Things I am yet to learn

1. Ignore morons who honk on the streets to bully their way through traffic
2. Suppress the urge to mildly electrocute the guy who's peeing right on a school wall, bus stop (or anywhere that's not a loo)
3. Not to lose my temper over the moron who jumps into the q from nowhere (I am not willing to ignore them but just tell them where to go and get back to my life without getting all hyper. Right now I take about 2 hours to cool down after an encounter)
4. To accept that people will throw garbage out in the open (as long as it is not in to my Balcony)
5. To switch off my hearing capability and go to a happy place when people around me talk rubbish
6. To accept that there's only so much the men can understand about women even if they love them to death
7. To be politely rude (a phrase Sav came up with)
8. To be able to tell people to get out of my life (I knew how to do this one)
9. To find the right level sarcasm in my answer when friends say oh you are too busy
10. To tell people "why are you so jealous of my sex life" when they say "why aren't you having babies?"
11. To ask some of the well meaning friends to shut up when they say "oh you cook eh?" (you think we could afford a car if we ate out every single day?)
12. To show the esteemed apartment association members a certain finger on my right hand when they insist I cannot grow vegetables in my garden cos it reduces the value of the apartment!
13. To tell people it is none of their business how and if I pray to god

I have more to add but I think 13 is a nice number to stop at.

I've realised much to my dismay that life was simpler when I knew how not to be polite. I had lots of friends and all the annoying questions never came my way cos people were S*** scared to ask me.

Being nice never pays eh.

Headless!

Remember the furore over the "headless chicken" comment by Indian Ambassador to US Mr Ronen Sen couple of weeks ago? It was one full day of drama in both the houses of parliament. Sushma Swaraj (among many others) issued a statement saying he should be recalled, put in the well of the house and "admonished." I had a vision of an errant school boy being shouted down by a particularly stern looking headmistress in the staff room :) Of course the drama ended the next day when Mr Sen looking suitably apologetic said that he meant that media was the headless chicken and not the honourable MPs. I was quite astonished at the humility of the media persons who took this compliment so well. Television anchors said with a straight face that Sen was referring to the media and not the MPs and there the matter ended.

Me thinks that either the "media" has stronger ego than the more fragile MPs or they simply didn't get the insult in the statement. Very interesting. Here's another view of the whole incident.

Hmmm.

Same old story.

Two men and two women went out to have a good time on a sedate Sunday evening. After 5 hours of shopping, mall hopping, opinion flaunting, basically a very fruitful shopping outing they get back home. Once home they all freshen up and change into night clothes. Till now the story is very boring I know. Whats happened next is also not very dramatic but bear with me I do have a point. After they freshened up one of the men opened his laptop and got busy while the other engaged himself in some very important conversation over the phone. Meanwhile the two women take to the kitchen and prepare dinner thinking how exhausted they are and they wish there was some magic in life which would come in handy at moments like this. 15 minutes later the men are called to the table and served dinner. The women help themselves too. And then the day ended.

Do you see my point? You don't? In that case testosterone plays a HUGE part in you so don't bother trying to figure it out.

If you understood my point it means ladies you've been there and my sympathies with you. I just wonder how many generations do I have to wait to see a change in that story?


PS: If some man did get the point of my little boring story then its a good start and I do hope you change the story some day.

Earth's little gifts

I had been on the road for four days continously. I had slept fitfully in the car and hotel rooms for about 5 hours every night. I had heard heart wrenching stories of people hit by Tsunami. I thought after 2 years these people had found their ground that Tsunami had swept away but they are still struggling. They had recovered their spirits and were raring to go but they were waiting for that little push to start off ...again. Distressed yet inspired I was returning to 2 more days of such stories with a heavy heart and somewhere between Nagapattinam and Madurai I saw the earth burst into sunny yellow. More golden than the setting sun.

We stopped at the field for about five minutes (we had about 500 kms to cover before midnight) and then I was ready to go on and listen to people's story. That is all I could do for the moment anyway.

My favouritest post :) aaaaaaaaw :)

Hallucinations!: A conversation

Us and them

I have resisted writing this post for a long time now.

Two weeks ago I was watching V Channel's get gorgeous (GG) programme (Yes I do watch such inane programmes. I work on and off and I do have lots of TV time on hand and I am not good at resisting the temptation of a couch potato) Getting back to the GG. It is about this bunch 17 somethings picked up by handful of industrywallahs to turn into super models. The girls on the show are so mature that they make my seven-year-old neighbour seem like a mother of sanity. But thats not what upset me (what is there to get upset TV is full of this) There was this episode where the contestants had to do a photo shoot on the beach with some strange props (one of them looked a shield but am not sure) I dunno how it works because they are not exactly promoting anything through the photo shoot oh but yeah of course they are trying to show off their bodies so they strike whatever they think brings out the best. At the end of it a few panelists take a look at the photos and air their opinions. There was this one girl who wasn't doing the postures right even I could see it. Nothing wrong but just that it didn't look graceful and looked a bit on the vulgar side. When it was her turn to get the comments from the panelists, one of them (unfortunately I do no know the esteemed gentleman's name) tells her "How are you X I wish I could say that in Telugu." I am thinking oh the girl is from Andhra...and the man continues "I would say that in Telugu because that is where you belong. You would fit in there with your body language" and enacts the poses she struck for the photo shoot. He then went to to say something to the effect there was no grace /class and she should try Tollywood.

What the bloody hell does that mean?

I was watching the re-run of Koffee with Karan yesterday with Lara Dutta and Katrina Kaif. The inimitable (is he really?) Karan asks Katrina "you did a lot of south films right? do you remember any funny dialogue or any funny thing they made you do?" And tries to gesture some dance movement. And goes on to ask Lara the same thing. Lara was saying that she had to do a sequence in Cambridge on a Gondola for some Tamil song and that it was the most embarrassing day of her life.

Really now? the mighty hindi film industry never does anything as ridiculous is it? To chase your heroine around and make obscene gyrations to the utter dismay of onlooking westerners is not strange? Proposing to your heroine dressed in a nightie (very fancy one but nightie nevertheless) on the streets of some foreign location accompanied by some 200 white women dancers is not bizarre but highly creative? Don't get me started!

What is unmistakable is the I am superior than thou attitude. What makes the hindi cinema
better? just because they have more money to throw around? In India there are about 800 films made per year of which only about 80 is Hindi cinema's contribution. The rest comes from the rest of India which incidentally is not part of Indian Cinema but regional cinema. Even if you forget the quantity what about the quality? Spending huge amounts of money with super stars and larger than life canvas does not guarantee good cinema or even plain entertainment. Remember your K3G and KANK Mr Inimitable? Flaunting these and the likes as India's best in international arena is what is embarrassing the collective creative level of the people (which includes people outside Bombay, Delhi, Punjab and Gujarat)

Every time this issue comes up it makes me so angry that I lose my head. And right now I am unable to type in coherent sentences for the same reason. So I will stop. HUH!

Haneef's return - the politics and the media circus.

Exactly my sentiments...

What ordeal is the Deccan Herald talking about? Haneef was in jail for 26 days. How long have the accused in the 1993 Mumbai blasts been in jails? for more read this on Hoot

a thing of beauty is a

a joy forever