Sick of rhetoric

Our politicians sure seem to have a way with words and at certain times, they somehow seem to be at their eloquent,loquacious best. Yet another bomb blast occurred last night inside two coaches of the Delhi-Attari Samjhauta express killing 66 people. The moment one reads this, even if he knows an iota about how things are here, one will easily guess what the motive is and who dunnit. I find it amusing how easy it is to accurately predict reactions of our leaders when such incidents occur. They know what to say without any emotion at all; all their responses are mere studied ones, not with any conviction or seriousness. Promptly, they offer 'X' lakh Rs. compensation, and (to save their bottoms) promise that the police will get to the bottom of the incident.

A few mindless, hackneyed ones that came out this time around are..

1. "We condemn this incident." - PM (achaa?)
2. "It is an act of terrorism." - HM (ha! no way, kya baat kar raha hai)
3. "It is an act of cowardice." (heard THAT before)
4. "India will not bow before terrorism." PM again (he said the same thing after 7/11)
5. "Terrorists trying to derail the peace process." (literally derail. RM at his obvious best)
6. "Matter will be investigated." (HM again)

Notice how not a single statement among these even remotely hints at any sort of apology or regret! Why cant they hold themselves slightly accountable and own up to the security lapses? Its clear that it isn't done because of the fear of being taken to the cleaners by the opposition parties and would be tantamount to political suicide?

F.Y.I:
PM - prime minister
HM - home minister
RM - railway minister

All this thrash talk showing defiance/courage is alright but how about being on one's toes 24X7? Why do we wait for such a thing to happen to get alert? Why is it that a nation, 3 times our size and MANY times as likely to be a victim of terror attack given its policies, hasn't witnessed a single terrorist attack after 9/11? When is the Indian Railways going to realise that it IS a favourite of terrorists? It ought to come down like a ton of bricks on the incompetent personnel who were in-charge of frisking the passengers and security. Now even foreigners are paying the price for their laxity 'coz the blasts claimed many Pakistani passengers as well.

Open up and say ahh!!

Hi guys! Just wanna share something I'm ecstatic about. My 7th semester results are out, they were declared yesterday, and I have passed!! I am so relieved and pleasantly surprised 'coz my elective wasn't exactly great but shockingly I scored 59 in it :) although the fact that I was awarded grace marks ('condoned' is the word actually) in a paper I thought I would walk all over is another matter. This,in fact, is the first time I have cleared all subjects of a single semester in my first attempt so that makes it TWO firsts :D Secondly, lol, this has made my folks very very happy. You are now reading the blog of a guy who just cant seem to wipe the satisfaction off his face. There's a spring in his step, with occasional tip-toe jumps, frequent snapping of fingers, broad chest, and a chin that's anti-gravity. Cheers! (hic):D

"Mumbai will burn!"..calories (satire)

In what can be described as a clear misunderstanding of the utterance of some words in Shiv Sena founder/leader/....be all and end all - Bal Thackeray's public speech on Sunday, the media reported that he warned of violence if Mumbai is delinked from Maharashtra. No section of the media cared to look into the other issue with regard to which he may have said what he did: "Mumbai will burn!". If they even slightly had their wits about them then they would have remembered that the speech came only a week after 30,000 jobless,unemployed and sick-of-everything-Mumbai enthusiasts ran their hearts out in a marathon organised by the "Poised" (and biased) Times Of India group. According to www.quacks-thrive-coz-u-r-dumb.com, Mumbaikars burnt 1200000 calories of fat, skin, acne, hair while running mindlessly for 10 kilometers in what seemed like a drill conducted by the Mumbai police to prepare for the scramble one may have to make during possible,future cases of rioting and deluges. The mercurial Mumbaikar (Mr.Thackeray), it was reported, had not read the papers for the last two weeks. He merely stated the obvious while talking of the marathon to the obese that the marathon (which Mumbaikars often run to get a glimpse of rare, 'once-in-a-green-moon' sights of clean roads) has several benefits. The city's treadmill manufacturers, who have always been pro-Congress since the days of rubber mats, were the real target of BT who have reportedly gone into losses following the out-and-out contempt shown for treadmills shown by the runners who gave a 'screw-them-treadmills' look of satisfaction when they finished their dream runs.

On a note-so-happy note

Its a sad sort of day for me. I usually have such days a few times a year and its the same sinking,surrendering feeling I'm filled with again right now, this instant. I guess when one does not get what one hopes (not being selected for a B-school, in my case), one's bound to have that 'so close, yet so far' feeling. My emotions are somewhat similar. Maybe it wasn't in my destiny. Compared to my previous 'sad' days, I'm extra depressed this time 'coz I really thought I'd get through once I finished with the rounds which I believe went through pretty satisfactorily. I try talking to a close friend but the situation isn't any better. Some say maybe something better is in store for me but I'm still depressed. Lets see, maybe next time. I know I somehow have to bear this defeat but like every other time, I'm finding it tough. Maybe some time alone will help. I try saying in my mind 'Jo bhi hota hai achche ke liye hota hai' (Whatever happens happens for the good) Dekhte hain, dekhte hain

Hyporcrites are us!

Too much has already been written on Shilpa Shetty and her "traumatic" experience in Channel 4's reality show 'Big Brother'.Wait... don't get me wrong, I'm gonna do exactly the same now.

As always, my ultra-sensitive fellow countrymen reacted "strongly" and our over enthusiastic media stoked their emotions. No one bothered to actually verify whether Jade Goody (without two shoes actually) did utter the words or were they just media speculation. Barkha Dutt wrote in her article 'Pride and prejudice' in HT (Jan 20) that Jade (who'se father is of African origin) called Shilpa a 'cunt' instead of 'Paki' as the media reported. Another participant slyly asked ''I don't know how Indians eat with their fingers.. I mean who knows where the fingers have been''. Shilpa was also told go back to her 'slum'. Ironically,she was called a 'dog' by one of the bitches too. So hearing all this hurt out pride, awoke our dormant nationalism and brought out generalised and hypocritical remarks against Britishers.

Why do I say hypocritical? Because..
1. To us, Indians of the northeastern states or people of east Asia are 'cheeni-meeni' or 'chinki'
2. We call Africans or people of African origin 'Kaalu'
3. We consume tonnes and tonnes of fairness creams every year to get ourselves or our daughters to be pretty (meaning 'fair-skinned') as we feel anyone with a dark or dusky skin tone is inferior and less pretty.
4. Most of the marriage proposals in our newspapers include: 'Wanted,a fair..bride"
5. A foreigner coming from Europe ,the Americas or Australia is referred to as 'gora' or 'firrang'

Isn't all this racist? If we are so proud of our colour then why do we prefer 'white' grooms? That's pretty racist isn't it? Lets get our own house in order because accusing Britain and its people of being racially discriminating shall we?

Now that Shilpa has in fact denied being racially abused by saying that she didn't feel Jade's abuses were racist leaves us (media+aam junta) embarrassed doesn't it? Now whether Shilpa really didn't take Jade's comments as racist or whether she denied it because she was discreetly reminded by the Big Brother management about her fat fee (3.5 crores) and the losses the channel may face, your guess is as good as mine.

More about myself

As someone (my conscience) rightly said, this is MY blog. So I should write more about myself than about issues hain ki nahi? OK, so let me blow my own trumpet for a change eh (meaning I'm modest and dont usually pat myself a lot. So try reading between the lines every now n then 'coz Im full of hidden messages) So let me enlist my interests, activities,hobbies and likes/dislikes,viagra,viagra...oopss..umm..mera matlab vagera,vagera. Hold your frowns for later,I've plenty of those (PJs)

I was born on the 19th of October, 1984 - the year Rakesh uncle (Sharma) went into antarikhsh, Indiraji was exterminated..no,assasinated...(sheesh,is she some rodent to be "exterminated"? what was I thinking?..Im trying to improve my usage of words here..so excuse me), Bhopal gas tragedy and one of my favourite cricketers,Irfan Pathan was born. I'm sure many other significant events took shape that year, only I can't remember them.

Im pretty good at the following: (mane there are a LOT of things so I'm listing them)

Playing Chess (Im famous for my night..err..Knight moves),
Am exceptionally good at Badminton (Sorry if I sound "cock"y..hehe)
Playing and watching Cricket (Im talking about the tougher version... underarm, box)
Boarding crowded, crammed buses
Reading newspapers and keeping myself abreast of the latest happenings,
Casually walking to lecture halls half an hour late but sprinting the last few paces like crazy and puffing and panting at the door to appear sincere,dedicated and eager to reach on time.
Taking shots at myself (with my digicam) and potshots at others who I don't like,
Regularly irregular when it comes to hitting the gym,
Sheepishly insisting on "Bhaiyya, ek sukhaa puri banaao na" every time I finish a sev/bhel/dahi puri for paisa vasooli,
Trying to play the guitar,
Frantically searching FTV and TRENDZ whenever our cablewallah changes the channels
and finally.... Orkutting (Join my communities guys!) :D

Ab mere gym ka time ho raha hai isliye main tumhe baad mein milta hoon kahin jaayiega nahin. Phir milte hain, isi samay isi waqt. Tab tak ke liye... Namashkar

Eating my words

Ok! So Dada ends up with the highest aggregate in the series among Indian players beating the likes of Sachin "spent-force" Tendulkar, Dravid (out-of-form) and the lax-man Laxman (good one no?! :)). All prayers of Kolkata's jobless rickshawwalas, sweet shop owners and ofcourse WB's Chief minister,Im sure he has some although he's agnostic, have been answered. So after my rant, I guess all this makes me hungry...very hungry..might have some humble pie.