micro

.. on the field, the cricket game has been more or less dead.

I have taken the India Pakistan series for 60 bucks, and yet I am not able to watch even 1 days worth of cricket. The one day I did watch, it wasn’t so much fun anymore.

Without dada on the field, there isn’t even that fire and agression anymore. And the politics of the game have just killed the interest.

I hope the one day matches will revive my spirits 🙁

I am quite disappointed by Desipundit and how they handled the auctioning of their indibloggies prize. If you didnt know, they were auctioning the prizes they got through Indibloggies awards and donate the money to ProjectWhy – A description of the auction can be found @ http://www.desipundit.com/2006/01/19/auctioning-off-our-indibloggies-prizes/

I didnt know what Projectwhy was all about, and when I did find it out, I decided to join the auction thinking that participating in the auction will eventually lead to a good cause. What I didnt know or expect was some lethargic reaction, not only by the readers of Desipundit with the auction, but by the auction moderators themselves.

Late last night, Aaman bid a late entry to the auction, and did win it. My congratulations to him, and he has done a very noteworthy job in the auction. However the way it was handled has disappointed me.

• I did bid 20 bucks for the auction. And I was pretty serious about it. And I was serious about raising it further too if required be.
• When Aaman asked the question if his entry would be valid, I was expecting a reply from moderators regarding the question. Instead, what I saw was that the entry was accepted and declared winner without as much as a seconod thought.
• As a person who took part in auction, I was interested in the proceedings of the auction. This morning, when I visited Desipundit homepage, I didnt even see the sticky post – it was buried under posts of 2 days ago on second page. The least moderators could have done was to acknowledge Aaman for his generous effort and let others know about it. After all, wasn’t Aaman and I auctioning off our money for a good effort?

I am pretty disappointed. I probably should have just contributed to projectwhy without involving in this auction and making a fool of myself.

Begining this post, I aim to start reciting some of experiences of my younger years, especially from my college days. I have a lot of them to write about and I think it will be a fun concept.

Around 8 years ago in 1998, the movie <strong>Satya</strong> was released. After hearing excellent reviews about the movie, especially from Khalid Mohammad, I and my roomie decided to give this a look. On the given day, 2 of my other two friends decided to join us for the movie. Since the movie was running "house full" and my other friends had something to take care of, it was decided that I and roomie would go to the theatre and if tickets were available, we could call these guys up.

I and my roomie made it to the theatre for the 9' O  clock show - the movie was running in an appropriate area to its theme; the area was as shady and as rowdy as the movie promised to be. To our dismay, even the line to the ticket window was pretty threatening. At that point, we thought it would be better if we called up our friends and ask them to come over to theatre as the line seemed really long. 

Now this theatre was in the middle of timbucktoo - often the rickshawallahs would wonder too where this theatre was in Hubli. It was not surprising then that my friends didnt know the way either. When I called up the hostel, they were not there - hence I left a message with a friend to inform our friends to rush to the theatre as soon as possible! 

At the theatre itself, my roomie thought that the line being so long, there was no chance of getting tickets for the show. It might have been a better idea, if my friends didnt come at all - as it would be a waste of a trip. I thought it was a wise idea too - I rushed to the nearest telephone booth and called up the hostel again. To my dismay, I discovered that nobody knew where my friends where. They could have left for theatre, or they could be waiting elsewhere for my call - or worse still, they couldnt hear someone calling out to them - our central telephone was atleast 70 feet away from the hostel itself and it required someone to really shout to get the message across.  I left a message again, saying that if someone saw my friends, they should be informed that they are not supposed to come over to theatre until and unless I call them.

Rushing back to the theatre, to my surprise, I discovered my roomie had got the tickets already! I dont know what transpired or how he ever got ahead of the line, but the net result was - he had 4 tickets - 2 for us, and 2 for our friends. Immediately he asked me call back to hostel and ask those guys to come.

When I called back again, to my horror, someone had given them my previous message, but the wrong theatre name! And those guys had already gone towards the other theatre.  I reasoned that since the other theatre would not be screening Satya, the would naturally head back. I left a message again with the third guy to tell my friends (if he saw them!) that we were in another theatre and they should head there ASAP.

The clock ticked - 8.20 pm, 8.45 pm, 8.55pm.. It was five minutes to the show. We decided that my friends had probably not got the message from the third guy, and wouldnt turn up. We were not in a mood to miss any part of the movie for them either. It was decided that even if my friends came, bad luck, we didnt wait for them.

But the problem was, what were we to do about the extra 2 tickets? 

We sold them... err in <strong>black</strong>. We made a profit of 5 Rs/- per ticket, which financed our colas inside the theatre :). The movie turned out amazing, and as I had expected, my friends travelled all over the place, except of course the theatre and missed it all. 

The incident still brings back the memories of that night so vividly; I still remember causing the entire confusion by relaying 3 different messages through 3 different people – one asking them to come over, other to stay put and finally the right message which they never recieved. Also given the fact that the hostel had 300 guys, what was the possibility that my friends would meet the people I left message with anyways? The fact that the moron who told them to go to the wrong theatre did prove that, but well, it was a message lost in translation. Of course, I was welcomed back by the other friends with some angry sneers and jeers when we finally came back after enjoying the movie.

I was wondering today… what if we had a cellphone during our times? Clearly, there would have been no miscommunication on anybody’s part. Clearly there wouldn’t be anybody else involved in the whole melee – and my friends could have very well come to the theatre and enjoyed the movie with us. But perhaps it was this lack of technology in our lives that made this mundane incident so memorable to me. I and my friends would often joke about how our messages and my calls misled them. Perhaps, the lack of cellphone did make the incident humorous and memorable.

Sometimes, technology just takes away too much out of life. Man has just become a slave of Cellphones, and nothing seems to work without a cellphone around. Sad.

With this post, I am hoping to start a new section to my blog – I will try to post a weekly round up of my frighteningly sensational (?) life, possibly every Sunday and bore you with all the bunkum.

Subway restaurants have started a new promotions where with purchase of a sandwich, you get a scratch card with two scratch panels. One will reveal a code which you enter online to see if you won any prizes, and the other scratch panel offers some much avoidable new resolutions for its patrons to follow. This week I went thrice to subway, hoping to win something – as luck would not have it :), I did not. Nonetheless, the other resolutions which I scratched were “Exercise More”, “Eat Healthy”, “Get Thin” – none of them attractive or anything that made me happy.

My friends who had borrowed the DVD of Raghu Romeo from me returned, it to me singing hosannas about how Home Delivery was better – I quietly wrapped the dvd and sent it back to Netflix. No, I didnt even bother seeing Romeo. The other DVD, Sideways, I couldnt even travel halfway.

Yesterday we had a mini-Blogger meet of err… umm 2 people. I met up with Chetan , a rising figure in Blogosphere and author of acclaimed Mahablogratha – it was a great meet, and we discussed a wide variety of topics, some of them very serious indeed, ranging from whether Martians should welcome Earthlings to Karan Johar’s latest secret love affair. Nonetheless, it was a great evening. I also introduced him to Prem and some of his writings.

Today, I and my friend watched two football games back to back for 7 hours straight – it was draining, exhausting and utterly boring by the second half of second game. Nonetheless, I hope Steelers win the superbowl.

mmmh… what else, my friend also remarked that Serena Williams wants to enter Hollywood after she retires from Tennis and entertain people. Lady, transvestistes unfortunately form a very meagre percent of the population. On the same note, we agreed that the William sisters are too manly to play Womens Tennis, and they are quite unmanly to play Men’s Tennis. Perhaps, they should start a section for themselves.

I think thats about how interesting my week was. Till next Sunday, chau!

My colleague at work forwarded this gem. I had to really supress hard to control my laughter while reading this.

Here’s a prime example of “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” offered by an English professor from the University of Phoenix.

The professor told his class “Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with a person sitting close by. As homework tonight, one of you will write the first paragraph of a short story. You will e-mail your partner that paragraph and send another copy to me. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story and send it back, also sending another copy to me. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back-and-forth. Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent.

There is to be absolutely NO talking outside of the e-mails and anything you wish to say must be written in the e-mail. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached.”

The following was actually turned in by two of his English students:

Rebecca and Gary.

THE STORY

(first paragraph by Rebecca)

At first, Laurie couldn’t decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.

(second paragraph by Gary)

Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about other than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. “A.S. Harris to Geostation 17,” he said into his transgalactic communicator. “Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far…” But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship’s cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.

(Rebecca)

He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. “Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel,” Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspaper to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. “Why must one lose one’s innocence to become a woman?” she wondered wistfully.

(Gary)

Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu’udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral disarmament Treaty through the congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid Laurie.

(Rebecca)

This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic adolescent.

(Gary)

Yeah? Well, my writing partner is a self-centered neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. “Oh, shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of Flippin TEA??? Oh no, what am I to do? I’m such an air head who reads too many Danielle Steele novels!”

(Rebecca)

Jerk.

(Gary)

Witch, why dont you go drink some tea?

(Rebecca)

Asshole!

(TEACHER)

A+ – I really liked this one.

Some random ramblings I have heard in the last few days…

Billy Graham and his gospels.
Last night just before my favorite TV show LOST, this man featured in a 1 hour special on his gospels and how he is “changing america”. I have noticed that almost every second person seems to have “changing” effect on america these days – why even American Idol promises to do the same, we can of course allow Billy Graham to do just same 😀

Some excerpts of his speech to thousands of followers who had come to listen to gospel:

This one made me laugh:

“…You remember what happens in the latest Star Wars movie? The young man loses his way to greed and temptation and becomes the bad guy. He becomes the satan; and he is defeated by Truth! he’s defeated by God!”

If anything, Mr. Billy, the latest Star Wars was about evil coming to rise and not otherwise :D. Maybe he got his chronology wrong, or he’s just lost trying realize the eternal truth!

This one irritated me:

“…Buddha towards the end of his life said – ‘I am still searching for the truth’. Jesus Christ is the truth!”

WTF? Religious propoganda is fine by me, but please Mr. Billy can you keep it confined to your religion and not trespassing on other religions thelogy? Do you for instance even know what Buddha’s philosopy is, and what he did really mean by that?

Weather forecast while driving to work:
Today’s temperature will vary. (Who would’ve thought?). Today’s highs will be in low 50s while lows will be in high 30s.

A “cold front” that covered our area will be moved north by a “high pressure” area which will force cold front away. However by night, we should expect the “second” “cold front” to cover the area. Thank you Mr. Weatherman.

Some Ex-CIA Officer who was in Afghanistan on a “Look for Bin Laden” team, now retired, has written a book on it (who doesnt these days?), and was exclaiming in the interview:

“…At some point, I allowed Food and Water to be supplied to Osama Bin Laden while waiting for Air Power. I knew he was hiding in the caves – thats the only place they could hide.”

Common sense would suggest that you cut every possible link to your enemy. No more comments.

My friend told me few days ago that sometime ago in Germany, a man posted an online ad that he wanted to be eaten. He got a response from another man, who happily devored him. The man who did the service has been arrrested.

Prosecutors are now debating whether it was an act of cannibalism or act of mutual consent, if which if it was, the man who ate him cannot be proescuted. I am not even interested in knowing what happens next.

By the way, how did the man who advertized himself put the ad ? – You my gentle readers can come up with some creative answers! Make them funny!!

Umm…. what the other news that piqued my mind for last few days….

My friend’s girlfriend got him a huge foosball table for his Birthday. Lucky me 🙂 – He needs company to play it, and I am so available. I love my friends and their girlfriends hehe!

All right… enough nonsense for now. Will rant later. Ta-Ta!

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/articles/article.html?id=11537

Fortunately they have an option to opt out, though no one ever heard of it. Jeez. What are the internet companies upto! And add to it, they track by machine, not by user id. So you need to opt out every single computer you use. Whoa?!

http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy/us/beacons/details.html

!

This post was inspired after I read a rather obtuse comment from a blogger on Desipundit for this article – http://www.desipundit.com/2006/01/12/shivsena-and-saving-maharashtra/#comments

Since I didnt want the comment section of Desipundit to become a war zone, I decided to vent out my frustration on my blog – also given the fact that I also get independence to say what I want! Now the blogger in question says this verbatim:

This comment is to no one in particular and is a comment on the post being referred to here. I find that all over India people keep repeating the same mistake and seem hell-bent on perpetuating it. Once and for all, folks, Hindi is not the ONLY “national” language of India. It is “official” (for the purposes of government communication) and enjoys the same rights and privileges as other languages (or should I say vice-versa?) This eulogizing Hindi/Bollywood and everything else “regional” is nauseating to say the least and is at the root of much bickering and divisiveness in Indian polity. Let’s hope that at least a generation of more traveled, enlightened and egalitarian Indians let go of such notions and embrace all that India is made of.

This bothered me greatly. Its been time immemorial that I have seen such comments now – and I wonder why is that its just the people from Tamil Nadu (not all mind you!) on this planet who make such a hue and cry about Hindi being official or national language or not? Surprisingly, I dont hear Gujjus making that comment – nor do I hear Maharastrians making that kind of comment. Nor have I heard Bongs say such things, or Andhraties – and I haven’t seen Kannadigas saying that either – or for that matter nor any Punjabi or a Malyalee complaining about it. From the person on the street to their Chief Minister to the now dead Veerapan, somehow they seem it fitting that because Tamil does not enjoy the status of Hindi in the country, there is something very wrong. I dont see it – Whats the big freaking deal?!

I find that all over India people keep repeating the same mistake and seem hell-bent on perpetuating it.

Except for some people, there is nobody who is hell bent on perpetuating it. Infact, I dont think anyone really cares that much at all LOL. Frankly nobody seems awfully bothered about which language has what status in India – if people stop comparing and enjoying the language without its political baggage, perhaps things can be simpler isnt it?

Once and for all, folks, Hindi is not the ONLY “national” language of India. It is “official” (for the purposes of government communication) and enjoys the same rights and privileges as other languages (or should I say vice-versa?)

India IS a diverse country. And for all good purposes, whether politically said or not, Hindi IS the most spoken language in India. Hindi IS the language most Indians can communicate in (save for English). So, Hindi, whether Thennavan likes it or not, IS the national language of India. Tamil is a great language too – it is confined to people who originate from Tamil Nadu, which is a part of India. So Tamil IS a regional language. Both Tamil and Hindi ARE Official languages of India. Both Tamil and Hindi get same rights and privileges.

So – what’s the point crying hoarse over it and complaining by shouting and using capitals that Hindi is not the ONLY “national” language of India? It is. Whether you like it or not. Only some people think it isn’t. Unfortunately they blog.

This eulogizing Hindi/Bollywood and everything else “regional” is nauseating to say the least and is at the root of much bickering and divisiveness in Indian polity.

Nauesating??! Why can’t we just let go off the notion of Languages being political or not once and for all? We all love to live in egalitarian society, provided the society does what we want to do – doesnt it? Else, we will spend our time arguing about infinite silliness about the political correctness of language. (Which btw is what exactly I am doing here!)

Actually, the funny thing is, this is the first time I am hearing that eulogizing Hindi/Bollywood has been the “root of much bickering and divisiveness in Indian polity” – I will LOL to that. No. I haven’t heard this before. Not from sane educated people anyways. Yes, I may have from politicians. But do I really care about them anyways?

And anyways, whats wrong about it? Hindi/Bollywood does rule most of India. Frankly I haven’t seen a Gujarathi complain that Hindi is the root of bickering. Or for that matter Mahastrians, Kannadigas, Andhraties, Bengalis – or the rest. No. Nobody seems to be complain. Except some.

Let’s hope that at least a generation of more traveled, enlightened and egalitarian Indians let go of such notions and embrace all that India is made of.

Actually, rest of India who are educated have already done so. Nobody really argues about their languages anymore. And frankly I haven’t met people (and god forbid, I dont want to meet them either!) who keep arguing about their languages either. Instead, I would rather meet people who introduce me to their literature and their language without the need of forcing its political equality in India.

Everybody has a right to be proud of their culture and their languages, but not at the expense of political idiocy and forcing others to accept their notions, which is exactly how that comment sounded to me. I for all sake WILL continue to say that Hindi is my national language, and Tamil is a regional language. Even if they dont sound equal – I dont think its a big deal. Nobody should be expected to speak for other languages either. Frankly, if we stopped bothering about whether my or your language is treated equally or not, we can all see that in the big picture, it is as equal as anything else! Else, languages wouldn’t survive this long.

To end, I must say – we can embrace India with all its notions of languages; frankly there is nothing WRONG or nothing that takes beauty of the country by doing it. So instead of sounding lectures to other people by merely saying “this is not targeted at anyone”, people should come out of their Tamil and start looking at the world with a broader frame of mind.

If you wondering about me? I have been very lucky to have spent my growing years in 12 different cities in India – that has given me a wonderful oppurtunity to assimilate with different languages and cultures, and have frankly given me a great perspective. Yes, I love Hindi and I think its a national language. When I am in Bangalore I speak Kannada – When I am in Ahmedabad, I speak Gujurathi. If need be, I can speak in Marathi too :). I can manage a bit of Punju too. And when I am in an cosmopolitan group, I speak Hindi. Thankfully none of those languages have taught me to be obtuse about them.

PS: Frankly nobody wants to create a hue and cry about English though. Which is funny.

Continuing my series on my favorite photographs, here is Travelogue part 2! Unlike my previous post, Travelouge part 1 where I added poetry (not mine of course!), this time I am going to add a little description about the photo itself; I kind of found it missing in my last post and decided to do away with poetry and instead let my reader know a little bit about the photo itself. I think that appeal of photograph increases if you have a background about the picture.

As always, all images are Copyright Suyog Deshpande, aka Me. Please ask me if you want to use them. Disclaimers aside, her goes:

This was one of the very first photographs I clicked with my digital camera, and it has been one of my favorites ever since. During winter, the pond at UMBC (The college I did my grad studies from) freezes up. And when it snows, its especially beautiful to look at. I particularly like this shot because of 2 things – (i) The wooden bridge (ii) The water spring which can be observed at bottom right of the picture which added a nice touch to the pic. I have done a countless takes on this same pic over and over again, and must admit that the sepia version of this same photograph rocks too. (I will probably add that as a part of Travelogue part 3).

February 16, 2003 saw a historic snow storm in Baltimore – it snowed for more than 2 days non stop, and there was more than 24 inches of snow in our area. On the third day, snow didnt deter me and my friends from stepping out for a walk. With padded shoes and triple layers of clothing, we wandered out. The pic was taken in a empty field just before a church, leading to UMBC. I love this show because of many reasons – (i) Even though this is a color photograph, given the weather, the snow, lack of sun and overall gloominess, this photograph looks almost like a black and white photograph. (ii) The highlighted barren tree kinda gives the feel of the weather (iii) I somehow find this photograph chilly. Quite literally hehe.

I have never been a sucker for photographs where people actually smile at the camera; I just hate such photographs. On the contrary I love photographs which are take out of instinct and show natural behavior of people. This is one such photograph – I and my friends had been on Sky Line drive in Virginia. It was suitably foggy and we decided to stop at an overlook. My friend stood on the edge of ghat to take overlook at the view; Out of instict, I clicked this one – When I looked at the photograph on my PC later, I loved it because it seemed like a very “natural” photograph. Nobody photographed for this – it just happened.

Honestly I didnt think that this photograph would come out as good as it turned out to be. This was taken during my camping trip with friends in 2004, near a lake. I took the first photograph of the log from 10 feet distance, from top view. Then I decided that I would have the log right in my face, but try to fit in the lake in the picture as well. To do this, I was 1 or 2 feet away from the log, eye level and positioned the view such a way that the log would seem big, but would not obstruct the lake view behind. I think I was pretty successful in getting exactly what I wanted.

During Fall, the valleys of Western Virginia are filled with wildflowers, which apparently are famous. Every few miles, you come accross them everywhere on the highway, and authorities have suitably put signposts indicating the flowers. It is of course illegal to stop on the highway and take photographs – which is exactly what we did :). We parked our car on the shoulder, ran into the center where the wildflowers were and took some quick photographs. This one was taken from almost eye level of flowers – I loved the photograph because the flowers seemed really lush in the photograph.

Thats it folks – I am preparing travelogue part 3 soon. So it should be up soon enough. And if you are done checking out this, why dont you check out my previous travelogue collection here. So long folks 😀