4 am. This is Delhi. We weren’t mugged. We weren’t molested. We weren’t murdered. The car wasn’t stolen. The policeman did his job without any additional incentive. Yes, there was a lot of luck on my side – my car busted near the border abd that we found a cab going in our direction. But it could still have turned out to be a very different night.

If there’s a God, thank you.
Dear Mr. Policeman, I hope you have a long and happy life, and I hope, that someday, I can make it up to you (for simply doing your Job? Yes, even just for that).

A Few Thoughts

this will be my last post on the DBM Fiasco
Ok let’s go. (Click the read more)1) I would like to offer a total, full, wholly completely unconditional apology for the very unkind, nasty hatespeech, with which my first draft of “Betrayed” was published. There was absolutely no reason to threaten to dismember a certain journalist’s member. There was also no reason to exhort people to harass him either. So for that, I am sorry. I apologise for this, because although I don’t believe anybody takes my buffoonery seriously, there are many bloggers out there who DO wish to be taken seriously, and I would discredit all of them with my stupid, childish outburst.

In my justification, however, I would like to say that for the past 2 years, this blog has been very obscure. I had a total of 8 cronies, who would come visit, ignore my cursewords, comment on the content and disappear, basically allowing me free run of this space. I have gotten into a habit of not putting thought into gear before accelerating blog posting/commenting, and thus far I have been able to get away with it scot free. A few flamebait comments on Deeshaa.org, or dcubed, in an impotent rage, and on with the rest of day. Basically, I would post whatever came into my mind. Did the thought of putting somebody’s reproductive organ through the guillotine cross my mind? Yes. But as the blogosphere has an excellent self-regulatory mechanism built in, the criticism of my fellow bloggers allowed me to see reason once I cooled down, and so I toned down my post. Now, it is still vicious, but a lot less so. Better people than I have written worse than what is currently up there.

2)(Pardon the poor alignment. I’m too lazy to revise my HTML)
Ok now if you look above, you can see “James”. A nice guy named Anthony left a URL on my previous post. After doing some further investigation, it turns out that “James” happens to be journalist working for the Delhi Times, known as Ranjan Yumnam (yes, he actually is Manipuri). Vulturo had posted about his technological knowledge very recently before the Delhi Blog Meet. BTW, “James” – you’re welcome to visit more blog meets, in fact, JOURNALISTS ARE WELCOME, AND SO IS ANYBODY ELSE!
UPDATE: I googled around a little. Here is the best piece of humour, I have ever come across.

3) The above picture shows you the meaning of the words “Self-Fulfilling Prophecy”. Once upon a time, I was an obscure blogger with nothing more than 2/3 comments on my posts, and a reputation for misinformed rants on many a blog. If you look at the graph…<SARCASM>it seems that I am approaching the number of visits required to break into that circle of bloggers known as ‘Elite’.</SARCASM>
Laugh. Out. Loud.

4) To go back to the really nasty tone of my rant, and use of inexcusable language, it is because I was just so completely shocked.

I am an unemployed Software Engineer by day. I have hair growing out my ears & nose (I hope The Compulsive Confessor is not reading this..).

When I decided to host a Blog Meet, I didn’t think I was speaking for the 14 million brown people living in this city. I do not claim to represent anybody other than ME, and that’s only half true, as I’m a Schizophrenic (ok not really). I thought I was going to be able to find a way to kill a few hours, here and there. Meet up with like-minded people, chill out, relax. I did not think that I would end up on the front page of the Delhi Times due to some completely unecessary deception, and be TOTALLY misquoted. Had the journalist at least advertised our URLs, I would have forgiven him (No publicity is bad publicity). Had the journalist actually published what I had said, I would have been jumping for joy. Forget Page 3, I made page 1. HA! But…no. Instead, the four of us were made to feel like complete idiots. It’s amazing. You wake up today thinking, hmmm today is going to be a simple day. Will have some coffee, and discuss silly/semi-important things. I never realised it could/would be so complicated.

Finally, the reason I put my rage up on display is basically because a) I have high blood pressure, and b) I’m lazy. Shivam/Saket/River/Aanchal/Anybody Else actually took the time to sit down, and channel their energies into writing mature, civilized (and angry) blog posts. But you see, I always treated my blog as my venting space. Unfortunately, with 200-something visits, I’ve lost that space. My apology is given above, so I’m not repeating it. Please go back to your regularly-scheduled programming, there’s nothing to see here.

UPDATE:Great Bong also writes a great post. I like being called “The Recurring 2.499999″.

Betrayed (by your own kind)

This just keeps getting worse and worse

In the previous post, I linked to this.

This guy wrote his first post based on what he saw in the TOI, and thus criticised me a little for calling myself a ’self-styled’ Elite blogger. Fair enough, anybody would do so after that inflammatory article. But when the person mentioned in the article responds…

Sir, the article in the Delhi Times doesn’t even report what I say correctly!!!!!!!!

Please see my link

http://25worldcountry.blogspot.com/2005/11/betrayed.html

In that meeting I clearly stated I was NOT an Elite blogger!

you would hope for a little correction. So you wait about 24 hours… and no change, so you write in the comments section again:

It is interesting that even I after I attempt to correct you, you couldn’t be bothered to change your article. I wonder, is this any better than the Times of India whom you put down.

So then this is the reply…

Hi Tarun!

I saw your comments and the related posts you have made on your blog. And let me assure you, I am no less concerned about the �?vested-interest reporting�? by TOI, more so after you have brought it to our notice.

As a blogger yourself, you must be knowing how difficult and unethical it is to change one’s stance in the blogosphere, especially after one has gone public with some contention. Supposing you were in my position, would you modify/remove the posting when it’s based entirely on the reporting by an established banner (and an irresponsible one also) like TOI? Let me add that an answer in the affirmative would tantamount to committing a breach of trust with the Netizens.

Again, who else but you can understand that �?Comments�? section is meant to accommodate all shades of remarks…whether carrying bouquets or brickbats for us – as very much apparent even in this specific post. So while you have your share of liberty to post any comment on this blog, please don’t deprive me of my freedom to �?Let The Truth Prevail�?.

Finally, in every anti-militancy operation, some innocent people also fall prey to the bullets. I hope, you get the point.

Thanks & Bye!

-Jonty

Translation: I was putting down the TOI, and you got caught in the middle. Tough shit. I can’t change my blog post, because that would mean that I am correcting myself, and I seem to be above making mistakes. “I Hope you get the point”.

I have never heard anybody say that it is “unethical” to change a Blog post. If that were so, then I think that Google/Blogger/TypePad/WordPress/LiveJournal, all of them should get into big trouble for being so unethical – they all allow you to edit your blog – and THEREFORE, your stance. Which is what I did with my previous post. As many of the commenters said, my angry post would reflect on a lot of other people, i.e. “some innocent people also fall prey to the bullets”. So to minimise that, I also toned down my post. But apparently, this Jonty idiot is above doing things like that.

Interesting, I mean you write an article lambasting poor journalism, and when the commenter replies REINFORCING your point (about inaccuracies in the report), you then decide to stand by the source you are criticsing in your report. You are a truly an idiot.
(Of course, here’s my final comment to his reply, flaming away, as usual)

Which part of �?I AM NOT AN ELITE BLOGGER AND HAVE NEVER CALLED MYSELF THAT�? do you not understand?

He is of course, what he terms himself as – an ‘elite’ blogger. *Heh*

I. DO. NOT. TERM. MYSELF. AS. AN. ELITE. BLOGGER. Please correct that sentence, or maybe I should start calling you the self-styled authority on truth? I categorically denied calling myself an Elite blogger at the meeting, in my posts, and will bloody well ask you to do the same, instead of perpetuating the TOI’s lies. There is nothing unethical about removing that sentence, I don’t know what rubbish you are going on about. This is truly ridiculous, and you are full of shit, which I shall be specifying in my blog post. Feel free to use the comments, as I will also �?let the truth prevail�?.

Betrayed

Croak-and-Dagger tactics

The irony of receiving your 15 minutes of fame…in this format…

The Delhi Blogger’s Meet that I hosted is going to haunt me for some time to come. A little bitching it seems can go a long way….

I got woken up today by Saket/Vulturo. He said we’re on the Front Page of Delhi Times, and the article is awful(unfortunately, it is not up on the web yet either).

Not only is it awful, it’s full of barefaced lies.

Saket, owner of a Blog tracker turned up and gave company to the lonely host

Umm, anybody who knows Saket, knows he has a BLOG, and a “BLOG TRACKER”. As for me being a “lonely host”, I’m attempting to line-maro the Compulsive Confessor, so it’s only a temporarily-lonely host. Asshole.

“I’ve booked the entire section of the restaurant” he added, pointing at the empty sofas reserved for an army of bloggers that he had expected

Ummm…Barista is not a restaurant.
I hadn’t booked the “entire section” of it.
And there was ONE sofa, which could hold 2 people, and ONE chair that was empty.
An army of bloggers, MY ASS.

Their favourite pastime remains MSM bashing, often without caring to provide substantiations, and taking cover behind free speech platitude

Gee, I wonder why I might feel like BASHING THE MSM AT THIS POINT IN TIME!

“We are the elite bloggers of India” announced Tarun, as Aanchal and Neha, who showed up later, nodded in agreement.

Ok, first off, I SAID I WASN’T one of the ELITE bloggers of India, and went on to roll off a list of all the A-list dudes (The people I mostly pick fights with – Deeshaa, India Uncut, Uma MD, Dilip D’Souza,e.t.c.) as being part of the Elite crowd (and Saket too).

Second(I suppose this is lucky), River’s name has been incorrectly reported as Neha. Again, I don’t know if River has a prob with her name being mentioned, so I won’t mention it, but it ain’t Neha…

Now I know how celebrities must feel when they see their quotes in print. Is anything in the paper the truth? Delhi Slimes, congrats, you’ve reached a sub-subterrenean low.

If anything, this just shows how worried the MSM must be about us. Why else would you send a spy to check up on us? James (if that is your real name) you are a slimy little piece of shit.

As a draconian measure, in line with our government, I suggest that any newcomers to bloggers’ meets be asked to demonstrate their knowledge of blogging BEFORE they show up. If you don’t know anything about blogging, too bad, go do some f-ing research first….ok I’m only kidding. It would a dumb, unenforceable thing to do.

Anybody with better suggestions, please do tell.

Update
I have revised and refined my blog, based on this post
and Nitin’s comment.

However I would like to state that this is MY SPOT on the Web. That is the whole goddam point. And while some bloggers want to be taken as seriously as journalists, I DON’T. Everything on this blog is just that – a voice from a 2.5-world country. I have never claimed to be the authoritative Voice.

Update 2
ARGH!
Now I’m being painted with the TOI brush!

Update 3
If you’re still coming to read this post, please move on to this one

Update 4
You know what, there is no such person known as “James”. And if you shall observe, it is James that I call a slimy piece of shit. Is calling an imaginary person names really name-calling?

The Last Guy Standing (in Delhi)

Throwing down the gauntlet (in response to the Compulsive Confessor)

The Compulsive Confessor is an interesting Delhi woman who writes a lot about her sex- and other-life. She manages to get 50 comments on each blog post. Damn.

I don’t read her. Because I don’t figure in her life.

Anyway, she’s complaining about being single

She says there are no guys left in all of Delhi, because none of them pass her tests.

I’m afraid (and this might shock you a little) that leaves me with NO ONE. In this ENTIRE CITY.

I’m so dying alone, no?

Because I pretend to be a brash, aggressive alpha-male in the blogosphere, I take up her challenge, and I pass her tests.

Click on the read more…

I can’t stand words being mispronounced. I mean really, v is veee, w is when you round your lips together. No clasping of the lower lip with your teeth, just round your mouth. Therefore it is “Way” and not “Vay”. This pisses me off so much that many potential boys have been banished to the Kingdom Of Bad Pronounciation for it. (Ruled by the clan of people who say “My hair are..”. Hello? Hair is SINGULAR, how often do we have to go over that?) There was this boy once, a pretty young lad who I was quite warming up to. And then he mispronounced five words in the same sentence. Gently I pointed it out, but he didn’t react too well to that. If people just DON’T want to learn, what are you to do, right?

I have what somebody aptly called a neutralized English accent. I consider myself James Bond, with a Punjabi twist, so I believe that my pronunciations are correct, and my English will trump your English, anyday. The name’s Gulati. Bunty Gulati. I like my Scotch Whisky-blended with a hint of tulsi-a dash of coke-and-some-cinnamon-then-shaken, not stirred.

Call me Ally McBeal, but getting food on your face is a distinct no-no in my world. Ketchup on fries, not on your face. I hate ketchup anyway. I can’t stand the smell and the taste. This does not go down very well with some boys who like to mix up the ketchup and the mustard into one pus type puddle. Ewwwwwww. I do make some exceptions to the food on face rule though. Chocolate is good. A latte foam mustache is very cute–but not if you do it on purpose.

Food goes in mouth, not on face. Check. In case an accident does occur, the nearby napkin (NOT the pocket hanky) will be out faster than you can say ewww. Ketchup+Mustard is totally ewww. And I don’t dip my pizza in Ketchup either. Check. Chocolate is good. And I know a few kinky tricks you can use with Chocolate. But I’d rather demonstrate those tricks than blab/brag about them…

Tight jeans, worn up to your waist, with your shirt tucked in. Good Lord, boy, it’s 2005, not 1981 as you seem to imagine. And your tush isn’t that cute, and even it were that cute, it would probably look better in like loose jeans. Not baggy, mind you. Baggy jeans are for teenagers with spiked hair with the tops of their Calvin Klein chaddis showing. That’s just trying too hard.

Tight jeans. No. No. No. Baggy Jeans. No. No. No. Jeans which are one waist size too big? Yes. You get to say you’ve been working out at the gym-shym and all. Then… you can also shove your hand inside your pants and say.. “See – I couldn’t do THAT a month ago…”

People who don’t read. Or who say the only book they have ever read is a) Love Story b) The Da Vinci Code or c) Anything by Michael Chricton (I don’t think I spelt that right) or Robert Ludlum or whatshisface, the chap who writes a lot about hunting in Africa.

I read. Reading list includes, but is not limited to:

Freakonomics
Maximum City
Guns, Germs & Steel
Atlas Shrugged + Fountainhead
Shogun, Taipan, Noble House
Harry Potter (Yes, I see no shame in admitting this, or including it in a ‘Reading List’. Deal with it, buddy!
Lord of The Rings + Hobbit + Silmarillion
Alchemist + 11 Minutes
Da Vinci Code + Angels & Demons
Anything P.G. Wodehouse
Anything Roald Dahl
Tom Clancy (the old Stuff from the Cold War days)
God of Small Things (I HATE THE AUTHOR WITH A PASSION, HOWEVER)
Interpreter of Maladies
Impressionist
Suitable Boy (ok, so I’m 75% of the way through it)
Midnight’s Children

e.t.c e.t.c e.t.c.

If you’ve passed these high tests, there are also the smaller tests. What music you listen to. Whether you have any passions beyond making money. Whether you get on with my friends. Whether you like TC. That sorta thing.

Music I listen to – diverse. Won’t go in to details here.
Passion(s)? Yes, I have one or two of them. The first is making money without having to do anything. I’m waiting for somebody to start depositing US$100,000 into my bank account every month simply because they feel I deserve to be rewarded for being me. The second passion requires either a bed, a car, whipped cream, chocolate sauce and ribbed condoms for her pleasure.

I’ll get on with your friends. But they might not get along with me!

Ok, and here’s where I admit my first(and only) defeat. What, pray tell, is TC? Tom Cruise? Total Crap? Testicular Cancer?

So there is at least ONE man in Delhi which passes your tests. Bring it on, ma’am!

Update
ThreeDrinksAhead informs me that TC stands for Turquoise Cottage. I like TC, haven’t been there more than twice but I like it. So I don’t even have to admit defeat on that count! HA!

No response from Ms. CC yet… I take passing her tests isn’t enough. There’s a missing X factor.

Also a very big thanks to Vulturo and DesiPundit (looks like I’ll be donating something to them after all :-p). This post got me 183 visits on a single day !$@$!#@$! I usually don’t get more than 8!

Delhi Blogger’s Meet – November

It’s that time of month again…

STICKY POST – see below for other updates..

Come one, come all to the greatest show on Earth…and er.. after that show, come to the Delhi Blogger’s Meet!

Scheduled for the SUNDAY, 6th of November. Not quite sure about the time – do we start it at 5 pm? If no problems, then FIVE PM is the time. I’m game for moving it back an hour earlier if anybody wants.
This time, we shift to South Delhi, specifically to the Barista Creme, South Extension Part-I. Barista Creme? Well it’s a quieter, and slightly more snobbish Barista, located in the heart of South Ex. So we should be able to hear ourselves think and speak. Will try and arrange a booking, or at the very least, a sign.

See you all there. Looking forward to more communist vs capitalist fights, and more “you don’t look indian” type comments, questioning my loyalty!

Previous blogger meets here and here

Asking for trouble…

I play party pooper

Ok let me the the only one to say that I honestly do not see a revived, renewed or redone Indian team. I see the same team I always saw.

Sehwag gets out within 40 runs.
Tendulkar fails to fire in the matches that are crucial.
Some dude in the middle order gets his day in the sun. This time it’s Dhoni, last time it was Yuvraj/Kaif
The bowlers never do anything worth mentioning, ‘cept Agarkar, who also fires once every year – must be seasonal. I will never forgive you for giving 22 runs in 2 consequtive overs, once upon a time. NEVER!
(Ok Bhajji is an unsung hero this series. Good bowling!).

Yes Dhoni smashed a few records, India finally won after centuries (yes you can take that literally or not). But sorry, I don’t see a newly rejuvenated team. I see exactly the same team that could very easily have lost. Too easily.

I can’t judge these dudes by their home performance, although many will say that even that is an achievement. Sorry. For me to be happy, I wanna see 2 series wins, within a year of each other if possible, away from Indian soil.

Ok, pooped on the party. Let the flames begin.

Happy (Hindu) New Year

A Happy Diwali to One & All

Welcome to the year 2062. May it be as good if not better than the last one!

Auto-Gratitude

Gratitude To My Car Pool Partner (I hope you’re not reading this)

When I joined HCL Technologies, I used to get to work by the company bus. This was the pre-Private Radio days (2002-2003). No Radio Mirchi, no Red FM, no Radio City (City Bajao!) – which means we were forced to listen to the driver’s cassette, with classic songs such as:

Lal dupatta Mal Mal ka
Main tumse milne aayi, mandir jaane ke bahaane
Chadti Jawaani
Kaanta Laga
Chod do Aanchal
Laage Chhute Naa

The very observant of you will have noticed that around the same time, EVERY ONE of these songs (except Laage chhute naa) was remixed, with naked bimbos squeezing their back sides, and sticking their ..ummm assets… in your face. Coincidence? I think NOT!

Anyway, our company withdrew the subsidy on the bus service, so instead of paying 500 rupees a month, we had to pay 1000 rupees.

(I should warn you at this stage that there is no point to this story. Just writing stuff down).

1000 rupees to listen to Main tumse milne aaaaaaaayeeeeee, Mandir Jaane Ke Bahane everyday for 20 days?!…I think NOT!

So another guy on the bus, a nice Surdy dude called DP decided to try and organise a Car Pool with me and a 3rd dude who lived nearby. We call had cars, so could alternate every day. We picked up two extra stragglers and a happy time was had by one and all.

Then one day, one of our car pool bunch resigned. His spot was taken by an attractive Bong woman, whom I shall call M.

The change in the Car Pool was drastic. There were no more Hindi cuss words while driving. The driving itself improved (marginally). There were no more perverted comments about the women in our company. We had to restrict our conversations to the weather, politics, movies, e.t.c. In effect, the presence of the woman had transformed us from Men into Ogres (or is it vice versa, I can never tell ).
I was the first one to break this new unspoken agreement, when we were driving one day and a cycle-wala decided to defy the laws of physics, with a loud “FUCK!”. There was then a tense silence for the next 4.29 seconds when the other guys were wondering what the M’s reaction would be…there wasn’t any.

Emblodened, the next transgressor of Traffic laws received the title “BASTARD”. The next one I named “BITCH!”. (Yes, maybe this borders on Tourette’s Syndrome…).

Anyway, I took that brave step, the men in the car loosened up a little, and although M never cursed herself, we took to it with gay abandon. It was a decent victory, in the War of Sexes.

Anyway, as time progressed, our Car Pool members resigned, one after the other, so that finally it came down to just me and M.

And I just wanted to say thanks to M, because M is forced into being cooped up in a metal cage (with me behind the wheel every alternate day) for 2.5 hours every day.

The dialogue always runs as follows:

ME:”Good Morning Ma’am”
M: “Good Morning Sir”
ME: “So how was your weekend? Mine was awful”
M: “Mine too. I saw ‘No Entry’ over the weekend”
ME: “Ah, yes, but the Question is…did the MOVIE…see…. YOU?!”
M: “Argh. yes the movie saw me”.
ME: “BASTARD, GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY!@@!”
M: “So are we taking MG road or the Highway?”
ME: “NH 8 of course, FUCKING MOVE, BITCH!#^@$%@! MG Road sucks”
M: “No it does not, NH8 Sucks”
ME: *Squeezes steering wheel really hard, attempts to rein in exploding vein* “WHY DO I ALWAYS get the idiots who want to drive at 2 km/h”
M:*Starts singing the opening to “Life is a Flower” by Ace of Base* “We live in a free world…”
ME: “Ah yes, but the question is..does a free world live in-”
M: “No, a free world does not live in me”
*Song ends*
M: *points at radio* “Why are we listening to this?”
ME: “There’s nothing better to listen to”
M: *Flips through the stations, comes to rest on a Punjabi song I start singing, quickly changes. “This is all your fault.”
ME: *45 minutes later, stuck in a traffic jam on NH8(The Highway)* “This is all your fault”
*Finally get into Kapas Heda (otherwise known as Hell on Earth)*
*Almost get hit by two Tata Sumos, 1 Qualis, 1 Innova, 3 cyclists, 2 motorbikes, one scooter and 8 pedestrians
ME: “Have I ever told you how much I hate this place?”
M: No
*5 minutes and 2 near-accidents later*
ME: “Have I ever told you how much I hate this place?”
M: No
*5 minutes and 2 near-accidents later*
ME: “Have I ever told you how much I hate this place?”
M: No

And then finally, we get to Work:
M: “Bye”
Me “Goodbye Ma’am!”

Anybody who can tolerate me for 2.5 hours everyday, not out of choice, for 3 years, deserves some thanks. So Thank You M. Especially for the past 2 months, where you’ve given me the support I needed the most. Thanks for tolerating The Vengaboys, and various other injustices to the word music, which were stored on my iPod.

And finally, M, it’s a shame you’re married. I’d be hitting on you, left, right and centre if you weren’t! :-p

Again, hope you don’t read this!

Reading between the lines…

Invoking Godwin’s Law…
Hmmm….Bird Flu Pandemic

“…On the other hand, the Black Death may have fueled the burst of human creativity known as the Renaissance. At the time plague struck, medieval society had fallen into economic stasis, caused in large part by the “Malthusian deadlock�? of dense population. The plague broke that deadlock by decimating the population, liberating land for diverse uses, creating the need for laborsaving devices, and unleashing the ingenuity of Renaissance society. …”

India will be changed. How I cannot guess. But it could be possible that the shock to the system may jolt it out of the rut it appears to have got stuck into for the last 60 odd years.

Translation: I hope the Bird Flu does strike India. I hope lots of people (hopefully 100 million of them) die. This would be a Good Thing, because who knows, it might lead to a Renaissance.

Singapore

….No such luck in India, of course. We have Christian missionaries from all over the world having a grand old time converting heathens and soon enough you have the neo-converts pissing on Ganesh idols to show their new-found faith. News gets around and finally out of desperation and plain old brutality, a few missionaries get roasted and this gives the country an ill-deserved reputation of being intolerant. Madrassas funded by Saudi money flourish by the thousands where apparently the mullahs teach the young that killing kuffars is a pretty practical way of arranging society.

In reaction to this ocassionally, a few of the normally tolerant Hindus band together and retaliate. This hits the international press and India is tarred as a society full of murdering morons….

Translation: The Godhra massacres were justified. Normally tolerant Hindus, lol.

When were Hindus tolerant? When their women were comitting Sati? When they were parading low-caste people naked? When they kill any young couple who elopes in a “love-marriage”? We Hindus have been wronged, for sure. But we’ve wronged enough ourselves.

I am sure there are those who will immediately retort that the Singaporeans don’t have the freedoms that are normally associated with a liberal democracy. And I am also sure that the person making that statement is sitting comfortably well-fed in his nice office or home accessing the world wide web for knowledge and entertainment. For the average schmuck in a third world country, he would any day trade in his imaginary freedoms for a decent shot at a full stomach, a roof over his head, and a chance to get his children educated. After the average schmuck has achieved those basic necessities, he would ask for all sorts of goodies that a liberal democracy provides. And that is when the society should become a liberal democracy.

The sequence is important.

Translation: Dictatorship is ok, if it helps the “Common Man”. All this freedom of speech stuff, and voting people into office/power stuff, that us stupid bloggers take advantage of everyday, is all hogwash for elitists.

One of the reasons Hitler was able to gain the following he did, was because he dressed up evil with logic, with nice words, with “research”. This gave the masses a a justification for their baser beliefs, and so flocked to his banner.

It’s ok to want revenge, even elitists with an education are saying so. <SARCASM>(I mean c’mon, in our heart of hearts, we all know we want to kill all the Muslims right? They deserve it right?)</SARCASM>

If lots of Indians lose their life, it might lead to a Renaissance. (Don’t we all secretly advocate a nuclear war or something to take care of India’s population problem?)

If India has a dictatorship (well initially. We can always implement democracy later, right, like in Pakistan, and in Germany of the 1930s?). then the country will improve, especially the life of the *puke* Common Man *puke* (When faced with the daily traffic war, the lazy government officials, generally rude & crude people peeing on the streets, spitting on the walls, don’t we all secretly wish we had our own set of Goondas who would walk in, intimidate everybody and get the job done, keep the city clean?)

This is “Calling a Spade a Spade”, and “Telling It Like It Is”(TM). God (if there is one or 2 or 10000) Help Us.

A Dandy March

I’m a ‘Marathon Man’!

Heh, despite all the arguments to the contrary, I don’t think Delhi is very (air-)polluted. In Mid-October (now), the wind cools you instead of burns you, it’s actually cold in the morning, and trees loaded with ‘Rath ki Rani’ are in full bloom, so the place smells BEAUTIFUL.

Anyway, this is a city of “broad, tree-lined avenues” and is one of the few Indian cities where green cover has increased over the last few years. So, why not hold a Marathon here? Well, a Half Marathon, to be exact. So between 7 and 9 in the morning on a lazy Sunday, they closed up the roads of Central (otherwise known as ‘New’) Delhi, and held three races. The first was the 21-point-something kilometre Half Marathon, which 5000 people took part in. The winners (who took slightly over an hour to complete the course) were almost all African – some Kenyan, some Tanzaniyan. The first prize was a nice and tidy US$20,000

But that’s not the race I ranfast-walked in.

After the pros, came the Senior Citizen Run (5 Kilometres), open to everyone above 55, I think. 5 kilometres long, and some very fit, and not so-fit seniors going at it. Finally came the Great Delhi Run ( 7 Kilometers). Me and my sister took part in this, and although we learned we’re not cut out for the next olympics, we also learned we can brisk-walk 7 km without stopping.

The weather was good, and Delhi was out in force, around 25,000 people in all. There were cheerleaders from Radio Mirchi and Standard Chartered , egging us on. 2 Helicopters, borrowed from the Military, patrolled the area, kept an eye on us for security and hovered low to wave at us. Kingfisher (of the Beer and the Airline), supplied all runners with free bottled water, ever kilometre or so. People lined the sides of the streets, to cheer, to watch, to enjoy (and probably to wonder what’s the big deal?).

And of course, Hutch’s brilliant advertising campaign. WHO is their agency? Those guys are truly brilliant. “Bunty bhi bhagega, Dadaji bhi bhagenge. The Colonel will run, Spot the Dog will run. Delhi will run”. Banners lining the marathon route read “Run.Jog.Walk.Crawl. But Finish”. “If you think you can’t run, stop thinking!”

An all round good time!

Divergence

Just some more personal rambling

Read only if you’re totally bored

So the way it works is that, in my mind, I have this vision of the woman I happen to be “seeing” (for want of a better word). When things are good, my mind’s vision and the actual physical woman converge, superimposing each other. When things go bad, they head in the opposite direction. When things end, there is complete divergence. There is the woman in my mind’s eye, as I want her, and as I would like her to see me. And there is the real actual physical person, who no longer has any relation or bearing to the woman in my mind. Eventually, all the memories get blocked out, a few stubborn ones persist, and some crop up at random times – when a song plays, when I drive a little too rashly, when I feel especially sorry for myself e.t.c. All this falls through a sieve, until only those memories which match the criteria defined by the woman in my mind’s eye remain. The result is a little pantheon of women in my mind, which share the same names and physical features as real living beings who’ve basically moved on with their lives. Like the mostly-pathetic person that I am though, I continue to rever the women in my mind, even though they no longer exist as I wish to see them. I don’t think I ever really get over them…

I have a theory, and the theory is that sometimes, there is only 50% convergence, but you keep optimistically hoping that the convergence will increase. In this hope, you spend 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, some people even get married, hoping for a convergence. If you’re lucky, maybe the convergence actually happens, not so lucky, you see the two different images diverging slowly, and realize it’s time to discard the image and “look for a new model”, as Vulturo says.

But how do you forgive yourself for ignoring the fact that from day 1, the images were divergent? That you kept trying to superimpose your mind’s vision on the real person, with usually terrible results. When your brain keeps telling you “these images don’t fit!”, but you keep telling it, “They will, they will, eventually!”. And then one day, you wake up and finally see jusy how far apart those images are. Divergence.

There ya go RTD2, my response to The Milkshake Challenge

Last of the short stories..

A little therapy (see previous post)

So she is with another guy. Does it really matter? What was left of our “relationship�? anyway? Phone calls, which only I used to make, at my own expense. What loss is there really, for me? None, except loss of face. The worst thing you can do to a man is kill his Self-Respect. Quoting Ayn Rand: No. The worst thing you can do is kill a man’s pretense at it, because true Self-Respect cannot be killed. She’s so right.

(Sorry, just had to cross the limit there. It’s not even a short story anymore. So what?)

“It’s not you. I just don’t feel like being physical with anybody right now”.
“That was the way I felt at that time. I meant it then“.
“If I find another guy, why can’t we still be friends? Don’t you see that what we have is beyond labels?”.

If you fall for this tripe, who is to blame, other than yourself? Can you really claim the “Purity of the Victim” simply because you chose to hope that even though the signs are bad, things will improve? Life is cruelest to the Optimist – but only if s/he stops being an Optimist. This is one more lesson learned. Be Optimistic. But listen to your brain. This should never have continued past 2 months. That it went on for 3 years is a travesty, and could be viewed as time wasted. But it served its purpose. Is there any point punishing yourself? You made a mistake – one which you’ve made before. So what?

Oh and one last thing:

“You’ve have gotten closer to me than any other guy has ever been”.

“Closer-than-ever” guy has known her for 3 years, and can usually tell what she’s thinking while she’s thinking it, and can sense when things are heading South (like they did).

Recently-met-lucky-bastard gets to sleep with her after having known her for about 2/3 months.

Is sex just sex? Who got closer to her? Yes, this exposes me in a poor, homosexual-type light, but it also exposes hypocrisy. To one man, she reveals her favourite colour, to the other, she reveals her body, and she gives herself to him. Who got closer?

One of them was just an over-glorified Best-Friend (”Let’s not put a label on our relationship”).

Again, you only have yourself to blame, if you believed this tripe. Time to move on, and find somebody who is less of a hypocrite.

Short Stories…

I’ve been tagged

Here’s my attempt at writing a short story, in 55 words. Not much of a story. But I think it says a lot.

After three years of love, hate, arguments, space, relationship labels, men & women, they were ready for a break. An indefinite break. Isn’t that the same thing as Goodbye, he wondered? Then Geetanjali walked past him, onto the dance floor. Perfume alluring, dressed to kill. *Smile* Yes, we need an indefinite break

Not the best I can do. I might even cheat and rewrite it. Ha!

Well instead of cheating I’ve just deformed the idea.

Here’s some more of the story

Did I love her?, he wonders, on an hourly basis. 3 years. How can I still be uncertain? Is that internal Void because of her, or is it simply because the last occupant has left, without a replacement? She may now be possessed by another, and equally possess that other. That drives me crazy.

* * *

Some random flashes of memory. Cuddling in a basement bed in London. Fighting outside a South Delhi multiplex. Getting a head massage in a New York taxi. Trying to figure out what life would be like if we were married. Married?! Fuck me! I’ve got places to go, and Wild Oats to sow!

* * *

In an old sci-fi classic, a character wonders: Why can’t I grieve? In the same tone, He asks: “Why don’t I miss her?�? Where is that dull ache? That feeling of being incomplete. Why don’t I feel it? Was it all for nothing? Then self-admonishment. You have reasons to be Happy. He realizes: I am.

* * *

He’s given his notice. Less than a month left before he is free. Being idle scares him. Being lonely scares him. But a new life beckons. Will I be up to the challenge? Yes I will be, this time. Having attempted to make his mark in the Northern Hemisphere, he now crosses the Equator.

I tag Shiv and Karma

Road Rage

Ok, the title says that because I wanted to spew as many cuss words as I could

WARNING: LONG POST AHEAD

One has to wonder what the other half of humanity uses for a brain. Other half, in this sentence is defined as those people who disagree with me. :-p

Roads only benefit Rich People

I am literally shocked at the number of times I have seen people (who I assume know how to read and write) say the above bolded sentence. I just cannot get my optimistic self to believe that people with an education can say such a thing. But it does also explain why the world is the way it is.

I would think that the benefit of roads would be obvious, and that’s why it’s taken as given, and requires no explaining, but apparently it does. So either I’m a fucking prodigy to whom the following scenarios come naturally, or there are a lot of people doing an injustice to humainty by claiming to be members of it!

How investing in roads & highways benefit poor people

When I say investing in roads, I don’t mean laying some tar from point A to point B. I refer to the whole Government program of creating a Golden Quadrilateral, the NHDP, highways, flyovers e.t.c.

Ok
1) It provides low-income people with jobs.
Scenario 1: There are no roads in India. Poor people sit on their thumbs (and starve to death).
Scenario 2: They help out in the building of a grand highway. This could mean they actually work on the road itself (clear rubble, lay the bitumen, help level the land, feed other people who are working on the road, be employed as sweepers once the road is construct). This puts money in their pocket. They use this money to eat/sleep/survive.

2) It saves lives.
Scenario 1: Let’s give every shitty village in the country money to make a hospital, and not focus on building roads at all. Result: out of 40,000 villages 12 actually use the money to make hospitals. The others find that the money never reached them (or went as far as the Village panchayat, which miraculously manages to afford BMWs, with none of the villagers being any wiser). Out of the 12 hospitals that are made, 8 aren’t used at all, because nobody was really monitoring their construction, so they’re simply rotting corpses. That leaves 4. Out of those 4, 2 operate at slightly substandard conditions, because all of the fresh, bright-eyed young doctors don’t want to waste their lives in the middle of a godforsaken village, so you get the dregs working in those hospitals. That leaves 2 hospitals. One of them gets a young bright-eyed doctor with a positive approach and leftist leanings, and is successful enough to get a brief mention in the New York Times and the BBC, detailing the young Doctor’s ideals and how he studied in Johns Hopkins but came to back to make a contribution to his country. The last and final hospital is run by a Western European who has decided that since his country has spent the last 800 years plundering the darkies, he has the right to come back to their land and patronise them, all the while lecturing on the beauties of Socialism, explaining that is what made his country rich. When idiots like TTG point out that maybe plundering the darkies made him rich, not Socialism, TTG is instantly shut up by Macualay’s bastard brown children, all the while profusely apologising to pompous arrgoant european fuckhead.
When a person in one of the non-hospitalized villages gets sick, s/he gets loaded on to a bullock which trundles along on a dirt track, eventually leading to poor villager’s death. TTG never hears of it. Left-leaning blogger gets inspired to write an emotional article on the village which is called KahinBhiNahinPur, highlighting little details like the children’s smiles and how “Baa” was such a sweet quaint old lady, killed by the ineptitude of India. The article gets published in a newspaper.

Scenario 1a
KahinBhiNahinPur gets hit by a tsunami. There are no roads connecting KahinBhiNahinPur except for the dirt track, which also got washed away by the tsunami. No hlpe reaches KahinBhiNahinPur in time. People die. TTG never hears of it. Left-leaning blogger gets inspired to write an emotional article on the village which is called KahinBhiNahinPur, highlighting little details like the children’s smiles, and discarded buscuit wrappers and how “Baa” was such a sweet quaint old lady, killed by the ineptitude of India. The article gets published in a newspaper, and then Arundhati goes and writes a book on how Cellphones used by Punjabi men named Honey and Pinky have brought about Baa’s death.

Scenario 2: You spend money connecting all of India up with very very good roads, and spend money setting up hospitals in Small-medium towns with some semblance of infrastructure which attracts doctors/nurses and other people who don’t have to take shits out in the open. When person in village A gets sick, they call out an Ambulance which goes speeding down a newly constructed highway (almost getting run over by 3 cows and 8 trucks) and manages to get the villager to a hospital in time.

Tsunami hits KahinBhiNahinPur. Relief reaches it very fast, on the Toll Road which is making an exception in this case to allow emergency traffic to get to KahinBhiNahinpur for free, using the high-quality roads which did not get washed away by the tsunami.

3) It provides low-income people with jobs.
Wait didn’t I just mention that above. I guess this needs to be hammered in. Scenario 1
KahinBhiNahinPur is a village of farmers. They grow vegetables. They figure they could make money selling these vegetables. They make more vegetables than they consume. The nearest big market of vegetables is New Delhi, with a population of 14 million, and fat pockets. But there’s no way of getting those vegetables to New Delhi. Because there is no road connecting to KahinBhiNahinPur to New Delhi. And what vegetables do attempt to make it to Delhi get eaten by the bullock that pulls the cart that holds the vegetables. The villagers commit suicide, and Chandrababu NoDo gets kicked out of office, because he wasn’t doing anything to “help the poor”, he was just concerned with building highways for rich mercedes drivers. Won’t someone PLEASE THINK OF THE COMMON MAN. (After all, what good is a road when you’re NOT MAKING ENOUGH MONEY TO FEED YOURSELF, FOR FUCK’S SAKE).

Scenario 2.
There is a road connecting New Delhi to KahinBhiNahinPur. The villagers sell vegetables to Rude/Crude Delhi-ites. In Rude/Crude Delhi, some unfit, but good-looking, Software engineers get a pay rise. They get married. They buy more vegetables. The villagers in KahinBhiNahinPur sell more vegetables so they make more money…….WAIT….NOOOOOOOO…..THIS IS THE TRICKLE-DOWN EFFECT. We all know this is just an article of faith. It couldn’t possibly be the outcome of REASON!

4) It provides low-income people with jobs.
Wait didn’t I just mention that above. I guess this needs to be hammered in.

Scenario 1
There is a dirt track connecting KahinBhiNahinPur to New Delhi. It is graced by a convoy of VIP ambassador cars and police gypsies once every four years.

Scenario 2
There is a national highway built by a private (i.e. greedy multinational) company running very close to KahinBhiNahinPur, which actually dared to suggest to the government that it wanted to make a profit on it, instead of doing something for the Common Man. Lots of trucks, buses and cars pass by KahinBhiNahinPur. KahinBhiNahinPur resident Ramu (or Sita, I’m no chauvinist!) is good at making Parathas. Ramu sets up Monty da Dhaba on the national highway, close to his home town and starts making money. 15 dhabas, 1 McDonald’s and 3 petrol stations come up to cater to the traffic on the Highway. The McDonald’s, being an evil greedy multinational hires every single one of their employees from America, even the beggars outside it. They import everything, the toilet paper, the dirt, the cement, the electricity even! The surrounding neighbourhood does not benefit at all. How after all, does letting McDonald’s into India benefit the COMMON MAN. HOW? I just don’t get it. The Petrol stations also refuse to hire anybody from the local village. They ship slaves from Africa to man their Bharatiya petrol pumps.

5) It provides low-income people with jobs.
Wait didn’t I just mention that above. I guess this needs to be hammered in.

Scenario 1
There is a dirt track connecting KahinBhiNahinPur to New Delhi. It is graced by a convoy of VIP ambassador cars and police gypsies once every four years.

Scenario 2
There is a national highway built by a private (i.e. greedy multinational) company running very close to KahinBhiNahinPur, which actually dared to suggest to the government that it wanted to make a profit on it, instead of doing something for the Common Man. NotATattu Automobiles, a big multinational corporation making cars, notices that plump software engineers in New Delhi now have enough money to buy their cars. They also realize it’s cheaper to assemble/manufacture cars in India rather than import them. They are looking for a place set up a factory. Since land in Delhi is expensive, they have to build their factory outside it, but nearby. They have two sites in mind. KahinToHaiPur, which looks and feels like hell, and KahinBhiNahinPur, which also looks and feels like hell, but has a highway running near it, built by the ex-Chief Minister Chandrababu NoDo who got kicked out for not helping the Common Man.
They decide to locate their factory in KahinBhiNahinPur…OH NO. The TRCIKLE DOWN EFFECT AGAIN? BUT BUT WE ALL KNOW IT DOESN’T EXIST! Rich software engineers cause villagers in KahinBhiNahinPur to also make money? How can this be? People of the village get jobs in the factory, and since they had no jobs before, they are willing to work at low rates. Arundhati Roy writes an article on how greedy multinationals exploit workers with low rates, and how they deserve to kicked out, so that the villagers can go back to teaching the village idiot to dig holes in the ground.

*takes deep breath*
Rinse, lather and repeat, with Electricity and other rich people’s toys….

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Outsourcing. No Worries

Why the World shouldn’t worry

Disclaimer: This post is based on no researched facts. It is completely based on the contents of my head. Read at your own risk

America, is of course worried about outsourcing to India, and how all its jobs are going down the tube.

But lest ye think that India is all ok about everything, there has been lots of talk over the past few years that India will lose its edge to China, or the Philippines, or Estonia or somewhere.

No.

This whole outsourcing thing will actually just cease to be an issue soon (for Americans) and Indians also need not worry. Here’s why:

1)Indian salaries are rising much faster than American salaries are falling
In the outsourcing industry (software, BPO e.t.c), the average pay hike, for the past 2/3 years has been a whopping 30% (no sources, this is just based on my anecdotal evidence). A pay hike is expected every year in the software industry! This when inflation is a low (by Indian standards) 4%! Now the SOLE reason for outsourcing is cost. If that cost advantage disappears, there will be less outsourcing. If salaries in India are rising fast (in this sector) eventually outsourcing becomes less lucrative. Another reason for this salary rise is a shortage of skilled workers in India!!!

This brings me to point 2

2)There is no other competition
If India is going to become more expensive, then the work should just shift to other countries which are cheaper right? No. Why? Because the uniqueness of India, lies in BOTH the quality and quantity factor.

India has a large number of qualified and engineers, and continues to churn them out. Other countries may be able to match on quality, but few will able to match on quantity. Quantity is an important factor, because of the way outsourcing works (in India). Put simply, it’s “Throw 2 billed engineers and 2 shadow resources on this problem, and get it done!”, i.e. have four people do the work while you’re only charging for 2. Even within that equation, those 4 engineers are making more money as compared to the pre-outsourcing days. No other country has the amount of qualified engineers that India does to enable it to perform outsourcing cheaper rates than the Indians! They may be able to sustain it temporarily, but the wages would rise faster in a smaller country than they do in India. So attempting to outsource (on a large scale, i.e. the type of stuff done in India) would be a very temporary phenomenon, short-lived.
Okay so quality and quantity. Now here’s another crucial factor: Time Zone.
The bulk of outsourcing comes from America. India is 12 hours ahead of 1 or 2 US time zones. What does this mean? This means that you can provide 24 hr support to American customers, and charge DAYTIME rates for the full 24 hours. While India is also handling US daytime customer service, the nightly stuff is what makes the huge difference. You have somebody who is (sort of) up and perky in their time zone, but working through the American night time. This makes it theoretically possible for an American company to get something like 18 hours of work done in an 8 hour workday, by farming problems over to the Indian wing after their office hours. While this is not something revolutionary, it is successful because companies who would not be able to afford this before can do so now! (Multinational corporations have been using timezones to their advantage for centuries, but now even without a global presence, smaller companies can make use of this).

Wait. If we’re talking population, what about the only other 5000+ year-old civilization in the neighbourhood?

3)What about China? Nothing.
India has nothing to fear from China in the software field. For lots of reasons.
One of them is English. Yes, we’ve been hearing for a while now that the Chinese government is pushing Chinese people to learn English. But this is already true of many people in India. English and Hindi are part of the Indo-European language tree. Chinese is not. It is much, much easier for an Indian to learn English, than for a Chinese person. This is not to say Chinese people will always suck at English, but this an obstacle in the way.
Another important language issue is the language of the operating system. In India, computers using local languages never took off, for a variety of reasons. But in China, Windows, Linux e.t.c they are all in Chinese. Now if your customers are American, they’re probably using the English version of Windows. If you’re in India, so are you. So What? Weelll, technically, an American company could ship its English product over to a Chinese company, but then there’s added overhead: If the American company’s software product is in English, there now needs to be an interpreter betwee n the Chinese developers and the English designers….and some things can be lost in translation. But in India, you learn Computer Science in English. And thus, certain things are instantly clear. Language makes a difference…

Ok now the thing is that determined Chinese can overcome this. But there’s another big hurdle against them. A Chinese worker is already more expensive than an Indian one!. I say this again, with no evidence. I base this simply on the GDP per capita for the two countries. China’s GDP per capita is higher than India’s. This means, in a very inaccurate sense, that China’s income is higher than India’s. This means that the cost of a Chinese worker (his/her wage) is higher than an Indian worker’s. So not only do Chinese not have the requisite large pool of English speaking graduates, but the ones they do have will already be more expensive than Indian ones.

Add lack of a decent legal infrastructure to handle IT issues, and the lead that India already has in Software/BPO, China is not a threat in this particular sector.

Conclusion
So..in conclusion, eventually outsourcing will peak, then drop, and that day is not far. Also, although I dismiss the competition, it doesn’t mean that they won’t get some small share of the pie. Eventually, faster than people think, outsourcing to India will no longer be the value for money it used to be, and that will be end of the large scale trend. In order for the Indian software companies to survive, they will have to “move up the value chain”, into the consulting biz, and also by developing their own products. Infy, Wipro and TCS already have their own products, and other big companies are working to develop their own, to shut up cynics, who constantly crib and question: Why doesn’t India ever produce a Google or a Microsoft? And consulting is already happening.
End result: India gains a reputation in a “knowledge” field, and if leveraged correctly. gets to exploit it as Brand India. As for the Americans, eventually the outsourcing will drop off, some jobs will move back, and Americans will eventually discover the Next Big Thing and ride the next wave.

South Asian My Ass!

my take on an old spat

Anybody who is a regular follower of Sepia Mutiny may have noticed how a couple of months ago, a(nother) great rift opened up between FOBs and ABCDs.

I forget the exact article, but it had to do with the London terrorist attacks, and how the Sepia team criticised (Indian)people who were disassociating themselves from the South Asian tag and the Muslim tag . The Mutineers (and many others) argued that this behaviour was despicable, and that “in this difficult time, all of us browns should stand together” – why? Because the aftermath of the attacks meant that being brown meant being a terrorist so an Indian/Sri Lankan/Pakistani/Muslim/Hindu/Sikh all had an equal chance of being subject to backlash.

So the argument started off with “Since we’re all being discriminated against, we should stick together”

The next argument made was that South Asians had a common culture (cuisine, parental issues, marriage e.t.c), and that’s why the Term South Asian made sense.

Now, in this day and age, I understand that the concepts of Identity, Nationalism and Patriotism are considered old-fashioned, evil even!

But not to me. I do consider myself a “Citizen Of The World”. Somebody who is happy bouncing around London, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, San Francisco, Houston, Singapore, Hong Kong as much as Delhi, Bombay and Chandigarh. But I know my roots, and my grounding. I am Indian.

So pardon me, if I take offense at being associated with a bunch of suicide bombers, and fundamentalist pricks. Of course, one argues that the “average” Pakistani and Bangladeshi is not responsible for these characters either. Which may or or may not be true, but the fact is, that we Indians have worked hard to carve out a name for our country – it stands for something. The Idea of India is not a new concept. It’s been around for a good 2000 years or so. Replacing the Idea of India with one of South Asia devalues everything that India has achieved to group it right back with a surrounding basket cases.

Anybody who has read my previous post on The United States of South Asia may think that I’m contradicting myself. Well yes-and-no. I floated that idea as a means to end current political problems (mostly), not because I feel we share something in common with our Paki “brothers”.

I don’t particularly blindly hate Pakistanis as the government would have me do. But neither do I particularly like them, nor share any fraternal bond with them. This is because, in my mind, the Pakistani/Bangladeshi identity is precarious at best. Yes this is based on the fact that these particular identities are only 50-some years old, but also on the reasons behind their creation. What was the reason behind the creation of Pakistan? It was to be an anti-India. That is what defines Pakistan.

How am I expected to believe I share something in common with a bunch of people who’re trying their hardest to show they’re NOT Indian. When brown people are called “Cow-Worshippers, “South Asian” Muslims/Christians will quickly jump to point out they’re not idolatrous Hindus. Sri Lankans hate being confused for Indians (and rightly so!).

All of this “stand together” stuff is bullshit. The people we’re trying to stand together wouldn’t do it for us, so why should we do it for them? The day Pakistani jihadis start fighting for the World’s mistreatment of India and Indians, you can call me “South Asian”. I see no harm in trying to educate White Rednecks in the differences between Indians and Pakistanis. Hell I want to do it! But NOT because I want them to go beat up Pakistanis and leave us Indians alone – simply because it’s frikking insulting for me, as an Indian to be associated with that crap. While India has never been particularly nice to its own citizens(1984, 1993, 2002 e.t.c., e.t.c.) it has never perpetrated any acts of agression against other nations. It has not given its land over to Freedung/Freedumb Fighters to practise blowing innocent people up. So it would nice if that particular distinction was not lost on the Western world when they decide to hop on top of a man and fire 5 bullets into his head. Why should I, a nerdy software engineer with an ivy-league degree have to be fingerprinted like a common criminal because of the stupid acts of people from Arabia/Pakistan? And I’m sorry, it doesn’t seem like the average Pakistani is against those terrorist acts. I could be wrong about this, but it doesn’t seem like they are. As Indians, we should loudly advertise the fact that we’re Indian, NOT South Asian

One final note – about the common cuisine and culture…..yes, we do have a common cuisine and culture – it’s INDIAN culture and Cuisine. I dare somebody to show me a drastic difference between “Pakistani Cuisine” and what Indian Muslims eat. Guess what – 50-some years ago, there wasn’t anything called Pakistani “Culture” – that’s because it was INDIAN!!!!

Update
After posting my reply to Arzan in my comments section I just realized something – this standing together nonsense devalues all that INDIAN Muslims have struggled and fought for as well. Many of them have taken advantage of India’s freedom to pull themselves out of the ghetto and to challenge dogma (Yes cynics, I know about a woman called Imrana, and Shah Bano). Why should they also now be painted with a Jihadi brush? Let me stress, as I did in my comments, to me Indian Muslims are Indians first – and I’ve met many of them who think of themselves in the same way, and could not think in any other. Sure we’ll keep our distances from each other (especially when I state my craving for a nice Hot Dog..)

Second Rant of The Day

Singhapur and Bharat

The second rant, goes back to my all-time fav – Deeshaa.org.

So there is the regular, predictable, conventional post on Singapore.

Comparing Singapore to India from an Indian’s perspective is depressing: how did we–given all the advantages we had in 1950 compared to Singapore–squander it all and end up being a poor misgoverned over-populated country? That is the depressing bit.

Ok here’s the re-write:

Comparing Singapore to India, from any perspective is Idiotic: <Sarcasm>How did we, as a country with 5000 years of love and hate and bloodshed and wars and history and religion and culture and empire and 500 million people who could barely feed themselves not end up as “developed” as a teency-weency 4 million-strong authoritarian city-state?</Sarcasm>

Oh and one thing – am I to take it that India was NOT a poor misgovernment over-populated country in 1950? Were we a first-world country then?

Yes. It truly boggles the mind. When comparing development trajectories, our next comparisons will involve Ethiopia and Hong Kong. How did Ethiopia, with all the advantages that it had over Hong Kong in the late 9th century, end up being such a poor, misgoverned malnourished country, while Hong Kong has gone from strength to strength?

No wonder the World is the way it is today…

See, I’ll confess upfront – I’m a loud-mouthed idiot, with not much to show for brainpower. I didn’t figure out wave-particle duality. I’m lucky if I don’t get mated in chess in 3 moves(sigh…the one case where I DON’T want to get mated so easily….). But when the Brains of the World, who actually study Economics in depth come up with swill like this, one really begins to wonder.

policies — well thought out, rigorously implemented, and single-mindedly enforced — have the power to transform.

Duh.

This is what I heard. A certain minister, very close to Lee Kuan Yew, in charge of housing (or some such) was involved in some kick-backs. The word went around that the guy will surely get off easy since he was in the inside circle. Lee asked the minister to see him. The meeting was brief. Two days later the minister blew his brains out. The message was clear: zero tolerance.

Ah, “This is what I heard”. Anecdotal evidence. The Best Kind. Now judging by this story, one can deduce many things.

Lee (Kuan Yew) is an expert hypnotist. How else do you think he convinced the minister to blow his brains out?

Lee Kuan Yew is a Mafia Don. He made the minister an offer he couldn’t refuse (cue Godfather Music).

The Minister was tired of being constipated, so he killed himself two days later, because he was..full of shit.

Or… The Minister was so shamed by his act he committed suicide.

None of them reflect very well on Lee Kuan Yew. Well, I would think the first possibility would make his being a leader much easier..but neither the second, the third nor the fourth possibility show what a “great leader” Lee Kuan Yew was/is.

That week they go out and catch a vandal, prosecute him to the utmost, and plaster his picture on the papers and in the write-up use the word “shame�? a dozen times.

O Glorious tactic of public disgrace. How I love thee. Not. Because in a country as small as India, with a population of only 1 billion, it would easy to capture all the vandals, and to plaster their faces in the papers, right? What a nice paper that would read like. What a lovely business idea! I can make yellow pages of all the people shamed! I’ll be rich! (*puts pinky finger tip to mouth, shaves head bald, and puts on a grey Nehru coat*) One BILLION dollars! Before you look up propesctive grooms on Shaadi.com, you will check out their mugs in my Shame catalogue! And this system would be so foolproof. I mean it’s not the least bit prone to corruption or mistakes. And hey, if you got defamed accidentally, and weren’t really guilty, you can always make your reputation back in your next life, right?

Freedom of religion is guaranteed in Singapore but freedom to proselytize is not. Proselytizing essentially says that my religion is better than your religion and that if you don’t accept my god as the One True Savior(TM), you will rot in hell that my god has specially prepared for you. This sows seeds of discord in society and soon the newly converted start asking for special treatment and handouts and in the limiting case, when the bunch grows sufficiently large, ask for a separate state of their own because they cannot bear to live with the other people who are destined to go to hell.

Does anybody else sense a little bigotry here? No no, this is just general conversation…

o Singapore is strict about proselytizing. In keeping with their policy of discouraging that anti-social behavior, they caught a meek little Catholic lady who was going door to door peddling her religion and threw her into jail after she was found guilty by the courts. Then they publicized the event. This sent the message to all religious bigots who follow the dictates of their own hearts that bigotry is not ok.

This also sends the message that meek little old catholic ladies are the real threat to society. Not suicide bombers, thieves, or rapists. What a remarkable concept. I love it. Remember, don’t be caught with a religious book outside a strangers house. According to common law precedent, this treasonous, murderous act could get you in jail. But at least it would keep all the fundamentalists at bay.

They took care of the mullahs as well. Got them together and told them that if they even make a peep in their weekly religious sermons promoting killing and terrorism, they will have their butts in the sling. Live and let live was the message they got and as rational humans, the mullahs got in line. The last time they had communal unrest was sometime in the late 1960s.

What Neato Idea! Now I wish the kings of the 25 disparate Hindu kingdoms had thought of that 1100 years ago. India wouldn’t be in this mess. Then maybe even we wouldn’t have had any communal unrest since the 1960s. Live and let live. All this time. It’s been so simple. If we’d only said that to those Arab marauders with their scimitars. Then maybe us Hindus and Muslims would be living in peace now. Yes truly. Lee Kuan Yew. What a great man. What novel ideas Singapore has come up with.

No such luck in India, of course. We have Christian missionaries from all over the world having a grand old time converting heathens and soon enough you have the neo-converts pissing on Ganesh idols to show their new-found faith. News gets around and finally out of desperation and plain old brutality, a few missionaries get roasted and this gives the country an ill-deserved reputation of being intolerant. Madrassas funded by Saudi money flourish by the thousands where apparently the mullahs teach the young that killing kuffars is a pretty practical way of arranging society.

In reaction to this ocassionally, a few of the normally tolerant Hindus band together and retaliate. This hits the international press and India is tarred as a society full of murdering morons.

I notice that most of the commenters on that blog have let this comment fly. Frankly, this comment scares the shit out of me. Anybody who tries to justify these kinds of massacres, is a true disgrace to humanity.

And another thing – Hindus are NOT tolerant. We may not convert people to other religions and may let other religions be, but we are not tolerant. Don’t believe me? Ask any Hindu woman how “tolerant” Hindus are. Ask any Dalit how “tolerant” Hindus are. Yes members of other faiths may be even less tolerant. But please, lets not have any illusions about ourselves.

Every chronic persistent shortage you see around you in India is the result of a failure of imagination

Nope. It’s a failure of Socialism. I am pretty sure that some of the lalas sitting at their grubby desks imagined up precisely that some actions would lead to a shortage, thus causing hapless people to line up at their desks with bribes. That’s imaginative.

Not so the Singaporeans under Lee Kuan Yew. They learnt to use their imagination. They build capacity before they hit shortage. I hear that they have started building the third terminal at the airport even though the second one is not even up to full capacity.

Of course, that’s it. Build capacity before you hit shortage. Right. How foolish of me. And here I was, thinking, wait until everybody is dying, until every transformer blows a fuse before you replace it. Because of course, we have money to spare, and it’s easy to inject planning into cities that have existed since Jesus’ time. It is easy to buldoze 400 year old villages to make way for new highways. I mean there must be what – one or two of those in India at the most. Singapore must have also had 400 year old villages right?

I don’t know why but some people just draw good cards from the random draw that is life. Singaporeans are lucky. I am sure there are those who will immediately retort that the Singaporeans don’t have the freedoms that are normally associated with a liberal democracy. And I am also sure that the person making that statement is sitting comfortably well-fed in his nice office or home accessing the world wide web for knowledge and entertainment. For the average schmuck in a third world country, he would any day trade in his imaginary freedoms for a decent shot at a full stomach, a roof over his head, and a chance to get his children educated. After the average schmuck has achieved those basic necessities, he would ask for all sorts of goodies that a liberal democracy provides. And that is when the society should become a liberal democracy.

The sequence is important.

And here lies the greatest horror of horrors. Mr. Dey accuses people who champion democracy as being out of touch with reality. That we should all stay indoors in our airconditioned rooms….while he stays in his a/c room to tell us that Democracies should follow DICTATORSHIPS!!!!! This is it folks. The Path to salvation.

1. Create an authoritarian state.
2. From your pool of available dictators, pick one who has vision, knows how to read and write and is good at economics
3. Create country
4. Once your country is full of people with high living standards, transition to democracy.

*smacks hand on forehead*. EUREKA! The solution to all our problems are here! YAYAYAYA! *dances naked on the streets*

But, but wait. Didn’t America start out as a capitalist democracy first? And doesn’t comparing India against America make a teency bit more sense since they both were under the Colonial Yoke and had to fight for their freedom?
Hmmm, well more than Singapore, but America was just empty land before the Colonial times.

Oh – so we should compare against China. Ohhh, so China is the model for all to follow. Where they speak only one language, and follow mostly only one religion. And where their country wasn’t divided into two.

Hmmm…so that would mean, that just because something is good for Singapore, it’s not necessarily good for India?

But but, reducing crime and corruption aren’t bad things. We should learn those ideas from Singapore, shouldn’t we? Yes, but I think people in India do want less crime and corruption as a rule….so what is the new thing that Singapore is teaching us?

Hmmm… could it be…that it is more important for a country to be Economically free, than Politicially?

Possibly. Could it mean, that if your country is economically chained, the democracy would just end up re-inforcing that chaining?

For the most part, until the citizens of that country slowly wake up to other forms of Economics.

First Rant of the Day

An awful pissing contest

Ok so I’ve meaning to get a few rants off my chest for a while now, but being bloggicapped has prevented me from doing so.

Anyway, first off, is the now famous (Paris Hilton-type famous) post by ZigZackly. So apparently, it’s bad enough that people are murdering each other/killing each other in New Orleans and stuff, this idiot instead decides to admonish Americans for daring to talk about being poor. This is like what kids used to do in kindergarten – “My daddy is stronger than your daddy. My car is better than your car”

In this case it’s “My poor person is poorer than your poor person”. I totally second one of the abusive commenter’s retort – Suffering is suffering, and just because somebody doesn’t meet your definition of suffering doesn’t make it any less real, or of less consequence.

Come Fly With Me

Some Good News, At Last
This Voice has been away because he’s been suffering from Writer’s block. When people who are actually good at writing, suffer from that block, we mark it as sad, and wish the writer gets out of it quickly.
When lousy-software-developer-going-thru-quarter-life-crisis-who-rants-more-than-writes gets writer’s block, the consequences could be blog-life-threatening.

Over the past few weeks, I have begun to despair, and I guess it’s affected my blogging. Yes, while people don’t have anough to eat, and other’s are happy to have a soggy cardboard box over their heads as a roof, upper-middle-class me has had the audacity to spend time worrying about myself and where the heck I should be i.e. the usual.

While this Voice has been silent, The Other Side, of course has gained the upper hand.

You scour the Indian Blogosphere, and you find posts on:
-how the rains in Mumbai “expose” chinks in the City’s infrastructure(I’m sorry but as of 2005, the only city with Infrastructure worth talking about is Delhi. This is obvious. That Bombay has actually plundered along is of course due to the much-used cliche of its people’s resilience).
-How Independence Day is meaningless, and since how all of us Indians are savage pogrom-inducing murderers, we have nothing to be happy about, nothing to celebrate.
-Any other regular posts which are designed to make the reader “think” and to “enlighten” them (i.e. feel despair and misery).

Since I aspire to no such aims as actually making anybody think about anything, I present you with the following link:

Rediff

Remember folks, nothing ever changes in India, nor has changed in the past 5000 years, and if it does, it’s always for the worst. This new airport terminal will probably lead to 15 times more air pollution, it probably relocated countless slum-dwellers, it probably employed lots of poor people at slave labour rates, it probably enriched loads of ministries’ officials. It is after all just a plaything of those Rich 1000 people who live in India. “How will this Help The Common Man?” goes the refrain. Those poor, poor rural folk. How will it help them?

Well see, I don’t care to make people “think”. So I don’t care, nor will I give any answer to those questions.

Is Dumbledore Dead?

Some More Surfer-Whoring…
Every once in a while, this voice decides to do something shameless and underhanded. Specifically, attempting to boost site traffic in the hopes of becoming the most famous person in the whole universe. Now the hard way to do this is to actually write something of importance. The easy way, is to occasionally post an inter-office forward, or the lyrics to Bulla Ki Kaana (I have a feeling that about 50% of traffic to my site is to the translation for this song, :-p)

So in that vein I pose a question. But do NOT click on the read more if you haven’t finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I’m assuming there are some people out there who still haven’t been exposed to the “Security Leak”….

Is Dumbledore Really Dead?
My short answer is I don’t think so….
I’ll present my strongest argument first: Harry Potter is basically the latest incarnation of the same theme that runs through a lot of Western fantasy – of Fall & Redemption, of Coming-of-Age, Rites-of-Passage blah blah blah. Based on this theme, Dumbledore is not dead…

In Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi willingly let himself be murdered by Darth Vader, only to come back as a lecturing spirit.

In Lord of the Rings, Gandalf fell into Moria, battling the Balrog, only to come back as Gandalf The White.

The wizened Old Guide character always seems to take a fall and come back stronger…

I’m sure there are other series with the same theme, but I am simply just talking about my favourite two.

There many other parallels you can draw, about betrayal by someone who was thought to be good (Lando Calrissian, Saruman, Snape*)
The young,naive,humble and simple dude who is destined to become the Superstar (Frodo, Luke, Harry)
The cooler-than-the-hero sidekick (Aragorn+Legolas, Han Solo, Hermione?Moody?Tonks?)
The comic relief (Gimli+Merry+Pippin, R2D2+C3PO, Ron?Hermione?)
e.t.c.

Another theory is that Dumbledore is an impostor in this case.
What’s up with the blackened arm anyhoo? Is it really due to the ring? Dumbledore seems to talk to Harry in slightly bizarre tones as well. A little bit ruder. But then Harry is also a little older… but something just wasn’t right about the way Dumbledore went about pushing Harry to get the memory from Slughorn…
Plus, what’s up with the “R.A.B” note. Where did the “R.A.B” come from, what’s it mean, and was Dumbledore really so dumb as to not know that the locket he was going after was fake?
And when Snape finally kills Dumbledore, there is a small doubt in my mind – it seems to me that Dumbledore was pleading with Snape TO kill him. NOT pleading with him to be saved.

Any other suggestions, oh learned readers?
Please do write in….

What I Learned In The City pt 5

A Weekend in The City of The Lion
2005, so far has turned out be a great year for travel for me. I haven’t travelled to so many places in such a short time ever, in the history of my short/long life. The odd thing is that I simply seem to be treading paths already trodden. I’ve been to HongKong/Singapore/USA before at different periods in my life.

I began this year with New York and London.
Then spent a little bit of time in Bombay.
Then Hong Kong.
Then Agra (of course New Delhi comes in the middle of all this).
Finally, I spent the last 4 days in Singapore.

Singapore is an Anglicisation of the words Singha-Pura….which is Sanskrit for Lion City (thus the famous MerLion as Singapore’s emblem).

So here’s what I learned (with an inevitable HongKong-Singapore comparison, as many people refer to these city-states in the same breath). Can’t wait for the day that those cities get happy at their “de-hyphenation”, LOL.

1) (The Most important point, again). Cellphones are cheaper in India than in Singapore. In fact, Singapore in general seemed to be expensive – US$1 = S$1.65

2) There aren’t half as many tall buildings in Singapore than in HongKong. The population is also around half.

3) Singapore is very close to the Equator. This means that in June, it ALWAYS rains around 4 pm… (Hong Kong, on the other hand, has a cold winter). In July, you should also be sure to take your umbrella with you.

4)Despite all the alleged strictness and caning, I saw a drunken brawl go on for about 20 minutes in an area called Boat Quay, among some really happening clubs and pubs.

5) Singapore is the one place I’ve been to in the world that Indians are actually liked and respected. When people talk of Indians in Singapore, it’s not as a bunch of usurpers, but as locals. In Hong Kong & India, Indians are just plain hated. In USA, we’re tolerated, with polite comments about how tasty Chicken Tikka is. In the UK, we may be jumped on by plainclothes policemen and shot 5 times before they realize we ain’t terrorists( OK, that’s below the belt, but whatever). The local paper (The Straits Times) even has a whole section devoted to India alone. Wow. The current prime minster is also talking about how he wants Singapore to be to India what Hong Kong was/is to China. (A sort of conduit/middleman, which is mutually benficial)

6) Diwali is a public holiday in Singapore (I think Fiji and Trinidad also have Diwali as a public holiday.)

7) Despite the drunken brawl mentioned, Singapore (like Hong Kong) is amongst the safest cities in the world. You can be walking down a dark alley here at 4 am in the morning, and not worry about a thing. I think this leads to the women over here being generally friendlier and more approachable. And considering that most people here are mixed-race (inter-mingling of Indian, Chinese, Malay, European), they are tongue-hanging-out-and-salivating attractive….or maybe I just went on a good day.

There isn’t as much public transport as I expected. In Hong Kong, double-decker buses are basically piling on to each other, and climbing steep hillsides and the like. In Singapore, not so much. There is an underground train system, but it seemed more in the mould of the New Delhi Metro – most stations were a bit of a walk.

9) Following on from point 8, I think this is why the most common type of car in Hong Kong is a Mercedes (as everyone from poor to upper-upper-middle class doesn’t own a car, they just use public transport. Whereas in S’pore, the most common car I saw was the Toyota Corolla. Of course this is just anecdotal. I also saw quite a few Honda Citys (Cities?) on the streets of S’pore. This car is only made (and sold) in India, Thailand, Japan and Malaysia/Singapore. I like it (because I own it).

10) The (Jurong) Bird Park is a great place to go sightseeing. Lots of rare birds and a great bird show. The Night Safari on the other hand was not so impressive. I’ve seen Elephants up close, and South Asian Buffalo are NOT something to be included in a “Safari”. But to be fair, to the urban Singaporean, the Night Safari would be a cool experience.

11) You need a visa for Singapore, (which is easy to get, but still annoying). S’pore, Hong Kong beats you on this count.

The bottom line is that Singapore is Hong Kong in the Twilight Zone. The Same, but Different.
Well that’s that. I don’t have any pictures of S’pore, and am still deciding between posting a Flikr badge or using Google Images to get the Hong Kong pictures up.

Eve-Teased & Adam Attacked

I wonder about our Wonders..
Sigh. We interrupt the scheduled Hong Kong-pictures post with the following news bulletin. This Voice has tried hard to present the counter-view of India. It has always fought to show that the future is not so bleak, that things are improving, that life is getting better. This Voice still stands by all of that.

Unfortunately, however, all is not well in Agra. This will be this Blog’s first (and hopefully last) negative post about India. We have a host of other blogs up and running explaining how much life sucks in India, not to mention enough media. I grudgingly add this post to that list.

So I begin by explaining, that this Voice accompanied some of his American friends from college to Agra, to show them India’s Wonder of the World. So we left Delhi at 6 am, and hit National Highway 2. For the most part, this highway is in VERY good condition, despite the occasional nasty villages along the way, and trucks/buses driving on the wrong side of the road instead of taking U-turns at the appropriate junctions. Anyway, we made it to Agra in 3 hours flat. Nice. Sort of.

Agra is filthy. No, not only is it filthy, but it’s also disgusting. You would think, that for the amount of foreign currency gushing into the place, it would be in much better condition? No such luck. The (Eastern) Entrance to the Taj is also the pits. You don’t think you are about to enter a 400-year old Monument to Love. You think you might be entering a zoo, or a jail. For God’s sake, this is a WONDER OF THE WORLD. Clean out the shit and shops from around it, and keep it clean and nice-smelling. And make a clean and decent ticket counter, which does not have 3 babus sitting discussing the weather!

My next complaint is the with the entry fee. I know that many countries do this – but I still think that we shouldn’t. It works as follows:

Indian Citizens: Rs 20/-
Others: Rs. 750/-

Ummm, ok…How about 500 bucks for everybody. This is a Wonder of The World, people, not the front stall ticket at the (porno) morning theatre show. If poor people are prevented from seeing the Taj, then so be it – I think they have other priorities anyway…
I’ve known that the fee structure was always two different rates for foreigners and Indians, but I didn’t know the order of magnitude.

Ok, so we entered the Taj, took off our shoes, and walked up to the entrance of the tomb. It must have been especially bad day, because there was a lot of jostling and pushing and it was very crowded. This was my 4th visit to the Taj. The last 3 times, the experience was not so bad (even thought the entrance still sucked, as did Agra). There weren’t cheap louts hanging about the place, and people would enter and exit the main Tomb in an orderly fashion, with a decent guide narrating the whole story. But this time it was different. It was bad.

And now I come to the title of my post. My American friends were wearing dresses, which came just above their knees. They weren’t particularly revealing (in my opinion), but I guess you could call them borderline by Shiv Sena standards.

So a bunch of cheapo-creepos were sitting on the Taj lawns, and as we walked by, one of them had the nerve to say:

“Yeh Bhi Utaar Do” (TRANSLATION: “Why don’t you just take it all off?”

Now, Yours Truly, doesn’t usually play The Hero. I usually try to keep out of trouble – in school I was considered too wimpy to be beaten up, so nobody bothered. But there are limits, and this time they were crossed, so I decided, regardless of the consequences, it’s time to have a word.

(Warning: Bollywood-style dialogue ahead)

(Dialogue is in Hindi, and has been translated for the reader’s convenience)
ME: WHO are you taking to?
FUCKFACE (Grimaces as though I’VE ruined HIS day): It’s OK sir, I wasn’t talking to you
ME: NO, Sisterfucker, WHO do you think you’re talking to? If you weren’t a eunuch, I’d get your ass-kicked. And don’t think I’d do it alone. Would you like me to call my other friends? (There were no other friends, but that’s not the point)
FUCKFACE(Still looking exasperated and hassled!): I wasn’t talking to you sir. I was talking to my friend

At this point, one of women my friends (who is Indian) walks up to me and says loudly: “Don’t waste your time on these losers. Let’s go”

ME (Walking away): Looks like you didn’t get a chance to fuck your mom last night – that must be why you’re sitting here passing comments.

At this point, I spy through the corner of my eye, that the guy actually get’s up with his friends, and they actually walk away, and out the exit – instead of coming after me and murdering me.

Although it ruined our mood for the rest of the day, I can’t help but feel a little satisfied. I mentioned this incident to another friend of mine, and she said that it’s always best to ignore these things, and let it go, because “who knows what might happen”, and she went on to mention how another friend of hers got stabbed because of a similar incident like this. She tried to tell me that “you can’t always fight society, and that is what our country is like”

I have just this to say. This is MY country too. And that means I get to have a say in what it should and should not be like as much as the bastard who attempts to harass my female friends.

Thoughts? Comments? Curses?

Identity Crisis

Bulla Ki Jana – Rabbi Shergill (pronounced Rub-bee for all you non-Punjabis. He has nothing to do with Jews!
Song basically sums up how I’m feeling these days. Have been shunted into my old non-travelling department of my company – MY CHEESE HAS BEEN MOVED! Must…break….out… in the meantime, a dude from Delhi releases a song in Pure Punjabi where he wrestles with the arguments of a long-gone dude called Bulle Shah

Bulla ki jaana main kaun x4
Bulla I know not who I am!

Na main moman vich maseetan
Na main vich kufar dian reetan
Na main pakan vich paleetan
Neither am I believer in a Mosque
Nor a pagan practising false rites
Nor am I the Pure amongst impure

Na main andar bed kitaban
Na main rehnda phaang sharaban
Na main rehnda mast kharaban
Neither am I in any Holy Books (Vedas)
Nor high on any drugs or alochol
Nor am I an idle delinquent

Na main shadi na ghamnaki
Na main vich paleetan pakeen
Na main aaabi na main khaki
Na main aatish na main paun
I am neither happy union nor lonely misery
Nor am I pure or impure
Nor am I water or earth
Nor am I fire or air

Bulla ki jana main kaun x4
Bulla! I know not who I am!

Na main arabi na lahori
Na main hindi shehar Nagauri
Na hindu na turk pashauri
I am neither an Arab or a Lahori (Pakistani)
Nor am I from the (Indian) town of Nagaur
Nor am I a Hindu or a Peshawari Turk

Na main bhet mazhab de paya
Na main aadam hawwa jaya
Na koi apna naam dharaya
I did not create any differences in faiths
Nor do I know of any Adam or Eve
I did not name myself

Avval aakhar aap nu jana
Na koi dooja hor pacchana
Mai ton na koi hor syana
I know only of the Self
and recognise no Other
There is nobody wiser than I

Bulla ki jaana main kaun x4
Bulla! I know not who I am!

Na main moosa na pharoah
Na main jagan na vich saun
Na main aatish na main paun
Na main rahnda vich Nadaun
Na main baitthan na vich bhaun
Neither am I Moses nor the Pharoah
Neither am I awake nor asleep
Neither am I am fire nor wind
Nor do I live in Nadaun
Neither am I at rest nor in a storm

Bulle shah kharha hai kaun?
Who is this Bulle Shah anyway?

Bulla ki jaana main kaun -4
oooooo…
Bulla ki jaana main kaun -4

BTW – I may be wrong about the order of the original Punjabi lyrics – the translations are accuarte.

MBA Essays (Sigh)

!$@##$@$#$!$%@!!#!#$!$!$%!$!#$!$!%!%^@%@$%!@!$

Please give a detailed description of your job, including nature of work and responsiblities, where relevant, employees under you, size of budget, results achieved
Umm, I sit at my desk, browse the web, and cut and paste a few lines of code here and there. There are 700 employees under me, as I am on the 5th floor. Size of budget – what budget? results achieved – still getting a paycheck at the end of month, without having to work too hard for it.

Give a candid description of yourself, stressing the personal characteristics you feel to be your strengths and weaknesses and the main factors that have influenced your personal development, giving examples where necessary
I’m a lazy bastard, that wants to be paid to do nothing, with a really immature sense of humour.
Strengths: Can consume large slices of pizza in a single bite. Can find the choicest porn sites with only simplest flick of the wrist. Can rant and rave about everything and anything under the sun until my face turns blue and I have to hospitalized for electrolyte imbalances (and mental imbalances?). Can drive on the streets of Delhi.
Weaknesses: Too many to name here – but I can assure you that kryptonite is not one of them.
Factors influencing my personal development: Oh oh. Well let’s see, grew up in house with an over-protective punjabi grandma that was really happy to get a grandson instead of another grand daughter – so I didn’t learn to dress myself until the age of about 7/8. Have a mom who is a little weak-willed, but also proceeded to spoil me as much as my grandma, and an elder sister who spoiled me too. So basically I’m an effeminate mama’s boy – but not effeminate enough to be gay – meaning I’m heterosexual but am too gay to get women attracted to me, and too straight to get men attracted to me – now attempting to date eunuchs…. Oh and I think Star Wars influenced/impaired my personal development as well…
Examples: Umm, hello? Didn’t I just say I was a lazy bastard. Examples are for LOSERS!

Describe your two most substantial accomplishments to date, explaining why you view them as such
Accomplishment #1 – I got laid once, without having to pay for it
Accomplishment #2 – I’m still alive?

Describe a situation taken from school, business, civil or military life, where you did not meet your personal objectives, and discuss briefly the effect
Umm, I haven’t met any of my objectives in life….the effect is to make me a negative, cyncial old goat, who gets on the nerves of all my friends, who HAVE managed to meet many of their objectives in life….

Discuss your career goals. What skills do you expect to gain at Very-High-Ranked-Business-School and how will they contribute to your career?
Ok I have no goals, except making lots of money. Well, I would like to own an airplane, and getting laid again would be nice too. Very-High-Ranked-Business-School can help with these in the following way: 1) I may meet a nice single woman in Very-High-Ranked-Business-School who takes pity on me, so she sleeps with me – hopefully, she’ll give an airplane for free too. If not, I can at least graduate, and then hopefully start making more money.

What matters to you most, and why?
Sex. No explanations necessary.

Update to Liberalisation – A True Story

Shouting down a well….

Every artist is a cannibal
Every poet is a thief
All kill their inspiration
And sing about the grief

The Fly – U2

I dunno if anybody reads my rants or cares, and since I have not been blessed with a response from Amit of India Uncut (see last post), I can only assume that my write-up prompted him to update – and justify himself – this is when you know you’ve made an impact – when somebody actually feels obliged to defend themselves *pats self on back, for the millionth time*

Some people will no doubt consider such articles to be “unpatriotic”. Some of the responses I got to my AWSJ oped � just a small minority, thankfully � berated me for showing just the dark side of India’s liberalisation.

Ok first – complete inaccuracy. What Amit mentions in his blog is NOT The Dark Side of India’s Liberalisation. It’s the regular everyday side of India that’s existed since independence.

Second, at least now he admits that the liberalisation is not a myth. :-p

Third. It is not for me to judge whether anybody is ‘unpatriotic’ or not. Patriotism these days is almost like a swear word. Bush, and his ilk are ‘Patriotic’. Hitler loved his country. I’m sure Saddam loved his country too, and I’m sure Musharraf considers himself a true patriot.

….This gives globalisation and free markets a bad name, and it was important to point out that the reason for India’s inequalities is not the process that began in 1991, but the fact that it was wasn’t widespread enough, that it touched just a fraction of the people, and crucially, that it was the state, and the vast bureaucratic apparatus set up by Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, that were coming in the way of progress….

So then… again… Liberalisation is not a myth… it’s just not complete (or as Liberal as MANY of us would like it to be). Big. Big. Difference. When you go spouting off to the Asian Wall Street Journal, please try to be a bit more accurate. Second has anybody else noticed his contradiction? Near the top, you say the Dark Side of India’s Liberalisation. Down below, you try to clarify that it is NOT the post 1991-process that’s holding things back.
I don’t think I’m nit-picking. If you write for the Asian Wall Street Journal, you should have an idea of what you’re writing, and what you’re trying to say…

But too many of us get too caught up in ourselves and don’t notice that most of India is still on the outside looking in.

Nope. 99% of us – us being Indians in India, and the rest of the world, are too busy worrying about the Large part of India on the outside looking in. This is called Socialism. And it is ingrained in us, as you show below.

Yes, our prosperity will touch them in small ways, but televisions in slums don’t count for progress if the owner of that television does not have legal entitlement to that land and a system that enables him to get ahead instead of pulling him down repeatedly.

Hmmmm….
1991. Slum-dweller with no legal entitlement to land tries to fight off starvation
2001. Slum-dweller with no legal entitlement to land manages to earn enough money to buy a TV
2011. …ummm can somebody see a pattern, or is just my naivete, stupidity, and optimism getting in the way. Could the entry here be… Slum-dweller makes enough money to either move out of slum, or get legal entitlement to his land? I think this is called progress…..

It is for him, and the millions like him, that it is important to point out what still needs to be done, and to not rest on whatever laurels we’ve earned.

1) Will all those Indians resting on our current laurels and who say that India has achieved all she has to achieve please stand up. All of those who are complacent, again please stand up. I don’t see anybody standing up.

2)I can hear my communism detectors going off – or I guess just left-wing detectors going off, because Amit claims to be all for free markets and stuff. “It is for him…” once upon a time, I wrote a post called The Common Man Myth. It is what every India denouncer uses to get his/her point across. It’s for that poor little common man. Forget the common women, and the other uncommoners. Note Amit says “It’s for him”, not it’s for them, or her. Sure it’s common for all of us to use hims or hers whenever we feel like. But can anybody see the picture that Amit has just formed for himself. It conforms to that same old stereotype used by the politicians down the ages. All of us want our country to be a better place. But I don’t want it to better for the slum-dweller of dharavi. I want it to be better for me. I want it to be better so that I don’t have to walk down a street covered in Cow Shit. So that I can contemplate the meaning of life in an air-conditioned room without having to suffer through a power cut. Slum-dwellers in Dharavi be damned. The Road to Hell, and a place called Pre-1991 India is paved with Good Intentions. Socialism is all about Good Intentions. You want to eliminate those slum-dwellers? Well then stop denouncing your country and scaring foreign investors away. Stop scaring the Indian Diaspora away. Try showing them that good things can happen in your country. Bring them back (along with their nice fat wallets). And eventually, the change will come. It has already begun.

What needs to be done is obvious. But it is difficult. It is obviously easier to progress to the level where the slum-dweller can afford a TV, than to drag HIM (or her :-p) out of that slum. Duh. But that is what comes next. Or were we all hoping to wake up one day and magically find our country transformed, with butterflies flying by while the rainbow’s on the horizon…..?

Liberalisation – A True Story

uicy stuff to argue about….
Everywhere you look in life, you can see patterns. Here’s a familiar one:
“Hey Guess What. I heard that there’s <Insert Positive Development> in India”
“Oh yes, but so what. <Insert standard Real India is poor, everybody is dying caste-system yada yada yada yada>”Now This Voice is the top voice. Deeshaa.org, Indian Writing, Arundhati Roy, The Communist Parties of India, Rohinton Mistry, and others belong in the second camp – latest addition is Amit of India Uncut. He writes about The Myth of Indian Liberalisation – Note this has also been published in the Asian Wall Street Journal.

Wha? Myth? Are you trying to tell me my paycheck from the software company I’m working for is fake?

While part of India has benefited from being opened up to foreign products and influences, most of the country is still denied access to free markets and all the advantages they bring.

Ok all those living under the illusion that India has done all the “developing” it needs to – put their hands up please….. nobody? Ummm duh – I think we all know that India has a long way to go in terms of getting better – who is Amit addressing when he states the above obvious-ism?

India opened its markets in 1991 not because there was a political will to open the economy, but because of a balance-of-payments crisis that left it with few options. The liberalization was half-hearted and limited to a few sectors, and nowhere near as broad as it needed to be.

Another obvious-ism. I have never heard any Indian claim that it was through the sheer brilliance and intelligence of the People of India that we started economic reforms. It was the simple fact that Socialism finally came crashing down and left India with little choice. Yes – it was sort of an “accident” – but one that was going to happen sooner or later. You cannot chain 1 billion people, either economically, or politically. Some way, somewhere, the dam will burst. Further, the part about liberalization being half-hearted – another obvious-ism. Isn’t this just more common knowledge?

Next para goes on about the bribes people have to give to set up shop. Again, more common knowledge – but why doesn’t he mention the things you no longer have to pay bribes for. A telephone line – important for economic growth, last time I checked. Bringing many goods into India (I’m talking personal items here, not commercial shipping – which is yet-to-beliberalized).

The vast shantytowns of Bombay–one of them, Dharavi, is the biggest slum in Asia–hold, by some estimates, more than $2 billion of dead capital. For most of the migrants who live in these slums, India hasn�t changed since 1991. As that phrase from India�s pop culture goes, �same difference.�

Proof – I want proof that these people see no change between now and 1991 – it is YOU who see no change. You saw slum in 91, you see slum today. In 1991, maybe these people thought about where they would get their next morsel of food. Today, it might be where they can find a better place to live. That’s a change. For the better. But yes, these people are not out of the woods yet – but they’re getting there.

The socialist left, a natural proponent of such views, believes that free markets are the problem and not the solution. India�s communist parties have blocked labor reform, opposed foreign investment and prevented privatization of public-sector units. They naturally have a vested interest in the �license-permit-quota raj,� as the web of statist controls is called. On all these issues they are supported, surprise surprise, by the religious right.

The Hindu right wing, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party and collectively known as the Sangh Parivar, also fears globalization.

This is incorrect. It is is the extremists – the RSS and VHP which fear globalization (and all things rational and sane, much like the Republican right-wing in USA) – BUT the BJP is all for free-markets and the like – being right-wing means being all for less government. The BJP wanted to privatise, and there was more privatisation under the BJP and MORE economic reform too, than by any of the previous governments post-1991. Note to all – the only ideology of the BJP that I support is their economic one. As a sort of agnostic Arya-Samaji-Punjabi, I don’t subscribe to their views of Hindutva. At all. Yech.

You can read the rest of his article on his blog. I’m unclear as to what the Creative Commons licensing rights are for reprinting his article, so I’ll stop here. But the point is this. I have yet to come across an article written in the any section of the Media which says that India’s liberalisation is whole-hearted, and very complete, and has benefited everybody. So I’m trying to figure out two things:

1) Who is Amit speaking to and
2) How does this make liberalisation a myth?

What one could say is that liberalisation has benefited the Rich, Upper-Middle- and Middle-Class. And saying so doesn’t make it a myth. The Rich and the upper-middle-class will obviously be the first to benefit from a small unshackling of rules. Obviously, they will be the first ones to go out and buy cellphones and snazzy cars. But is that not an improvement? When previously, the elite section of the country was running away to America, and smuggling “Imported” things into the country, it’s now deciding to stay behind and open another bar or restaurant or multiplex, or mall – is that not an improvement? Who pays the taxes in India? The slum dwellers of Dharavi? Apart of from bribes, where else does India pick up its finances from? It is the Middle Class – these are the salaried people of India, the ones who don’t get to hide their money from the Tax-collector, because it’s deducted at source. You have to push the Middle-Class foward FIRST, before tackling the poor. And these people are benefitting. They can afford cars and houses due to the lower interest rates. They can start travelling across country due to the new bunch of low-cost airlines that have sprung up. Telecom is an issue covered a gazillion times already, so I don’t think I need to mention how easy it is to get in touch. Their lives are no longer restricted to Doctor/Engineer/IAS. There are new ways to make money (legally), that did not exist before. In the TV industry, the airline industry, the BPO industry, the Software industry, the Telecom Industry and I’m sure there are others. This IS liberalisation. This IS economic reform. I’m sorry that 800 million out of those 1 billion aren’t dancing on the streets and riding around in their Suzuki Swifts, but they will get there (well most of them), just not as fast as you would like.

This does not make India’s liberalisation a myth. It just makes it slower-than-China.
Sort of. I think Amit’s intent is to say – “can we cut down on the hype and come back down to reality? We have a long way to go”. And I say NO. Let’s NOT cut down on the hype. For once in a very f-ing long time, there are some genuinely positive things to say about India. Yes people are being murdered for their caste in villages, but at the same time, they’re rubbing shoulders and eating in the same canteen in software companies. There was caste discrimination 10,20,30,40,100 years ago too. But there were no software companies (or malls, or cellphones, or TV channels, or radio stations, or low-cost airlines, or New Delhi Metros, or Mumbai-Pune expressways). That’s a change. For the better. These small changes should be treasured – AND TRUMPETED. Very soon, India’s demographic pattern is going to shift towards youth – I think it already has. There will be more people in the 18-24 year old bracket than in any other. If this is going to be the dominant group in the country – how should you inspire them? By telling them their country is hell? They’re going to need role models. Who should their role models be? People telling them that nothing is ever going to change? Or people acknowledging that some stuff has changed for the better, now go out there and finish the job. That would require the role models – and the youth to be less cynical – this hard to do, because I think Cynicism is now ingrained in India’s genes (and jeans?).But some of us are trying….

Oh, and I have one bit of proof that Liberalisation is not a myth.
I want the next person who reads this article to go and download the latest version of Adobe Reader (version 7.0).
Start it up, click on “Help”.
Then click on “About Adobe Reader 7.0″.
When the splash screen comes up, click on credits.
Now sit back, and count the names which look Indian to you. Most of those names belong to people who work in NOIDA, UP, India. Hell, Siddharth Jain used to work in my team before he joined Adobe!
Now answer this question honestly – would this have been possible before the Mythical Liberalisation?

Further From The Womb, Closer to Death…

This voice just turned 26…
Happy Birthday to Me.

I was about to write that “I feel old. Very OLD.”…but it’s been done before

And as I go thru the list of things I haven’t done, in that post, I realize that a year’s passed me by, and I’m still where I was last year! (though yes, I’ve been to New York and been rejected by ISB in the middle of all that…)
So instead of reproducing the whole list, I ask you to just re-read that post

Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say for now, I leave you with a quote from an Economist article which sums up Indian Summer:

AS INDIA heats up like a pressure-cooker waiting for the monsoon to release its valve, even the well-off notice the country’s dire electricity shortage. Too often the soothing rattle-and-purr of their air-conditioners fades into sweaty silence…..

Revenge of the Sith : A Review

The beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning or the beginning of the beginning?
Ummm, just so we can get the general tenor of this review out from the beginning:
I am a Star Wars Nut. As a 5 year old kid growing up in Hong Kong, I used to come home EVERY DAY after school, and put on the first Star Wars movie (which is now known as Episode 4 – A New Hope). So much so that I know every dialogue, complete with R2-D2’s beeps, every piece of music which plays in the background at each particular time, and also when the commercial breaks are about to appear (I had a tattered VHS cassette of it in Hong Kong – and now of course am the proud owner of the DVD).

Yes, we can discuss the possible repercussions this may have had on my future(lack of exercise, lack of women, hypertension, e.t.c), but let’s save that for some other time.

So Revenge of the Sith. Yes, it beats Episodes 1 & 2 hollow (i.e. The Phantom Menace, & Attack of the Clones). But it’s still a little bit below episodes 4,5,6.

Sure the effects are perfect and the dialogue is cheesy (this is a Star Wars tradition – it’s just that when Harrison Ford would say cheesy lines, he’d sound cool saying them).

The battle scenes kick ass. Enough light-sabre duels and general laser-gun stuff to keep you going through the first half.

Sometimes people wonder: Why couldn’t the Jedi Council detect the Dark Side – well they say as much in Epsiode 2- that their power to use the Force has diminished. Besides, if Sidious/Palpatine is as powerful as he says, he probably found a way to avoid being detected as ‘evil’ – sure the audience already knows he’s the emperor, but that’s besides the point.

Plus I think it’s very believable that the Jedis could have been duped – they just hung around like a bunch of pompous poopcakes, plotting and scheming as much as the Emperor. It showed why Anakin would be confused about where his loyalties should lie. Sure the Jedi are meant to be the goodies, but in this movie they did come across as just another bunch of politicians scheming for their own “noble” ends.

And then Anakin’s fall. Although you understand why he falls and switches over to “The Dark Side”, you still don’t see how he does this – more time should have been devoted to this. Sure you get an inkling of this in Episode 2 with the slaughter of the Sand People…but somehow it just seems missing here. Anakin seems to give up meekly after he kills Mace Windu (played really well by Samuel L. Jackson).

There’s that – and then there’s the fact that it seems Yoda gives up a little quickly too, when he almost kicks the Emperor’s ass. But in his defence, we could say lots of things. Maybe he wearied of the fight, maybe the grief of all those dead children, and what was to come distratced him, making him weaker, maybe maybe maybe. Who can say? Lucas left a bit too much to our imagination.

But the fight between Anakin and Obi-Wan was too good. It was brilliant. Obi-Wan was a really well fleshed-out character, and you can see him growing older and turning into Alec Guiness. As proof, I saw Episode 4 after watch Sith, and yes, Alec Guiness retains the spunk that was given to Obi-Wan by Ewan McGregor. Nice transitioning.

And the closing scenes – when the helmet slowly slips on for the first time, and you here the breathing begin… sent chills down my spine at least…

And the final scene back by the igloo on Tattoine makes you want to see episodes 4,5,6 again – which is what I’m now in the process of doing. And it’s fun to compare a young Anakin to a young Luke and Leia. And even more fun to see Darth Vader in full action, knowing that once upon a time he was a nice young WASPy boy.

Definitely worth a watch.

I think that Star Wars should actually be watched in the following way:

Watch episodes 3,4,5,6, in that order. And leave episodes 1 & 2 as appendices, for those who like a lot of (not-so-well-made) Back Story…

Oh and to those who don’t think much of Star Wars, I don’t have much to say to you except that you have a very limited imagination. Sometimes, the best way to tell a story, and to project a message, is to dress it up, and tell it in an indirect sort of way (in case you missed it, it’s all about Fall and Redemption, with some family values and politics thrown in to boot). The authors of the Mahabharat and Ramayan (be they Supernatural. or simply Natural) could see that. Lord of the Rings, and it’s derived works (Star Wars) are merely Anglo-Saxon attempts of doing the same….but they have a lot of Eastern philosophy embedded in them too…

A trip to the seven islands

I went to Bombay/Mumbai…
Long post – be warned!
Ok, so the next best thing to being rich, is having a brother-in-law who is Managing Director (South Asia) for a gigantic American Bank. This means that when you visit Bombay, you don’t get to have fun with the rest of of the commoners. You don’t get to wander the beach aimlessly (though I suppose I could have if I really wanted to). You don’t get to ride the bright red BEST buses, and you don’t get to be flattened like a chapati in the local trains…but there are compensations. You do get to ride around in an S-Class Mercedes (which has reclining rear seats, among other things). You do get to live in South Bombay (Malabar Hill), and have a frikking glorious view of the sea. You also have a duplex flat/apartment. This may not seem like a big deal to some, but Bombay is to India what New York is to USA (in more ways than one). Now maybe you can appreciate what it means to have a duplex apartment. Oh, you also get to watch “The Last Samurai” on a screen which retracts from the wall, and has a picture projected on to it from an overhead projector while 6 speakers blast the sound at you from all different angles…Anyway, I took a few atypical pictures of bombay (beware, I am an AWFUL picture taker), so “read more”

Note: Clicking on the pictures takes you to a larger size image.

Ok so this first pic is a view of Marine Drive (also known as the Queen’s Necklace, you shall soon see why)..

Just some random Bombay skyline…

Ok I couldn’t stop obessing over the brownish building to the left hand side of this photo. It’s a building called ‘Haveli’ and the unbelievably brilliant architect did the following: He created duplexes (or is there some other plural), and EACH floor has this HUGE triangular balcony, which most of the residents were using as a garden. I have yet to see this idea replicated in either New York or Hong Kong (but somebody correct me if I’m wrong). Someday I will rich and vulgar enough to buy one of those places.

Ok, once upon a time, there were lots of textile mills in Bombay. Well they all went bust, and of course, the logical step in the evolution of that land is in the form of bowling alleys, restaurants, and shops. So I present to you Phoenix Mills, complete with a McDonald’s to the right, and Spaghetti Kitchen (yummy Italian food) to the left.

Some random building facing Phoenix Mills…

How many McDonald’s do you know of, that come with their own smokestacks?

Ah. Marine Drive by night. Do I have to explain why it’s nicknamed the Queen’s Necklace? It’s also a place where lovers go for moonlit walks. I would go there, it’s jsut I don’t have any partner to take with me Someday, I swear, I’ll stop being the software geek and wow the world by wooing a woman…in the meantime… I have some surfing to do…(no, not on Shaadi.com).

Ok, this is a VERY SMALL and NARROW take on Bombay. The city is a lot bigger, and has a LOT more crazy things about it. I’ve only covered about 0.0000000001% of the city (duh), and that too from a rich, elitist standpoint – plus I was only there for the weekend. There are beaches, and slums, and movie stars and gangsters and pao bhaji, and bhel puri, and Trishna Seafood Restaurant and Swati Snacks, and Gateway of India and Elephanta Island and Parsis and Reliance Interactive Movie-on-demand Cable Television (just about to start up soon) and really-good-driving-compared-to-the-rest-of-India and why Rohinton-Mistry-and-his-stupid-book-A-Fine-Balance-can-F-off which need to be talked about, which I don’t have the space for here, and will refrain talking about, because I’m a Delhi-ite.

A few more notes (What I learned on my way from The City(Delhi) to The City(Bombay))
1) Do not fly Air Deccan. I understand that they are a low-cost carrier and all, but please, surely water can be served for free? That being said, I booked my tickets on a Wednesday (for Friday) for Rs. 7500 return (that’s US$170).

2) My title is called Seven Islands, because once upon a time Bombay used to be seven islands (or was it 9), which eventually started reclaiming land during British Rule, and ended up as the out-stretched hand known as Bombay). Question – why did they stop reclaiming land? Hong Kong reclaims some land every year – 20 years on, it’s unrecognizable!

Till next time, folks

I’m Home

Mera Bharat…well Sadda Dilli Mahaan, at least…
It’s 38 Degrees outside. This means we’re all melting.

People drive in Delhi like people weave through the New York crowds….

They have implemented Queueing at the IGI Airport. They’ve also turned on the escalator, and are replacing the tacky marble which made the airport look like a bathroom with that modern steel look. There is a bright and clean counter opened by the Tourism Ministry, to HELP tourists(unfathomable)! There are no customs agents waiting to harass you and go through your bag from goodies brought over from “The Decadent West”

As the plane descends into Delhi, you see a lot more bright lights than you used to.

The roads are in good condition.

As soon as you walk off the plane, your nose is assaulted with the smell of dust, courtesy the dust storms blowing in from nearby Rajasthan- which everybody else confuses for air pollution.

The cellphone rings, and I almost disconnect and run to the land-line…when I realize incoming is free. And I don’t have to hop on one leg until I get good network coverage.

There is a buzz in the air, of activity, of growth, of life.

I’m jet-lagged.

I’m home.

So Long New York (and thanks for all the Fish!)

While I’m waiting to be sent home…

Deesha.org. !#@#!@##$#%#%#$!$#!#@
As can be visibly seen on my blog, I dislike Deeshaa.org. I dislike it for lots of reasons. The latest is its attempt to mock and denigrate the Indian Software Industry. The Indian Software Industry is a subject I know reasonable amount about….so when I saw the most recent post, I had to comment on it. But I’m banned from Deeshaa.org because I seem to be the only dissenting voice among its sycophants, so my posts usually get deleted from it. So this time I posed as someone called Vivek, and instead of my usual diatribe, proceeded to answer the !#$ker with a thought-out response…. hehe. I mention this simply because I want to show what obvious bias lies in Deeshaa.org. A few friends of mine have accused me of being too-biased as well, in the opposite direction – my justification for it is that there is too much negative press and I am merely correcting that imbalance. The war continues…

I’m leaving….

…On a Jet Plane. E.t.c. e.t.c.
So at last my departure date approaches – just 4 more days since I cross continents and get back into the Sub-Continent.

In the meantime, I notice I’m not the only Voice who think s/he’s from a 2.5-World Country. There are other bloggers noticing that India’s a 2.5-World country too…..

Here

and

Here

Great going, guys!

Some Voyeurism

Spin the globe, and where do I land?

So here’s a big glass window looking into my current state of affairs:

Bank C hires big American Software Company U to do some projects for them.

Big American Software Company U comes up with the following bright idea:
Bill Bank C at $300/hour, and outsource all the work to employees(me) of Indian Software Company H, which bills work at $90/Hour (of which the poor employees don’t see any of…)

A few million dollars and 2 years later, Bank C realizes that software company U has done an awful job with the project is considering suing Big Software Company U.

Mercifully, the employees of Indian Software Company H, who the work was outsourced to at a very late stage (long after the project was about to explode in everybody’s face) will not be held liable, but will have to be shifted to other projects, as this one is coming to an early end, and may it rest in peace!

This whole episode will give rise to the next post, which shall be titled:
What I learned in a failed software project in the City

In the meantime however, I will be leaving New York. My current choices are as follows:

I can either be sent to Clinton(no, not Clanton as mentioned in the John Grisham books), Mississississississippippippi or New Delhi, India. I am to be interviewed by the Mississippi client today, and am thinking of purposely flunking the Interview so that I can be sent back home (and then go kiss my boss’s back side and get sent to Singapore or Australia. Yummy!).

So those are my two choices. Does anybody have any insight into Mississippi. I’ve have only heard nasty things about it so far.

It’s meant to be the poorest state in Country. They apparently still lynch coloured people over there, and you have to allegedly enter some restaurants through the back door, because coloured people aren’t allowed in the main part of the restaurant.

Can anybody confirm these allegations? Is there any truth to them? Or are they just exaggerations?

<!– –>

Comeback of the day….

Globalisation has gone too far!

Well…if it didn’t go very far, it would be called Localisation!

DaylightWastingTime

!@@!#@$$#$#%$%$%%%@$!$#!#!!!!!!
Spring Forward Fall Back – sounds something little schoolgirls/military do. The Western World’s attempt to save on power bills and increase their productivity is irritating. By playing the philosopher and proving 5 pm to actually be 4 pm on a given day and vice versa on another day has been the bane of my existence this past year.
On my recent trip to London, me and my ‘LadyLove’ as Karma (from ‘My Karma Ran Over Your Dogma’ fame) calls her, were really looking forward to taking a day trip to the seashore – Brighton. So we got all prepared, went to bed early and stuff, ready to catch our bus the next morning at 8 am. Well our alarm went off at 8 am. But guess what folks – it’s 9 am. So we rush to the bus station, only find a long line of stranded passengers preparing to be ripped off by the bus company for their oversight….

That was London. One assumes Americans would be more noisy about the time change…but no. Last night, I went on what P.G. Wodehouse calls a ‘Toot’ – i.e. hop from one pub to another consuming liver-poison in an attempt to wake up the next day in a state of anguish, much like what a pair of jeans must feel like after a hot, passionate night in the dryer. Anyway, in an attempt to find the perfect nightspot, (complete with girl-of-your-dreams-making-eyes-at-you) we kept leaving pubs. Finally when we were about settle down in one particular place called ‘Le Souk’ – famous for its Hookah, we were rudely told by the bouncer to buzz off because it’s 4 a.m. – closing time. Me and my companions stared at each other in vodka-tonic-induced hazes and looked at our watches – which said 3 a.m…. then the Bouncer mentioned Daylight Savings Time..BAH! GAH! (and GRRRR!).. confounded again by that hour which slipped through my fingers!

What I learned in The City pt 3

Different continent, but still called “The City”

1. The London Underground is spotless, compared to the New York Subway
2. Didn’t see half as many brown people there
3. London has lonely feel to it too…I guess being away from home…
4. Busaba ethai has the most delicious Thai food
5. People in London know how to speak English, and they walk slowly – In New York, that would be considered suspicious, terrorist activity…
6. London’s Daylight Savings Time takes place before New York’s – This caused two people to wake up an hour late and miss their bus to Brighton for a day-trip
7. There are only 5 skyscrapers in London, all bunched together in a place called Canary Wharf
8. I miss my home town, and am waiting to be sent back
9. In London, you can buy a single-use ticket for a bus and keep using it for three days before a bus driver actually notices it’s old (and then proceeds to stop the bus and kicks you out…)
10. Most important of all however is to never say never. 6 Months ago, the fact that would be able to go to London to visit a special someone seemed impossible. And here I am.

Ignore the read more… and in the meantime it’s a nice and pleasant 8 degrees Celcius in New York City. I think I will go for a walk…

Thank YOU ALL

I’m going to London….

I just wanted to thank everybody for their gift of unconditional positive energy. It worked. Special thanks to Karma for helping out with that. If you ever need some positive energy for your own purposes, you know where to get some….

A Request….

For some positive energy…
So it’s like this…there is a friend of mine who I care about more than anything else in this world whom I am going to try and see in London. But, in order for me to get to London, I need a Visa. I will be going to get that Visa this Thursday. But in order for me to get that Visa, I also need to get a few papers from my company, which have been mailed from California on Friday, but have not reached me yet…and may not reach me in time for my appointment. (Due to circumstances beyond my control, this is the only time I can got for the appointment).
Anyway, so as an experiment, I am asking all those people who pass my site, to donate or lend me some of their positive energy – i.e. just a ‘best of luck’ or a ‘you’ll surely get it’ type deal. I’m not much of a religious person, but I do believe there is a powerful force (or multitude of forces) at work in the world. The universe is too perfect to have sprung up randomly. But we’ll discuss those metaphysical issues later. Right now, could I ask you for some totally-renewable, environmantally-friendly, and healthy positive wishes?

Thanks.

Shabd: A Review

They keep trying…almost there….but not quite

1) Aishwarya is what God defined as beauty. In this movie, it really shows. I don’t give a shit what anybody says about her. There is nobody more beautiful (on the outside). On the inside, I know a few candidates…

2) Sanjay Dutt can act, we always knew that

3) Zayed Khan sucks

4) Written & Directed by Leena Yadav – debut. Wow.

Ok, this movie tends to ramble too much, the plot is a little difficult to believe, and the songs are awful. But I always try to give extra points for not going the usual Bollywood way, and abandoning all masala. And this movie is anything but typical Bollywood. The unconventional story is about an Author who pushes his wife into a relationship as inspiration for a book. It leaves the viewer confused – is Ash just a stupid puppet or a bold woman who doesn’t mind having a fling? You can never really decide, and I don’t think the director could either. Sanju is decent as the crazed author. Yes, he’s over-the-top somewhat, but since the entire story is a little over-the-top, you expect him to be too. Zayed Khan is not meant for this kind of stuff. You need somebody with more maturity and poise, yes even though Zayed’s character is meant to be younger than ash and stuff. The cinematography is of course, astounding. This is something I think Indian cinema has finally perfected. There are lots of them out there who know how to capture a setting, a mood, Ash’s looks. It’s a shame the writing is still behind. This could’ve been a great movie, but like many of the other could-have-beens it turns in to style, over substance. And of course, being a non-masala movie, I don’t think I’ll see any truck-drivers spouting this one to their friends. Finally, I’m confused. A big thing was made about whether Ash would do a kissing or sex scene in Hollywood. In this movie, it’s clear what she and Sanju are upto (LUCKY BASTARD), but very tastefully portrayed…so maybe she’s changed her mind…

2.75 stars out of 5

Ye Olde India-China Debate…

*Pats self on back*
There is a publication, that this Voice has always admired, and turned to as a source for most of its information, called the Economist. Started, in late 19th century London by a Walter Bagehot, to promote Democracy and Capitalism, it has quite a few followers (recent circulation figures have just crossed 1 million, with 500,000 of those in USA). I respect it simply because it makes out a very objective case for the two systems, and is very objective in its news reporting (although it did support the Iraq War II ). Anyway, The Economist makes a case that this Voice has been screaming about forever.
It is this – that although it seems that India is way behind China currently in the race to become richer, India is going to win out in the long-haul. Some excerpts from the India-China (”Tiger in Front”) survey, from the 5th March Edition:

HOME to nearly two-fifths of humanity, two neighbouring countries, India and China, are two of the world’s fastest-growing economies. The world is taking notice. In December, a report by America’s National Intelligence Council likened their emergence in the early 21st century to the rise of Germany in the 19th and America in the 20th, with �impacts potentially as dramatic�.

That India is an open society and China is not is one of the most glaring differences between the two. Some people in both countries are tempted to use it to explain another: that China’s economy has grown much faster. This survey will argue that this view is simplistic and misleading.

Some of the main reasons for China’s better performance have nothing to do with the political system. When China started its reforms, in 1978, it was poorer than India. Part of the gap now is due simply to that earlier start.

India is often portrayed as an elephant: big, lumbering and slow off the mark. Now investment-bank reports are beginning to talk of it as a new Asian �tiger�.

According to the World Bank, 87% of adult Chinese women are literate. The equivalent figure in India is 45%. Many things follow from educating girls: better health and education and longer lives for the whole family; more productive workers; and a boost to industrialisation and urbanisation. �An educated child�, says Asian Demographics’ Mr Laurent, �does not want to plant rice.�

The other consequence of smaller families has been a sex ratio strongly skewed in favour of boys. In China there are 118 boys for every 100 girls born, compared with a natural ratio of 105 to 100. India’s figures are also skewed, but to a lesser extent. The most recent census, in 2001, showed 108 boys under the age of seven for every 100 girls.

The foreign-investment boom in China was started by overseas Chinese. From 1985 to 1996, two-thirds of foreign investment in China came from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. There China has, close at hand, some 30m ethnic Chinese, many of them with close ties to the mainland. Moreover, these places specialised in labour-intensive manufacturing industries for export. Wage costs were rising fast, so, in effect, they exported their trade surpluses with America to coastal China. They were made very welcome, for political as well as economic reasons, and paved the way for the big multinationals.

Overseas Indians, in contrast, are scattered around the world and across professions. There are a number of global tycoons, tens of thousands of software engineers who powered Silicon Valley’s dotcom boom, and millions of others. It is not surprising they have played a different role to that of the Chinese diaspora.

Except for the brief interlude of �emergency� imposed in 1975 by Indira Gandhi, the then prime minister, Indian democracy has stuck. It may have seemed an improbable experiment in such a poor, ethnically divided and hierarchical society, but it has proved resilient and deep-rooted. Turnout at elections is higher than in many developed countries�and it is the poor who vote in large numbers. The system may not deliver economic growth rates of 9-10%, but nor has it imposed Mao Zedong’s murderous millenarian lunacies.

After Jawaharlal Nehru became independent India’s first prime minister in 1947, his Congress party enjoyed three decades of uninterrupted rule, most of them with a large parliamentary majority. It took the chance on offer to make radical choices and changes. It is not democracy’s fault that many of them were the wrong ones.

Well there you have it… of course, I have given you just a small taste of it. Obviously I can’t give more, else I’ll probably be sued. Do check out the latest copy of the Economist and see for yourself. I, in the meantime, shall wander around cyberspace, smug in the knowledge that the Economist agrees with me, rather than Deeshaa.org… it is simply a matter of time, before I will have to change the title of my blog… the sooner, the better.

No More Laloo??

One more victory for Indian Democracy
It’s official folks, The Rastriya Janata Dal (or National People’s Party) has lost the Bihar state elections. Ummm, ya, that means that Laloo’s wife is no longer running that state…. how can this be? Isn’t India corrupt? Aren’t Indian politicians corrupt goondas? Shouldn’t the hopeless situation in Bihar have perpetuated Laloo’s rule for eternity? Shouldn’t his goons have kept the general populace subdued forever?

What’s that you say? The other side was more corrupt? Their co-ercing tactics were better? Their threats were more scary?

Of course, I mean Bihar is the richest state in the land. I can just see all the politicians fighting to have a piece of the action. They must have all teamed up and threatened to shoot the masses if they voted for Laloo, as they were so desperate to loot the state’s treasures, by hook or by crook …We all know Bihar to be the land of Milk & Honey.

on the other hand, I heard this “bullshit” story that the people of Bihar FINALLY got fed up of being robbed, raped, looted and having their kids kidnapped, and decided to do something about it.

Yes, yes, all the greybeards, and wannabe greybeards will tell me that only a naive fool would believe that something like “People power” is at work. After all, these cynics are experienced politicians, out in the field everyday of their lives, working hard, hand-in-glove with the general populace, and thus have the pulse of the nation at their fingertips, right?

In other news, my sworn Arch Enemy, Deeshaa.org writes about the NASA exam publicity stunt, and of course uses it as some sort of example which proves that all of us Indians are gullible idiots, morons, with inferiority complexes. I mean no other country has gullible people in it…. Heck, you could tell the Indian Public there were WMDs in Iraq, and they’d believe that too right? Oh no, no other country is guilty of being gullible….Oh, by the way, did I mention the author of Deeshaa.org is prejudiced against Muslims? I recall some quote about how the Islamic religion spreads violence and hate….interesting, I always thought it was a certain breed of human that incites violence and hate, and not any Holy Book written milennia ago and open to lots of interpretation. But then, that’s just me, a lowly Voice From A 2.5-World Country, attempting to challenge the might of an “IndiBlog” award-winner who “Tells It Like It Is”, LOL.

What I learned in City pt 2

ohh oh, I’m an Indian, I’m a legal Indian, I’m a Delhi-Punjabi in New York….

Ok so here are more revelations

I’m an excuse.
For Indian food. Everytime I attempt to re-establish contact with long lost friends, alumni and other people, the first thing they suggest as a meeting place is some Indian restaurant or the other. They all figure this Indian misses his local food, and it give them an excuse to eat out. Result – I’ve had more Indian food in new York than I have in Delhi, where the occasional Pizza or Subway sandwich was consumed more frequently. (ok so this is a slight exaggeration, but my blog was always a little sensationlist).

Bank of America sux.
So I have a bank account in Seattle. But now I live in New York. So I would like to transfer my money from Seattle to New York. Can’t do it. Why? Because BOA has only just opened up in NYC (i.e. taken over FleetBoston branches) and their ‘integration’ isn’t complete yet, so they can’t shift the money, for free. If I’m willing to pay $40 in transfer fees then they’ll do it. Yea, right. Also, it means I have to request my cheque books from the Seattle office, and it’s been a week since I did that and they still haven’t showed up. This also means I have no blank cheque to give my company, which means my direct deposit and payroll forms haven’t been processed which means I’m not getting paid.

Mobile phone services, and all of the people I’m in contact with in America suck – here’s why
1) None of you American residents told me that YOU CAN bring your tri-band phone from India and use it here. After much debate with my flat mate we called up customer service, and sure enough the answer was that you can bring your phones here, despite the contrary info given on their websites….

2) I will never be able to get mobile phone service in America. Because I am here for only six months. That cancels out all the plans (1 year), and means I have to buy a phone at the full retail price and use very expensive prepaid. Will somebody like to explain to me why even the add on lines to family plan are with one year commitments?

If any mobile phone company employees are reading this blog, let me give them a suggestion for boosting their service:

1) REMOVE THOSE STUPID INCOMING CHARGES
2) Get rid of those even stupider one-year commitments or at least frikkin’ lower the fees for breaking your commitment. Some of us LEAVE the country (yes believe it or not, people actually do leave America), and are thus FORCED to break 1-year commitments. This is no reason fuck a person’s credit history and ban them from ever getting a phone again.
3) Do yourself a favour, and switch to the GSM bands used by the rest of the world. That might just make the quality and availability of the mobiles in the country improve drastically, along with reception.
4) Open up your prepaid service for use with ANY mobile phone which can work on your network frequencies.

These four things somehow allow mobile phone companies to get rich in savage barbarian countries like India, where people have no money. I wonder what effect they would have on countries where people do have money…

Ok, end of bitch

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A Long Walk (off a long pier)

A (typical?) interesting day in New York
This post was meant to be about my company’s guide to America for its Indian employees. But I was too lazy to go through that document and post the funny stuff here. Also, because I have no politically-charged stuff to write about, this post is just a (maybe-boring) journal entry.

Ok, so as some of you may know, TTG is in New York. After shifting from one place to another all of last week, I finally have a small cubby hole of my own to call home for the next 6 months or so. Anyway, not knowing anybody (who lives close enough to me) in NYC, I figured I’d just get on the subway, and aimlessly wander around Manhattan. So I left my basement cave in ultra-ethnic Jackson Heights (I owe Sulekha.com for this place!), hopped on the subway, and got off at 42nd St (Times Square). About 4 years ago, after lunching there, at the Olive Garden, I wandered off North with an old friend of mine. We walked, along Central Park, from Times Square to the Gugenheim Museum. This time, I decided to head South, in search of the Apple Store, to see what the iPod Shuffle looked like. On the way I stopped in Old Navy, and didn’t find anything I liked. Then I stopped in H & M, and saw a supercool blazer for $129. But I had feeling that I was too overweight for it So anyway, I just decided to walk far south, along 7th Avenue, and it was at some point in that journey that I decided to go see the WTC site instead. I did not lose anybody in 9/11, although it is somewhat connected to my being laid off 3 years ago, but then everything is connected to everything.. Also, while many people have been to the WTC viewing gallery, I have only peed in the basement restroom…so I guess I don’t really have any attachment to it, but I figured I’d go there simply because I could. So after one very sweet, delicious Cappucino and Chicken Fajita from McDonald’s, I was off searching. I knew that I just had to follow 7th Avenue southwards and I should be able to find it. I didn’t want to ask anybody, because of my own prejudices – I assumed that if they found somebody with brown skin asking about the WTC, they’d have me arrested or something. But it turned out to be easy to spot. Amidst a thick concrete jungle is a gaping hole, and now a big construction site – which will be home to: The Freedom Tower, a big park, two large square pools which represent the towers, and a futuristic transportation centre which will house the PATH trains and the NY Subway. It’s really odd, most of New York is surrounded by the regular city noises, but the construction site is eerily quiet…but then again maybe the workers are off on Saturdays..
Strange, I went looking for iPod shuffles, and instead end up at the site of America’s worst terrorist disaster. By this point I was very tired (Hey I walked something like 42 blocks, of course New York blocks are shorter!), so I boarded the E train to head home. When I got on, I saw to African American kids sitting in a corner counting some money. Then, as the train started moving, these two kids walk to the center of the carriage, shout “Ladies and Gentlemen, can we have your attention please?”. Then they turn on a small stereo they were carrying, and start break-dancing, in the middle of the subway carriage. Usually, the subway is full of people who look perpetually grumpy. These guys managed to put a smile on their faces, and mine too. They did some pretty cool acrobatics too, and then proceeded to ask for donations, which caused my wallet to be $1 lighter. Then 2 subway stops later, they were gone, replaced by the usual bunch of black, white, yellow and brown faces crowding the subway…..
Finally I got off at Jackson Heights, only to be greeted by the now-familiar Bangladeshi-owned Indian restaurants, sari shops and Patel Cash & Carries dotting the area. All-in-all, an interesting day in New York.

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What I Learned in the City (Part 1)

TTG in The Big Apple

Well it’s -15 Degrees C outside. It’s cold. But I’m here and made it in one piece. I was always a little unsure if I even wanted to come back, and was sad to leave Delhi. But as everybody else put it, I should go as it would be a “Learning Experience”. Well they were all right, it was a learning experience.

Here’s what I learned:

1) That my decision to move back to India 3 years ago was a good one.
I don’t miss America, and especially don’t miss New York

2) That New York runs on iPods.
White headphones, and units abound everywhere, all over the subway

3) That the immigration laws are still too free.
I walk into work on my first day, sit at my desk. In the distance somewhere, somebody goes “Ramesh?” So I’m like, ok so there’s a ramesh, big deal. Then Ramesh responds: “Ya Seema?”. So ok, Ramesh and Seema…Then Seema goes: “Yaar, call Ashok and Anu over and we’ll go have lunch with Venky”…and then they break out into a stream of Hindi and Tamil…for a few jet-lag induced split-seconds, I thought I was back in Gurgaon!!!!@!@!

4) That all the crap about how Indian software companies suck, and that the real ‘Quality’ software companies are American is absolute BULLSHIT!
As a consultant working for HCL, I’ve been privy to code written by people in a big software company, which we are now responsible for, and it’s actually quite shocking to see the level of the code. I would like to mention the name of our client and the software company that wrote this code before me to lend some credibility to my statement, but I have a feeling I might fired for it, so I won’t.

5) That New Jersey Transit, New York’s Subway and Indian Railways all fail with only one day of bad weather.

6) That I’m happier being an employee of HCL India who gets to travel to different parts of the world than a regular 9-to-5-er commuting to Queens everyday.

7) That the cellphone services available in America are absolutely barbaric – who the f- still charges people for incoming calls. RIDICULOUS! Not to mention the fact that I can’t bring my Indian phone and just buy a plan here. A-holes.

That Indians are truly cynical, or that there are more cynical Indians on the web than non-cynical ones – why? Because Deeshaa.org wins best Indiblog award. Deeshaa.org is total crap.

9) That when people say that Indians are backstabbers and small-minded with no work ethics, and Americans are intelligent professionals who don’t fear their inferiors stealing their jobs, to not believe them. What a crock of shit.

10) Following on from point 7, I ‘ve learned that I can’t live without a cellphone. I’m an addict. Gosh. And since I’m surrounded by iPods, I guess I’ll turn into one of those addicts too…but I guess I’ll try and save money and buy the cheapest one – the iPod Shuffle.

Anyway, that’s just some of the things I’ve learned. I’m sure I’ll learn a lot more.
My next post will be about the most hilarious thing I’ve ever read – it’s my company’s guide to acclimatising its staff to America. Excerpt:
Do not touch people (of the same gender) in America. It may be construed as a homosexual act.
Please ensure that you use deodorant, and breath freshener, as Americans consider these odours offensive (Gee I guess we Indians love smelling each other!)

And the funniest thing was a drawing of what an ATM and ATM receipt looked like. Before somebody says there are no ATMs in India, I would like to ask them to go to almost ANY petrol pump/gas station and see for themselves (not to mention the fact that our own building in Delhi has an ATM)….

Till Next Time…

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Go IGI!

It’s your Birthday, go IGI!
Ok, first off, it’s not really IGI (Indira Gandhi International Airport)’s birthday. The Go ___, It’s Your Birthday, Go ____ is a line I ripped off from an old Taco Bell Ad. (or ‘Commercial’ as they say in the New World)

Anyway, that is neither here, there nor anywhere. Somebody really observant will have noticed that the post above this one (TTG In The Big Apple) was posted before this one)… well that’s true, but i wanted this post to come first, because I feel things should be in chronological order of my getting in to America…)

Ok so not having been out of the country for 3 years, I was very pleasantly surprised to find the departure area of IGI airport looking different!

Allow me to explain. For those who don’t already know, pre-1991, India was a hardcore Socialist country. Socialist thinking runs as follows:

“Planes need a place to land. So let’s build some place for them to land on/in”.

This is the core philosophy behind all airports (except the newly upgraded Cochin Airport) in India. this is what gave birth to the twin monstrosities in Delhi – The Palam Airport (Domestic) and the IGI. Bombay’s airport is bigger, and only a little better….

This of course can be contrasted with the capitalist philosphy of airport building (which can be observed in Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai and most of the West).

“We’re a small teency-weency place, but if we act as a midpoint for the world, make our airport look like a shopping mall and handout a free mercedes everyday, we can make tubloads of money, and boost our tourism!”

So When a visitor landed at IGI airport (pre-2005) the visitor would be greeted by shady looking policemen, the strong smell of Phenyl, intermittently flashing tubelights (or ‘flourescent lamps’) and a blood-thirsty escalator that would remain non-functional between periods of swallowing poor NRI children as they enter India.

And the departure area…well let’s just say that if you make it past immigration, you’re just happy to get out.

2005 (and probably onwards)
When you land you get greeted with bright lights, nice uniformed and professional security staff from the Central Industrial Security Force (do not ask me what was the purpose behind this formation of armed men…I have no clue, and fear to delve…),
a working escalator and lift.
There are nice plasma display screens everywhere displaying flight info
Outside the airport is still an AWFUL MESS of panic and traffic. The departure lounge however has finally had a makeover:
It is now home to 3 duty free shops, a ‘Subway’ (the sandwich place), and a Reliance Webworld Cyber Cafe (Where they fleeced me for 100 rupees for a half-hour’s worth of surfing time It has a nicer, cleaner look too.

So from the epitome of Socialism, the airport has started looking like a small corner of a third-rate mall. In another 2/3 years, based on the Government’s plans, it will start looking like a world-class airport.

So Go IGI, it’s your birthday, Go IGI!

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Return of the Jedi

Coming to America…

So after being away from USA for 3 years, I make my way back, to steal a few jobs and dollars. Who woulda thunk it?

Anyway, unfortunately, my net access will be limited, so I guess I’ll be taking a break from blogging.

So until the next blog opportunity I leave you with the following:

I’ve read in many places the following line:

We need fifty years of double digit growth in per capita income for Indians to catch up to today�s western standards.

Question: Is it imperative for India to reach a stage where 1 billion people are demanding iPods, running around in SUVs and whining about lack of wi-fi availability?

I think the aim should rather be to ensure that the poorest of the poor get to preserve some semblance of their dignity. That their stomachs are at least 75% full.
Let’s get it straight – India is NEVER going be remade in the image of America. And nor should it be. But looking at the above quote, no wonder people think reforming India is a losing battle? Why do we have to aim for today’s WESTERN STANDARDs? Can it not be argued that “The West” is kinda post-development? I mean even if we aimed for the level of development or per capita income achieved by western countries in the 80s, isn’t that good enough to get things moving? Of course, the above quote might be used to simply indicate how much of a disparity, but it’s still dumb..

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Life in Limbo…

Me Thinks Me Caught In A Temporal Anomaly

Verbose Quote of the (Arbitrary Time Period)
Behind every hate-filled diatribe/bitterness lies the rejection of an aspiration to conform to ancient prejudices

Cartoon of the (US Election) Year
Brought to you by Blogger’s current “Blog-of-note” – Slowpoke

Pet Peeve of the Milennium
And the winner is…..Deeshaa. Yes folks, Deeshaa has it all. A desi disgusted with everything Indian, with such choice quotes as “Yes, in fact, we are to blame. Indians are basically collectively a bunch of clueless retards. They collectively elect leaders who are clueless retards and these clueless retards choose policies that keep the country of hundreds of millions of people in abject poverty.” and other obvious-isms such as: “India is poor because of Socialism”. “India needs more WCs than PCs”.Number of articles with constructive content: 0. Amusement at seeing somebody as pissed off and disgusted as the Blog’s Author? Infinite. Surprise at being called a clueless-retard, by a clueless retard? Minimal.

Attempt to Encourage Comments
Please add to my previous blog entry “Delusion of Grandeur” – umm, something constructive.

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Some advertising

Not much is New, and the Old is beyond monotonous…

1) If you haven’t already, please check out the previous post (Delusion of Grandeur), and comment on it! I will be pushing that particular post for the next few blog entries, (then probably do a write-up any issues related to it, if people actually bother to add something interesting to what I’ve written!).

2) http://web.archive.org/web/20060518130304/http://www.keyhole.com/ – all I can say to this is WOW!!! Keyhole is a company (now) owned by Google, and basically, it holds lots of ultra-detailed satellite photos of the world. Of course, it is mostly America-centric, with some other places like Europe and Pakistan thrown in !#@#!$@. You view these photos by downloading a small client application on to your computer – BEWARE – this application is very CPU- and Bandwidth-intensive. The application itself is amazing, the way it can zoom in to a street address in America (I used it to take a peek on my old address, and lots of other people’s addresses!!). I must have wasted at least 3 hours on this alone. Unfortunately, street addresses outside America don’t work (but Verika, I still managed to find Marble Arch in London and view it from above and there are no photos of India (could this be for some Indian National Security reasons? Anyway, this site is great and allows one to waste loads of time zooming in on people’s houses, offices, stadiums or the Statue of Liberty of wherever. It is KICKASS! Just bear in mind that you will need a FAST net connection, and FAST computer (I’d say a P4 with 512 MB RAM at the very least). Check it out!

3) And finally,
I would like to introduce to you Benjamin Feen’s photo album. Why is this important and who is Benjamin Feen? Ok well first, I don’t know much about him – I assume he’s an American software engineer. Anyhoo, he’s in Hyderabad for a month, and the thing is, for once, a non-indian is showing fairly balanced pictures of India – I stumbled onto his blog from BoingBoing. Instead of finding a nice little poor village with cows, he shows you Hyderabad (well most of it – there are too many pictures of jewellery, but hey I think he had different audience in mind. Anyway, check it out just so you can see a teency-weency bit of Hyderabad…. Anyway, naturally his pictures fall in line with this Voice’s beliefs so he gets some free advertising (don’t know if he wanted it!)

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Delusion of Grandeur

Unity in Diversity, why not?
Ok, well it’s another slow news week, so slow in fact, that people’s comments in blogs are already being labeled “Worst Comments of Year”, which is pretty funny considering how early into the New Year we are.

Anyway, after reading one of Akshay’s older Posts (see the link to Trivial Matters in my External Links Section) on an India-Pakistan re-unification, I decided to document the idea on my blog, for future reference. The idea of an India-Pakistan re-unification is an old one, nothing new there. But I’m suggesting a South Asian Union, or a United States of South Asia (USSA anyone? :-p).

Ok even that idea is pretty old (and new – people look to the EU for inspiration..). But nobody seems to pursue it. Since cynicism seems to be a trait inherent in South Asian genes, most people probably envision the idea, decide that it will never work and then carry on with their lives.

However, since my life is currently in limbo (when isn’t it?), I decide to not “move on” and preserve the daydream in a blog entry.

So here are contents of my daydream:

Kashmir & Eelam and the 7 Sisters
A United States of South Asia, consisting of the following countries:
India (of Course), Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan and Kashmir.

Yes, I’m counting Kashmir as a country in this daydream, and so, solve the Kashmir problem in one fell swoop (I am soooooo amazing…). See, instead of belonging to India or Pakistan (which is a zero-sum scenario presently), if Kashmir was a separate State of South Asia, it would a) be part of both and neither of the countries at the same time, and b) give the Kashmiris the autonomy that they’ve always wanted. The same applies to the Tamil Eelam – instead of being a small chunk of Sri Lanka, the new Tamil homeland would be the (former) Indian state of Tamil Nadu, clubbed with Jaffna (Sri Lankans, I apologise, I don’t know if that offends your sensibilities. Bear with me, it’s just a daydream at this point…)
Finally, “The 7 Sisters”, the 7 states of India which lie beyond “The Chicken’s Neck” which are also continuously fighting for a separate Bodoland and Nagaland – they can get that too. If we look at present day, Nagaland for example would be a NEW country carved out of an existing one -however, if all of the surrounding countries are part of larger union, nagaland/bodoland/Eelam all just become autonomous provinces part of the greater whole…again the extremely naive optimist in me believes this is the ideal solution for all the Sub-Continent’s territorial disputes…Saying Kashmir is a part of India will always piss a Pakistani off. Saying that we’re all citizens of the USSA? Does that rankle in the same way? Well..not to me…

Leadership, Governance & Laws
I envision the Union to be a loose federation, having a rotating presidency like the EU. So this is kind of how I see it: There is a Governing Council, which consists of the leaders of all the 6/7 countries/states, and one of them is the President. his presidency rotates every 3 years? 2 years? 4 Years? by country, which is the only fair way to distribute it, in my opinion.
Every member union must have a democracy in place, either presidential or parliamentary. Monarchies, dictatorships have no place in this union. This is because this voice has lots of faith in Democracy as the best form of government. The other reason all of the countries need to be democracies is so that they can follow a somewhat common set of laws. Each country would be able to implement the lowest common denominators for example on Human Rights, protection of Minorities e.t.c. Hell, this union would consist of so much diversity, that legislation for preventing discrimination would have to be pretty broad.

Travel & Trade
Of course, travelling within the Union should be free (i.e. without the need for a passport). This free movement is necessary for the union to be a success economically, and politically.
Trade of course will also be completely free (i.e. a Customs Union, like the EU) . Again, this will require that all the union members follow the same basic legislation …

“A Grand Army of the Republic”
Heh, to rip off a line from Star Wars Episode II, just think of the sheer size of the armed forces of the USSA. Of Course…in Star Wars, the 1000-year-old Republic’s Grand Army was just a precursor to formation of The Empire…hey I can live with that But it would be nice if India and Pakistan didn’t have their missiles and nukes pointed at each other. Further, think of the pooling of resources and cost-savings. We’d be the only Defence force in the world which had both F-16s and MiGs!! (As far as I know, anyway!)

“The #1 Cricket Team in Universe”
Contributed by RTD2 (see comments)
Tendulkar, Dravid, Sehwag, Jayasurya and Inzy’s batting, Shoaib and Murli’s bowling, and the rest (please no flames on who I have left out or ignored. Cricketing debates require a separate blog altogether!) Of course, this would also take away one of Cricket’s fiercest rivalries, but what to do, we United South Asians would be Like That Only! Note to World: Please ignore result of Asia XI vs Rest of World XI played recently….

Ok, these are just some of the visions that I’ve been having recently. Some people will ask, at this point, WHY? Well, some reasons are already mentioned above

- Solves the Kashmir problem (in my view, of course)
- Will go a long way towards enriching the inhabitants, especially the smaller members – as an Arrogant, Pompous Indian, I think Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka would benefit from having free access to a large Indian and Pakistani market
- Resolves a few border disputes, and integrates the sub-continent in a way that Indians (like myself) are always fantasising about
- and other reasons which, when they occur to me, will be added to this post

Of course, there is milennia of mutual distrust, and a fear of loss of identity and culture that may come with such a union, not mention all sorts of other disputes (Do we allow Indians to freely settle in Pakistan/Nepal/Bangladesh and vice versa? Can they own land? Won’t they steal each other’s jobs? Will the Caste System spread or be destroyed? Will 300+ Muslims vs 800 Million Hindus, make the infighting even more bloody, or will it reduce polarisation, like in the pre-British era?)

I just wanted to get the ball rolling, and hopefully get lots of input from anybody who passes by this blog….

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More 2.5-World behaviour…

Yes, India is REFUSING Aid.

Link 1 – The Times of India

Link 2 – News Insight

Ok this topic is a whopper, but let’s try and tackle it. First para goes to abusing my favourite horse – Right-wing (and some lefties too) Americans. Whenever us non-American savages dare to criticise anything American, (or steal a few “American” jobs”), a common response is: “Let’s stop giving those Indians free food and aid”. Ok, India has not been a receipient for foreign aid for SOME TIME now, but if you read Link #1, it’s official. so STFU. But of course, now that India is refusing Aid, these same people will now call us a bunch of morons who are too busy letting pride or some other such stupidity get in the way of saving lives…

I had often heard of nasty strings being attached to any aid given by foreign countries, but usually took it with a pinch of salt. But honestly, I think it’s more than mere childish pride that causes India to refuse aid. Especially for the help required for Andaman and Nicobar.

For those who don’t know anything about Andaman and Nicobar, the names refer to a set of islands to the east of India, very close to Indonesia (and Aceh). These islands are a legacy of British India, and are home to the notorious “Cellular Jail” where the British would house some of its more unruly subjects (Indian Freedom Fighters, for example). They are also home to some very ancient tribes, who are mostly hostile to the rest of us, and left to their own lives by the Indian Government. These tribes are native to these islands, and have lived their quiet isolated lives for centuries (apparently some back to the stone age, but I find that a little hard to believe, and probably just media sensationalism). Current news media is reporting that when an Indian Air Force helicopter did a fly-by, it was greeted with a hail of arrows from their bows! Well at least we know that they are still alive! In more recent times, these islands now also house an Air Force and Naval Base. The Indian government is refusing aid for many reasons, as Link #2 above claims (I wonder if that article is based on fact), and second because Andaman and Nicobar are important to National Security, and finally, because the Indian Government does not want a bunch of aid agencies and irritating reporters intruding on the lives of the local tribals (In line with Star Trek’s Prime Directive…).

All fair reasons, if you ask me.

Further, our current Prime Minister is anything but a moron, so I’m sure he has good reasons for refusing aid…

Link 3 – Anuradha’s Blog

And on a final note, India is playing more the part of donor! The Indian army is launching a gigantic relief operation to help Sri Lanka and the Maldives,plus co-ordinating the setting up of the (completely useless and pointless, IMHO) Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning system.

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Grumble Grumble

Rant Rant
So as most of the universe may have heard, the Indian Ocean has been behaving very badly. One big burp and people spanning 7/8 countries die! Tragedy as this is, I love how anything related to a developing country can be filed as under ‘disaster-which-could-have-been-prevented’.

Apparently, according our standard overly-critical media, if we had installed ‘early-warning’ sensors, we would have been prepared for the Tsunami, or as one flowery TV News presenter put it – Shiv ki lehren – i.e. Shiva’s waves – a reference to Shiva being the God of Destruction…

Ummmm….no. This was the worst earthquake in the past 40 years. Second, it occured under the ocean. A Tsumani wave travels at around 700 Km/H on the ocean (but slows down as it approached land). 700 Km/H = Speed of a jet plane. Based on what the same overly critical media says this gave people in India (which is the farthest country from the epicentre of the quake, second to the Maldives) about 90 Minutes buffer. 90 Minutes is not enough to evacuate any place, by a long shot. This was a freak accident. We don’t have these waves every year. So anybody claiming that these death tolls were preventable can go to Hell. Despite all your technologies, your security checkpoints, some 15/20 men armed with nothing more than standard everday blades blew up 2 tall buildings. Surely SOMEBODY in the security setup could have foreseen something like that and prevented it? No? How is this any different?

Please, this occurence is a tragedy – but let’s not put the blame on government mismanagement.

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O Metro of Delhi, How I love Thee

Score: Optimists: 100, Pessimists: -500
On completion of listing India’s numerous problems, the concluding sentence is always: Kuch Nahin Ho Sakta, is desh ka – TRANSLATION: This Country is a lost cause, nothing will ever improve.

Circa 1994, the existing Central and Delhi government proposed the creation of an MRTS system – Mass Rail Transit System. I think they were inspired by a trip to Singapore. Of course, Delhi/India laughed it off as just another wild pipe dream. Then one day construction began. And then certain parts of it were completed. And I think most of Delhi, and all of India which is in the know, is awestruck.

I present to you a government-run project which is being completed AHEAD OF SCHEDULE. A project which has NO COST OVERRUNS. A project which did not get bogged down by local politics or CORRUPTION. The Delhi Metro.

The man responsible for the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation is a man called K. Sreedharan. He’s a vegetarian who goes to bed by 10.30 pm. And he’s most definitely one of the many unsung heroes responsbile for bringing the Metro to Delhi.

My one and only gripe with the metro is the poor East-West Coverage of South Delhi. Ah well, you can’t have it all. By the end of 2005, Phase-I will be complete. This will make a gigantic difference in the lives of people living in North-Central Delhi (the slighly lower-income part of Delhi, which also has the highest population density. Anybody who has been to Chandni Chowk knows what I mean..!!

Remember, when somebody says that X is not possible in India, just point them in this direction. The trains are brand-spanking new, Made in Korea, air-conditioned, and fully computerised (i.e. driverless).

When the first line opened up to the general public on the 25th of December 2002, there almost a stampede/riot/panic, as people from different parts of North India wanted to get a ride and a peek at the system. Of course, now the crowd control and stuff has been handled, and the metro has been running smoothly.

Of course, the Metro is most likely not even covered by any foreign Media. Within India, the BBC and CNN have not reported anything. The reason for this is obvious – a Metro system is a first-world object. And we all know India is a developing country. We couldn’t possibly show the outside world a different picture of India… which is of course why you need a Voice From a 2.5-World Country to point it out instead…

One final word to the cynics, who say: “give the Metro a year, and it will look like the rest of India – paan-stained and urine-smelling. We shall see, we shall see…

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Swades – A Review

Lagaan for the 21st Century – nice try..but..no

Cinematography? Excellent. I love the shot of of the outside of the Air India plane, with Shahrukh inside it. The scenery, a very nice shot of Delhi, for once, e.t.c Good stuff.

Music? It’s Rahman. Duh.

Parth – this is my blog – so I can say that for once SRK has actually put in a reasonable amount into his acting. More so than anything else of his that I have seen recently – last seen in Main Hoon Na – EWWWWWWW.

The woman, dammit I’ve forgotten her name, appears in lots of ads and side roles in movies or TV I think. She looks really good in this movie, and she can definitely act too.

This movie will be a failure, however – well the NRIs may like it, even of that I’m not sure. The one thing the bollywood audience despises is an attempt to show reality, and then show that there may actually be some hope to improve that reality. Bollywood is all about escaping your daily grind. You can’t go and tell that audience – hey let’s try and improve your life! Where are the naked dancing girls? Where are the villains which exist in comic books? Where is the dancing round the trees? Hello? Where are the subliminal messages telling us that socialism is good, capitalism is evil, poor people have golden hearts, and rich people are all superficial twats with loose morals, and have earned their money illegally?

Sorry none of that here. Just the idealistic story of an NRI/ABCD coming back, and trying to help his country. I have no objections to that. But it’s cheesy. And it drags at points. Some of the statements made throughout the movie are sensible, and commonly held views by all and sundry. But there are lots of parts I disagree with.
This NRI says that India has been left behind because of internal squabbling. I disagree. He says that India and America are two countries that are poles apart and that the thing holding India back is its traditions and its ancient, conservative ways. Firstly, I see a LOT more similarities between India and America than differences. I believe it is the failure of Indians to see those similarities that holds us back. Second, yes, tradition and conservative ways can be a hindrance, but as Japan will testify, some of those traditions can produce a World Power too.

Anyway, it’s slow and draggy, and its heart is in the right place. But that’s about it. You have your usual slew of village characters, and they all do a good supporting job, but this movie lectures a bit more than it should, and entertains a little less, despite some decent humour here and there. Audiences in India are attuned to detecting preaching in their movies – and they sumarrily reject it. So there u have it. Nice try, Ashutosh and Shahrukh. But no. Of course, I could be wrong and this movie may be a blazing hit, but I seriously doubt it. After all, I’m just one more voice from a 2.5-world country.

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MultiMedia Morons

The Sequel….
And then people say justice is never done in India. The schoolboy responsible for filming the MMS has an arrest warrant issued against him – he’s 17 years old, so he may be tried as an adult, depending on which way the court leans. The girl has apparently been packed off to America, as she can’t show her face in this country. Not the worst punishment her family could have come up with, if you ask me – this is effect of technology I guess. 2 days after the MMS was shot, my colleague at work received it in his e-mail (as did a bunch of other people..). I’m no angel, I’ll admit that i saw it…

Now the moronic part is that the owner of Baazee.com has also been arrested. Baazee is India’s equivalent of eBay.com (and is also owned by it as of last year). And some damn fool had put the MMS up for auction. The police claim that Baazee had not exercised due diligence in gettig rid of the MMS (it constitutes sale of pornography, which is still illegal in this country). Some 7 people had bought it. This is the part that makes me curious – this wouldn’t have happened in USA. eBay is not held liable for what it auctions. People have attempted to auction their virginity, their kidneys and other stuff (Soiled women’s underwear is apparently a legal top-seller…). But the police never arrested the owners of eBay. They just sent them a complaint and told them to cease and desist from having those things on its site, which eBay complied with. Now I don’t know the details of the case, but I’m thinking that it’s only been what? 2/3 weeks since the MMS was circulated? Baazee is not even a tenth the size of ebay, but they don’t really expect them to be able to monitor everything being auctioned on their site do they? Once somebody makes a complaint, then you can fault them if they don’t act to handle that complaint…let’s see how this pans out.

In Other News, I read a book called Mystic River (also a movie which released last year). It was a very gloomy book. I’m subscribe to everything must have a happy-ending philosophy, so after reading it, I was quite depressed (but not close what a fellow blogger must have felt after losing the Cricket league finals match – condolences, Parth!)

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MTV Desi?

Yet Another Music Channel….
One of the backgrounds behind this blog was the ridiculously-biased reporting that CNN conducts of India. Because I someday hoped to expose CNN by publishing all its reports on India, I went to their website, and specified in the ‘Alerts’ section that whenever there is any article containing the word ‘India’ send that article to my junk-mail email. Unfortunately, I was too lazy to read thru most of them, because India appears on the periphery of almost everything, so there were a lot of not-really-India-related articles that would show up in my inbox.

Anyhoo, 1/2 days ago, I got the link to this report.

…MTV Desi? Eww… It just seems like such a pointless dumb idea – why not just do one of the following: Have a show devoted only to Indian music on the regular MTV (which will be tough I know considering that these days everyone on MTV America is a blonde, white teen who doesn’t know how to sing…). This is what MTV Asia did, when it first setup shop in 1991 – of course eventually they realized that devoting only 1 show (called ‘Oye MTV!’) in their channel to a country representing 1/6th of Humanity was a little disproportionate, and then eventually launched MTV India.

But that’s Asia. Within America itself, there are already some shadier Indian channels trying to capture the ‘Desi’ market (yes, I’m not very politically correct, and am tempted to prefix ‘Desi’ with Confused, hee hee). So why try and ‘ghettoise’ things further. Why not put the Chinese and Indian shows on the mainstream MTV. Once upon a time, MTV was a trendsetter, and an alternative to the mainstream – this wasn’t as long ago as people think. But now it is just so heavily entrenched in the establishment, it’s shocking. I think a little multiculturalism will help revive it. I’m talking about MTV America here – MTV India has always been mostly pro-establishment and relatively politically neutral…

Another idea is to just carry the feed of the Asian MTVs over to USA. This would enable the ‘Desis’ to stay in touch with whatever’s happening in their respective home countries, as opposed to isolating themselves with their own bastardised channel…

Ok, in conclusion, it’s a slow news week, so I just picked this up and ran with it. :-p

Thoughts? Abuse?

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An Unoriginal Post

A Long Post
Ok this post was meant to intially be about the fact that the Delhi University’s solution to voyeurism-thru-Mobile Phones was the following: The Installation of CLOSED-CIRCUIT CAMERAS throughout campus to monitor people!@#!#@@@!. I read this in the morning Delhi TOI, but was unable to find a link to it in the online edition.

Then next, I wanted to point out, that there is some more history being made in the auto sector

Finally, here is a forward that I was sent at work today:

To the citizens of the United States of America :-
In the light of your failure to elect a proper President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchial duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy.
Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections.
Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up “revocation” in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up “aluminium”. Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘favour’ and ‘neighbour’, skipping the letter ‘U’ is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter ‘Z’ (pronounced ‘zed’ not ‘zee’ and the suffix “ize” will be replaced by the suffix “ise”. You will learn that the suffix ‘burgh is pronounced ‘burra’ e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as ‘Pittsberg’ if you can’t cope with correct pronunciation. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels.
Look up “vocabulary”.
Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as “like” and “you know” is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.
Look up “interspersed”.
There will be no more ‘bleeps’ in the Jerry Springer show. If you’re not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn’t have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won’t have to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such thing as “US English” or “American”. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter ‘u’ and the elimination of “-ize”.

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn’t that hard. English accents are not limited to Cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents – Scottish dramas such as “Taggart” will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. While we’re talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is “Devon”. If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become “shires” e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British sit-coms such as “Men Behaving Badly” or “Red Dwarf” will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can’t cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, “God Save The Queen”, but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American “football”. There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American “football” is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays “American” football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American “football”, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2005. You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the ‘World Series’ for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls’ game called “rounders” which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.

7. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if they give you any merde. The 97.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves lucky. The Russians have never been the bad guys. “Merde” is French for “****”. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don’t believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called “How-The-Fuck-Did-That-Monkey-Win Day”.

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All road ntersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips. Fries aren’t even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called “crisps”. Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all, it is lager. From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer”, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as “Lager”. The substances formerly known as “American Beer” will henceforth be referred to as “Near-Frozen Knat’s Urine”, with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as “Weak Near-Frozen Knat’s Urine”. This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in Pilsen, Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

13. From December 1st the UK will harmonise petrol (or “Gasoline” as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon – get used to it).

14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you’re not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you’re not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you’re not grown up enough to handle a gun.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us crazy. Tax collectors from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your cooperation.

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Attempt to prevent a Spillover

 One small step for Delhi, one huge leap for Indians…So I was driving home from work today – twas a working saturday – YECH! Anyhoo, anybody familiar with New Delhi will have an idea about a place called ‘Dhaula Kuan’. This is basically a big-ass crossing where traffic all points of the world converge. 3 Years ago, this was an awful place where the traffic jams knew no end. 3 Years ago to recently this place was a nasty mess of construction (as is most of New Delhi today). Finally the darn crossing has been completed, and now it’s possible to travel in any of the directions without having to stop at a traffic light, whereas before this was just a crossroads with 4 traffic lights and chaos.

But being New Delhi/India, just having a signal free road is never enough to prevent traffic jams (I mean, if a cow is sleeping between two out of 3 lanes, the most well-planned roads and crossings will not help you).

Out of the other countless problems is what I like to call “Spillover”. In this specific context, it refers to the commuters waiting to get onto a bus. Instead of waiting in a line (Line? What be that, bhaisaab?) on the pavement/sidewalk in an orderly fashion, most people waiting for the bus tend to spill over onto the road…sometimes this spillover extends to the end of the first lane of a 3-lane road, thus causing the bus to stop in the middle of road so as to not flatten passengers (it doesn’t always succeed at that mind you). Anyway, in a city of 14 million people (This number is greater than the entire population of many European countries), Spillover can be a real problem.

So the spiffy-looking Delhi Traffic Police actually decided to something about this – to be fair to the Traffic Police of Delhi, they actually do their job more often than not, it’s just that there are so few of them to go around. They’re more courteous than their other brethren (could this be because you tend to be paying them traffic fines, by any chance?).

They were actually standing on the pavement/sidewalk with their nightsticks (about 4 of them I guess) blowing whistles loudly and actually preventing pedestrians and waiting commuters from spilling on to the pavement. It was an interesting scene. As all of us motorists drove by, it looked like some sort of welcoming parade to see a long line of people standing on the pavement, desperate to set foot on the sacred stretch of black tar they were so used to occupying till yesterday. It was actually funny. And it helped prevent a usual traffic jam. If the traffic police actually manage to keep this up, I’ll be forced to take a picture of this new phenomenon and post it to my website.

Here’s to more semi-revolutionary ideas like this one – what comes next I wonder? Lane Driving? Let’s see…

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More on Defending India…. Part 1

Indian democracy is something to be proud of
OK, there’s not much new happening in my world. Haven’t been blogging with much frequency lately, but then this voice is giving that blasted GMAT exam so as to get into ISB and push my own standard of living up…but that is neither here nor there. Since there’s not much new stuff happening, I’ll harp on some old stuff.

Ok first off, you know your country has moved up in the world when it stops appearing in the political section of the Economist, and moves into its Economics section. Being an avid subscriber to the Economist, I’ve been noticing this gradual change occur over the past 4/5 years. But with greater publicity comes greater criticism. Especially when one makes the statement China is way ahead of India, in terms of development.

MYTH – Democracy is what is holding India back. As Arun Shourie, the ex-disinvestment minister put it (as a reason for why nothing gets done) – “In India, everybody has a Veto”. I would just like to state for the record that this is bullshit. There is a strong voice within and without India, that respects the “order” and “discipline” with which China functions. I’d like to tell all of those people that if it wasn’t for Indian democracy, they wouldn’t even be able to freely make that criticism. China has a nice way of dealing with dissent – it’s called Jail (and some extreme cases, Death). Yes our population is out of control. But as Indians, we believe in reproductive rights – this means that a woman will NOT have a her ovaries removed by hospital staff after her first child-birth in India. Even though Human-rights violations MAY occur on an almost daily basis in India, they are not mandated as a part of the foundation of our Country. They are unconstitutinal, illegal, and the perpetrators CAN BE brought to justice – the framework for all of this exists, and works more often than the media and Cynical Indians would have you believe.

Here’s a another critical point – Women. Yes, there are still a gazillion atrocities committed against women. Yes, it’s still unsafe for women to walk the streets alone at night (Although I would like to state it wasn’t much safer for the women who were attacked in the Wharton School bathrooms by a rapist – TWO YEARS IN A ROW). Anyway back to my point – the biggest proof that democracy works in India is the number of women in power. Are these women repectable, the epitome of Morality, or even woman that I like? Nope. Still, here’s the list:

Vasundhara Raje – Chief Minister of Rajasthan

Uma Bharti – Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh

Jayalalitha – Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu

Sheila Dikshit – Chief Minister of Delhi

Mayawati – Ex-Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Low-Caste (and also stupid enough to try and secretly construct a Shopping Mall next to the Taj Mahal – reason she was kicked out of power).

Mamta Bannerjee – Head of Opposition in West Bengal

Sushma Swaraj – ex-Health Minister

Honorary Mention – Indira Gandhi – ex-Prime Minister (deceased)

Sonia Gandhi – Congress Party President
Behind every great man there is a woman….She’s not the leader of India – but she damn well could have been. First time I’ve EVER heard of anybody renounce Prime Ministership! Yes she got where she did only because she married a former leader…but before you point your finger repeat after me: SON OF A FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE USA.

All of these women were in positions of power. Influential positions. As much people would like to believe that these women probably got here through their connections or whatever, the fact is that they got voted into power. I voted for Sheila Dikshit myself and am a fan of hers…And after they got voted, they were (and are) accepted by most of the public. For a country as “backwards” as India, this is a big step. I could draw a parallel with a 200-and-something year old democracy which is YET to ELECT a woman into a position of significant power (Currently 8 of the 50 states have a woman governor)…but I won’t…

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Some Lessons Learned?

The Aftermath of the Bush Elections
It is clear to me that people must be really bored with their lives. They are in need of some excitement, some thrill. Sure this has always been the case, but this boredom seems to have spilled over into who they wish to elect as their leaders. It seems that campaigning on regular bread-and-butter stuff, the kind of stuff that makes sense, that seems logical and sensible will get you nowhere in today’s political arena. Some may argue this has always been true, but I beg to differ. Let’s start with the BJP – they lost. They presided over a mostly-good period for India. I think India witnessed some of the best growth, while they were in charge. In terms of economic AND political strength. So, naturally, their campaign was based around that – “India Shining”. Of course anybody who has walked down an Indian street will cyncially disagree, but this voice, which has seen India in the 1980s, the 1990s and today, disagrees. Since I’ve been around, India IS relatively shining. However, that doesn’t seem to work. “Look, we’ve built more roads, cut lots more duties, privatised inefficient government enterprises, raised the growth rate, e.t.c” does not seem like a good campaign platform. Instead, you have to pander to the scum, the people that hold India hostage. That means the farmers, the communists, the union leaders, their mothers, and their goats. “Congress ka haath, Aam aadmi ke saath” – i.e. Congress Stands for the Common Man. The Common Man is nice and shitty illusion. When you pander to these people, you get votes. And the same seems to be true for America. Pander to the ugly stereotype. The hay-chewing, gun-toting, bible-brandishing, white boy, with a red pickup truck and a “healthy” hatred for anything that doesn’t speak or look “Americain”. You find an example of this person in the comments section of a few of my recent posts. This is of course what hollywood and bollywood have excelled in doing forever, and you forgive them, because they are in the Entertainment business. It’s their job. But we used to have a slightly higher standard for our politicans. Vajpayee was a respected man, throughout India, and the World. As was Clinton, in USA and the World. They were looked up to and respected, despite their flaws (which were many).
Ah well, those days are long gone, and instead, we’re stuck with a Congress government that’s “pro-poor”

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Find your Political Direction

Left,Right,Middle?
I stumbled upon this website: The Political Compass
Basically the site asks you a bunch of semi-obvious questions to determine your political leanings (i.e. Communist/Capitalist, Individualist/Collectivist, e.t.c). Of course, the site is a little Ameri-centric, so not everybody may have an opinion on the issues mentioned. Anyway, I always considered myself to be somebody who was right-of-centre as far as my politics went. I am all for capitalism and the free market, but a dose of Clinton-stylye liberalism is good too. Anyway, this site gave me a -0.25 leaning to the left, which means I am actually split down the middle! And it showed me to be heavily for the individual (-4.97) as opposed to being in favour of a collective will – that part didn’t surprise me, I never really liked everything that The Borg* stood for. But I find it funny that I’m actually right in the middle as far as left-wing/right-wing goes, I always thought I was more on the right-wing side! On the other hand, this test could be completely meaningless. Check it out for yourself!

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It’s an Upside-Down World….

So He Won….
With a majority this time and no cheating…..sigh. Ah well, I guess the ‘peaceniks’ and the ‘commies’ will have a few more wars to protest against. As far as I’m concerned , today is a sad day for the world.

The really odd part is that the Indian Media and stock market are both really happy that Bush is in power, go fucking figure!!

The Stock Market is happy because they assume Bush won’t put an end to outsourcing, and Kerry would have. Frankly I think Kerry was just doing a little pandering and would not have gone through with his threat.

The Media is happy because of some bullshit statement that Bush made about visiting India in the first year of his 2nd term if, he got a 2nd term. Basically the foreign ministry and the media think Bush is better for India than Kerry. I keep wondering how this can be, when Bush considers Pakistan a major non-NATO ally, and India is never mentioned, (nor thanked for helping set up the Afghani infrastructure, or for helping out the American troops in Iraq with the non-military support).

I would rather an American president did not have India on his radar at all….the American people (including American businesses, heh) sure, but not the president…

So Congress wins in India, and Bush in USA. Talk about unexpected, and upsetting.

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Another Dance of Democracy

This blog’s first entry was that of this Voice’s first experience of Voting in an Indian Election. And now we roll around to another election, though one which I can only comment on, not participate in. If there are any American people visiting this blog, I know their reactions already, so save it -
“We don’t need to your opinion”.
“You can shove it”.
“We saved the world from Hitler”.
“We invented everything good”
“The World can’t do without us”
“Stop meddling in our country’s affairs” (Because only America is allowed to meddle in countries’ affairs, because of course, America is moral and upright, whereas the rest of us savages are corrupt and barbaric).
“You’re a nutsack!”
yada yada yada.
Well tough shit.

VOTE KERRY AND SAVE THE WORLD FOR YOURSELVES AND YOUR CHILDREN!!!

I’ve been trying (since the formation of this blog 1 year ago), so sit down and list intelligently all the reasons why Bush should kicked out. But each time I’ve failed because each time I’d get emotional and would turn it into a rant, which is not the way to engage in intelligent debate and sway people.

In 2000, I was studying in Philadelphia, into my last year of undergrad, and got to experience American elections first-hand. I remember feeling annoyed at the time that I wasn’t able to participate in the Indian elections which had just occured a few months before that (in which the BJP got a thumping victory).
It was an interesting experience. They’d set up a large-screen projector in our Student Commons hall so that we could see the results as they rolled in. Everytime a result would be declared, one side of the hall would erupt in hoorays. Some grad student also interviewed me with his handycam for about 10 minutes, because he wanted to know what an International Student’s take on the whole story was.

I remember telling him that if I were American, I would be a democrat, however, back home in India, I would actually be the opposite, i.e. a BJP supporter. It’s simply a case of who the parties pander to. Actually I support the BJP mostly for the economic policies – the religious shit needs to be toned down, if not stopped altogether. And naturally, the Democrats are seen as more minority-friendly in America, so they would have got my vote (in 2000) not to mention the fact that even then Bush seemed like a complete IDIOT. The 2000 election result seemed to be more something that would happen in India, not America! But surprisingly enough, it seems that in this case, Indian democracy is better equipped to handle close results. Nobody got a clear majority in the most recent Indian election, but within a week or so, we had a new government smoothly in place. Go figure.

Anyway, USA goes to the polls soon, and I’m hoping against hope that Mr. Kerry wins the day. Ahh if only I could buy a few shares on the Nasdaq right now….

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Odes to (Delhi) Roads

Delhi-ites are a spoilt bunch of bumpkins
So it’s Mid-October. In plainspeak this means that the “bearable” season of weather has begun in North India-. It gets cold (cold being defined as less than 20 degrees Celcius) in the morning. You can spend some parts of the day without a ceiling fan. There’s a particular flower that blooms in this season between 5 pm and midnight – it smells GREAT! Is it Rath ki Rani? Somethine else? Dunno. Anyway, enough rambling about onset of Winter.

This post is on New Delhi’s roads. By most anecdotal accounts the roads of New Delhi are apparently the widest intra-city roads in India. This probably true. I know we have Bombay beat. But some people go so far as saying these roads are the widest intra-city roads ANYWHERE.

This is probably unlikely. Okay so most of Western Europe is old, so the roads within cities are narrow. USA follows a grid system and one-way stuff, so yea, we probably beat intra-city roads there too (’cept maybe Texas cities). Anyway, the thing is, we have some the best roads in the country. This really comes home to you when you are driving after 11 pm at night in a Honda City. That’s when you realize that if you just obliterated all the trucks, buses, cows, elephants, dogs, pedestrians, cyclists, three-wheelers, e.t.c it would actually be a nice smooth drive at 100 km/h….heh ok, keep wishing.

Well the reason that Delhi has some of the best roads but the worst traffic jams/accidents is of course because of a complete lack of traffic sense, which of course everybody already knows. But has anybody stopped to analyse the cause? And even if you came to the conclusion that this is due to sheer apathy/poverty/illiteracy did you bother to change it? Well most people will answer no.

So after getting into an argument with a friend of mine, I commit to print the following:

My contribution to attempting to help sort out the traffic situation in Delhi is to write out the traffic rules. One probably assumes that these are already written somewhere and are accessible to one and all. But I don’t think so. Having actually gone to a driver training school in Delhi I can assure you that they don’t teach you the rules of road. “Haath-pair chalane aate hain? Chalta Hai.” Translation: Can you move yer hands and feet – i.e. use the clutch, change gears and move the steering wheel? If yes, then you know how to drive. And this is really ALL the education that 99% of the drivers on the road have.

So it is this Voice’s aim to write out The Rules of The Road, complete with nice illustrations – not hard to do in the 21st Century. Since I consider my first language English, it’ll be in English. This is a call to all Hindi experts to vist my blog, and help me with translating the finished work into Hindi (other language experts are welcome too, of course). Then try and convince an NGO or maybe even a pvt. publisher or the Government, to print a gazillion copies of that manuscript and then distribute it as a download from my site for free, maybe sell it in bookshops, maybe distribute it with new cars, or at street intersections – may even be able to get the beggars involved and get them some money… anyway this is my grand, ambitious plan.

The rules of the road are almost written.. and I’ll put them up on my site soon, for anybody who wishes to help me revise them. And the entire journey from my hands to actual physical print shall be documented on this blog, from time to time, provided, of course, that it actually gets that far….
This Voice is just trying to do its bit to reduce India’s number from 2.5 to 1.5….

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The Present is Wireless

Hello? India Calling
So I forget which tech company has the tagline “The Future is Wireless” regardless, they got it wrong. The present is wireless. At least it is in India. Sometime today the number of mobile connections will race past the number of landline connections in India, according to the Hindustan Times. This is really amazing stuff for India, considering our beautiful reputation for being a laggard in most developmental figures.
Last time I checked, the average monthly rental for a mobile phone is about 500 rupees (US$11) whereas the outgoing call rates are about 2 rupees/min (US$0.04) – we don’t get charged for incoming calls in India, and an outgoing SMS costs 60 paise..which is less than 1 US cent). GPRS and EDGE have been implemented here, so our mobile networks are very much at the 2.5G stage already…
Contrast this to 1992, which is when I moved back to India after spending 9 years in Hong Kong (heaven, compared to the India of the Eighties…).

We had to fill out a form obtained at a filthy disgusting office populated with paan stains and uncouth bumpkins. This form asked you if you were Government Servant, a Hindu Undivided Family, a Doctor, an Exporter and some other rubbish. If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you got a phone a little bit faster. If the answer was no, you had two options – option 1 was a 5 year wait, and a bribe at the end of it all. Option 2 was a bribe at the beginning of it all, a one year wait, and then a monthly bribe (usually in the form of a bottle of ‘Old Monk’ rum, presented to the local linesman) to ensure the smooth working of your phone. Everytime it rained, you knew your phone would die, along with your connection to the outside world. And every once in a while, somebody would bribe the linesman, who would then hack into your line and allow the briber to make calls on your line, for free.. Fun.
Then one day the government came out with a Telecom Policy, which paved the way for GSM Mobile phones. They were pretty slow to take off, as they were considered pure luxury items, toys for that class of people who pretend to be perpetually ‘on the run’. But slowly and surely, call rates dropped (when mobile phones were launched the incoming AND outgoing rates were 19 rupees/min), and people realised that there was no corruption involved in getting a mobile phone. Further, the quality of the mobile phone network is very much late 20th Century/Early 21st Century, and not 5th century b.c. like the fixed line network . And so mobiles grew so pervasive that people may be homeless, but they aren’t mobile-less. Also, in typically Indian “ishtyle”, the government came up with idea of a “Shared Mobile”. This consists of a mailman with a mobile phone who travels to villages, and allows villagers to make calls on his phone for a small fee. Finally, competition from the mobile companies (and private fixed-line companies) forced the state-owned telecom firms to start behaving, so much so that now, getting a landline in Delhi/Mumbai/Other big cities is also a graft-free experience. And then people say nothing has changed in 5000 years. BAH!

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My Daily Commute

Okay, so I’ve decided to document my daily commute to work.

Below you see a nice little snapshot of Josip Broz Tito Marg, New Delhi. Marg is the Hindi word for Road/Street I guess. It was a nice and cloudy day when I took these pictures so the lighting’s kinda wrong…

South Delhi

The photo below signifies “new” New Delhi. A city which has perpetually been under construction the past five years, courtesy Sheila Dikshit, the current woman in charge of Delhi, and a host of other agencies. What you see in the picture below is a FlyOver being constructed. Flyover being a British English term, I’ll translate for the Americans. What you see there is an Overpass. Within the past 5 years, no less than THIRTY-TWO flyovers have come up across the city, and more are coming up, to prevent the teeming masses from having to wait at red lights in the 47 degrees celcius of the Summer. I call it a sign of Progress. The old folks of course, are lamenting the death of “their” Delhi….the one in which you got to see an unsightly mess of cars, bikes, trucks, pigs standing at a crossing/intersection honking to death and sending nice wisps of Carbon Monoxide while they wait.

FlyOver Someday

The teeming masses I was referring to above are here in full view. Note the lack of Maruti 800s in this mess. (See my previous post titled sign-of-progress-and-hopeful-obituary)

Some Indian Jam Anyone?

This is a picture of Nelson Mandela Marg. Note things don’t look so bad here…Yes, there is actually a road in Delhi called Nelson Mandela Marg. Get over it. Delhi also happens to the only place in India which has an MG road, where the MG does NOT stand for Mahatma Gandhi. (It stands for Mehrauli-Gurgaon. Mehrauli being another ancient part of Delhi….)

Not All Is Jam, However

Ok so off Nelson Mandela Marg is what was/is? India’s first 7-star hotel, The Grand Hyatt…er whoops. Sorry, there’s no more Hyatt attached to its name. Once upon a time, the Delhi Development Authority dreamed up scheme to populate South Delhi with 7 5-Star hotels-in-a-belt, as part of some grand Tourism Plan. Well three of those hotels came up – The Grand Hyatt, The Marriott and The Radisson. When people noticed a hotel coming up in their backyard, they protested. Then the environmentalists got involved. Then finally, the people who were going to make the remaining 4 hotels realised there was zero infrastructure (Roads, transport, e.t.c) to make this thing viable. So we’re left with 3 hotels located in strange parts of the city, not doing very well. So bad in fact, that Hyatt is no longer associated with the Grand-not-Hyatt anymore, and not being able to think of another name, it is simply called The Grand….

The Grand Hy…er..um..ah

Ok so this is the current look of National Highway. The central artery that connects Delhi to Gurgaon. And one of the many arteries that connects Delhi to India. This road takes you Jaipur,Rajasthan-the Land of Kings…Gurgaon-Jaipur is a smooth flat black carpet, which you have to pay to use. Delhi-Gurgaon was an awful two-lane piece of crap full of cars inching at 1 cm/hour, and (im)patiently waiting in line to enter Guragon, or head off further to Rajasthan, and vice versa. So now Delhi-Gurgaon is being converted into an 8-lane toll road…and in the meantime, the cars are inching…at 1 cm/hour.

National Highway 8. Delhi to Jaipur

Just a brief peak at the Radisson, which has its history explained above. The Radisson is doing relatively well for two reasons. It is very close to Indira Gandhi International Airport (New Delhi). And the second reason is The Great Kebab Factory. FREE BEER on Sunday Lunches, and All-you-can-eat Kebabs for 600 rupees….but at 600 bucks per head, you damn well better get all you can eat, heh.

Home of The Great Kebab Factory. YUM!

Welcome to Haryana (State neighbouring New Delhi, and harbouring Gurgaon). Why is Gurgaon important? This place is home to IBM, Fidelity, Microsoft, Sun, Cisco, Wipro, TCS, HCL, Daksh, GE Capital Services, Maruti Suzuki and host of other companies responsible for the New India. They are all in the Outsourcing/Technology field (except Maruti, of course). The funny thing about all of this is that the situation here is the reverse of America. Everybody lives in the main city (Delhi) and goes to work in the suburbs! This because the city is at least 1500 years old. But that is neither here nor there.

Yay, we finally made it

This Building is the first thing you see after crossing the border into Gurgaon. It’s called the DLF Gateway Tower. But apparently, the boob architect who designed this building had some bizarre idea of Ships in his ming…so it is actually in the shape of a Ship’s exhaust tower (or chimney, or whatever), and is thus called “The Ship Building”. At the bottom you see a sign reminding you that the National Highway (and all of Delhi) are still a work-in-progess..

Gateway to the Suburb

This is the building belonging to Convergys, a MultiNatiional Call Centre op. You get to see some cute college-going women wandering around if you hang around there…of course this what ‘a friend’ tells me. I, of course, wouldn’t know.

Hello USA? This is Convergys speaking

Another landmark is the “CitiBank” building. It’s not all owned by Citibank, but that’s how everybody knows it, because of the prominent sign.

Tall glassy and blue

And the green building that you see in the centre of all this filth is good old HCL Technologies India ltd. A software consulting/outsourcing firm, and my current source of income. To the left, you see another outsourced firm (that slightly grey building. That happens to be Agilent Technologies (The breakaway software division of Hewlett-Packard).

Work, Sweet Work…

Well there you have it. It has always been the aim of this blog to show you pictures of India that you wont find in the media….though credit has to be given to CNN for abandoning its usual position with a recent set of shows on the Outsourcing Debate, where they actually showed a balanced view of India, FOR ONCE.
Hope this page loads fast on your browser…
Of course if you refuse to unplug yourself from the Matrix, the standard experience-of-India fare can be found at this blog. Where, as the author will assure you, this is the “Real India”. The photographs I’ve posted are all fake, of course.

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Country Metaphors???

So heading back home thru the art-form that is New Delhi Traffic, I caught the RJ* rambling on about how Manoj Night Shyamalan said that his latest movie – The Village could be seen as a metaphor for America.

WARNING – SPOILERS AHEAD – DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE

As somebody who’s only spent 5 years in America and spent 25 years approx. hearing about it from one source or another, I struck me as true in some senses, but very simplistic…but then it’s only a 2 hour long movie.

So to escape the persecution of the “Outside World” these people break away, going to a place out in the middle of nowhere. Ok sounds like America somewhat. All of them have an awful story about the outside world, and how harsh it is. Then they get attacked by the “creatures” in the woods, which prevent them from leaving their self-centred isolated world, which of course turn out be self-created. Yes, that seems like America to me too. But of course, as self-sufficient as their village is, they still have to depend on the outside world for a few things – the quest to get medicine, for example. And the outside world depends on them too somewhat – those security guards that man the perimeter, they salary was probably paid by the the Rich owner(s)? of the village (most likely William Hurt still has all his father’s money). And even if one of these vilagers does venture out of their village, she’s the Blind one. She leaves the village with her single purpose, and so does not stop to try and get a sense of what the outside world is really like. Then she heads straight back home, to safety. Yep, sounds like the America I know again…

Steven Spielberg’s new Movie The Terminal has just released in India, and the above RJ says that this is also another metaphor for America. He quotes Spielberg as saying “All of America can be found in the shops, restaurants and offices found inside any airport terminal…like some sort of Nowhere Place”….alrighty…will have to see that movie for myself and decide…..

On the other hand…. one could look at a blank sheet of white paper and say it was a metaphor for a rainbow in some way or the other, so all the above could just be hot air….

So after all this rambling, I pose a question to anybody who brushes past this site -
What do you see as a metaphor for India?

To get the ball rolling, here’s my two paise:
I see India as a really really old and fragile vase, always on the brink of shattering. This vase has been shattered and put together quite a few times over the years. And each time it becomes whole, it’s never quite the same, because the shards that are glued together to make it whole come from entirely different sources – sources which one would never think of mixing together. Oh and it doesn’t have a smooth round shape. If you look at it from one angle, it looks kinda appealing. Turn this vase just by 1 degree and it looks ugly, misshapen, very badly formed. And each time you look at it, you will see something different.

Well there’s my contribution. Anybody else with a more interesting one?

*RJ is short for Radio Jockey. In India, People on the Radio are called RJs and not DJs, because here, the term DJ is reserved for those people who play the music at clubs/parties, and are part of that whole dance/hiphop/remix culture. Odd, but true.

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A Sign of Progress and Hopeful Obituary

About 20 years ago (roundabout 1983), a very young Prime Minister of India (Rajiv Gandhi) saw his dream come to fruition. Like Hitler (the Similarity stops here), he wanted to make a People’s Car for India. But India, being an awful, socialist country at the time (and very much 3rd-to-4th-World in 1983) wasn’t going to be able to do this on its own. So the Government of India held discussions with various companies, to see if they could make a car at what were dirt cheap prices. GM and Ford backed down after initial discussions, because they couldn’t figure out how to make a car under the terms specified. This is where the Suzuki Motor Company of Japan steps in, and thus was born Maruti Udyog (otherwise known as Maruti Suzuki). Along with the birth of this company, comes the birth of the Maruti 800. It defines Modern India, much like the Model T, The Mini, The Beetle and the Trabant all define respective parts of other countries’ history. Yes, there is a Morris Oxford look-alike called the Ambassador. And most of the Orientalists will tell you that is the car which defines India, not this puny little upstart. But you see, The Ambassador defines Old India, not New

The Maximum Retail Selling Price of the car in 1983 was Indian Rupees 47,500. Taking the APPROXIMATE exchange rate to the US$ (INR 10 : USD 1) at the time, that means this car cost US$4750, fresh off the assembly line. Of course, the tech specs need to be noted:
At US$4750, you get an in-line 3-cylinder 0.8 Litre engine. No Power Steering. No Power windows. No Air-Conditioner. (The A/c model was more expensive). No Stereo. No Automatic Transmission. No MultiPoint Fuel Injection. 4 seats, a gear shift lever, 1 rear-view mirror (not Day-Night) and ONE side-view mirror – on the Driver’s side…

Yes, you’ve heard of motorcycles with more features. But that’s not the point. The point was to get India mobile. And it worked. Of course that aim came at some cost. Having a car this small and this “zippy” also led to some of the most awful driving ever done in the history of man. On a lane-marked road, this car can fit between two cars in their respective lanes. That means it can sneak up on you and squeeze past. Unless of course you accidentally drift a little to either left or right, in which case….bang…But then it also help liberate a lot of middle class people and women too. This car was EASY to drive, after the old clunkers that used to dominate the Indian roads, that women took to the streets in droves. It gave birth to an entire industry of car accessories to prevent your Maruti conforming to the Any Colour So Long As It’s Black philosophy

e.t.c. e.t.c.

That was then. This is now. 20 years on, the reign of the 800 has finally come to an end. Not only are Indians driving other small cars, they’re also driving more medium/big ones. Cars which are much more advanced technologically, a lot less polluting, with a lot more features. Hyundai, Chevrolet, Fiat, Honda, Toyota, Skoda and a host of others are selling their stuff.

So join me, in wishing farewell to the Maruti 800, and the end of an era in which Indians had to sign up on waiting lists for cars, and air-conditioning in cars was greeted with a HUH? And a shrug.

NOTE to the Cynics/Orientalists. This post is not about social issues related to driving, Indian infrastructure, or morality. So I do not mention parking problems, road rage, rash driving, drunk driving, pot holes, starving-people-in-villages-without-anything-to-eat while little rich boy takes his car out for a drive, because I fail to understand why every post related to India must have those obligatory references. Thank you for you time.

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A Good-News Update

802.11g Among The Suticases and The Stench
So New Delhi Airport has gone Wi-Fi, like other airports across the world. Now all we need is a World-Class airport, as well World-Cass Wi-Fi….someday, when a non-Congress government is in power, we will have that World-Class airport…

Triumph Of Democracy(Not that anyone cares)
The mostly-male parliament of Jammu & Kasmir proposed a ‘Women’s Bill’. This bill stated (among other idiocies), that Kashmiri women lose all rights to property within the State of Jammu & Kashmir, if they marry a non-resident of the state/non-Kasmiri. Their reason for doing so wasn’t entirely chauvinistic. Because some idiots decided to alienate J & K from the rest of the Union of India, the Indian Government passed a few laws in the 1950s which stated no non-Kashmiri can hold land in Kashmir. This means that a lot of Rich North Indians, who have the money and power to transform what is an impoverished state into something livable, can do nothing but sit pretty. And in the meantime, all those impoverished unemployed Kashmiri youths can go about murdering the Indian army soldiers, with Pakistani-supplied Kalshnikovs. Anyway, one way to circumvent that rule was to allow Kashmiris to marry non-Kasmiris, and then rule could be partly subverted. So taking note of this fact, the Kashmiri Legislature decided to create the women’s bill. However, after being exposed to a lot of negative media coverage, this bill has been mercifully consigned to the Dust Bin. Look for all the info here and here

The ‘Silver’ Lining
Ok so although we walk out of the Olympics with only one silver for 1 billion people, it wasn’t all that bad. In many events that Indians were competing in, they broke all National Records, and ended up finishing 6th/7th. These means that 2nd & 3rd aren’t that far away, really. As far as this voice has been alive, this the best showing India has had in the Olympics (i.e. the 80s, 90s and 00s)

Till next time, this voice is Silent….

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A Neat Little Parlour Trick

Yes, India has contributed more to maths than just the concept of 0 and the Decimal Number System

So there’s a bunch of really ancient Hindu scriptures known as the Vedas of which the oldest is the Rig-Veda one of foundations of Hinduism – open to lots and lots and lots of debate as it is apparently approximately 3500 years old….
Anyway, one of them apparently has a section on Maths… I was taught some of the stuff they call Vedic Mathematics in preparation for the entrance test for Indian Institute of Management. Anyway, I list below one of its secrets, for easy reference, which shall be updated, as when all of it comes back to me.

How to find the square of all numbers from 1 – 100

Ok so the square of numbers from 1-thru 13 most people have memorized, so I won’t mention them.
The square of all multiples of 10 (i.e. 10, 20, 30, 40) are easy to determine, so they don’t need to be covered either.

So here’s the neat trick. Vedic Mathematics gives you a cool way to figure out the square of any number ending in 5 (5, 15, 25, 35, e.t.c.).

Ok so let’s take the square of 95.
Every number that ends in 5, has a square that ends in 25.
So we know that the LAST TWO digits of 95-squared are 25.

How about the rest?
Well you take the digit(s) to left of the 5 (In this case 9) and multiply them by the next integer.
The only digit to the left of 5 is 9 in 95, so you multiply 9 by 9+1(10) to get 90.
Place the 90 to the left of 25 and you have your answer.

95 x 95 = 9025

Don’t believe me? Let’s try 65.
Last two digits of 65-squared are 25.
The rest of the result is found by multiplying 6 and 7(6+1) = 42

65 x 65 = 4225

The square of 105?
11025 (again, last digits are 25, and 10 x 11 gives u everything to the left)

Ok so great. Now we’ve got all the squares of multiples of 5, 10, and everything from 1 thru 13. Now to fill in the gaps. Here’s the final magic formula, which u may already know from your regualr algebra classes.

x+1 squared is = x squared + 2x + 1.

So that means that 36-squared is = 1225 + 71 = 1296
37-squared = 1296 + 73 = 1369
39-squared = 1600 – 40-39 = 1521 (going backwards from 40-squared, coz it’s easier)

and so on.

Well that ends the show for today. I’ve just touched very briefly on the subject there are lots of more interesting things you can do with Vedic Maths
So go on and wow your friends, show them that you’re secretly a math prodigy. :-p

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More Monsoon Babblings

 Slow Week
So now that Delhi is finally getting its share of rain, the UPA government is relaxing a little. But of course, all of Delhi is suffering. Granted, the monsoon brings us our yearly supply of water, but also gives rise to the Annual Supreme Traffic Jam. But this jam only takes place on one particular day every year, because there is usually only one day in the year when Delhi gets 24-hours-worth of rain.A Powerful Woman
According to Forbes Magazine Sonia Gandhi is considered to be the 3rd most powerful woman in the world…. not bad for a broke Italian student learning to speak English in Cambridge….

1 in a Billion, Again
So Major Rajyavendra Rathore gets a Silver Medal in the Olympics. And everybody else is now either disqualified due to doping/stupidity or just didn’t make the cut.

Social Security?
The outgoing NDA government had decided to issue National Social Security Cards anybody who has a job, and contributes to the Provident Fund (Sort of like the 401(k) in America). So now Indians will have Social Security numbers too…

Bollydelphia
Bollywood is finally getting the balls to tackle AIDS, with a new movie called Phir Milenge (We’ll Meet Again). Apparently the story is about a woman professional who contracts HIV from her hubby, and her struggle with the prejudices at work and in society in general. You can count on Bollywood to play up stereotypes and handle sensitive issues with sledghammers, so I doubt this movie will amount to much…but the UN is actually endorsing it!!!?!?!

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The New Orientalism – Pt 2

Ok, so having taken the last week or so to cool off, and re-compose my thoughts, offer a half-apology to the author coupled with an invitation to coffee it’s time to post a reply to the reply to my ‘attack’ on Aziz’s blog (the URL for which can be found in my previous post, or on Blogger.com as a Blog of Note, at least at the time of going to Press).
First of all, to be fair, my critique was a bit too personal. It shouldn’t have been, because there are probably at least a million such stories floating out there, and this just happens to be the (un)lucky one which got noticed – appearing in the “Blogs of Note” section, which this Voice happens to visit every once in a while to escape the drudgery of outsourced computer programming.
So here is my reply:

Although I was excited to see my ancestral homeland of Kutch (Gujarat), my primary motivation to come to India was to explore and experience India, gain some understanding of the plight of India�s more than 300,000,000 poor people and get some work experience with an NGO (non-government organization).

The part of this that bothers me is that “Gain Some Understanding of the plight of more than 300 million poor people living in India”. My problem with this is just that. By your figure there are 300 million people who are defined as “poor”. What does that mean? Are they starving? Lacking a roof over their heads? They can’t afford a TV? All? And once we’ve decided what poor means, are we really going to apply this blanket term to 300 Million people, who speak different languages, have different religions, customs, cusines? You say you want to understand the plight of these 300 Million people. I’m just wondering why the remaining 700 Million people hold no fascination for you. Or the fact that we went from having 500 Million poor people 57 years ago, when our young nation was born to 300 Million today. Why do those 200 Million people who struggled their way upwards hold no interest to you? And how many people need to be lifted out of poverty for somebody to be able to visit India to gain an insight for reasons other than the plight of its X number of poor people?

Yes, you made your purpose and intent clear in your reply, and maybe I should just leave you alone and move on. But you see, Blogger.com has decided that you’ve written something noteworthy. And the fact is that although most of us blog for ourselves, I think we all know that someone, somewhere will be reading. So again, I’m just curious why the remaining 700 million (by your figures) Indians don’t hold any interest for you…

My posts focus on poor rural areas because I am working for an NGO that seeks to improve the livelihoods of poor, rural Indians. I came to India to work with poor people and I spent much of my time surrounded by poor people, so it follows naturally that my blog speaks at length of the problems of rural India

This would have been a fair point, until you mentioned the sweeping generalisations about Pasta and the News channels, among other things. Surely that’s not Rural India you’re talking about… (yes, that still rankles. How widespread are samosas out in the ‘boonies’ of NewFoundland).

In your sharp criticism of my blog, you seem to have bitten into an apple and yelled, “THIS IS THE WORST TOMATO I’VE EVER TASTED!”.

Nope, it was more like, DANGNABBIT, another tomato posing as an apple! @!#@@!@!!!!!

Tarun, I think you are wrong to think that one has to plunge oneself into the most backward pasts of your country to find poverty–it stares me in the face in Ahmedabad, and its surrounds me whever I travel in rural areas.

Ok first off, I have never stated you only find poverty in the most backward parts. However as stated in one of my previous blogs, there is The Filth Factor. Which means that even in the parts of the city/country that are rich/well off, things look like they’ve just been bombed out of existence by a Pakistani fighter swarm, coupled with the fresh smell of a mass urination. There are many reasons for this, which I may go into at some later date. But the fact is that, being a newcomer to this country, you confuse filth/laxity/apathy/anarchy with poverty. And those attributes aren’t always connected.

The vast majority of your countrymen cannot afford to eat at the Olive Bar and Kitchen.

The reason that Olive Bar & Kitchen was mentioned was in response to the statement – “They must not know what Pasta is in India”. The answer is that quite a significant number of people do. But I fail to see how Pasta-awareness is an indicator of a high-standard of living.

I wouldn’t presume to guess your background as you have mine, but I think you should get out to some villages, meet some poor people, play with their kids and understand their problems–you’ll appreciate the beautiful restaurants of Delhi that much more, and you’ll find yourself angry the next time you read about “India Shining”.

I have been out to villages. I have driven from New Delhi to Chandigarh while National Highway 1 was under construction for wideneing an repaving. We had to detour through at least 3 villages on our way to Ambala. I have also driven to Ludhiana and Patiala and stopped in many places in between. Unfortunately, these are villages of Punjab and Haryana. According to a recent edition of India Today, Punjab is the richest state in the Union. So basically, the fact that the people in the villages of Punjab and Haryana have raised their standard of living means that they won’t fall under your 300 million poor people, or in anybody else’s definition. They will basically drop off the map until they either get poor enough to starve, and thus merit a “juicy” blog entry, or when the level of prejudice (i.e. low-caste killings, murder of girl childs e.t.c) rises to a newsworthy threshold.
And I don’t find myself angry about India Shining, but I don’t blame you for it. This is your first trip to India. So you have nothing to compare it to. But I have a lot of timeslices to compare – 1983-89, 1991-97, 2002-today. And I can confidently say that as a 57-year-old nation India is at its brightest now. Of course, the light is still dim. But it will grow brighter, and much, much faster than you think.

(The offer for coffee is still valid, btw)

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Monsoon Babbling

2.5 World Country Weather (for the Newbie)
Seattle is apparently the most depressing city in the world, with the highest (recorded) suicide rate. One of the reasons attributed to this is the weather. To quote most Seattle-ites – “This Year’s weather will be overcast, with light showers (except on the 4th of July)”. Slight exaggeration, but not off by too much. ‘Cept for one or two summer months when you get to see how beautiful Seattle is – There is the Puget Sound in one direction, tall shiny glass buildings in other, the Glorious Grand & Dormant Mount Rainier to the South, and…more buildings and civilisation to the North. Anyhoo it’s really good looking, ‘cept when it’s raining when all is mostly grey and gloomy…..

Approximately halfway across the world lies a pointy/peninsular landmass, which was once a part of Africa some gazillions of years ago. Eventually this land mass broke away, and hit Asia pretty hard. Real hard. Thus the Himalayas were born. Apart from acting as a natural barrier to prevent China from invading India, they also contribute to an annual event which most Indians anticipate anxiously. Having the Tallest Wall in the World to your North, 2 seas, 1 ocean to the South, and some mostly-flat plains in the middle gives rise to the Indian Monsoon. Loosely translated as “Our Water Supply for the Year”. But take pity on a 2000/5000 year old northern city by a river. Everytime March-June rolls around, the inhabitants of this ancient city (Delhi) curse their ancestors and wonder why the $!@#!$$!@#!$@ they had to pick this particular area to settle down in. It may have been nice and comfy 5000 years ago, but these days the Great Indian Desert makes its presence felt in Delhi by sending a few dust storms and hot winds (known as The Loo for some reason) in our direction….these storms are further compounded by temperatures ranging from 45-47 degrees Celcius*. This carries on for a while, and in the meantime, the newspapers decide to rub it in by mentioning how Aqua-Bangladesh is 50% submerged, and there are floods in other parts of the country. All Delhi gets is a thickening of the air, as the humidity rises to an unbearable 90%. Finally, once everything is covered in a layer of dust (or melted due to heat), a huge dark cloud approaches (much like it does in the ‘Ghananana’ song in Lagaan). Then cool winds start blowing and the first drop of Monsoon devastation strikes. Pit pit, pat pat, pit………KABLAAM! KAPOW! And before you know it, you’re going for a swim on the Ring Road. Travel times rise. The 25 Kilometre stretch of MG Road* which connects 5000-year-old Delhi to wannabe 2-Year-New Gurgaon takes 4 hours instead of the usual one. New potholes arise, to replace the old one which were patched up pre-election. The government-run telephone company’s phone lines go bust allowing the pvt-run companies to advertise how reliable their services are. Old trees that couldn’t handle the heat finally collapse and close up a few roads, taking a few power lines with them. Kids run onto to the rooftops, for an impromptu bath, and also to start their kite-flying practise for Independence Day

But most important – Everybody’s spirits rise with the rain.

*The MG in MG Road, doesn’t stand for Mahatma Gandhi, like other various MG Roads throughout the company. Becuase this is New Delhi, the MG stands for Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road. Mehrauli being another ancient semi-city left over from Mughal times, which is now a part of Delhi….

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Musings

Indian Democracy’s Knowledge Addition
Dear Cynical Indian Public, here’s one reason to vote. It teaches you an interesting bit of trivia. I learned that your nail takes two months to grow, from cuticle to tip. How did I pick up this interesting piece of news? When you go to cast your vote, the voting officials mark your right/left forefinger with indelible ink (which is apparently easy to wipe off with turpentine or lemon juice – haven’t tried it meself). Anyway, this mark is placed half on your skin, and half on your nail (at the joint). So basically what happens is that the mark on your nail stays on, (the part on your skin disappears naturally). So over a period of two months (starting 13th May 2004), that black spot progressed from the joint (where the skin meets the nail) to the tip in just under two months – it reached the tip of my nail on the 12th of July 2004.

America Says Sorry
So it’s out in most Indian dailies. America officially apologises to India for strip-searching our (now ex-)Defence Minister George Fernandez. Richard Armitage, currently in Delhi (only for today) to touch base with the new government in power, is apparently “horrified” that something like that could happen. The initial source of this was not the ex-Defence Minister, but an autobiography by Strobe Talbott, in which he claims that George (Fernandez) complained about being strip searched. Georgy-boy himself claims it was far from a strip search! Great, for once America actually apologises for a mistake, and as it turns out, maybe they didn’t make one! It is a bizarre world…

Why our country will remain stuck at 2.5-World for the next 4 years
Reason 1
Mr. Harvard-Educated P. Chidambaram’s budget. He managed to make an ass out of everybody, and basically did nothing except to raise Taxes. He made it seem like he was doing a lot more, i.e. throwing more government money into the black hole known as “Rural Development Schemes”…Yay. Throw money at poor people great. “If you give a man a fish….”

Reason 2
The monsoon, according to this voice, has officially failed to materialise. And even if it does, it won’t be even a tenth as potent as last year’s. I can just see the VHP, RSS saying that this is Will of God for not voting the BJP into power, and also for neglecting to take care of the Babri Masjid Issue.

Reason 3
This one requires a whole new post, which may be forthcoming if I can gather thoughts together to make a comprehensible blog entry. But to keep short it is the fact that most people in this country believe that in order for one class of people to benefit another class has to be suppressed. I.e. steal from the rich and give to the poor. It’s not just our country, but a world-wide left-wing phenomena. This voice, having right-of-centre leanings, finds such a philosophy idiotic, stupid, and just plain false. How about this for a philosophy. Let’s just try and make Everybodyricher. I.e. if the filthy rich are getting even filthier rich, LET THEM. But let’s also get the filthy poor to be a little less filthy. Why do the two have to be mutually exclusive? It’s never made any sense to me. It basically stems from the idea that “The Rich make their money off the backs of the Poor”. I see. So all rich people got rich because of slave labour. Ok, enough for now, this will probably be my next post for sure…

A Correction to a Lakshya Review

Not my review, somebody else’s
Ok so first of all I start this week’s dull post with a correction. PlanetBollywood.com, apparently the place to get “Comprehensive” reviews, trips up big time. Obviously the writer has no idea what s/he is talking about. I refer specifically to a particular paragraph, quoted below:

After keeping away from clich�s for most of the film, Farhan�s stereotypical, caricature representations of Pakistani soldiers are a dire step backward. Both the director and writer Mr. Javed Akhtar have denied their film�s �jingoistic� factor repeatedly, but end up succumbing to precisely the same when dealing with the war. The dialogues spat out by the long-mustached Pakistani General (Parmeet Sethi) and his associate are amateurish. While the Indian Army bathes in discipline, the Pakistani soldiers are out there fighting without uniforms, dressed in pathanis. Can the �enemy� possibly be simplified to such an extent? I believe not. Such simplification and �jingoism� is routine with J.P. Dutta but is shocking when it comes from Farhan and Javed Akhtar.

The part I take issue with in this paragraph is the line While the Indian Army bathes in discipline, the Pakistani soldiers are out there fighting without uniforms, dressed in pathanis. This shows that the author of the review is clearly not abreast of any of the facts on the Kargil War. Pakistan, to this day, claims that it never sent its soldiers to fight, and that it was “Free-Dung” fighters (i.e. Terrorists) doing the fighting. At the time, the news channels and newspapers were reporting that the enemy was not dressed in military fatigues , however, after conducting body searches of the dead enemy, there was evidence of Pakistani Army identification papers. This fact was clearly highlighted in the movie. I just wish some reviewers would get their facts straight.

The Underdog of Iraq

The BBC reports that Saddam will get a Fair Trial

If he actually does get a fair trial, America is screwed. Of course it won’t be a fair trial. The world media is only getting to see snippets of the trail plus the sound is also cut in parts, allegedly to prevent Saddam from using the trial as his “Stage” and also for “National Security” reasons. Naturally – Saddam is probably still wondering how Iraq became an enemy considering it was America’s ally in the 1980s….I bet he’s still absolutely stumped. He’s probably wondering why his gassing Kurds is wrong, while stoning unfaithful women to Death in Iran is condoned. Or the various cruelties perpetrated by the Sheikhs of Saudi Arabia… or Human Rights abuses in China. Is none of this blatantly obvious to anybody else?

If it actually were a fair trial the question that would( (or rather should be asked in this Voice’s not-humble opinion) is:

Why choose this particular middle-eastern tyrant to execute?

Why pick on Iraq? Just because they MAY have WMDs? North Korea has them. And they’re part of this idiotic Axis. So WHY NOT NORTH KOREA?

Is all the idiocy going on Iran okay, just because they don’t openly hate America? Sure Iran is also part of the bullshit-axis-of-evil, but apparently it doesn’t seem to merit an invasion. Now why is that? And North Korea? North Korea just makes me laugh. The more threatening North Korea’s posture is towards America, the more food America sends to it. It’s a fucking joke.

Of course, maybe there is a whole lot of stuff going on “Under The Table” but all this voice can see is a stupid vendetta being carried out by an adolescent mind, who happens to be President of the United States of America.

And Saddam actually turns out to be pretty sharp. “I’m not signing any papers without my lawyers present”. Then he said you are accusing one man of invading a country, when that requires an entire state’s apparatus….
He’s right. You blame Saddam for gassing Kurds whether he did it or not, but you don’t blame bush for the Torture of Iraqi civilians in Iraq. Of course the reasoning being that Iraq is ruled by a megalomaniacal dictator, and America by a Democratically Elected President. So therefore, anything that happens in Iraq is directly because of the dictator, whereas in America, nothing ever happens by presidential order, decree, or veto, especially with Bush in power…

End of rant….(for today at least….)

Lakshya: A Review and Ramblings

I liked it a lot, but it was still lacking something….
The cinematography was excellent. I don’t know where they shot the scenes for this movie, but it looks like the Kashmir we saw on the News, and it makes you understand how people can fall in love with the place and willingly give their life for it.

The other point in this movie which really held my interest is that it was based on real events, 90% of it, with of course, some name changes

So Lakshya, is the tale of a guy’s quest to “find himself”, which he does by giving up his nice and spoiled life, to join the army. Then he gets caught in the middle of the Kargil War – India’s first “TV” War.

The Kargil war was important for many reasons. Of course, this is going to sound outrageous to anybody other than myself, but Kargil is one of the roots of September 11th 2001. Pakistan invaded Indian Kashmir, and was repelled the first time. Then before the second round, the Pakistani Prime Minister was summoned to Washington (Nawaz Sharif) by Bill Clinton, and told to Cease and Decist, as India was threatening to take what was then a relatively minor conflict to a higher level. Nawaz Sharif goes back to Pak with his tail between his legs and calls off the whole stupidity. But the General in charge of this operation is pissed. Real Pissed. He knows he could have won this one. So he launches a plan to overthrow Sharif. And Succeeds. That General goes by the name of Musharraf. It is a fact that the Pakistan Army used recruits from neighbouring Afghanistan. It is a fact that these recruits were trained by Bin Laden. It is a Fact that Pakistan was a supporter of the Bin Laden and the Taliban until about afternoon US Eastern time September 11th.

So back to the movie, we’re into cliche here. But let’s get it straight – the director isn’t out to make hard-hitting docudramas. He’s making a Bollywood commercial film, and considering how his first movie (Dil Chahta Hai) was a light-hearted take on youth and friendship, we shouldn’t really expect this movie to be too different. Instead, it’s a light-hearted look at the Army, I guess. Very pro-establishment, but i still respect it for its positive messages. He seems to be saying despite all the negative news you hear – about coffin scams, and human rights abuses, at the heart of it all, your army consists of regular guys voluntarily sacrificing their lives for the protection of your country (Our army consists solely of volunteers. No draft, no conscription, ever. The advantage of 1 billion people).

Having been raised on a Hollywood diet of war movies, most Indian war movies come across as just plain bull, and your first reaction to this one is that there seems to be some naivete about it all. It seems over-romanticised, a bit warm-and-fuzzy. But I feel that is just our jaded, cyncial over-exposed-due-to-negative-media side talking. Maybe the Indian army really is like this. Who’s to say? I’ve never served on a base overlooking the “The Highest Battlefield In The World”, and the fact is that a lot of us haven’t. All we have are anecdotes, and some negative mdeia reports. Let’s cut them some slack.

(WARNING: Inevitable America:India comparison ahead. Read at your own risk)

You can’t really compare this to the Saving Private Ryan’s and Black Hawk Downs simply because those were cases of American soldiers fighting for the woolly notion of Freedom For Mankind (and their own country as a secondary result. If we get rid of Dictator A, then maybe in the future, Dictator A’s country won’t bite us in the ass). It is a rare day that America has been attacked by another country on its own shores on a daily basis. Naturally, the attitudes and behaviour of the military men is going to be different. The Indian soliders are fighting for India’s territorial integrity. It’s their home they’re defending, not a bunch of foreigners from the clutches of some vile dictator. Of course, some people dare to suggest that it is not their home that they’re defending, just a disputed territory. But this Voice would like to dismiss that argument, because as far as this Voice is concerned, Pakistan should rightfully be a part of India too. Anyway, I think it’s highly likely that you won’t come across the jaded, cynical soldier, critical of the authorities, and just doing his job for “the other guys” like the Hollywood fare.

Preity Zinta tries to hold up her end, by being the ‘modern’ woman journalist, apparently modelled on award-winning NDTV journalist Barkha Dutt. But it does seem as though she is just a supporting role, not the lead. This movie seems to be about Man and Mountain mostly(Hrithik Roshan’s Lakshya is to Conquer a Hill).

Phew! There’s a lot more I could say about this movie, but I think this post has become too long! To conclude really quickly and anti-climactically, the Music is good (Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy production), the production quality is KICKASS. I mean I could tell that the IAF helicopters flying over Kashmiri mountains were faked, but they were still well done. There are a lot scenes which stayed with me from this movie…
you know I think I’ll go see it again!
Lots of Big actors give cameos. Amitabh Bachchan (a Colonel), Boman Irani (Hrithik’s Dad), Amrish Puri (a General), Om Puri (a “subedar” – I dunno what the English rank is), VJ Yudi (fighting alongside Hrithik) and a whole bunch of others.
A one-time watch for sure…maybe even a classic…

Fruit of My Efforts & Nothing New

The Gift of Blab
So This Voice now gets its own GMail account. Yay! That was one of the ulterior motives for starting to blog, hehe.

In Other News…
The below is a standard rant of mine, which I trot out every week or so, simply because I can’t keep it inside me.

The 9/11 inquiry just simply confirmed what the world new 2 years ago, but apparently America did not. How anybody can be so dumb is beyond me. The inquiry basically reveals that:
1) Iraq and Al-Qaeda have nothing in common, and never will because Osama felt that Saddam was a miserable excuse for a Muslim
2) Pakistan was a supporter of Osama Bin Laden, until 9/11 when of course, it had to start kissing American Butt.

This just again goes to show what a bunch of hypocrites Americans are, and then they wonder “Why do they hate us so much?”

As has been stated umpteen times by Bastard Bush himself, “either you’re with us or against us”. Then he went on to name Iran, Iraq and North Korea as part of an idiotic Axis of Evil. But Pakistan, a KNOWN supporter of terrorism, AND Nuclear proliferator is of course nowhere on the list, and in fact is MAJOR NON-NATO ALLY.

Then of course, there is India, which is a democratic republic with the world’s 3rd/4th largest army, a huge population of English speakers, and people who help add to the talent pool of America itself, which gets no thanks, no acknowledgement, and the same racist treatment meted out to people from the Middle East.

India does everything that in the Bush Definition is “Good”, and Pakistan has done everything the “Evil-Doers” would do. Yet somehow, Pakistan is made to look more important than India.
So basically, the Terrorists killing Indian citizens are okay, they’re just Free-Dung Fighters, because hey Pakistan is kissing American ass. However, as India dares to be a little bit more independent in its thinking (and a real potential threat to America in terms of military and economic power-eventually), it is ignored, and also the victim of what can only be a malicious campaign.

Message to Americans: Please Vote Bush OUT!

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The Filth Factor

This latest article in The Economic Times (of India) has prompted a few thoughts….For the past two decades or so, China has been the Darling of the West.
“Look Ma, they’re getting richer”
…. followed by
“Look Ma, they’ve taken our manufacturing jobs”

whereas India has been chugging along at its own little pace, quietly gaining ground, going from 3rd-world, to 2.9-world (1991), to 2.6-world(2000) to 2.5-world. For most educated Indians (and non-Indians too, I guess), India’s rate of change is awfully slow (and the Communist-dominated Intelligentsia/Elites will even tell you things have deteriorated over the past 50 years too….and then take a sip in full public view from their legally-imported/part manufactured-in-India Bacardi-with-Coke… one of those “recently occurring small changes”).

First let’s put that change in perspective. 5000 years (ok maybe 2000 if you go by the available paperwork and other evidence) of cultural conflict, accumulation, annihilation are not going to be wiped out in a mere 50 years of Western-inspired-by-the-Enlightenment Democracy. Now at the same time, in those 50 years, our country has been governed by
a woman, (even if it was thru Family connections – George Bush Jr. Hello?)
Has had a muslim, a low-caste Hindu and a Sikh for president. We’re currently ruled by a sikh, and it could have been a Catholic, white widow….These things are a Big Deal. What has been governing China for all of it history? Totalitarian, old, Chinese Men. The names change (Manchurian, Confucian, Communist) but the governing style does not).

But the Chinese have one advantage over Indians – and that is the Filth Factor. Whether it is New Delhi or New Laloo Nagar, Indians have a tendency to wallow in filth. I don’t have any explanations behind this. We take baths as frequently as we can (and more so than those blasted Europeans at any rate!). And we do try to keep things clean somewhat (in house and garden). But the definitive smell pervading our railway stations (and really sadly, our International Airports) happens to Urine, mixed with rotting vegetables. Add that to the fact that any empty plot of land is renamed “Garbage Dump Indefinitely” and you have foreign investors running to Shanghai in droves! You see, we may be a democracy, may not remove women’s ovaries after their first kid, we may kick butt when we create software, but somehow we forgot to erase the slag heaps, and allow the bio-degrable waste to degrade a bit too freely, in too many public places.

This flaw is, unfortunately, a very VISIBLE flaw. When you walk on the streets of Delhi, you don’t see the world-class software developers, or the fact that Indians value their right to Vote, and their right to free speech. What you do see are banana peels, heaps of slag piled around Big, Shiny multiplexes and (if you’re not in Delhi) clouds of soot being emitted from the larger, diesel powered 4-wheelers. So India may be shining (and this Voice believes that it truly is) but it doesn’t help if that shine is blocked out by the smell of fresh pee. Now that’s what China sorted out first. They cleaned up the pee and poo first, and allowed people to hoo and ha at the wonder that is Shanghai/Beijing/Shenzen/Zuhai e.t.c. They might shoot you for messing up the stitching of a pair of jeans – but at least they don’t pee on the road. And this unfortunate, shallow fact makes a big difference, because of the VISIBILITY. If we want to project to the World that we are Great country(and also to ourselves through World…which as disgusting as it is, is what we do) we’re going to have to clean ourselves up. Literally. The Taj seems small not so Wonder-of-the_World-ish because of the louts and other filth surronding it. You don’t get that sense of greatness from it. “This is a wonder of the world…” not been researched, or even considered as valid? Corruption (China), Poor Infrastructure (South East Asia), Lack of Natural Resources(various), Over-Population(China, Japan), Human Rights Abuses (everywhere, barring Japan, I suppose), Prejudice, Inequality of Women. These factors exist in other places, but none of those (or maybe 1 or 2) places smell of pee.

Comments Welcome …

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The Laws of New Delhi

Hey, this is a shameless rip from the Delhi Times – a supplement to the Times Of India. But I’ve put some effort into typing it out at least (and I wanted it here for easy future reference….)

The Laws of New Delhi
A lot of outsiders feel that there are no rules in this city, and that it’s just absolute anarchy…this absolutely false. Delhi-ites follow a strict code of conduct, which I have documented below:

1. The Other Side Law
If there is a traffic jam on my side of the road, then I am within my rights as a Delhi-ite to start driving on the opposite side of the road.

2. The Queue Nahin Rule
If there is a long queue of people waiting, nobody will notice me jumping it, as I am looking the other way.

3. The Mind Over Matter Law
If a traffic-light is not working on a 4-way intersection, then four cars going in 4 different directions shall be able to magically pass through each other. In some cases this does not work, leading to the Law of Grid-Lock, and in grave cases the Automobile Destruction and Loss of Human Life Rule.

4. The Automobile Direction Axiom
I am not allowed to use my indicators/blinkers to specify which direction I am turning in due to the Official Secrets Act. Further, it’s good to keep the motorists behind alert and on their toes, thus they need to be kept guessing.

5. The Spitting Image Rule
The more I lean out of my car/bus, and the harder I spit/puke, the stronger the roads become.

6. The Theatrical Freeze Law
When my mobile phone rings in a cinema hall, the movie automatically pauses, and the audience takes a breather by listening to my loud voice tell “Bunty” where I’m sitting and what movie I’m watching how crappy it is.

7. The Incest Law
If I want to win an argument, I simply terminate all sentences with SisterFucker(in Hindi). If I’m losing the argument badly, then I use the more high-priority MotherFucker suffix.

8. The Baraat Right
When I am on the road to marriage, “all Delhi roads are belong to me”(sic)

9. The Salman Khan X-Ray rule
If I open enough buttons on my shirt, the hot babe at the bus stop can see through my hairy, Punjabi chest into the depths of my soul

10. The Relative Registration Rule
All motorists are hereby advise to paste the names of their kids/uncles/spouses’ names on the backs of their cars, so that the trailing motorist can know that Rash Driver from Hell (Registration # DL 3CB 7679) is associated with “Honey” and “Guddu”.

11. The JK Rowling Postulate
If I double park my car, the road automatically widens to ensure smooth flow of traffic.

12. The Chill Bill Position
When I park and block somebody else’s car, I’m giving said person a chance to pause and reflect after a long hard day at work, in line with Ancient Hindu and 21st Century Punjabi Principles

13. The Flatulence Fundamental
The louder I burp/fart in a public place, the better the digestion, and overall well-being of my fellow Delhi diners.

14. The Bus Karo Law
If buses stop precisely at a bus stop (or at all, as opposed to merely slowing down near bus stops), the city will explode due to a doomsday device planted by Dr. DelhiLove.

Well there you have it. This being said, Delhi is STILL one of the great cities of the world. Come visit, but when you do, make sure to keep these laws in mind.

Hum-Tum: A Review (and other musings)

This Voice is now 25 years and 2 days old….
I feel old. Very OLD. A quarter century has passed me by, and I still:
1)Don’t own an island in the South Pacific
2)Don’t own a villa on the Med
3)Don’t run a multi-billion-dollar company which threatens to own the World
4)Don’t run that Indo-American Film & Theatre Production House with my aspiring director friend (Anita), and closest non-relation (VeriKa)…
5)Haven’t got my MBA

And so I blog instead…..

So Hum-Tum…. hmmm..
Well it belongs to that new genre of Bollywood movie, which I like to call Zero-Bakwaas.
There aren’t any melodramatic fathers, or creepy arranged-marriaged suitors. Just a relationship between two people, very loosely inspired by Harry Met Sally.
It gets pretty cheesy at times but manages to keep you watching. But u leave the theatre thinking that it was just kind of blah. But at least things are refreshing, in terms of dialogue, and presentation.
I’m still sitting on the fence about the animated clips that were added into the movie (to try and get across that deep down, we’re all just little boys and girls). It was nice to see a different approach being used, but I’m not sure it added much to the movie.

Another refreshing change (WARNING – this is a minor Spoiler). Instead of having Abhishek Bachchan as a creep, they made him out be a good character, and decided to kill off the poor guy instead of making it a divorce or some such thing. I think that was a good move.

Finally, (WARNING – Another spoiler) the one thing that stood out the most in this movie to me was how they handled the sex – i.e. the fact that Rani Mukherjee and Saif slept together. But instead of getting all hoo-ha and melodramatic about it, I think it was handled with the kind of respect and maturity you usually find lacking in Hindi movies…good for them.
So end result – ok movie, crappy songs with no purpose or melody either. (3/5 stars )

There’s been a steady but small improvement in bollywood movies (which I think dates back to Lagaan, but I could be wrong), where the movies were still definitely classified as “Bollywood” but were getting a slicker in all sorts of ways (Note-to-self: Possible future blog entry on the changes in Bollywood).

Anyway, the conclusion of today’s blog is basically that there’s not much happening in the Political Sphere of things (national and international) – the government is too busy battling it out with the opposition for there to be much progress on raising 2.5-World to higher, and Iraq is about to gain partial independence… so this voice has been silent for awhile.
Well at least, as this voice predicted, the flyovers and National Highways will be completed. Ever since we have Congress in Centre & State, we started observing the resumption of construction activity on Delhi’s roads (and elsewhere too, but that’s not so visible right now)….

That ends it for today
Small note about all comments received on this site. I’m intentionally not replying to them because I don’t want this to become a discussion board, as much as I’m all for intelligent debate…because well.. It’s Voice From A 2.5-World Country not Voices of the Internet. I suppose I’ll write out replies to some comments as blog entries though…
Till next time.

The Common Man Myth

The Congress Party (of India) fights for the “Common Man”.
Economic Liberalisation benefits the select few, but not the “Common Man”.
When Coca-Cola and IBM returned to India, in 1993, the question asked was: “How will this benefit the Common Man, who doesn’t even have access to water or electricity?”

Who is this Common Man of India? It’s the same one the CNN types say represent the Real India. The rest of us “better-off” people are all fake Indians you see. Everything we’ve said and done are not the Real India.

That feels good. I go to work, come home, hang out with family & friends, watch TV, make money, but you see, I’m a mirage. I don’t really exist. I epitomise superficiality and nothingness.

In order for me to exist, and be a Real Indian, I have to live in a village. But not just any village. The villages dotting the Highway between Delhi and Chandigarh (National Highway 1) are not Real either. Over there, roads and houses are being built, there are signs for “Sybar Cafey” and “Mobiyal Phone Repair”, the people have clothes to wear, and jobs and other unCommon things.

It has to be a village, where caste discrimination is rife. It has to be a village where the word road means something far away in distant lands. Where electricity is what comes and strikes you during the monsoon season. A village where the girl child is on its way to extinction. Where the villagers have plastic bags for clothes, and branches for weapons, and toilet could easily mean river or hole-in-the-ground.

That is the Real India, and don’t you forget it. God forbid images of air-conditioned cubicles, full of young 20-somethings tapping away at computers, cloud your mind. Or non-skeletal children with smiles on their faces, wanting to be something more than doctors or engineers.

And this is where the Common Man comes in.
How old is the Common Man? Is he young and unemployed?
Where does this Common Man live? In Bihar? Rajasthan? All-over you say? Surely not in the Cities?
What about type of accommodation? Slum? Does that mean anybody who has something remotely resembling a house/flat can be considered unCommon, and Elite? Or do they fall into some netherworld between Common and UnCommon?
What language does the Common Man speak? Hindi? Urdu? Bengali? Oriya? Which one of these languages is common? Hindi might be one of the official languages of the country, but is it the Most Common? Tamils will object (and strongly, I might add). Well we know the Common Man definitely doesn’t speak English, for that is the language of the UnCommon Elites.
What about income? India is a poor country, so therefore, the Commonest Man must be poor. So then is the Common Man just a euphemism for Poor?

Finally, this Common Man…are there no Common Women? Congress Ka Haath, Aam Aadmi Ke Saath (Congress’ Hand, for the Common Man) – what about Aam Aurat? Haven’t we forgotten about Her? The woman who has to kill herself 10 times over to keep mother-in-law and husband happy? Spend 8 hours in line for a clay pot of water in the desert? Or does the Aam Aurat not matter?

So I think I’ve formed a picture of the Common Man of India.
He’s poor (obviously, so Delhi – 14 million people, Bombay – 19 Million People, Bangalore – 3 million People, Chennai – 7 Million People, Calcutta – 7 Million People, Chandigarh – 1 Million People , Hyderbad – 2 Million people, do not represent the Common Man). He can’t get enough to eat (So my servant is not common). He speaks Hindi (So people living in Punjab, Maharashtra, The South, The East, and North East are all uncommon). He can’t read/write (even though 70% of the country is literate). He lives in a village. He’s middle-to-low caste and discriminated against because of it. He can’t be Muslim (140 Million), has to be Hindu (800 Million). He definitely doesn’t own a cellphone (which means plumbers and electricians are not Common Men). He’s harrassed by Policemen, so Policemen aren’t Common Men either…and He’s definitely into agriculture.

So there you have it folks. The Common Man of India, whom most NGOs and a host of Political parties stand for.

I hope the rest of us uncommon people are happy. That means Women, High-Caste people, anyone owning a Cellphone/House/Car/Television, Non-Hindus, English Speakers, Software Engineers, Call-Centre Workers. We’re all nobodies, we don’t represent the Real India. I guess we’re the Shady Underbelly, who operate in the Shadows, in some parallel world.

In a country as diverse as India, There is no such thing as the Common Man. There are however, lots of Common Threads.
We are all Indian, regardless of caste, creed, income, whatever.

So let me make a suggestion: Instead of performing services that benefit this ugly, disgusting stereotype of a Common Man, let’s do things in the Name of India, and Indians.

If there are less poor people on our streets, then as Indians we can all feel proud.
If women are treated more equally and with respect in our country, we can all feel proud.
If everyone in our country has access to clean drinking water, we can all feel proud.

So please. Let’s not do _____ for the Common Man, as it is at the expense of the rest of our Nation.

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A Belated Introduction….

The last thing I expected was to actually be read! Other than the people in my sphere of existence, my site is being read by anonymous strangers surfing the nooks and crannies of the World Wide Ball Of Wool.

So I’ll basically tell you a little bit about myself…
I was born in the not-so-humble city of New Delhi, but left it at a very early age (2.5 yrs old to be exact) and spent my formative years in Hong Kong. I returned to New Delhi in 1991, a few months after Rajiv Gandhi’s murder, and a few months before the Current Prime Minister announced his radical reform package which helped raised the level of India from 3rd-World to 2.5-World.

So I was there through it all – I saw the India which had 2 TV channels, 3 models of cars (last upgraded in 1956) and a New Delhi without satellite Dishes, Mobile Phones, Coffee Bars, fancy flyovers (overpasses to you Americans) and no Italian restaurant outside a 5-Star Hotel. A place where anything “Imported” was automatically considered as high-quality, and everything local was utter crap – this was true in some cases…

And I am in New Delhi now, after this semi-transformation too. However, in between 1991 and now, I spent 5 years in America (from 1997-2002) as part of my education. Frankly America was a disappointment. It did not live up to the expectations that everybody had created in my mind. It was meant to be a place where you could fulfill your dream, with a little blood, sweat and tears. Where the thing that mattered most to people was “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”. Where the Huddled Masses of the World could go, yearning to breathe free….

Right. Let’s try and change that picture somewhat. Throughout college, you had to live the with the slur of being a foreign student. This meant that you were apparently feeding off the government and the country, and should thank your lucky stars you were allowed to leave your godforsaken hellhole of a country (Most Americans believe that most of the world is a hellhole, barring England and maybe Europe)…even though most Foreign students in America do NOT get grants or scholarships. Most take loans, or depend on rich parents – it was Rich parents on my part….Oh, and we’re not allowed to work more than 20 hours a week on those Student Visas. Then when you leave college, you’re automatically the reason why the economy is bad, because you took a more deserving American’s job. Your boss gets to treat you like a slave, while holding the carrot of the work visa over your head…and then finally you get to be the first one who gets laid off, when times are bad. Well that was enough for yours truly. After losing my job, I went back to my country as Americans always suggest to you if you dare to criticize America – “If you don’t like it here why don’t you just go back to your own fucking country”. So I did. Now I can proudly say that I’m responsible for at least 11 American software developers losing their jobs, and also a much happier person in general.

Anyway, it was the reactions I got from people in America, and their overall general knowledge about my country, that has prompted me to write this Blog. According to CNN and lots of other American Media, people in India go to school on Elephants, and still spend their time charming snakes, that is of course when they’re not busy murdering each other….

So this blog is basically meant to be an Indian Born Confused Desi’s view on events in India, which get almost no coverage in America, or other parts of the World. Oh yes, and to also challenge American viewpoints on the world in general, whenever the opportunity arises. And also talk about some other random things I may feel strongly about…

Let’s give an example of a typical American reaction to this kind of posturing:
I’m an anti-American, Al-Qaeda-supporting, fundamentalist prick fully supporting the destruction of America, Americans and The American Way of Life…

Let’s rephrase that to represent the truth:
I’m somebody who believes in all of America’s ideals – Right to private property, freedom of speech, basic human rights, No discrimination on any grounds and equality for all, blah blah blah.
But also believes that America
a)does not have the sole right to judge who else believes in these ideals, and
b) barely follows its own ideals when it comes to dealing with the Rest of the World

Basically I just wish that everything that America stands for inside its borders is what it should promote outside its borders….which unfortunately is not the case. And to most of the World, they only the see the external America – the hypocritical arbitrary imperialist. It is those things about America that people hate. One aim of this Voice is to bring those things to light, simply because it can, and because it happens to my blog after all, dammit!

Finally, in my own opinion, I am Indian through and through. Though many Indians will find that some of my opinions do not sound very Indian to them (I need to clarify this based on a few of the reactions to my writing).

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Nice Leader, Awful leaders….

Manmohan Singh vs Laloo Prasad Yadav
So we have a ‘cool’ Prime Minister to complement an already existing ‘cool’ President. One’s a rocket-scientist, the other’s an economist. Lovely. Great?

What about the rest of the government? AWFUL. We have the same old goats who’d been clinging to power for the forty years back in the posts they always held. Not a youthful face in the entire lot! We can say bye bye to any radical changes expected in our country. There are loads of people who were happy with Congress being back in power, and yours truly wasn’t one of them specifically because of this! For example, you re-appoint an Aviation minister, who’d been aviation minister 8 years ago. Do you think this person will come back brimming with more ideas? Considering the state of our aiprorts and airlines, this guy didn’t have anything to offer 8 years ago. I doubt he’s learnt new tricks. Or will he fall back into the regular routine of having the taxpayers pay for his bills, while his proctologist’s roommate gets a free ride on Air India?

This voice hopes desperately that somehow, our new leader(s) will display some reall leadership, and actually do something good for this country. As an upper-middle class salaried person, life is going to get very tough for me, and for all people like me. Higher taxes are certain. Petrol price rises are certain. Free power is certain (which means more power cuts). Re-nationalisation of private power companies? (tremble) Possible….

This voice expects this country to deteriorate in the next 5 years. It is unlikely that anything will get better. The only thing that may improve is ‘communal harmony’. Though frankly, I doubt it. If that were true, Sikhs would not have been slaughtered under a Congress government, even if they did murder Indira Gandhi. Secularism, my left foot. But the public has a short memory, and it seems so far, it only stretches as far back as Gujarat 2003…..

Plus cutting subsidies and forcing government workers to work harder, by privatising them will never be popular moves, which means that the much-reviled BJP will probably return to its shrill, fundamentalist roots.

Time to migrate to another country, while the current government rules…or find a way to register loud protests when the idiocies begin….

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Sonia Gandhi? Yes or no?

Ok a few things non-Indians should note:
1) The last name is GANDHI. Any other spelling is incorrect
2) There is no relation between Mahatma Gandhi and Sonia/Rajiv/Indira Gandhi. They share the same surname, but not the same family. Ok, that out of the way..

Here’s an e-mail thread between me and a friend of mine, debating whether this woman should lead 1 billion Indians or not:

My friend writes:

This is some information on prospective PM of India – Sonia Gandhi that every Indian and at least every India lover must know.

1.. Sonia Gandhi is ONLY a high school graduate. It is not even sure if she is Matric pass or fail. Cambridge University has confirmed that they have no Sonia Maino on their alumni list.

2.. Her sister, Nadia Mario, who had never visited India before rushed to New Delhi, after Vajpayee govt.fell, to be by her side amidst reports that she might soon become India’s Prime Minister.

3. Should Sonia Gandhi become Prime Minister, her relatives in Italy would be fully entitled to round-the-clock protection by the Black Cat commandos at the Indian taxpayer’s expense.

4. She worked as an house maid in UK while taking classes to learn English in some no name school. She was from a poor family in Italy but now has almost as much money as Bill Gates (guess whose money is it).

5. During the 1971 war, while all Indians stood ready to fight for the Indian cause Sonia Maino and her husband Rajiv Gandhi went on vacation in Italy.

6. In 1977, when Indira Gandhi and Congress lost elections, Sonia Gandhi with her children and husband in tow took refuge of Italian embassy in New Delhi. Only after Indira Gandhi, Sanjay and his Indian wife Maneka convinced her that they came back.

7. Sonia married Rajiv in 1968 and was eligible to become Indian citizen 5 years later yet she did NOT become Indian citizen till 1984 I.e. 16 years after her marriage) This late bloom of Sonia’s love for India also was out of political consideration. In 1984, Rajiv, was heir apparent and most likely next Prime Minister. It would be awkward for a PM to have a foreigner wife. Voila, Sonia became an Indian Overnight.

8. She has not given a single interview or offered any ideas on a single issue facing India now. Her only qualification is that she married a Gandhi. No newspaper has taken up the issue; no political party is opposing this, people are falling in line as if this is nothing unusual.

9. Sonia became an Indian citizen in 1984 but did not surrender her Italian citizenship. She continues to be simultaneously a citizen of India and Italy as Italian law does not require her to surrender her Italian citizenship or passport. Simply put, Sonia is a dual citizen of India and Italy now dreaming of becoming the next Prime Minister of India (she can also legally become the prime minister of Italy!).

My Response:

This is all fine and dandy however:

1) for 57 yrs we’ve been ruled by Indians. Whether they’ve done a good job or bad is for you to decide.

2) Everybody KNOWS that she is leader of Congress. This means that if Congress wins, she will be leader of the country. In spite of knowing all of this, Congress got a greater number of votes than the BJP. Provided that there was little/no rigging (and there does not seem to be any proof of rigging as yet) this means that this is what a significant section of India wants, so it’s not bending over backwards, but gladly accepting.

3)Sometimes we need an outsider to remind us of how great we are and can be. Did anybody know or care about John Wright before he became coach of India. Does anybody know what his average was? What his experience as coach was? What brilliant coaching skills he had successfully applied elsewhere before becoming Coach of the Indian Team? Info about John Wright

4) This IS after all a democracy. We will get our chance to get rid of her, at least once, in the next 5 yrs, maybe sooner than later.

5) Finally she’s not Prime Minister YET, and if she has sense, she will decide not to be.

There is one slight problem, and that is TINA – There Is No Alternative. Second to Atal Behari Vajpayee, not a single person in India politics seems like a Leader

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The More Things Change….

The more they stay the same…
It’s a good thing that yours truly has decided to start blogging at another interesting point in Indian history.
For some bizarre reason, Congress has been voted back into power?!@?@#!
This voice from a 2.5 world country hopes for 2 things-first, it hopes that Congress doesn’t do addition, causing 2.5 World ( + 0.5) to become 3rd World…..Second, this voice hopes that it does not get shocked into silence, caused by the addition mentioned above.

Congress has been around for about 100 odd years. It’s had that long to make something of our country. In my view, it failed at that miserably. It plunged India into a horrendous socialist mindset and physical mess, from which we are yet to emerge. The BJP tried to do better, in a lot less time, and came up with an average performance. But average is better than bad!! The analysis behind this massive defeat will be discussed and debated constantly over the next few weeks, months, years, but not here. This voice is no expert. It can simply add it’s own two paise to the debate.
And all this voice can say is:
Beats me! I guess it comes down to the basics. The BJP forgot to provide them
But what stumps me is how the country forgets that the Congress hasn’t been providing basics for a lot longer than the BJP…could it be secularism? I don’t know. What I do know is that Congress is actually going to have to perform this time, because the people have had a taste of non-Congress governance, and they don’t completely hate it….
That being said, as a Delhi-ite, Congress in the Centre can only help my day-to-day life with Congress also being in power locally.

Watch this space for events occuring when a 5000 year old civilisation/57 year old Democracy is ruled by a an Italian-born widow (or hopefully her Sikh Deputy).

Who’s Gonna Trade Your Wild Horses?

And so we’re staring at a hung parliament(well as of 10.55 am IST anyway..).

BAH!

Anyway, today’s voice would simply like to argue in favour of a multi-party democracy, despite its nasty side-effect of causing muddled results and ugly party-shifting MPs. There have been many calls, here in India, for a shift to the two-party system as followed in the USA/UK. Frankly this suggestion is just awful, and should not be used here in India (it barely works in USA and UK anyway!).
People argue this is a must for stability, and therefore good governance.
Question posed to those people: The greatest abuses of power occurred in India under
a) 45 yrs of Congress Party rule?
or
b) 12 yrs of non-Congress rule?

If stability guaranteed good governance, nobody would bother to vote anymore! Keep in the incumbent in power, who needs change! Furthermore, the 2-party system works in USA/UK because their populations are a lot more homogeneous than our country. 12 Big languages, countless dialects, 4 major religions, and loads of sects, and don’t get me started about Caste….

There is NO WAY that two opposing streams of thought can cover all that. You need many more representatives to fill the gaps and complete the patchwork quilt that is India, and despite that, the multitude of parties and ideologies have converged into 2 streams anyway (I don’t include the ‘3rd front’ nonsense. The 3rd front should simply be renamed the losers who refuse to quit – but even they are important).
Further, coalition governments help keep the ruling party’s baser instincts in check. Had the BJP not been part of a coalition, I’m sure the abuses in Gujarat would have been worse(if possible) and hell, they might have spread outside Gujarat! Coalitions force parties to compromise, as opposed to dictate terms, and is that not the true essence of democracy?

Finally, let’s not knock the independent candidates. They are necessary to remind the larger players that there is somebody else who could steal their votes. Somebody else who might begin to matter if a divided nation returns a 50-50 verdict(or 45-45-10 verdict). In America, the 50-50 vote led to the Supreme Court having to decide who would be President!!! But in our country a 50-50 vote simply means that the Clean-Cut man from Pune will be given more importance, and courted by the big players, or the dogged Communists of Bengal will become part of the government. This is after all, a democracy. Every Vote counts.

So let the trading begin, as ugly as it is after all:

Democracy is an awful political system, but the best one out of all the others proposed and practised so far

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Disgust, but no surprise

There are quite a few people out there who were shocked by American behaviour in Iraq….

Not this lowly Voice.

American behaviour in Iraq is very consistent with Post September-11th American though and ‘culture’ (if you can call it that). The disgust has already been expressed everywhere, so I’m not adding anything new, however, my blood just boils at the thought of it all, that I just have to vent.

To every single being on this planet with even a mild hint of rationality and/or intelligence, it was clear that:
1) Iraq has NOTHING to do with Al-Qaeda
2) That it had NO nukes
3) That Saddam was a threat to NOBODY other than Iraqis.

How Americans can be so absolutely fucking clueless is just amazing. Their stupidity has been witnessed first-hand, within their country. It is what made me go running back to my own country as fast as I possibly could. Observing Americans talk and behave as they do just made me wonder:

If idiots like these can rule the World, is it any wonder that the World is in as bad a shape as it is?

That was thought #1. #2 went as follows:

Why not go back home, and help realize my country’s potential, instead of staying in this shithole, where all that’s left to do is find another way to sell new & improved bubble-gum flavoured whitening toothpaste?

I digress. If it isn’t clear to anybody with half a brain yet, Americans are the world’s biggest hypocrites, and when their hypocrisy is revealed, it is relabelled “Realpolitik”

“We’re invading Iraq because they are a threat to the world”
World giggled and guffawed

so then..

“We’re invading Iraq because it’s a threat to America”
World still giggled and guffawed

So then someone in CIA/MI5/K-mart cooked up a nice little essay…

“We’re invading Iraq because they have WMDs”

The UN disagrees, the world stays quiet, with a “Let’s see” attitude…
No WMDs found…

“We’re invading Iraq to free the poor Iraqis from the clutches of a vile dictator, and in the name of Human Rights…”

ok… still cutting the bastards some slack…and then we have the lovely pictures showing just how the Champion of Human Rights treats people..

So what’s next America? What excuse do u have left now? This whole escapade is the childish fantasy of a mediocre moron, which unfortunately has actaully been played on the world stage. It’s horrific.

The best part is to hear American justifications for their actions:

“Those Sand Niggers had it coming. I don’t see anybody crying about 9/11″ – Prove that Iraqis had anything even remotely to do with those crimes

“I don’t see anybody apologising for the deaths of those contractors in Fallujah” – This one is just so fucking stupid, that it pains to come down to the level to answer it.

1) America INVADED Iraq. Iraqis have a right to beat the crap out of the invaders. Why the fuck should they apologise?
2) More importantly, the abuses committed by America took place before January. The Fallujah incident happened in April – in which case it may have been to avenge….
3) Finally, American atrocities occured against Prisoners-of-War. There are some well documented conventions on how prisoners are supposed to treated…. and now nobody will follow them. After all, if the Beacon of Freedom and Democracy doesn’t why should the rest of us savages?

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The 50th First Attempt – (The Dance of Democracy)

Alrighty, so here I am messing around with Blogger again. This time I happen to be doing it because Google is offering free Gmail accounts to all “active” blogger users…I haven’t been ‘active’ for over a yr….

Ok so anyhoo, a friend/colleague of mine suggested that a blog is just a great way to transfer some of your soul into a transit point, for later reference, like the Pensieve in The Goblet of Fire..

So I guess today’s Voice-From-A-2.5-World-Country talks about what went thru the mind of this voter, in the run up to the ‘World’s Largest Democratic Exercise’.

Way before this election had begun, yours truly had already made up his mind and decided to give his vote to the current govt., i.e. our Lotus-loving saffron friends. Simply because they’ve visibly done more in 5 years than Congress has in the past 50. I don’t entirely subscribe to their ideology. They are right that the majority has been apologetic for too long….but genocides/pogroms aren’t the way to stop apologising…Plus having spent my formative yrs in Hong Kong, and being educated in America, I’m hardcore believer in the Capitalist way…

Ok so what’s the point…? Well …Round 1 passed us by, then round 2 ended….that’s where the trouble started. All of a sudden, the BJP wasn’t looking like it was feeling as good…..You could see this in the change in campaign advertising. First, we were India Shining/Rising… then it became Vote NDA for progress, a slight toning down of the original message…and then after round 2 the desperation shows – “Vote Vajpayee for Stability…” – No more India is great stuff – instead just an appeal to prevent the BJP from having to horse-trade…
And then I found myself wondering…hmm what if there is a not-so-well hung parliament?
What should I do with my vote?
Should I give it to the Congress candidate (whose identity still remained a mystery to me, mind).
Or how about that Independent dude, the sophisticated looking author…?
Would there be any point wasting a vote on any of these bimbos? Luckily since the Capital would only be asked to exercise its franchise in the last round I had time. Round 3 returned a more positive showing for the NDA…but I was still confused.

Finally, the weekend before our turn rolled around, and both candidates dropped their leaflets in our mailbox…The BJP dude was a professor, and looked decent, but his pamphlet was only in Hindi… I have to be honest here, I don’t have a Hindi dictionary, so beyond ‘LokTantra’, ‘Rajniti’ and ‘Vikas’, most of his statements went over my head, but he seemed to be making the right noises about Progress. The Congress dude was much worse. He just loooked very shady – straight out of Bollywood. Yech. Plus his pamphlet told us a lot about him, and nothing about what he was going to do with the power we were going to gift him with. Oh and that independent author dude didn’t send anything. So with one day to go, my decision had been made simple. Vote for the more respectable looking candidate, who belonged to party I supported anyway…

“Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp”

The defining sound for an Indian election, and that’s what was emitted after I pressed the blue button next to the Lotus, and walked out and joined the crowd of saris, jeans, lungis, khaki uniforms and dust grains.

It’s a shame we Indians don’t appreciate this festival more. There are billions of people who would kill for this privelege (and that’s not just an expression). This thought process is special, and as Indians, we’re lucky that it can be ours.
And on that note, this Voice-From-A-2.5-World-Country exercises another one its rights. It chooses. Chooses to transfer some soul at a later date.

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