Revenge is a dish that tastes best, when served cold !

Mumbai got hit. Hit hard, and hit where it hurts the most. The synonyms of mumbai's prestige (Hotel Taj, Hotel Oberai) and glorious history (CST) have been attacked. And it has generated a reaction, that is unprecedented. Undoubtedly, first of its kind. Politicians, Media, The Common Man ; everybody has some kind of suggestion on 'what should we do'. But frankly speaking, all of it seems to be a knee jerk reaction. Nothing more than that PERIOD

'The only people who did anything to mention over the past week were the NSG who quietly came in, stoically risked their lives, killed our enemies, walked out onto the debris filled streets, boarded red BEST buses and went home.'

Everybody else is 'shouting' (to put it straight); so as to not curb their anger. 'The reason' : they are frustrated, they are hurt, they are angry. But is it making any sense ?? I fear, that all this will die down with people moving on with the so called remarkable spirit. This term is used so frivolously that, i have started considering it an abuse to mumbai.

Don't throw your anger making noise. Keep it in tact, Nourish it, Channelize it to grow within yourself. It will be itchy within you. But, its all worth it. You need that itch for the rest of your lives.And use that itch in preparation of that 'dish'. And the recipe says, it will take time. It is not a 'two minute' instant noodle.
And i am sure, you will get the taste, which all of you are luring for.

And please do not forget, don't compromise on the 'preparation' part.

What will you do, if you get 500 Rs ??


So, someone asks this question to a variety of people, ranging from poor to middle class to rich segment of people. And captures their response in the video. This video gives a perspective to us : on our country's current situation, the inequality among aam junta, our attitude towards life.

Most of the young crowd who is earning money in their bachelorhood or who have enough sum of inherited money have very common answers like
  • Spend it on some food joint /pub /disco, 
  • Get a haircut / body piercing done, 
  • Go for a movie, 
  • Recharge the sim card, 
  • Buy branded clothes [well, actually 500 is not enough for that these days :), but thats another issue ;)]
Then there are some poor guys (children mostly) who say
  • Spend it on school ka saman / tution fee
  • a vibrant face says 'ghar ka kharcha chala sakta hun, thoda market karke.. tamatar, aaloo wo sab leke'. I wonder if that guy can teach a lot of us something about 'positive attitude'
  • Bade hotel mein ja ke khana khayenge. (its a dream for that child !! )
  • Stove kharidenge, rashan layenge 
Then there is the famous lower middle class of india that have answers like
  • 500 rs mein kuch nahi ho sakta, na kuch aata hai na kuch jata hai (the pessimistic uncle)
  • Thoda bachha logon pe kharcha karungi, baki ka balance bhavishya ke liye rakhoongi. (This single sentence explains so many things, but none so appropriately as it does..... the mother nature). I am sure, the pessimistic uncle will laugh at her ' what can she do with 500 rs in bhavishya'. But the main point is.. the attitude !! 
  • first class ka pass kharidunga (the daily mumbai-local traveller)

The video asks a question. And if i got it right, it does not give you a straight forward answer. It gives rise to new questions. It hits your sensitive chord. It intrigues you, isn't it ??

It got me thinking. The first thing, which came to my mind was : I will buy something for me. Well, buying is obvious. You earn money to spend. That brings the next question. What is that spending, which will please me. That makes me think, i should spend it wisely. i should not feel, i have wasted it. Then i start thinking of my first reaction 'I will buy something for me' . Why is it always me ?? Can't i do something for someone else ?? Which in turn gives me internal pleasure and happiness, makes me feel i have done something worthwhile. So, that effectively sums it up for me, eventually its me who is getting benefitted. I am not doing something for someone else, even if it looks like so.

Well, the point is, i will spend wisely, if i 'think'. And that essentially is the message of the video. 'Think before you spend'. You are earning money to lead a comfortable life, to spend. But just give it a thought 'Think before you spend'. 

New singing sensation ??

I was watching this singing competition called junoon on ndtv imagine. Actually, i happen to just step over these so called talent shows for all the drama that goes in them, but then i was glued to one particular performance.   

I then searched for more performances of this singer 'Harshdeep Kaur'. She has great voice, especially for sufi kind of songs. If you follow bollywood, check out 'Ek Onkaar' from legendary 'Rang De Basanti' and 'Is pal ki soch' from 'Halla Bol'.  She is the girl behind the mike for these two songs.  

So, Here are some of her performance videos from the show. Totally worth listening to !!! 

The Childhood Exploits

I had a haircut this weekend ( Yes .. the hairline is climbing upwards in pursuit of its everest mission, but i still do have hair in my head). Thanks to the haircut, the scar right over my chota magaj (for those who are confused, watch krantiveer) was clearly visible. So like it happens every time i have a haircut, people started asking "what happened to your head man ?"
And then i tell them that i got this gift on my 3rd birthday (it might be 4th birthday also... i am not sure). And suddenly i realize what a tiny unlucky fellow i was. It's another story all together, that my parents will prefer to call me a notorious kid they have got. Well.. i still stand by my version, don't believe me ?? Read this
  • The first one is about that chota magaj only. It was 30th june, i was happy, dancing around, singing my nursery poems and then i fell down from good descent height into a gutter (yuck). It was dry but it had stones there :(, and then it was no longer dry, it was filled with my blood now. This incident gave me that famous scar which is reminded to me every time i get a haircut. Note the day... it was my birthday !!
  • Then one fine day i was again very happy, dancing around, singing my nursery poems ......again. Not a place, where you should dance around... 'the kitchen'. Somehow managed to drop a paunsil / sarouta (An instrument used to cut vegetables / kairi) and had a head-on collision with that thing. I lost my senses, when i saw blood flowing from my knee. I still carry that memory with a good 6 inch scar in my knee. Note the day... it was Krishna Janmashtami !!
  • In one of those humpty dumpty days, i was playing in the streets. A monkey came from somewhere and took my toy car with him. All the other kids were running away from that monkey. And I 'the daredevil' went up to him, shouted at him " give my car back to me". He rewarded me with not one...... many tight slaps, tore my shirt apart, pulled my hair to the extent of removing some of them from my scalp. I don't think it was my birthday or an auspicious day, but i had a sakshat darshan of hanumanji. It was no less than a 'day to remember' for me, i still get frightened when i see a monkey (even if its in my distant dreams)
  • Now my nursery poem singing days were over, but not my heydays. I was playing cricket and i had slippers on. Then i realized, that i am not able to run at my full speed because of the slippers. I started playing barefooted so that i could save extra runs (If ganguly had this much dedication for fielding, he would not have been ousted from indian cricket team). While saving one such extra run, i run over a broken glass and surprise surprise.... i got my gift again, a scar in the foot (But this one did not turn out to be my soulmate, it has gone now). Now note the day again.... it was Dipawali !!
  • Cricket reminds me of another incidence. I was playing cricket with my younger brother. He was bowling (obviously; since by hook or crook, i always ended up batting and he ended up bowling whenever we played cricket). I can still recall the flashback, he came charging towards the bowling crease ala shoaib akhtar. I hit a straight drive ala sachin tendulkar which flied directly towards my brother's face. To his misfortune it was a hard plastic ball, it hit him right at his lips and he lost a precious tooth. My mom scolded me for the deed saying.. "thoda dheere dheere nahi khel sakta... tameej se". I was like "Mummy... agar sachin aisa sochta, to kabhi boundry nahi mar pata, agar kapil aisa sochta, to india kabhi world cup nahi jeet pati" But off course i was s*** scared that time and i did not dare arguing with her. And oh... offcourse, note the day, it was Ganesh Chaturthi !!
  • There are enough wounds, burns and injuries which i don't remember....... because they did not happen on an auspicious day !!!


GOLD !!!

With the least expectations, i started following the beijing olympics. When it started, i just prayed that india should not come back empty handed. It started in a familiar way. For the first 3 days, a small column in the newspaper, a brief mention in the 24x7 news channel. All conveying the news in disappointment, that our players failed to qualify for the finals, were eliminated in the preliminary rounds.  
Then suddenly one morning, a news comes that Abhinav Bindra has got gold for india in 10m air rifle shooting. The whole mood changed. The man from chandigarh changed the whole scenario. He became the darling of an entire nation, everybody was in awe of him, newspapers were filled with his stories next day, news channels started singing his praise. After all, he is the first indian who got a gold medal in an individual event. He deserves everything he got. And the man of the moment was absolutely right, when he says that
"I would like to reiterate that everyone who represents India at the Olympic Games has put in years of toil and sweat. I ask the Indian people to support our athletes more. It is fine to celebrate our achievements but it is just as important to keep up the backing when we are not on top of our game."
Here is a man, who has achieved something which was only a dream till now. But he did not forget to mention his fellow athletes at his moment of glory. Thank you very much Mr. Bindra for bringing smile in the face of so many people !!

The Funny Thing About Human Beings

Our Contradictoriness. We are in such a hurry to grow up, and then we long for our lost childhood. We make ourselves ill earning money, and then spend all our money on getting well again. We think so much about the future that we neglect the present, and thus experience neither the present nor the future. We live as if we were never going to die, and die as if we had never lived.
Courtesy : 'Like the Flowing River' by ...... Paulo Coelho

Wacky Definitions

School: A place where Papa pays and Son plays.

Life Insurance: A contract that keeps you poor all your life so that you can die Rich.

Nurse: A person who wakes u up to give you sleeping pills.

Marriage: It's an agreement in which a man loses his bachelor degree and a woman gains her masters.

Tears: The hydraulic force by which masculine willpower is defeated by feminine waterpower.

Lecture: An art of transferring information from the notes of the Lecturer to the notes of the students without passing through 'the minds of either'

Conference: The confusion of one man multiplied by the number present.

Compromise: The art of dividing a cake in such a way that everybody believes he got the biggest piece.

Dictionary: A place where success comes before work.

Conference Room: A place where everybody talks, nobody listens and everybody disagrees later on.

Father: A banker provided by nature.

Boss: Someone who is early when you are late and late when you are early.

Politician: One who shakes your hand before elections and your Confidence after.

Doctor: A person who kills your ills by pills, and kills you by bills.

Classic: Books, which people praise, but do not read.

Smile: A curve that can set a lot of things straight.

Office: A place where you can relax after your strenuous home life.

Yawn: The only time some married men ever get to open their mouth.
Etc.: A sign to make others believe that you know more than you actually do.

Atom Bomb: An invention to end all inventions.

Philosopher: A fool who torments himself during life, to be wise after death

Greatness Unnoticed

" Greatness is not flamboyance. It is something else. But sadly, people don't value it enough. "

Few Key Facts about a guy:
1. Has been involved in the most century partnerships in Test history - 72
- Yet 'the fans' never recognize this 'true match winner'
2. Scored nearly 23% of the total runs put up by India (with a batting average of 102.84) in the 21 Test matches won under Ganguly's captaincy.
- Yet , 'the fans' say he is the reason of ganguly's downfall
3. Has the highest ODI batting average as captain of 45.58 (as of 4/7/06).
-Yet , 'the fans' say he is not good enough as captain and as an ODI batsman
4. 'The fans' say he is a soft captain
- He led India to first away test series against West indies (since 1971), England (since 1986). Led india to a record 14 consecutive wins chasing a total
- And above all......
Resigned from captaincy after achieving historic win against England. Can 'The fans' recall any other indian captain who left captaincy after 'winning' ??