Satanic Reflections

Change of ownership

2012-02-08T19:31:00.001+05:30

Masculinity in malluland

2012-02-03T20:49:00.001+05:30

Today morning I kinda woke up real early and so went out for a walk almost at the crack of dawn. There's this park near my place where we get to see a lot of people of all ages and from all walks of life, all walking or jogging at a brisk pace, a few uncles have reserved a prime spot for their noisy but fun to watch badminton games and the fitter kids would usually be busy doing push ups and flexing their muscles on a stage like structure in the middle. Like a breeze of fresh air, a pretty decent looking chick ( compared to the other females that come for a walk at that time, you could probably call the chick a hot babe ;) ) walked past the park presumably on the way to her house from god knows where. I saw her, admired god's handiwork and continued with my leisurely stroll, but I couldn't help smiling when I saw that at least 2 dozen men all around me were literally gaping at this girl with open mouths. It was a sight to be seen, the 2 dozen men included all kinds of people : from young hormonally charged teenagers to married pot-bellied uncles to tar coated road workers to macho union guys. I guess all mallu men consider themselves alpha males! Literally! This can be seen in all walks of life in malluland, from a mentally challenged pan handler to politicians holding the highest state offices, all males and some of the females in govt. positions, a majority of the population are alpha males out here, maybe that's a good thing, but it certainly takes some getting used to ;)

What a GP!!!

2011-11-08T15:22:00.001+05:30

The Valecia MotoGP was simply spectacular!!! What an exciting race!!! Crashes, splendid overtaking maneuvers and a photo finish victory for Casey Stoner, you really cannot ask for any more action. The top 5 really fought for their positions and and the battle for the podium places were pure drama.

Life Mein Ek Baar

2011-11-07T01:03:00.002+05:30

Just saw the first episode of 'Life Mein Ek Baar', an awesome Indian travel show that follows the adventures of Purab Kohli and 3 others. Purab started off as a Channel [V] VJ and found stardom when he played the character 'KD' in 'Rock On!!'. He's also appeared in several other movies and shows, but this is the first time I am seeing him on the small screen. I gotta tell you this guy is really awesome!! He's got a good sense of humour, is damn gutsy and is a good chap at heart. This show 'Life mein ek baar' was originally supposed to be based on Purab and 3 of his friends but Purab chose instead to give the opportunity to 3 guys who otherwise would not have gotten to do all the stuff that they ended up doing in the show. There was a well publicized selection of candidates mainly through FB and Twitter.

Initially I thought that this would be regular travel show with bunch of youngsters mainly based in and around India but that is totally not the case. These guys really do everything that they always wanted to do, and most of these things are stuff that you and me also have always wanted to do : skydiving, bungee jumping, driving a ferrari, washing a car with bikini clad babes, biking up a moutain etc. etc. In the very first episode itself these guys bike up the Leh mountains to the Khardung La Pass, which is supposedly the highest motorable road in the world. 2 of them actually have no biking experience whatsoever, and they drive up on Bullets!!!! It might seem possible when you just read about it here, but you should see that road for yourself, my heart was in my mouth when I saw how narrow the road actually is. It is 18,380 feet high (which means approx 5.6 kms above sea level!!!), filled with potholes, a steep cliff and sure death on one side and an unforgiving snow clad mountain on the other. Imagine a first time biker driving up on a heavy Bullet on this narrow little superhigh road!!! I am really looking forward to more of this show!!

Open Letters and Political Correctness

2011-11-06T13:00:00.001+05:30

I am sure that all of us have gone through the 'open letter to delhi boy' saga which was all the rage on FB sometime ago. For those of you who were lost in the wilderness or busy playing with themselves :

1. The mother of it all : The Original Open Letter

This blog may or may not have been very popular before, but it has virtually become a viral mega-success thanks to the famous open letter to a delhi boy. The post in question is basically a rant by a pissed off chick at her ex, both of whom are apparently from 2 diverse cultures co-existing in the same country. This post is definitely worth a read for the awesome humor quotient. But RaagShahana's blog is not only all about the open letter and dark humor, the other posts are also equally humorous and an enjoyable read.

2. The supposedly best response to the original open letter : Mad Momma's Politically correct response

Of course there are many who would love to piggyback on the new found popularity of the open letters and would want to exhibit their ignorance, lack of sense of humor and the fact that they have a stick up their *** by blogging about it and trying to drive a little traffic their way (yes your honour, I guess in all honesty I am guilty of this charge too ;-)). But Mad Momma takes things to a different level altogether and that too in a very bitter way. She thrashes Shahana's post from all directions and tries to portray herself as the politically correct messiah who might have the answer to all the hatred within humanity. But personally it's just sad that people have to get so worked up over a really funny blogpost. Shahana's views might not have been the most mature or wise, but who cares? It was fun to read, well written and most importantly worth a good laugh. Nobody started hating Delhi boys or South Indian men more/less after reading it. Mad Momma probably was probably high on ecstasy when blogging coz she keeps praising herself for having found a 'fayer' handsome Sawth Indian boy and even talks about kissing and making up between northies, southies and drags in the pakistanis as well to her orgy!!!! Well these are the kind of people who might have problems with strong opinions like those expressed by Jeremy Clarkson. But Mad Momma is really not all that mad, the rest of her blog is really awesome and definitely worth a read.

3. Another Delhi boy trying to dodge the bullets : "I am better than that other Delhi boy, OK!!!"

We all know that most of the time most of us are not at all that perfect. Everyone has their moments of shame alongwith their moments of glory and we think we balance our good side : the helpfulness, sweetness, respect for others and whatever, with our bad side : our lies, the perverted things we sometimes think, ego, hatred and whatever. We rationalise that this is all part of being human, but author of 'The Disgruntled Mob' is the extreme end of the spectrum. He is the kinda guy who forks out major dough to watch the first F1in India and is busy observing the butt cracks of people ahead of him! But nevertheless his blog is an enjoyable read and his reponse the open letter is a good one.

Whatever I feel about these blogs or bloggers really do not matter coz all these blogs are good reads and you must check 'em all out.

Opera in Oman

2011-11-06T12:46:00.003+05:30

Surprise of all surprises, Oman featured in a CNN story!!! The Royal Opera House is truly a landmark of the entire region itself and it is featured in the 'Inside Middle East' show on CNN which can be found here.

His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said is a big fan of music and symphony and the likes and this is one of his dream projects. The cultural scene is Oman is definitely going to get a shot in the arm with this latest addition.

Lloyd's Cars

2011-11-05T15:48:00.000+05:30

Beuatiful isn't it??? The shiny new Merc CLS

The gay Lloyd ;-)

Entourage is really a superb show. If you haven't watched it already then you must, its supercool!!! For the ignorant, 'Entourage' is about the life of a successful movie star and his buddies who live with him, the series is loosely based on the life of Mark Wahlberg (he's an exec producer on the show BTW), and there are so many details that are simply amazing but let's start with cars, cause whoever is responsible for picking out the rides for the stars is doing an amazing job. While the main ensemble of Vincent Chase and his buddies are spoilt with exotic rides like the brand new Mercedes SLS, Hummers, Ferraris, Astons, Harleys and the celebrity favourite Cadillac Escalade, their agent Ari Gold gets to play with a new luxury ride every season, he's had it all, the Merc S-Class, BMW 7 Series, Lexus Hybrid and the stunning new Mercedes CLS.

But the most interesting choice of rides is for Lloyd, Ari's gay assistant. Only two times in the whole show we have been able to see Lloyd in his own car, the first time was long back in the first or second season when Lloyd drove around in an import tuner(looked like a Hyundai ;-)) and the recently Lloyd was spotted driving in a spanking new Chevrolet Volt. I guess the message is pretty clear : Cheap imports and Electric/Hybrids are for queers!!! ;-) Japanese cars are almost like the gold standard now, so cheap imports very clearly means over modified Korean & Chinese shit, at least according to this blog ;-)

Lloyd's ride shown in the earlier seasons (not really but very close!)

Lloyd's latest baby

Hey before you bash me for not being green, I gotta tell you I love all kinds of cars, even electric, but these kind :

Tesla Model S

Tesla Roadster 2.5

Ad Backfire

2011-11-05T13:35:00.001+05:30

Subaru is one of the most confused auto manufacturers in the world at least when it comes to design and marketing. They have some of the best technological know-how, thanks mainly to their amazing success in WRC and their motorsport partner responsible for their success, Prodrive. But their commercial cars have been mostly a joke for the last few years. They transformed a beautiful & capable Impreza into an ugly & gay hatch, made a ridiculously useless & ugly 'SUV' called the Outback and have throughout their history re-badged models from other manufacturers to varying degrees of success. Most major auto brands have some kind of visual or non-visual recall feature that strikes a chord with auto enthusiasts : the famous 3-pointed hood ornament of Mercedes, the dual radiator grille of BMW, amazing engine refinement of Hondas, the clean design of Audis, the perfomance and styling of Porsches and so on. For Subaru, there is only one feature that is consistent throughout their model range for the last few years, they all are frickin UGLY!!!! Subaru is also known for their pathetic advertisements throughout the world, but their latest 'Mediocrity 2011' campaign takes the cake for being their most stupid, unimaginative, boring and just plain bullshit effort yet.

What the brilliant ad gurus at Subaru's trashy marketing agency have done is that they have taken a Kia Optima, tried to dress up the logos with their own 'Mediocrity' ones, and there you have it : a very mediocre, run-of-the-mill, boring family sedan. I really have no clue what they are trying to imply here, because the car they have selceted is a 2005 Kia Optima which for some reason they have named as Mediocrity 2011. Now you might think that Subaru being a multiple times WRC champion might want to hint that their cars are way more sportier than the Kias and Medicoritys of this world. But take a look at their not-at-all mediocre attempt, the 2011 Subaru Legacy (the mediocrity campaign was designed for this model) :

Looks familiar? Now take a look at the best selling mid-sizes :

The Toyota Camry :

and the Honda Accord :

So when you compare the 2011 Subaru Legacy with these other models, it almost looks as mediocre if not worse than the others! The Kia which the Subaru ad guys used was 2 generations old, so you want to know about the 2011 model of the Kia Optima? Check it out:

The brand new Optima looks like a stunner and is available in all kinds of options including Hybrid. 'Nuff Said. Go get your act together Subaru & way to go Kia!!!

Note : Many thanks to The Truth About Cars, a brilliant automotive website.

Sourav Who??

2011-10-26T11:33:00.004+05:30

Unbelievable!!! Click here for the full article.

"Even in his worst nightmares,Sourav Ganguly would not have seen it coming. It was possibly for the first time in his long cricketing career that the former Indian captain and local boy was stopped from going to the Eden Gardens ground as he did not carry an identity card......

.....The ACU official, Dharmender Singh Yadav, asked him "Who are you?" to which a startled Ganguly reportedly replied "I'm Sourav Ganguly, going for the pitch report".

However, Yadav was not impressed and asked for his identity card, which Ganguly was not carrying then as he had left it at the commentary box.

Ganguly had to walk back to the commentary box, get his card and then only Yadav allowed him into the ground."

Blogs I Follow

2011-10-25T12:39:00.001+05:30

Below are a few of my favourite blogs :

Seth Godin's Blog - A marketing genius, I just love his blog, and the messages he tries to give. A really really good blog.

Muscat Confidential - An anonymous expat who used to live and work in Oman and who has access to a lot of confidential info. His blog is way way better than any of the best stories of any of the Omani english dailies since all media in Oman has censorship and government restrictions on what they can publish. He is now out of Oman but still posts regularly, a must read for everybody in Oman.

Dhofari Gucci - An Omani girl who did a part of her studies abroad and now is back in her hometown Salalah and working there. Writes very well and has an interesting take on everything.

Muscat Mutterings - This is the blog to watch out for to know the latest in the Omani social scene. All the upcoming parties, inaugrations etc. are announced and advertised here. Sometimes there are a couple of giveaway tickets as well for the lucky readers.

Muscat Jet Driver - An airline pilot who has a very good sense of humour. Check it out!!!

Some of the other Omani bloggers but I don't follow them too often :

http://thelinoleumsurfer.blogspot.com/

http://susanalshahri.blogspot.com/

http://www.blue-chi.com/
http://angryinoman.blogspot.com/

New Nissan Sunny

2011-10-17T09:20:00.002+05:30

Last year a buddy of mine was car shopping and we had a lot of fun in the initial stages coz we were test driving some of the really high end models like the then brand new Nissan Maxima, which is a superawesome car btw, and the Nissan Altima Coupe amongst others, yup I know these are not really 'high end' cars but they are really cool cars especially for my friend who was a total novice driver with a shiny new driving licence. Well due to some unexplainable reason my dreams of test driving all the awesome cars in Oman were cut short and my buddy surprised or rather shocked me by picking up a 2010 Nissan Sunny (this model name refers to Nissan Sunny in Oman, its called the Nissan Almera in other parts of the world, and in some places its called the Nissan Pulsar or Sentra). One of the major reason cited was that the car would fetch a good resale value when sold the next year, the plan was to upgrade to a bigger and better car once the basics of driving were mastered. Well this gave me an opportunity to learn a lot more about Nissan and the particular model in question, the Nissan Sunny.

Nissan as a company is a very very cautious player, they have seen both the highest peaks of automotive success and the lowest valleys of failure. Their VQ series of engines have been placed in the Ward's 10 best engines for 14 straight years! Despite having a pretty awesome market-share and technical expertise, they were up to their eyeballs in financial woes towards the end of the 20th century (dramatic isn't it, when we say end of the 20th century? its actually simply the year 1999 that I was referring to ;-) ). Nissan made a stunning and dramatic fairy-tale recovery led by the then Renault COO and now Japanese superstar Carlos Ghosn, pretty accurately decribed in the Nissan Wikipedia entry :

"Under CEO Ghosn's "Nissan Revival Plan" (NRP), the company has rebounded in what many leading economists consider to be one of the most spectacular corporate turnarounds in history, catapulting Nissan to record profits and a dramatic revitalization of both its Nissan and Infiniti model line-ups. In 2001, the company initiated Nissan 180, capitalizing on the success of the NRP. The targets set with 180 were an additional sale of 1 million cars, achieving operating margins of 8%, and to have zero automotive debts. Ghosn has been recognized in Japan for the company's turnaround in the midst of an ailing Japanese economy. Ghosn and the Nissan turnaround were featured in Japanese manga and popular culture. His achievements in revitalizing Nissan were noted by Japanese Government, which awarded him the Japan Medal with Blue Ribbon in 2004."

To cut a long story short, there were a lot changes in Nissan and its product portfolio, but they really were not in a position to revamp their entire model lineup nor could they introduce a new model every year or two, like their biggest rival Toyota was doing. But I guess the wait was worth it because now not only is Nissan a business success, but their models are some of the best in their respective classes. The Nissan Maxima and the GT-R are prime examples. Well you can't deny that they have made a few gigantic unforgivable mistakes as well like the Nissan Micra, Richard Hammond of TopGear actually masked his face with a paper bag while test-driving it coz the Micra looked so disgusting (and yeah he ditched the car midway through the test coz he just couldn't go on)! Well the Nissan Sunny is a car that has been around for a long time. Once a major threat to the Corollas and the Civics of the world, they were soon too out dated to be a threat for even entry-level cars. It may seem unbelievable and blasphemy but Nissan have been selling almost the exact same car from 1995 to mid 2011. That's a whopping 16 years of running the same model!!! There have obviously been a few cosmetic changes but it clearly wasn't enough to entice the average buyer. Most of the purchases were by either government or fleet customers who cared only about the price of the car and nothing else.

From 1995

To 2011

Well after all those years, Nissan has finally decided to introduce a new Nissan Sunny and it looks pretty good. The rear is definitely inspired by the Maxima while the front bears more than a passing resemblance to the outgoing model. Everything has been made completely up to date. I believe there is a lot in common with the new Sunny and the Renault models, particularly the Fluence. Well my buddy who bought the older Sunny right about when it was going to be phased out is in for a shock, because its resale value has gone for a toss now with this spanking new model out, but if nothing else, the older model is sturdy, coz it has made it across quite a few pavements, traffic light islands and unpaved roads in one piece and in the hands of a wannabe rally driver ;-)!

The New Nissan Sunny....It's not a Car it's Caaaaar (The Indian ad sucks I tell you!!!)

Why is Toyota THE best???

2011-10-14T21:59:00.003+05:30

Check out these videos....I don't think you will need further proof of the Toyota quality!!!

Arabic Hip Hop

2011-10-14T20:36:00.003+05:30

I was watching NatGeo Daredevils by Diego Bunuel (The show is called 'Don't tell my mother' in most other parts of the world) the other day, and Diego was hanging out with a few Palestinian rappers and their music really felt fresh and interesting. Being born and brought up in Muscat, Oman, anything middle eastern and arabic still has a very high appeal for me and I was just browsing through the various arabic hip hop videos on youtube when I came across this particular one. Its an old track, and the video is a pretty amateur attempt, but I could really feel their beat and the english rapper (Flipp - real name Hissam Aseem I think) is really good, like his voice and style. A great attempt by these guys!!!

On Vacation

2011-08-09T11:15:00.002+05:30

I know it's not the right thing to do.....I just started getting warmed up to the whole blog thing and started posting regularly and all that. But what to do, duty calls.......I'm preparing for CAT 2011 and I have a whole bunch of other academic issues to sort out and need some time off from the 'world' to accomplish this. So the Satan is goin back to the Devil's Lair to cook up some potions......blogging will resume soon......Cheers!!!

Buran - Did you know???

2011-07-31T01:11:00.001+05:30

I love anything that has an engine and moves faster than 50 km/hr. So my love for aviation is a no-brainer. I always wanted to be a pilot and in fact, I still do. I would like to take at least a Private Pilot license some time in the near future. Space, astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Virgin Galactic are topics that I thought I always kept myself updated on. But I realized that even though I considered myself a big space junkie, I was very ignorant about what was actually happening in space.

Most of you must have noticed the recent developments regarding the NASA Space Shuttle program, unless you live in Mars that is. In case you are a Martian, then first of all "Hi dear Martian, you are welcome to visit my home unless you plan to invade us poor earthlings, we are already doing a damn good job at destroying ourselves", and secondly let me just inform you that after an amazing journey that lasted 30 years, the NASA Space Shuttle program has come to an end, mainly thanks or no thanks to Mr. Barack Obama (He had originally promised to shut down the Guantanamo Bay Prison, but on second thoughts I guess he decided to shut down the space program instead). There has been a lot of disagreements with this decision and several people, including NASA astronauts, have heaped praises on the Space Shuttle program, claiming it to be the most advanced system of its kind and at the same time have criticized the US government's decision to prematurely end the program. Read this article to get a good sense of the sadness and regret of Americans, pilots and other space lovers. An excerpt :

".....These craft are still well within their functional worklife, still capable of carrying man and machine into space. It is a shame the program is ending as early as it is. The shuttle should continue to carry NASA astronauts to the ISS and low earth orbit for at least the next decade.

.....So let's get over the political arguments, the disagreements with the decision and let's support the organization that even made any of this possible in the first place, NASA. We have a long hard road ahead for a replacement vehicle, a HUGE political battle for funding and continued support of NASA by the US government. "

So all in all, I was feeling a little sad that such an awesome machine is being put to sleep, mainly because the US needs the money to fight useless wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and soon there will be several other countries in this list from the way things are going (Iran, North Korea and Libya are almost literally begging the US to attack them from the way they are handling their affairs). All over the media, the sadness at this great larger-than-life space shuttle program coming to an end is pretty obvious and it kinda leaves you with a heavy feeling and makes you think "So what next?".

But guess what? How many of you have heard about the Buran Program?? I don't think many.Vladimir Radyuhin has written an amazing article on the present situation of the space travel, which paints a realistic picture of expectations and public sentiment vs. Reality, a few excerpts (I have highlighted the major points in bold underline) :

"...When the U.S. embarked on designing a space shuttle in the late 1960s, it was widely believed that reusable space vehicles would win hands down over expendable ships by drastically cutting down the cost of spaceflight. However, the result turned out to be exactly the opposite. The cost of the 30-year space shuttle programme was more than $1 billion per launch, roughly equivalent to the cost of launching 20 Soyuz spacecraft.

The U.S. will save a lot of money by switching over to the Russian space vehicle. NASA contracts with Roskosmos for ferrying 18 U.S. astronauts to the ISS and back aboard Soyuz ships over the next five years (plus 24-month training for each astronaut, room and board, flight operations and crew rescue) will cost the U.S. only as much as a single shuttle flight.

Soyuz being transported to the launch pad

A big advantage of the U.S. shuttles, of course, was their freight capacity. A shuttle could take to space almost 30 tonnes of cargo, 10 times more thanSoyuz, and bring down to earth two tonnes of payload, compared with just 50 kg by Soyuz. Roskosmos acknowledged the critical role of U.S. shuttles in setting up the ISS by placing bulky sections in orbit. Why then, Roskosmos asked, are the sleek U.S. “birds” gone, while the old Soyuz craft are still in business?

The answer, Roskosmos itself said, was simple: the Soyuz was more reliable and cost-effective. The spacecraft had an impeccable safety record: not a fatal accident over the past 40 years. The two Soyuz accidents involving fatalities date back to the early stages of the programme. The Soyuz-1 descent capsule crashed to earth in 1967, killing cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, because its parachutes failed to open, and the Soyuz-11 mission in 1971 ended in a disaster when its capsule with three cosmonauts depressurised on re-entry.

While the U.S. space shuttle was far more comfortable to ride, especially on re-entry and landing, than the crump Soyuz, it certainly trailed Soyuz in safety. Out of the five space shuttles built during the 30-year-long programme, two were destroyed in accidents. In 1986, Challenger, carrying seven astronauts, broke apart 73 seconds into its flight due to a faulty engine seal. In 2003,Columbia exploded during re-entry into the earth's atmosphere, killing all seven crew members.

The only time Soyuz was struck by an accident similar to the one that destroyedChallenger, the crew were rescued thanks to the Russian ship's launch escape system. The accident occurred in 1983 at the Baikonur launch pad. The crew were in the spaceship waiting for takeoff when a leaking fuel valve at the base of the rocket set off a fire that engulfed the rocket within seconds. Ground controllers activated the escape system, which flung away the top sections ofSoyuz with the cosmonauts inside, free from the three-stage rocket and lifted them more than one km before the descent capsule parachuted safely to land even as the launch pad crumbled in flames.

U.S. commentators who praise the sophistication of the U.S. space shuttle compared to the “primitive” Russian craft overlook the fact that the Soviet Union built its own space shuttle, Buran (Snowstorm) which, in some ways, including safety features, was superior to the American shuttle. For example, it was fitted with high-tech ejection seats for the crew that could be activated at altitudes of up to 24 km. At greater heights, Buran could detach from a malfunctioning booster rocket and glide down to a soft landing. Such an escape system could have saved the Challenger crew. Buran made its first and only flight in fully automatic mode without a crew in 1988. To overcome a crosswind of 20 metres per second, Buran's autopilot recalculated its landing trajectory and the spaceship landed on the runway from the opposite direction, to the amazement of ground controllers. It was a feat that remains unrivalled.
The Soviet space shuttle programme came to an abrupt end after the break-up of the Soviet Union, mainly for lack of funds. But before that, Buran helped push forward arms control talks between the U.S. and the Soviet Union because its successful flight demonstrated the Russian ability to counter President Ronald Reagan's “Star Wars” programme.

Buran was designed as the first fully reusable shuttle system, with all rocket boosters to be equipped with parachutes and retrorocket soft landing systems. By contract, the U.S. space shuttles were semi-reusable because they had a throwaway central fuel tank and its solid rocket boosters (SRB) had to be heavily refurbished after splashing in the ocean. While the U.S. space shuttle glided to earth in unpowered mode and, therefore, had only one attempt to land,Buran was designed to carry two jet engines for increased landing manoeuvres. Also, it had superior thermal protection tiles, used less toxic and more efficient liquid fuel, had a higher payload capacity and was designed to carry 10 crew members against seven by the U.S. shuttle. Buran was the first and only space shuttle ever to perform an unmanned flight in fully automatic mode until the U.S. Air Force launched its Boeing X-37 space plane last year. But then, X-37 was a much smaller craft than the 100-tonne Buran."

Damn, those Russians are smart. For almost the same size, they built a shuttle that can carry a payload of 100 tons, as compared to NASA Space shuttle's 30 ton limit, it can be completely re-used, whereas the NASA Space Shuttle is not fully re-usable, and to top it, the Buran has 2 jet engines which enable it to manoeuvre within our atmosphere, whereas the NASA space shuttle has none, so on entering the earth's atmosphere, it has exactly one shot at making a proper landing and if the astronaut in the driver's seat is sleeping then its all over, on the other hand, Buran has proved to us that it can successfully go to space and land back on earth with or without men, no matter what the conditions are. Only if that idiot Mikhail Gorbachev didn't ruin the party for us. Well let's keep our fingers crossed and wait for the next great development.

Drunk Cops !!!!

2011-07-30T18:56:00.017+05:30

For so many years we have been seeing typical stereotyped avatars of cops in movies. They are always depicted as abusive, corrupt and usually obese. I used to always assume that this was a slightly hyped up version of the real truth. I mean come on, this is the 21st century, and the image of a cop like that seemed like it was from another generation, maybe my parent's generation but not mine. Well as in many other things, I was wrong on this one too. Just today morning when I was reading 'The Hindu' (the english language Indian daily that I simply love), I came across an article that had it all : corrupt cops, tax evasion, bribery, drunken cops, collusion with agents to collect bribes, everything that I thought was long-gone. A few excerpts :

"......The revenue leak, with the collusion of corrupt officials at these check-posts, ran to lakhs of rupees on a single day, Vigilance sources said.

Under-taxing at these check-posts has been carrying on for a long time with the clear collusion of the officials who received their payback, often through agents. At the sales tax check-post on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border at Chinnar in Idukki district, excess cash of Rs.16,000 was found. At Amaravila, the Vigilance team, with help of officials from other departments, collected Rs.1 lakh from 13 trucks that had paid less tax than due with the connivance of the check-post officials. At Aryankavu in Kollam district, a granite truck was found to have paid Rs.8,000 less than the tax due from it.

Ingenious systems of collecting bribes were in place at most of these check-posts. At one such posts, each passing truck was asked to put Rs.150 into a thermocol box which would be emptied immediately after. At many of the check-posts, officials were found to be in possession of more money than shown in the records, clearly showing that they had taken bribes.

At the all-important Walayar check-post, the government weighing bridge—meant to weigh the contents of the goods trucks arriving from Tamil Nadu—was not working at all. This meant heavy revenue loss to the government and hefty bribes to the officials. At the Velanthavalam check-post, the inspector concerned was found to be drunk and a drunk assistant motor vehicle inspector had let three trucks pass without collecting tax.

.....In some cases there were surplus funds and shortage of funds was noticed in certain other cases, the Vigilance sources said. The officials are learned to have found six unauthorised persons working at Walayar in the computer section. The Vigilance officials questioned a senior official at the check-post on employing persons without the knowledge of the government. They were not appointed by the government. But they were working at this inter-State check-post for long, the sources added.

In a raid at a Livestock Department check-post, a Livestock Inspector was found under the influence of alcohol.

....A bottle of liquor and unaccounted money were seized from the official, the sources said..... "

Shocking isn't it? My blood boils on hearing such rampant abuse of power. I was sick and tired of reading about massive corruption on a national scale in the front pages - the cash-for-votes scam, the 2G scam, the illegal mining in Bellary scam and so many many others. Moreover I was also really almost pukish on hearing that the Indian government is very soon going to play a very very cruel joke on the Indian public in the form of the Lokpal bill.

I have had several first-hand experiences of massive abuse of power and absolutely shitty behavior of cops, but one of the funny ones happened when on one godforsaken day I got caught drunk-driving along with another buddy of mine (Mr. Dinkan for those of you who know ;-) ). It's funny now, but believe me I felt really harassed, frustrated, helpless and damn angry when it happened. It was during those heady days of college when we used to get away with anything, except this time we didn't quite get away! Well the cop demanded a Rs.5,000 fine on the spot, which we did not have since we were students and moreover we had spent every last penny on booze, on top of that it was month end, so our all ATMs had exactly Rs. 0.00 !!! He was not ready to wait for even a few minutes and immediately booked us and took us to the station. I asked another friend of mine to come to the station with the money and in the meanwhile we 'hung out' with the cops.

To my utter disbelief, one of the constables asked us for our mobile phones and started browsing through the contents. What was shocking was not that he took our phones but that he was looking for porn, not to incriminate us or anything, rather he was bored of the clips he had in his mobile and was looking to update them !!!!! Both my buddy and me were a little shocked and a little doubtful of the real intention of that cop, we thought he was just playing the 'good cop, bad cop' in a highly weird way so that he could unload more charges against us. Seeing our hesitation, he pulled out his mobile and started showing us his porn collection (btw he had a very bad taste in porn, all obese aunties and all....yuck!! ;-) ). Fortunately or unfortunately both of us didn't have what he wanted, but my buddy had a few videos of a couple of 'elephants gone mad' (elephants are a major part of Malayali temple festivals, but even though elephants are revered and considered very important, they are abused and placed under conditions of very high stress during these festivals, so they sometimes go on a rampage, injuring or killing the festival revelers. You can check out the video below to see what I mean. Btw this was the exact same video my buddy had on his phone and he had shown this to the constable that day!!!! ). The constable was satisfied with this and we spent nearly half hour transferring clips to his phone.

Well after about an hour my friend arrived with the money but the Sub-Inspector (In India, usually this guy is in charge of a particular police station of an area , something like a sheriff you could say) much to our dismay, was not willing to take the bribe. We were confused at that point of time, but our new 'buddy' the porn-collecting-constable told us later that this was because every police station has a target of a certain number of petty offences that have to be filed (am not sure whether this is true, or whether this is on a monthly or an annual basis, but this is exactly what he told us). Since that particular station was running short of their target, they decided to scrap their usual corrupt ways and instead booked me ( I was driving so I was charged, Dinkan was simply 'hangin out' at the station till all the formalities were completed and I got out) under MVA (Motor Vehicles Act 1988) section 185 - Driving by a drunken person or by a person under the influence of drugs. We begged and pleaded and fell on his feet but to no avail. So now the situation was that I was booked under this charge and was in police custody, I was taken to a government hospital for testing my blood alcohol level (which by the way was surprisingly within legal limits, but in India who cares, the corrupt govt. doc colluded with the corrupt cops and the end result was that even though I was not drunk enough, my reports read that I was highly drunk!!!), and after all this if I had to leave the police station then 2 people had to come and bail me out!!!! What a sad day!!!

Suddenly one of my buddies who had come to bail me out remembered that our classmate's father was a minister. This particular classmate was not a a great friend of ours, to be really honest almost all girls hated my gang and me by the time we were in the third year of college because of all our crazy stunts. But we swallowed our pride and called this particular female and asked her if she could help us. Her dad, the minister, immediately called the police station, but the ch**thiya SI fed him a totally different, highly masalised version of the events, describing a heroic chase by him to prevent us from injuring the innocent public and a lot of other bullcrap. Since the minister did not directly know me and since that female felt that the antics described by the cops perfectly matched my character, they apologized to the SI for calling and asked him to do his 'duty'. The enraged SI turned and looked at me, and without speaking a word, took my file and tore it. For a few seconds, we were high on the feeling of the power we thought we had, not even a cop could touch us, but then all that came crashing down. He opened up a brand new file and charged me with :

MVA 183 - Driving at excessive speed
MVA 184 - Driving dangerously
MVA 185 - Driving by a drunken person or a person under the influence of drugs
MVA 204 - Laboratory test (the 'fake' test results could incriminate me on a totally different charge!)

He impounded the bike I was driving and asked me to come after a week to get the bike out. In malayalam there is a saying "Velukaan thechathu paandaayi" (crudely translated it means that application of a fairness cream in order to get fair & beautiful, backfired and instead resulted in a giant, big, dark black scar). There was nothing more I could do, all the irreparable damage had already been done. I came back after a week to get the bike from the police impound, but the cops were not going to let go of me that easily. They made me buy 7 reels of paper for their office work (they claimed that they ran out of paper and needed those papers in order to process my file, which obviously was a blatant lie as I found out later) and also I had to sponsor their tea and snacks ,because they made me wait in the station till tea time, to get my paperwork done and release the bike. After this ordeal, all I had to do was wait for that day, which was months away, when a constable would come to my ancestral house, where all my relatives were staying and deliver the court summons for my case. The address in my driving license was of my ancestral home and that's the reason the summons was being delivered there. What a pleasure!!!! Btw the constable who comes to deliver the summons also needs to be bribed, or rather tipped, for 'pains' he's taken to bring the summons to my home. After a few months the case came to the court, and the punishment for my sins was a Rs. 2,500 fine. After paying the fine amount and the lawyer's fees, the 18+ month ordeal was finally over. Phew!!!! But guess what??? We can be relieved that India is not the most corrupt country in the world, instead it ranks 87th on the World Corruption Perception Index and there are 91 countries that are way more corrupted than ours!!!!! Oman is listed as #41 which means that Bhutan, China, Israel, Slovenia and even Estonia is better than Oman in terms of corruption. Whilst Morocco, Serbia, Colombia, Peru, Greece, Panama, Romania, Cuba, Rwanda and Ghana along with the countries mentioned earlier fare much better than India.

The 10 most corrupted police forces as described by criminaljusticedegreesguide.com are :

Haiti: Haiti is notorious for havingone of the most corrupt police forces in the world. The Haitian police havenegatively influenced society and Haitian culture with their unethicalpractices for quite awhile. In recent years, the Haitian National Police haveviolated various human rights and broken numerous laws, such as kidnapping,drug trafficking and police brutality. They have even resisted preventing orresponding to gang-related violence. The lawlessness of the HNP appears to havedied down slightly after the catastrophic earthquake in January 2010, but onlytime will tell if it will stay this way.

Mexico: Mexico has one of the mostcorrupt police forces in the world and it continues to get worse every day.Crime is at an all-time high in Mexico City and border towns, but many policeofficers are only making it worse. Mexican police turn to corruption to findother means of money because the pay is low. Police will bribe criminals andextort tourists and have been known to give victims the option of "plata oplomo," which means they can either accept a bribe or be killed. Mexicanpolice also work with drug cartels to protect them and enforce drugtrafficking. They often ignore reported crimes and do not investigate them,often imprisoning innocent citizens to cover up their dirty work.

Kenya: Kenya has one of the mostcorrupt police forces in the world. According to a Transparency Internationalrepot, an astounding 92 percent of Kenyans ranked their police as the most corruptand many of them have paid a bribe to Kenyan police within the last 12 months.Citizens are bribed into paying police for access to various services, such asCustoms, healthcare, police, education, registration and permits, and evenutility services. Kenyan police have even targeted Somali refugees who’vecrossed the border in desperation by raping, beating and blackmailing them.

Uzbekistan: The Ministry of Interior(MOI) controls the police in Uzbekistan, which has a long history ofcorruption. The Uzbekistan police have been known to detain citizens to extortbribes and take away their human rights. Police brutality and bribery have alsobeen committed by Uzbekistan law enforcement. Bribery is used in Uzbekistan forjust about everything – traffic stops, civil lawsuits and even admission toleading educational institutions. With the rise of the bribery system, policeprotection does not come free to the people of Uzbekistan.

Burma: Burma is another country with atroubled police force. Corruption among police is nothing out of the norm here.The Burma police force has been known to make victims pay for criminalinvestigations and often extort money from civilians. Burma is ruled by ahighly authoritarian military regime, which has a direct hold on the policeforce and the rights of citizens.

Iraq: The Iraqi police have had a longhistory of corruption and, despite funds and retraining efforts, they’vemanaged to maintain their corruption. Iraqi police continue to be highlysectarian and participate in kidnappings, ransom payments and bribery. Theyhave proven to be ineffective at controlling terrorism efforts and protectingcivilians in the ways they need to be.

Somalia: The Somali police force is oneof the most corrupt agencies in the world. This war-torn country continues toface a great deal of adversity and civilians are at the greatest risk. Somalipolice have been known to be ineffective and crooked. Because they areunderpaid, many Somali police officers steal, extort, bribe and harassindividuals to get money. They’ve also had a history of police brutality andoften ignore societal violence. In 2009, nearly 1,000 Somali police officerswent missing after receiving extensive training funded by the Germangovernment. It is believed that the police officers escaped to join theIslamist militia Al-Shabaab.

Afghanistan: Afghanistan has had one ofthe most corrupt police forces in the world, and it seems like it’s onlygetting worse with time. Graft has made it impossible for Afghan police toimprove and effectively do their job, but corruption is witnessed within thepolice force, as well. Afghan police have been known to extort money andinflict violence on civilians at police checkpoints around the country. Policealso bribe civilians into paying them for their release from prison or to avoidarrest. Although police corruption has gotten slightly better withinternational efforts and retraining, it continues to suffer at the whim ofgovernmental corruption and power.

Sudan: Sudan is one of the most corruptcountries for various reasons. Not only has their former president Oman Al-Bashirbeen indicted for war crimes and genocide, but this nation suffers from acorrupt police force. Sudanese police have been known to extort bribes fromcivilians in order to supplement their incomes. Police rarely file reports orinvestigate crimes, and often use violence and retaliation against people whocomplain about police abuses.

Russia:Russian government is no stranger to corruption, especially within its policeforce. Within recent years, facts have surfaced about the corruption and crimesbeing committed by Russian police officers. Police brutality, extorting bribesand arresting innocent citizens are all crimes that have been committed amongRussian police forces. In order to ensure monthly quotas and make ends meet,Russian police turn to corruption and bribery.

Management Lesson 2

2011-07-30T08:59:00.000+05:30

Thank you my dear friend Raj Krishna, for sharing these nuggets of wisdom with me :

Management Lesson - Horse & Pig

2011-07-29T16:14:00.002+05:30

An interesting management lesson shared by a friend of mine :

Horse, Pig and their Boss before the incident in the story

" There was a farmer who collected horses; he only needed one more breed to complete his collection. One day, he found out that his neighbor had the particular horse breed he needed. So, he constantly bothered his neighbor until he sold it to him. A month later, the horse became ill and he called the veterinarian, who said: Well, your horse has a virus. He must take this medicine for three days. I'll come back on the 3rd day and if he's not better, we're going to have to put him down.
Nearby, the pig listened closely to their conversation.
The next day, they gave him the medicine and left.
The pig approached the horse and said: Be strong, my friend. Get up or else they're going to put you to sleep!
On the second day, they gave him the medicine and left.
The pig came back and said: Come on buddy, get up or else you're going to die! Come on, I'll help you get up. Let's go! One, two, three...
On the third day, they came to give him the medicine and the vet said: Unfortunately, we're going to have to put him down tomorrow. Otherwise, the virus might spread and infect the other horses.
After they left, the pig approached the horse and said: Listen pal, it's now or never! Get up, come on! Have courage! Come on! Get up! Get up! That's it, slowly! Great! Come on, one, two, three... Good, good. Now faster, come on.... Fantastic! Run, run more! Yes! Yay! Yes! You did it, you're a champion!!!
All of a sudden, the owner came back, saw the horse running in the field and began shouting: It's a miracle! My horse is cured. This deserves a party. Let's kill the pig!

Point for reflection: This often happens in the workplace. Nobody truly knows which employee actually deserves the merit of success, or who's actually contributing the necessary support to make things happen.

LEARNING TO LIVE WITHOUT RECOGNITION IS A SKILL

If anyone ever tells you that your work is unprofessional, remember: amateurs built the Ark and professionals built the Titanic."

The pig after the incident !!!

Interesting isn't it? Sadly its also very true, the companies that really value their employees and their contributions are rare and few.

Shaitan - The Review

2011-07-29T03:23:00.003+05:30

DISCLAIMER : This post is titled ‘Shaitan : The Review’ but as much as I have raved on about this absolutely fantabulous piece of art, I have also rambled a lot more on Bollywood and the inspiration behind insane shit like this. All this makes this an extremely long post (with no actual review!!! if you want the plot of the movie then just go read this), but for a work of genius as brilliant as this, nothing less would have been justified, this is my ode to these great artists. Don’t blame me if you fall asleep midway, I already warned you ;-) , read on and do give me your 2 cents worth…

Chapter 1

When I was much younger and when we used to watch Hindi or regional language movies together as a family, I always used to ask my dad that how come in every movie the villain always loses and the hero always wins. I was pretty surprised by the fact that even an extremely brilliant, superbly charismatic & sexy villain cannot even get away with the smallest of crimes, how much ever smart he/she is, the hero always has the last laugh by the time its the climax of the movie. As I grew up I realized that this, apart from the intention of giving out a good social message, was also highly influenced by our cultural ancestry. Most of our films are still loosely based on the epic 'Ramayana', in more than one ways. As in 'Ramayana', the hero is painfully squeaky clean and always wins, there's always a villain who might be extremely accomplished and ingenious (like the ten heads of 'Raavan' is supposed to indicate mastery of ten different subjects, to be precise the 4 Vedas and the 6 Upanishads, moreover, he was a staunch devotee of Shiva and has supposedly received blessings and gifts directly from the lord himself), but how much ever skillful the villain is, he's always ugly, mean and he always loses. Hollywood was like a breath of fresh air, the industry in US was much more creatively, technically and morally advanced. The film-makers were experimenting with all kinds of crazy concepts and innovations, including the traditional stereotypes of villains and heroes.

Just look around us, or better look in the mirror. Can we see anybody that is anywhere close to perfection around us? Is there one person that we know who always does the right thing, or always upholds the morals taught to us right from childhood? Obviously it is not practical to be always honest and to always do the right thing. All of us, including you and me, have done, thought and will continue to do many things which contradict with the values that we are supposed to be upholding. Come on, get real, it need not be a murder or a robbery or a rape, but I'm sure all of us have at least done some small thing or the other, which we would not be proud to tell our mothers. But the evergreen Bollywood heroes are from another planet itself. for e.g. they will be in love with a girl for decades but the feeling of lust never crosses their minds, they don't even try to kiss!!!

Well painfully slowly, all that has changed now. Several leading actors of the day refused to play 2 defining negative characters of Hindi cinema, and the guy who did play those 2 roles, now rules the industry in such a way that he single-handedly overshadows the glitz and glamour of everyone else combined together. 'King' Khan's depiction of negativity in 'Baazigar' and 'Darr' redefined box-office formulas and threw away the typical stereotypes. Over the years, Bollywood has completely revolutionized itself. Initially it was run like any other business in India, in a shoddy family-oriented way. It was a skilled trade, like carpentry or fishery, and the tricks of the trade were passed on from generation to generation. Everyone, from the light boy to the superstar had some kind of hereditary connection to the film world and it was sealed shut to outsiders. Of course there were many exceptions to the rule, but not enough to cause a massive shift in ideology. Prodigies like Ram Gopal Varma (RGV) made major dents in the traditional thinking and inspired more new comers to experiment with all aspects of a film. Soon the scale of economics got so huge that Bollywood started attracting major foreign investment and when the Hollywood studios started pouring money, along with it came years of expertise which has transformed our movies completely beyond recognition. All of a sudden our camera angles, editing, sound recording, movie print and in general our story-telling were as good if not better than Hollywood movies. India has never been short of talent. Indians are extremely talented in many ways but creatively, we are on another level itself. A small town artist in India can and does create stunning logos etc. for companies, in fact on par or even better than the ones created by international advertising firms, the only major difference being that the small town artist might call it an 'emblem' and gets a few rupees, while the ad company calls it 'brand identity' and rakes in millions. Critically acclaimed film-makers, like RGV, make cinematic masterpieces, for a fraction of the budget of a Hollywood highschool comedy.

Chapter 2

The talk of bollywood town these days is that Anurag Kashyap is the new Ram Gopal Varma. An immensely talented maverick, Kashyap had a very troubled childhood, reportedly suffering 11 years of child abuse, which led to him dabbling in drugs, booze and cinema in order to overcome his trauma. Anurag Kashyap got his first major break when he co-wrote the script for the cult classic RGV flick 'Satya' following which he worked on a few major projects with RGV, Mani Ratnam (Kashyap wrote the dialogues for 'Yuva') and others. His pre-Satya hangout buddies included RGV prodigy Sriram Raghavan (who went on to make the masterpiece ‘Ek Hasina Thi’ and ‘Johnny Gaddar’) and Shivam Nair (he made ‘Ahista Ahista’) amongst others. All these guys were insanely creative but also had an inclination towards the dark side of humanity.
They worked on different projects which included a docu-drama on a serial killer called Auto Shankar. Shivam Nair had oodles of information on serial killers and the likes, whereas Kashyap had loads of ideas regarding a movie based on his buddies who were members in a rock band. That’s when he got the idea to merge the rock band idea with the Joshi-Abhyankar serial murders (if you haven’t already heard about these murders, follow the link and get your blood curdled !!!) which resulted in the what is supposed to be Indian cinema at its best. Made in 2003, this movie was not allowed to be released, even with an 'A' rating, by the Indian Censor Board for the following reasons :

1. The film glorifies violence
2. It shows the modus operandi of a crime (killing of a police officer)
3. It shows excessive use of drugs
4. It has double meaning dialogues (with sexual undertones)
5. It has no positive characters
6. It does not carry a social message

In the original first draft of 'Paanch', the protagonist, played by Kay Kay Menon, was supposed to be imaginary, like Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) in 'Fight Club'. But the concept was too alien for Bollywood masala-formula producers and in order to get financing, Kashyap re-wrote the script several times and at later stages also included multiple songs bending to the demands of financiers. If released on time, 'Paanch' would have forever changed the future of Kashyap, Kay Kay and Bollywood. If you liked 'Shaitan' and Kashyap or if you are a serious art connoisseur then 'Paanch' is the movie to watch. It has been shown at various film festivals around the world and all those who have seen the film, are surprised it has been refused a certificate. People have been congratulating him on the film's realistic approach. Directors like Ram Gopal Varma, Govind Nihalani, Sudhir Mishra, Kundan Shah, Ketan Mehta, Aziz Mirza and Farhan Akhtar have liked the film and have hailed it as path breaking, but too bad for you that the movie is banned in India......or is it??? Thanks to online piracy and unrestricted communications using internet, it is now possible to do a lot of things that was not even fathomable a couple of years back. Click here to download 'Paanch', a movie several people are dying to see, but are not able to coz they don't have the good fortune to visit film festivals and coz they haven't heard about torrents and satanicreflections.blogspot.com ;-)

Chapter 3

'Paanch' was basically a story of 5 members of a rock band, set in an ultra-urbane landscape, with everybody doing massive amounts of drugs and other crazy stuff. The wikipedia article on 'Paanch' says :

"The story depicts what ambition, immorality, greed and angst, unmistakably the products of urban life, can do to an ordinary person. A little mischief for the sake of success leads a group of 5 wannabe rock stars to get entangled in a gory web of murder and betrayal. What follows is a shocking thriller of a story, supported aptly by some great performances, the best coming from Kay Kay Menon and Tejaswini Kolhapure. The movie has a great musical score by Vishal Bhardwaj. The songs, most of which Anurag Kashyap interestingly uses up in the first 15 minutes, are brilliant. So is the background music. Another high point of the movie is the cinematography, which impresses upon the viewer an aura of fast-paced urbanity juxtaposed with dark, ruthless bloodshed. There is a compelling tension and gloom that permeate the movie towards the latter half."

As you can see for yourself, this almost reads like a review for 'Shaitan' doesn't it? To say that 'Shaitan' is actually 'Paanch' with its edges roughed out would be an insult to the efforts put in, but it does have a lot of the same genetics as its controversial unreleased 'elder brotha'. 'Shaitan' was in fact already finalised and was set for shooting, even dates were booked for all the stars including the beautiful Kalki Koechlin (who is Kahyap's wife btw, and this is a major reason for him to be introduced to this project), and it was only at the eleventh hour that Kashyap hopped on board as producer. Basically all the reasons that 'Paanch' was banned have been eliminated, like introducing strong positive characters, avoiding excessive violence on screen time by actually shooting the murder scenes from less bloodier angles, sending across a strong social message etc. and at the same time all those features that made 'Paanch' a masterpiece have been improved on and incorporated in 'Shaitan', like crazy cinematography, riveting background score and amazing perfomances from the entire cast. The collaboration of Kashyap and cinematographer R. Madhi, who previously worked in major tamil films results in pure visual magic. By using several tried & tested tricks and by playing around with their creativity, they have given true movie buffs a real treat, and several scenes stand out like the breaking the beer bottle on the nosy pricks head and banging the shit out of him, the smoke coming out of K.C.'s mouth as he plays pool, the weird angles of being inside the bottle when they play 'dare', the angle from the point-of-view (POV for you porn lovers ;-)!!!!) of the ball when K.C. dribbles the ball on the bat, skillful and extremely innovative use of high-speed cameras (so many of the scenes are shot so beautifully in super-slow motion, btw if you haven't already seen 'American History X' either commit suicide right now or go see it right away!!!! Its another cinematic masterpiece that has a lot of ground-breaking photography which is still very much contemporary though the movie itself was released in 1998!!!! Go see it!!!!)

Chapter 4

Recently two events were caught in the eye of a 'gossip storm' in Britain. When Sanjiv Mehta bought the rights to the brand name 'East India Company' and when Ratan Tata claimed that the mindset of the workforce of the Jaguar Land Rover factories (the buying of which itself was another major controversy) was of laziness, the british tabloids called these events the ultimate moments of 'Empire strikes back', because after several hundred years of bossing around Indians, now they are getting bossed around, and this will continue the same way for the foreseeable future.

Regionalism, communalism and differentiating based on caste, creed, sex etc. is a totally stupid emotion and will never be of any use in the long term and I totally DO NOT advocate this. But even though the more knowledgeable people acknowledge and practice this equality, there has always been a major bias in Bollywood against Southies. Even though South Indians have a major role to play in almost every aspect of Mumbai, the average Northie Mumbaikar is always a little too quick to discount this fact and embark on her/his mockery of everything south. The list of extraordinarily successful Southies is endless, from the greatest respectable dons of Mumbai Haji Mastan and Varadarajan Mudaliar (Dawood is just a money-power-slut hungry Pakistan agent ;-).....honestly go read the news mate, there is more than ample evidence to suggest the same), the greatest music director Asia has ever seen A.R. Rahman, the best sound engineer in India Resul Pookutty (if u don't already know him....he won the bloody Oscars for pete's sake mate!!!!!).....the list goes on, for that matter even Ram Gopal Varma is from Hyderabad and not a Marathi as many ignorant baboons have assumed incorrectly.

I usually try to go for a movie without reading or hearing anything about it. This means that I usually do not have much expectations from any movie and so am pleasantly surprised when the movie turns out to be awesome. I assumed from all the hype & hoopla that Anurag Kashyap himself was directing 'Shaitan' and since the opening credits rolled by alongside with visuals, I didn't clearly notice any of the names. But I was a little amused to hear the familiar sounds of the 'Chenda' (a traditional percussion instrument used extensively during festivals in Kerala) during the opening credits. Moreover, the movie is peppered with references to the South, like the wife of the cop Arvind Mathur (played by Rajeev Khandelwal) is shown as a South Indian dance teacher and is played by Sheethal Menon (the wife of the director himself) and there are several instances when popular traditional South Indian instruments are used for the riveting background score, notably the 'Chenda Melam' soundtrack when Arvind Mathur metes out his own brand of justice when he throws a sex offender from a first floor of a villa. So when in the closing credits I saw that our malayali homeboy Bejoy Nambiar has directed this, one of the best Hindi movies of all time, and the crazy insane cinematography was directed by another Southie, R. Madhi, it was like a little 'Empire strikes back' moment.

Now let's just go back to the first chapter of this post, where I mentioned that bad guys always lose and the good guys always win. Yes, 'Shaitan' is revolutionary , path-breaking and will soon be a cult classic, but due to Indian Censor board stipulations, but more importantly due to moral responsibility, the good guys still win and the bad guys still lose. The detailed discussion of why the good guys always win will require another humongous post, but that's for another day. In a totally out-of-the-box perspective, 'Shaitan' can actually be seen as an old-fashioned morality tale packaged in an extremely funky brand-new bottling. Kudos to Bejoy Nambiar, Anurag Kashyap and the whole team for creating a true masterpiece.

And hey, thanks for reading ;-), your feedback is most welcome.

RATING
(Six out of Five Stars for Excellence!!!!)

My Typical Week!!!

2011-06-02T10:38:00.002+05:30

Portrait of a Don

2011-06-01T11:45:00.001+05:30

Follow this link to read about one of the most notorious people in the world. This is a must read biography of one of the most wanted men on the planet, Sheikh Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar. Dawood was No. 4 on the Forbes 2008 list of The World's 10 Most Wanted criminals but the interesting thing is that he was also no. 50 on the Forbes 2009 list of The World's Most Powerful People, the very next year. This article totally glamourises the international don and his story will be truly inspirational to wannabe-dons and criminals. He must really be very very smart to reach where he's reached and still not only evade capture but also build a thriving empire and live a life of a king. His wealth is estimated to be between $7-20 billion dollars making him the amongst the top 3 richest criminals in the world and amongst the top 10 richest people!!!!

Wake Up Call

2010-12-12T07:47:00.000+05:30

Its time for a change !!! I got a very sharp wake up call last evening and realized that its time for me to wake up from a very long dream, a dream so good that I fooled myself into thinking that I was still sleeping so that the dream could go on !!!!! I will let the pictures do the talking in this blog post.

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

- Count Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

"They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."

- Andy Warhol

Cricket Gift

2010-07-10T14:32:00.000+05:30

Andrew Flintoff is now the brand ambassador of Audi for the middle east sector. Andrew Flintoff !! If there are any middle eastern people reading this they would be wondering who the hell is this guy !!! Cricket is the last sport arabs have on their minds and Flintoof is definitely not the first cricketer that they would connect with. Probably the fact that Flintoff has been living in Dubai for sometime now with his family led to Audi's decision. Anyways he's got 2 Dubai plated Q7's as a gift !!

The happiness is pretty obvious !!!!

F1 Gift

2010-07-10T12:45:00.002+05:30

The beautiful sculpture in metal that you see above is the beast that propelled the young 23-year old Sebastian Vettel to the 2nd position in the 2009 F1 World Championship. This car played a major role in him setting a lot of new lap records, breaking a lot of F1 records and him being nicknamed the 'New Schumacher'.

Red Bull Racing was born from the ashes of the failed Jaguar Racing team and the major force behind getting this team to be a serious title contender was the Chief Technical Officer Adrian Newey who was poached from the McLaren team in 2006. Adrian Newey is considered a genius in F1 design. This is what is written about him on the Red Bull Racing website :

" During 30 years in motorsport Adrian Newey has developed something of a legend. He’s heralded as an original thinker, a maverick designer, the heir to the legacy of Colin Chapman and a softly-spoken genius. But the thing he’s best known for is winning...

...It’s a widely-held belief that Adrian does his best work whenever F1 undergoes one of its periodic regulatory upheavals, moving development away from number crunching and briefly allowing creativity and intuition to come back to the fore. 2009 demonstrated that in ample measure: Red Bull Racing’s breakthrough season had Adrian’s RB5 taking five pole positions and score six victories....

...The idea of a clean sheet of paper isn’t just a metaphor. Despite the non-stop technological advancement of F1, Adrian still likes to use the drawing board rather than a supercomputer when he’s feeling creative. Away from the office he indulges a passion for classic sports cars, as both a keen collect and amateur racer. Not one to let the laws of physics stand in the way of a borderline overtaking opportunity, he’s had some high-profile scraps in recent years, but - undaunted by the bruises and occasional concussion - has progressed to more serious racing, finishing a highly creditable fourth in class and 22nd overall in the 2007 24 Heures Du Mans while driving an AF Corse Ferrari F430. He also won the 2009 Goodwood Revival TT Race, sharing his Lightweight E-Type Jaguar with his old friend, Bobby Rahal."

So when the car he designed secured 6 wins from 17 races with 5 pole positions and 6 lap records broken, what did Red Bull do ?? They gave him the car as a gift at the Goodwood festival of speed last week !!! When Red Bull secured 1-2 victories at China & Britain Adrian celebrated by donuting a Ferrari California on Team Principal Christian Horner's lawn and partially ruining it....this time around rumours are that the grass is gonna totally come off, or worse the tremendous torque for RB5 might cause the planet to spin the opposite direction !!!

Some of the information and all of the pictures were taken from the Red Bull Racing Website. Thank you Red Bull !!!

Population Explosion

2010-07-10T11:08:00.002+05:30

Source : http://www.china-profile.com/data/tab_rurpop_1.htm

According to this statistic, the total population of China in 1978 was 963 million people and is currently 1,324,655,000 (2008 Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators). The reason I chose to show the population in 1978 is because it is later in that year that the Chinese government started implementing the One-Child policy.

The Indian population is 1,139,964,932 (2008 Source : Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators). This is 17.31% of the total world population, which is a significant slice, pretty close to the 20% contribution by the Chinese.

Back in the 1950's when the Chinese population was nowhere close to a billion, they started encouraging the Two-Child policy. By 1978 when they realised that they were soon going to touch the billion mark and that something needed to be done and fast, they strictly implemented the One-Child policy. Like every other Chinese policy this one too receives opposition and criticism from different parts of the world. Some even call it violation and abuse of the basic human rights. But more than 76% of the Chinese support it and believe that it is good for them. The Chinese government claims that till date this policy has helped reduce 300-400 million people. That is nearly 30% of the current population !!!

Why is population a problem ??

Personally I feel that population is one of the major causes of misery and problems in this world. I feel that with the right population, there will be almost no problems in our world. Even if there are a few problems, they would be very much controllable and could be solved. It is the biggest crisis facing the planet today and is so big and so surrounded by delicate issues that most people will not face it. Simply put there are at least 200,000 more people alive today than yesterday. Tomorrow there will be at least another 200,000 more. Just think about all the current problems the world faces, really just think about those problems, you will notice that a lot of problems in this world finally boils down to extreme or intense competition which is because we have to compete with each other for the limited resources that we have.

The funniest part is that the world's most fastest growing country in terms of population is India, and nobody in India is even thinking about this it seems. Poverty, corruption, over-crowded cities, transit systems stretched to their seams, violence, drug abuse, unemployment, over-zealous religious madmen, terrorism....a lot of these problems can be traced directly or indirectly to over population. And what are we doing about it ? Painting 'Hum Do, Hamare Do' (literally translated 'We Two, Our Two' implying families to have just 2 kids) on the backs of trucks and rickshaws !!! Not a single politician has made this issue their major campaign agenda...Why ?? Because a few of the major religions in this world oppose birth control. In India and in most of the democracies in the world, gathering the highest votes and winning the election is more important than anything else. So who cares about what is actually happening and what is going to happen in another few years if you can make it appear as though you are actually doing something for the masses. Of course nobody would dare to even ponder about such kinds of issues which can arouse the sentiments of the extremely sensitive religious crowd, who knows when they are going to chop your hand off ?!?!?!

Some excerpts from an excellent article written on the same topic. The full story can be read here.

"...People can argue, as they do, that the world could cope with a population of 25 or even 50 billion. Perhaps they are right. What happens when we reach saturation at 50 billion (or 7 billion, or whatever saturation turns out to be) what will make the population stop growing then? The bigger the numbers the faster the growth. Eventually we need birth control or the population will be limited by natural means; starvation, pandemic disease or warfare to secure the means of survival. Imagine a world that has reached saturation, imagine trying to put the brakes on then, when the population is still growing at 5 or 10 every second. A new Calcutta, Cairo or Mexico City every week. It is too frightening to contemplate for long. To stop the growth we need to apply the brakes now, while there is still a chance that we can keep in control.

If we do not want to face mass starvation on a scale never before seen or have a war that will be in every sense the third world war, we have to stop the population from growing the way it is. Madly. Uncontrolled and in all the wrong places. The only fair way is two's your lot. A universal limit of two children per woman, or two children per person if you prefer. It must be universal, no exceptions, especially on religious grounds. It is the Muslim and Catholic communities who are the most dangerous because they believe they have a duty to breed. Let one woman be an exception and she breeds more exceptions.

To make things fair universality is necessary but not sufficient. We must also address why the third world people think they need more children when they are surrounded by underfed and dying children. We must recognize that their decisions are rational, we must change the reality. Children are social security and pensions. We must replace that with real social security. To say the least this will be expensive, compared to the alternative though it is the bargain of all time....

...Ideally I would like to see many people not allowed to breed at all. The poor who live in squalor, ignorance, poverty and disease will breed more of their kind. It does not matter if you believe that genes, environment or conditioning in infancy are the key factors. Dysfunctional families breed dysfunctional people....

....Birth control is always controversial. A formal limit on family size is a profoundly illiberal policy. No democratic politician is likely to see it as a vote winner. However it is very much the better alternative to ecological meltdown, starvation and violence on a scale that can barely be imagined. In contrast reducing the death rate is seen as universally good. That discrepancy is likely to make solving the problem even harder. Western charity is aimed at reducing deaths in poor countries, very little money is spent on birth control. When charities mention birth control they receive less money. So they go on with death control only, making the underlying problem worse.

Sometimes in life the right thing to do is the opposite of your instinctive reaction, like pulling down the houses in your street to save the city from fire. Your feelings that motivate you to care can blind you to the best way to express that care.

Saving a starving child today means having more children in thirty years time trying to live off the same or eroded resources. Saying that makes me seem like a heartless bastard. In many public meetings if I said that from the platform I would be shouted down, and maybe beaten up too. But I am not wrong, call me whatever you want, I am telling it like it is. There is a classic charity tag line that goes something like give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you help feed him for a lifetime. This is incredibly patronizing, as if starving people are surrounded by food they are too stupid to catch. The reality is that if you teach that man how to fish in two generations time there will be a lot more starving people in that same village and no fish. That is human nature. Man will breed and eat all the food available.....

The current charity model is doomed to both fail and make the problem worse. In the twentieth century there was a massive decline in death rates and only a modest fall in birth rates. That is THE PROBLEM. The biggest problem in the world today and it is an aggravating factor in almost every other problem mankind faces. Environmental decline, global warming, habitat loss, the loss of all easily mined metallic ores, the phenomenal rise in fossil fuel consumption; all these are made worse by the fact that in twenty five years time there will be another three thousand million more people alive than there are today.

It is the biggest problem because it makes every other problem worse and harder to solve. It will not be solved by ignoring it. There can be no technological fix that can provide ever growing resources for a population to grow at geometric rates. It cannot be solved by conventional democratic politics. Something radical must be done to get the world to wake up and face reality. "

The last paragraph really hammers the nail into the coffin....it is the biggest problem and it makes every other problem harder to solve. Its high time everybody wakes up, especially India, and stop playing touch and go with such issues....instead of acting like we understand the crazy bullshit that most religions propagate (which pea-brain wouldn't understand simple and obvious concepts like 'evolution' ?!?!?), we should face problems head on, religion and rallies by ignorant, selfish pricks be damned and do something about our own future....its not only the future but also the present.

Just look at this graph. The Chinese population seems to reaching its peak and will soon reach a level growth. Ideal growth patterns would be like UK or Japan, but looks like we Indians are going to have to colonise the moon or Mars in order to make space for us, little wonder the Indian space program is gaining heat !!!

Promises, promises .....

2010-07-09T19:11:00.000+05:30

Its been ages since I decided to keep my blog updated and on more than one ocassion I have blogged that I am going to change forever and that things will be a lot more different from now on. Everytime I did put up a post saying tht things will be different, I was also trying to change a lot of other things in my life too. But all those vows were practically only as true as a politician's campaign promise. Well I have wanted to change for a long long time now and it just doesn't seem to work. I have tried every trick in the book, starting with imitating role models, changing behaviour patterns, altering my daily routines, changing my job, shifting my country of residence, gave up, tried again a gazillion times.....and the list goes on......and still I haven't figured the magic secret thats going to revolutionise my life and make me the next Steve Jobs or Richard Branson.

Its not like we don't know what makes a succesful person tick, most of us if given half a chance could easily give a lecture on how to live properly. Most of us our experts in the field of human psychology, many thanks to the reality shows on air, tremendous amount of info available on the net and of course our ever growing hunger for gossip and our passion for seeing every other person's lives around us through the looking glass and trying to figure out what makes them 'do it'. Well this time I am in another one of those famous life-changing phases and this time around I am trying even more harder to completely alter myself.

I was chilling with a few friends at Wadi Hattat yesterday night and we were sitting at a coffee shop with a good view of the road ahead of us. This was in Wadi Hattat 5. A minute ago we drove across a junction in order to get to this coffee shop and a minute later we heard the gruesome sound of metal on metal and a shout. I saw somethin like a big bag flying and landing about 10 metres away and then shifted my attention to the spot where a bicycle had got crumpled by a big white land cruiser. The road was poorly lit and the Landcruiser probably did not see the guy on the cycle trying to cross (or driving on the side of the road, nobody really knows). Whatever the case, it was soon pretty obvious that it was the cyclist who flew and fell in the middle of the road and not a bag or anything. Not a single person was in the vicinity except for a few of us. I was totally stunned for a few minutes and had no idea what to do. 2 Two of my buddies rushed forward without thinking anything, they ran, shouting & screaming, picked up the victim, banged on the land cruiser and made the driver open the back doors. They then told the driver to rush to Khoula Hospital. All this happened in just a few minutes.

Two things that I observed from this incident is the fragile nature of our lives, and the total lack of selfishness on the part of those friends of mine. They did not think about anything other than saving the poor victim, it is truly something commendable, especially for me since I am coming from India where I have seen dire situations where people are are only worried about saving their own asses. Well all this highly influenced me and I have decided to make some concrete, significant changes. Period.

I hate Lotus !!!

2010-04-20T19:30:00.001+05:30

Well guys after nearly a decade of not blogging I am trying to break back into blogosphere. I thought I would make it really interesting by starting the new innings with the coverage of the launch of Lotus cars in Oman. Let me be very frank, I was never a big fan of Lotus or in fact of British cars in general especially the ones that started their life in a shed/garage, or as in the case of Lotus in a stable behind a railway hotel !!!! After several owners washed their hands off it, including GM and the owners of Bugatti, guess who owns Lotus now ??......the world-renowned-high-quality-perfomance car manufacturer........The one and only Malaysia based Proton !!!!!!! Yup, WTF is the exact feeling that went through my mind also when I heard this news.

The famous Proton of Malaysia...You will find hundreds of them...but only in Malaysia

Now you may or may not be wondering why I am so anti-Lotus, but to be fair to them I have to tell you the truth, Lotus is a very well acclaimed manufacturer of premium sports 'drivers' cars. They are actually powered by Toyota engines, and unlike the W12, 1 million bhp and 1000.6 litre engines in most sports cars, the Lotus babies have just 1.6 and max to max 1.8 litre Toyota engines in the most premium model. A 1.6 litre Toyota that is going to set you back at least R.O. 20,000 (to put things into perspective let me point out the fact that a Toyota Yaris has a 1.5 litre engine and the old Toyota Echo used to have a 1.3 litre one !! ). These cars are not at all meant for the daily driver. A lot of amenities that most petrolheads in the middle east love are not even on the options list simply because this car is meant to perform on the tracks and not meant for showing off to a lady friend or for a long drive to Salalah (unless you don't mind having a backside that feels like bricks by the time you reach your destination !!).

Another beautiful Proton, the Wira....what a name and what a backside....looks like somebody gave it a sound thrashing !

Well the real reason behind my hatred towards the Lotus brand, other than the facts that they are pathetic looking wannabes and that they are British, is that yesterday was the launch of Lotus in Oman. They organised a media launch inviting the few journos in Oman who knew how to drive a manual and the event was held at the Oman Automobile Association tracks at Seeb. Whichever pea-brain organised this event forgot that Lotus has absolutely no brand following in Oman and most people here don't even know what a Lotus looks like.....and so guess what they did ??? They banned all public from the event......and not just public.....but hardcore, die-hard, ascertained petrolheads like me and many others were not even allowed inside the premises to even catch a glimpse of the beasts....I really doubt whether they were having a test drive inside or were providing some other 'services' to high net worth individuals in order to cajole them to buy a Lotus or two !!!!!

I was there at the venue even before the organisers were and those nitwits didn't even consider my continued plea for an entry into the place....finally I decided to break in.....did a 360 degree scan of the OAA premises and found a nice little spot where I could jump in and watch the whole show ( 'Prison Break' is really giving me a little too many ideas thats gonna get me into some serious trouble sometime soon !)....

The ROP guys standing guard at the venue....;-) just kidding...just a poor traffic cop...

...well I almost did break in, if not for the fact that the very next property adjacent to the OAA is some buildings belonging to none other than the ROP and the whole place was milling with people in Khakis ( The vehicle registration center and vehicle inspection centres are right next to the OAA plot ). Damn man, I could hear those babies screaming and howling on the tracks and all I could do was fantasize about the lucky privileged basketballs driving them around the tracks.....and guess what ?? as soon as I left the main entrance a 3 ton truck drove into the huge cut-outs placed in the front of venue and tore them apart...hehehe....and the tragedy doesn't end there......it seems that one of the journos who couldn't actually drive a manual drove one of the Lotus onto the tires placed at the sides of the track and broke the car......and he blamed it on the brakes not functioning properly......You deserve it Lotus......for not knowing the fact that every car that has become a supercar is because a million teenagers have put posters of those cars besides their beds and dreamt about them day and night, and one day when those very same teenagers made it really big, they went and bought those crazy toys which they could not when they were much younger (How else can you explain the crack successes of Hummers and Lambos, and to an extent every supercar on this planet.....they all tickle the inner child within us). So next time if any carmaker wants to assure a good public opinion or at least a good review on this blog, BETTER LET US IN !!!! All I got was a lousy pic of the lights of the events (there were 2 laser beacons that were lit up to make it look more attractive but god knows for what since nobody was invited anyways) from the rear side of OAA.....for the time being guys be satisfied with this......I promise you that there will be an amazing article coming up this friday, post the Red Bull Drift competition....at least those guys know how to market a product well.....Well guys honestly saying Lotus may not be that bad a brand, and all the comparisons that I made earlier to other Toyotas are totally irrelevant as you must have already guessed or known, in the car world, god is in the details, F1 races have been lost just due to different tyre manufacturers !!! So simply comparing a highly engineered product like the Lotus to a Yaris may be unfair...but say what you may what they did was not right, period.

Yup...this is all I could get....obviously I cannot share the sounds of tht nite... so for now this is it !

a new beginning.....

2010-01-12T20:46:00.002+05:30

No more words......just action......inshallah this time it will be the start of a definitive new chapter of my life.

Another long hiatus

2009-10-17T18:44:00.007+05:30

Ok.....I know this is becoming a regular thing now......but this time I think I have gotten over my writer's block and will be in blogosphere for a longer duration than any of the previous blogging spells I have had......and you know why ??

....because of that beautiful little plastic document that bears a smiling picture of myself during my college years........that is my Omani drivers license which I got after a long, hard struggle of 6 months and several trips to the interiors of Oman.....well I finally got my ticket to independence and I am having an absolutely fab time with my cute little company car.......

........thanks to the greatest financial meltdown since 1930's the only ride my company could afford at a moment's notice is a spanking new Kia Rio which they have given me till they sort out my lease agreement and give me a slightly more respectable ride sometime soon inshallah.....but the manual tranny and the peppy engine of the Rio is taking me back to the very basic pleasure and sheer thrills of motoring........throwing the car around the roundabouts and spinning the wheels while at it.......traffic signal drag races.......honking at hala halas ('hala' is arabic for 'hello' and me & my buddies refer to really hot chicks, especially arab ones as 'hala hala' literally translated as 'hi hello' but the implied meaning is 'hi sweetheart , would u like to go to bed with me ?')....the car doesn't look much believe me its a really responsive and enthusisatic ride and highly recommended to beginners learning their ropes around Oman's motorways......and the fuel economy is awesome....just 4 bucks ('bucks' as in 'Rial Omani') will get it tanked to the brim and running for around 500 kms !!!!

Some nice 'hala halas' at the Dubai Air Show (photo courtesy - Gulf News)

So finally my dream of a new kind of blogging has come true.......this blog is going to transform totally into a petrolhead's dream come true and I am going to change myself and my lifestyle along with it........watch this space to know what is actually in store.......

My Man

2009-05-17T17:27:00.014+05:30

STATUTORY WARNING : This article is strictly for mature, adult (over 18 or 21 years according to your national rules), open-minded, free-thinking, hippie-loving crowd of dudes and dudettes out in this crazy frickin world brimming with regulations, restrictions and crazy, looney laws. This is not an attempt to popularise/glamourise substances that maybe illegal in your country of residence. This article is only for educational and research purposes.

He's the ultimate !!!! The ultimate manly man !!!!

Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger, born July 30, 1947, is a true legend. Born to a ruthless Austrian police chief and a previously widowed mother, growing up was a very tough experience for young Arnold. His father never believed Arnold was his own child and didn't care for him, while showering love on his elder sibling. But none of this prevented Arnold from dreaming and achieving his dreams. Having a deep carnal hunger for fame and success, he believed that body-building was his ticket to 'the land of opportunities'. He became the junior Mr. Europe at age 18 followed by Mr. Europe and the runner-up title of Mr.Universe at age 19. One of the judges at the Mr.Universe competition realised the potential in him and helped train him. The hard-work paid off when in the very next year 1966, aged 20, Arnold Schwarzenegger became the youngest Mr.Universe ever. This victory was followed by a massive tally of 4 more Mr.Universe and 7 Mr.Olympia titles.

He got his break into Hollywood and the first major movie he acted in, 'Pumping Iron', was literally all about pumping iron. After a couple of duds, James Cameron signed him for the all-time classic 'Terminator' and rest is the stuff Hollywood legends are made of. At the high point of his career, in the early 90's, the one time illegal immigrant was the biggest movie star in entire world. The cherry on the icing of course was his governorship of the state of California from 2003 till date. His personal wealth is estimated by some to be around $ 800 million !!!!!

It just warms my heart to know that a legend like him does not entertain crazy notions and in fact even supports the use of weed......since his position requires him to be very diplomatic about the whole thing if he doesn't want to step over a lot of feet and end up with his own foot in his mouth he makes sure that on the record he doesn't encourage marijuana use......but his several statements definitely portrays that he is a knowledgeable, sensible person and most importantly a dude guy who used to smoke up a joint or two back in the day.

He himself has proclaimed that he was a recreational marijuana user and has often burned one down with the Canadian actor/musician Tommy Chong. First thing to say is tht its nice to some real honesty from a politician. Arnold is not afraid to tell his version of what he feels on the matter, in fact he even admits that he rallied to include a scene in his first major flick 'Pumping Iron' that shows him inhaling pot smoke. Secondly, unlike other guys who just try to do the safe thing, Arnold has called for a debate on why marijuana is still considered illegal in USA. If your read this article then you will seriously doubt the reason why marijuana is actually banned in USA and most other countries that followed suit.

When asked whether he considered marijuana as a drug, Arnie's smart-ass reply was "It's not a drug its just a plant" !!!!! This dialogue just reminded me of a very famous line of George Jung (a very very famous drug baron beautifully enacted by Johnny Depp in the 2001 movie 'Blow')....... Jung was arrested in Chicago for marijuana smuggling in 1974 (he was caught with a total of 660 pounds of marijuana imported from Mexico). He had been staying at the Playboy Club where he was to meet a connection that would pick up the marijuana. The connection however, was arrested for heroin smuggling and informed on Jung. When brought before the judge George Jung argued with her about the purpose of sending a man to prison "for crossing an imaginary line with a bunch of plants" !!!!! His argument despite being 'ballsy' didn't really help him and he was sent to a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut.

Below is the list of famous people who have admitted in one way or another that they have smoked cannabis or have been associated directly with weed.........I don't take any responsibility for the names put up here coz even I was surprised when I saw Lord Ganesh's name in the list !!!!!

• Abbie Hoffman
• Abraham Lincoln. On a Hohner box cover but disputed.
• Al Gore.
• Aldous Huxley
• Aleister Crowley
• Alexander Dumas
• Alice B. Toklas
• Allen Ginsberg. Poet.
• Alexis Korner. Musician.
• Andy Warhol. Artist.
• Annita Roddock. Founder 'The Body Shop'.
• Anjelica Huston. Hollywood actress. Jack Nicholson's girlfriend for 17 years. Pro-drug statements by
her in Peter McWilliams book, 'Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in
Our Free Country'.
• Arthur Conan Doyle. Author, creator 'Sherlock Holmes'.
• Aswad. Musicians.
• Beatles.
• Bill Clinton.
• Bill Gates. Not confirmed, just very strongly hinted at in the Playboy interview
• Bill Murray Arrested for possession
• Bob Denver.
• Bob Dylan. Poet, singer, song writer.
• Bob Marley. Poet, singer, song writer.
• The Bishop of Monmouth.
• Brian Eno. Singer, song writer. Signed 'Independent' list.
• Boy George.
• British Lords & MP's - too many to list .
• Buddy Rich.
• Cab Calloway. Jazz musician.
• Carl Sagan. Author.
• Caroline Coon. Artist, founder 'Release', manager of the Clash.
• Carl Segan . Author.
• Carlos Santana. Musician, guitarist.
• Carrie Fischer.
• Cary Grant.
• Cary Mullis. Nobel Laurate, Biology
• Charles Beaudelaire
• Charles Dickens. Claims but no evdience.
• Cheech Marin.
• Chris Armstrong. Footballer, tested positive.
• Chris Conrad.
• Chris Farley. 60's singer.
• Chris Rock.
• Conan O'Brian.
• Count Basie. Jazz legend.
• Dame Ruth Runsiman. Author; Police Federation Report (March 2000) advising liberlization.
• Dave Gilmour . Musician ; Pink Floyd.
• Dave 'Tinki Winky' Thompson - TV personality (UK); the Tellie Tubbie that was sacked.
• Diego Rivera.
• Dion Fortune.
• Dioscorides.
• Dizzy Gillespie.
• Douglas Adams. Author.
• Dr Francis Crick. Nobel Prize winner.
• Dr Lester Grinspoon.
• Dr Mark Porter. TV doctor who says cannabis is not more harmful than alcohol.
• Dr Anne Biezanek (authoress)
• Dr R.D.Laing.
• Dr John Marks
• Dr W.B. O'Shaugnessy.
• Drew Barrymore.
• Duke Ellington.
• Eddie Ellison. Ex head of Scotland Yard Drug Squad.
• Edgar Allen Poe. Author, multi-drug user.
• Elvis Presley. Singer, FBI informer.
• Emperor Liu Chi-nu.
• Emperor Shen-Nung.
• Ernest Hemmingway. Author.
• Errol Flynn.
• Fela Kuti. Musician. Afro/jazz king.
• Felix Dennis. Publisher.
• Fitz Hugh Ludlow.
• Fran Healey. Musician; Travis.
• Francis Ford Coppella.
• Francis Rabelais.
• Francis Wilkinson. Ex Chief Constable of Gwent Police.
• Fredreich Nietzshe.
• Ganesh - Hindu God.
• Gary Johnson.
• Gene Krupa.
• George Clinton. Ex President's brother.
• George W Bush. Possibly the greatest living hypocrite.
• George Gurdjieff.
• George Melly. Jazz musician (early sponsor of Legalise Cannabis Campaign, Uk).
• George Michael. Singer.
• George Washington.
• George Soros.
• Gerard de Nerval.
• Gilberto Gil. Brazilian musical icon.
• The Greatful Dead.
• Hasan I-Sabah.
• Heinrich Khunrath.
• Helen Petrova Blavatsky.
• Henri Michaux.
• Herman Hesse.
• Hiero the Second.
• Howard Marks. Author, cannabis smuggller.
• Howard Stern, Admitted it on the radio.
• Hua T'o.
• Hunter S. Thompson. Smoked weed and snorted coke with George Bush.
• Ian Botham. Convicted Cricket legend.
• Irvine Welsh.
• Kurt Cobain.
• Jabir Ibn el-Hayyan.
• Jack Herer. Author 'The Emporor Wears No Cloths'
• Jack Kerouac. Author ' On the Road'.
• Jack Nicholson. Film actor.
• Jackie Gleason.
• Jackson Pollock.
• Jane Fonda. Actress.
• James Brown. Singer, song writer.
• Janis Joplin. Singer, song writer.
• Jesse 0Ventura.
• Jerry Lee Lewis. Musician, song writer.
• Jimmy Dorsey.
• Jimmy Hendrix. Rock guitarist, singe, song writer
• Jim Morrison. Musician, songwriter; The Doors.
• Joan of Arc. Accused of using 'witch herbs' (another name for cannabis).
• Joan Rivers.
• Joe Strummer. Musician, singer, songer writer; The Clash.
• John Belushi.
• John Denver.
• John F Kennedy. Popular US president (assassinated).
• John Keats. Poet.
• John Lennon. Musician, song writer; The Beatles.
• John Le Mesurier. Tried it but said it's not for him.
• Johnny Cash.
• John Peel. DJ, BBC broadcaster.
• John Sinclair.
• Judge John L. Kane. Chief Judge from the US District Court
• Julie Christie. Actress.
• Jules Verne.
• John Wayne. 'I tried it once but it didn't do anything to me.'
• Kelsey Grammar.
• Ken Livingston. Mayor of London - supports decriminalisation but does not smoke or support the use
of recreational drugs.
• Kirk Douglas. Actor.
• Kurt Cobain.
• Larry Adler. Harmonica player and
friend of George Gershwin. May have written a song about it.
• Lenny Bruce. Comedian.
• Lewis Carroll. Author 'Alice in Wonderland'.
• Linda St Clair
• Little Richard. Musician.
• Lord Avebury.
• Lord Byron. Poet.
• Lord Deedes.
• Lord Tony Gifford. QC, civil rights lawyer.
• Louis Armstrong. 'Oh what a wonderful world'.
• Louis Hebert.
• Mark Thomas . Comedian.
• Marlon Brando. Actor.
• Martin Sheen.
• Mary Shelly. Author 'Frankinstein'.
• Mary Tyler Moore.
• Mick Jagger. Singer, song writer, The Rolling Stones.
• Michael Mansfield QC. Lawyer.
• Jade Jagger.
• JC 100. Fastest rapper in the west.
• JT Moore. Legendary white rasta guitarist.
• Mike Tyson.
• Miles Davis. Jazz/rock drummer.
• Mo Mowlan. Genuine honest politician.
• Modigliani. Sculptor.
• Montgomery Clift. Mentioned in his biography.
• Neil Diamond.
• Nick Hornby. Author.
• Niel Young. Musician.
• Norman Mailer. Author.
• Oasis. Rock band.
• Oliver Stone.
• Oscar Wilde. Poet.
• Pablo Picasso. Artist.
• Pancho Villa. Mexican bandit revolutionary.
• Paul Flynn. Uk Member of Parliament.
• Paul McCartney. Musician, song writer; The Beatles.
• Paul Simon. Musician, song writer.
• Pharoahs of Egypt. Traces in body samples.
• Phil Donohue.
• Phil Tufnell. Former test cricketer, now media celeb.
• Peter Fonda. Actor; 'Easy Rider'.
• Peter Sellers. Actor, comedian.
• Peter Tosh. Musician.
• Philip K. Dick. Science fiction author.
• Pierre Burton.
• Pierre Elliot Trudeau.
• Pink Floyd; Syd Barret and Roger Waters.
• Prince Charles. Heir to the Throne. Quoted while visiting a hospital; 'I understand cannabis is good for
medical use' .
• Prince William.
• Prince Harry.
• Pythagoras.
• Queen Arnegunde.
• Queen Victoria. Used it for medical purposes.
• Ram Dass.
• Ray Charles. Musician.
• Rev Kenneth Leech.
• Richard Branson. 'Virgin'. Entreprenur.
• Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize Laureate physicist, founder of quantum electrodynamics.
• Richard Prior.
• Richard Wilson. Actor; 'One Foot in the Grave'.
• Rimbaud. Author.
• Robert Burns. Mentioned it in a poem.
• Robert 'King' Carter. Grower.
• Robert Anton Wilson. Author.
• Robert Mitchum. Jailed 90 days for possession of marijuana, 1949.
• Roger McGough. 60's liverpool poet.
• Rolling Stones. Rock band.
• Ronnie Scot. Jazz club owner, musician, busted on stage 1958, at his club in Soho, London.
• S Club 7. 'Super clean' pop band, busted in Soho, very embarrassing.
• Salvador Dali. Artist.
• Samuel Beckett.
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Poet.
• Shen Nung. One of the fathers of Chinese medicine. 2700 B.C .
• Sinead O'Connor. Singer.
• Sidi-Hidi.
• Sigmun Freud. Shrink.
• Sonny Bono.
• Super Furry Animals. Welsh band who wrote a song about Howard Marks.
• Stephen King.
• Sting/Gordon Sumners.
• Tariq Ali. Activist Writer.
• Tenessee Williams. Author.
• Terence McKenna. Author.
• Terry Gilliam. Actor, comedian;Monty Python.
• The Who. Rock band.
• Thelonius Monk.
• Thomas Jefferson.
• Timothy Leary.
• Tom Lehrer.
• Top Tories. Senior members of the shadow cabinet.
• Tony Elliot. Publisher, 'Time Out.
• Tracy Blevins. Artist.
• Tuppy Gore.
• UB40. Band.
• Victor Hugo.
• Vincent Van Gogh. Artist.
• Walt Disney. Cartoonist.
• Walter Benjamin.
• Whitney Houstonn. Busted at Hawaii airport but ran away.
• William Burroughs. Author, poet, artist.
• Will Self. Author. Did smack on Blairs plane.
• William Shakespeare. Playwright.
• William Straw. UK Home Sec Jack Straw's son. Cautioned for supplying undercover journalists in pub
'shocker'.
• Willie Nelson.
• Winston Churchill. British Prime Minister, poet, artist & multi drug user.
• Woody Harrelson. Actor. Features in a book on growing medical marijuana .
• Zoroaster. Persian prophet.

Now that is a pretty long list......and thts just the really famous people that I could find, I am sure there are loads more who have openly declared their love for ganja and I am also sure there are several thousand closet ganja smokers too !!!!!!.......I am not doing a propaganda blog post proclaiming weed as the saviour of the world or anythin......but I just want people to be given their independence in deciding whether to smoke up or not !!!! Well I am saving up for my trip to Amsterdam to really trip out !!!!!

She deserves it !!!!

2009-05-15T00:42:00.005+05:30

Whoa !!! One guy slaps his wife and suddenly this small domestic incident has taken on a life of its own........hundreds of blog articles, countless human rights activists literally starving for justice, media headlines, talkshows, protests and what not !!!!! Next thing we'll be hearing that the woman who got slapped will be writing a book on 'Islamic oppression of the fairer sex by chauvinistic pigs' and I am sure its gonna be a smash hit, making her a millionairess, leading to her own talkshow, media glory, hollywood contract, possibly an emmy nomination and what not........at least then she can spend how muchever she wants on her abayas !!!!

Personally I would try my level best to not resort to any violence against women, but in this case I am not really sure.......yeah its right that the Saudi Arabia is a pretty strict place for us normal humans to survive, but this female asked for it.......first of all she goes and buys a R.O. 95 abaya (thats nearly Rs.12,250 for a black piece of cloth), then instead of tactfully dealing with her hubby, she manages to get slapped.......and then to top it all, instead of making the guy understand his mistake or realising her own mistake, she goes and files a case.....what the hell man.......its just a slap rite ?? If everytime we get a little angry and slap a person then most people on earth would be behind bars !!!! I can understand if a stranger somes and slaps you for no reason we can go to the police, but do we go and file a case whenever ourparents hit us ???

Only in Kerala !!!

2009-05-13T19:30:00.004+05:30

This can happen only in Kerala......some really smart-ass malayali guy is trying to save some tax rupees by registering his frickin Ferrari 575 M Maranello as a TAXI !!!!

(for foreign readers and ignorant indian baboons.....in India, taxis are compulsorily registered with yellow number plates and have to display the plates on the sides of the car, apart from the regular front and back number plate slots.....notice on the rear of the car ???....and private vehicles have white number plates )

U know what ?? I am proud of this guy ....... he is driving around in a multi-million rupee Ferrari , which drinks like a gazillion gallons of fuel for every mile but he gets real thrifty when it comes to payin the taxes !!!!...........I am real happy that the good-for-nothing politicians and the useless government isn't getting any money from him....the bloody 120% tax is a too frickin illogical amount to pay !!!!

Sagar Alias Jacky - Review

2009-05-06T14:08:00.014+05:30

Sagar Alias Jacky - Review

Cast: Mohanlal, Bhavana, Suman, Jagathy Sreekumar, Shobhana, Nedumudi Venu, Manoj K. Jayan, Ganesh, Vinayakan, Baiju, Sumeeth, Sreeraman
Director & Cinematography: Amal Neerad

Producer: Antony Perumbavoor

Music : Gopi Sundar

Lyrics: Rio Joy

Art Direction: Joseph Nellickal

Screenplay/Script: S N Swamy

Marketing is a very very important concept in today's world. If we just look around us we can see extremely brilliant marketing concepts created by marketing whizzes who get paid 4 and 5 digit salaries (4 and 5 digits in Rial Omani). In fact several people believe that the life we live today is entirely controlled by multi-national corporations and advertisements (remember 'Fight Club' ??)……well that is another topic for another day. Several great movies have attained Hall of Fame stature and record box-office collections only because of good marketing tactics and several wonderful movies haven't reached mainstream audience because of lack of proper marketing. 'Kaante' is a prime example of brilliant marketing techniques. A lot of hype was built around the movie before its original release date, and its release got delayed more than once, in fact its release got delayed by several months, people were waiting with bated breath and when it released it became bollywood cult classic. Yes a lot of it is due to the huge style quotient of the flick, but the truth of the matter is that the script nor screenplay is really very exciting……for a true movie buff its an insult of Tarantino's classic 'Reservoir Dogs' on which the movie is based, but who cares, the extremely stylish actors, cult dialogues, and absolutely splendid technical perfection of the movie has made it a must-watch bollywood flick.

21 years back a super-hit Malayalam film 'Irupatham Noottandu' ('20^th Century' for non-malayalees) rewrote box-office records of that time and also the malayali viewers perception of the underworld. This is the movie in which we get introduced to the charismatic gold smuggler Jacky, Sagar alias Jacky (Mohanlal, for those of you living in the Stone Age). Sagar is his alibi in the normal world with a decent image and Jacky is the feared and notorious underworld kingpin. The movie was directed by crime-thriller specialist K.Madhu and scripted by S.N.Swamy and it was a brilliant movie with the right amounts of everything.

'Sagar Alias Jacky Reloaded' shows the gold smuggler Sagar who has now grown into an international Don, almost like the character Shahrukh plays in the movie 'Don'. Sagar has a base in Dubai and several in India and his name evokes a fear even in the most cold-blooded & powerful criminals. Nobody can stand in his way and nobody can get the better of him. Sagar has grown into an extremely shrewd Mafia Killer cum Smuggler and has many tricks up his sleeve. Well I am not going to discuss the plot of the movie anymore mainly because there is no more plot that's worth discussing.

The director of the movie, Amal Neerad, was an assistant to Ram Gopal Varma for several years, and all those years of training have really paid off. He is a technical genius with a very good eye for style. The casting, lighting, cinematography and editing are magnificent, to say the least. No other Malayalam movie except for 'Big B' ('Four Brothers' remake by Amal Neerad himself, it was his debut movie as director) has the massive dollops of style and glamour that SAJ (Sagar Alias Jacky) has. Stunning shots of exotic cars, a couple of exotic babes, great resorts, mind-blowing action sequences and really stylish guys are the main features of this movie. All the actors who played a role in 'Big B' have managed to land a role in this flick too. The movie is heavily inspired by a lot of other movies of the same genre. There's a touch of 'Sarkar' when Sagar refuses to let criminal mastermind Naina(played by telugu actor Suman) land his ships loaded with drugs and weapons anywhere on Kerala soil, there's a lot of inspiration from 'Kaante' and Farhan Akhtar's 'Don' , a Ram Gopal feeling is there throughout the movie, the climax is an exact(and I really mean it !!) copy of 'Swordfish' and of course a lot of photography and action is highly influenced by the most influential action flick of all time, The Matrix.

Loved it for : Slick Cinematography, groovy background score, trendy costumes, superlative technical perfection, a totally chic Jyotiramayi (it's really unbelievable how much the anchor of a 2-nd grade soap/family reality show has transformed into an item girl !!!)

Hated it for : Disappointing us after all that hype, lack of a plausible storyline, really damp dialogues, so many slow-motion scenes that we guys walked out of the theatre in slow-motion !! The only reason this movie doesn't get a full 5 stars for 'Style Quotient in a Malayalam Flick' is because of the overdose of slow-motion sequences and a general overdose of style.

Balls.....

2009-05-05T11:17:00.029+05:30

Several times in my life I have experienced a feeling of utter dillema in choosing whats right and whats wrong........I was brought up in a very conservative background and my dad was and still is a very very righteous person.....he just hates doing things the wrong way......he doesn't like jumping queues, doesn't like bribing people, absolutely hates cheating and lying, has never broken the law not even a traffic rule and the list goes on.....its almost as though Lord Sri Ram and Harishchandra are his role models......sometimes it is really nice to know that we are (or rather at least he is) doing the right thing......after all back in kindergarten we were thought "Honesty is the best policy" and all tht...... but then as I started getting older and more observant, more than righteous people I started observing a lot of cockheads who gave a damn about whats right or wrong and did things as they pleased.

From a very small age itself whenever me or my brother used to see a pencil or some other stationary items lying around in class we used to make sure that we get it back to its rightful owner or else leave it with the Class teacher or the 'Lost and Found' department......but almost everyday I would be losing a pencil or two from my collection, erasers (or 'rubbers' as we used to call them) were a hot item in the 'Missing Stationary' list as were rulers (or 'scales')......My first Inoxcrom ink pen, my first Parker pen and a lot many other items also found a place in tht list and soon I was getting tired of it.......I used to see kids not returning things which they would find on the floors or in desks......they wud also have a ready answer if I asked them, "Finders keepers, Losers weepers" !!!!.....man that attitude changed most of my priorities.....from those very early days itself I got caught in the confusion of doing the right thing and doing the wrong one.

Once in primary school there was some small dispute in class during lunch-break ('recess' as we most of us know it) between 2 kids, one guy was a big bully and he started pushing, shoving and bad-mouthing the other guy who actually was a nice and innocent chap......once the word 'Fuck' got into the argument (it was still a very sacred word back then and wud be used only in the most extreme of cases, unlike now when we use it more like a punctuation mark) and the smaller chap started getting thrashed several of us felt that something should be done, 2-3 guys went to call the class teacher while myself and another friend tried to pull apart the 2 buggers....after recess the class teacher came and started investigating and finally asked the bully, the small guy and me to meet her outside the class.....as soon as we got out she accussed me of using the 'F' word and when I started protesting about my role in the whole matter, she sent the guys who were beating the shit out of each other back to class and started advising me on the usage of clean language......when I insisted that I had nothing to do with the fight or swearing.....she said tht someone in class told her the whole story and tht worse than fighting is using the 'F'word and that i have gravely sinned and need to bring my parents to school to meet her !!!! I was flabbergasted....I didnt want to bring in my parents and embarass them too for something tht I had nothing to do with........I told my classteacher that somebody has told the wrong story and tht I was innocent and guess what she gave me for my innocence and naivety.....a tight slap on my left cheek with all her might !!!!!!

From then on there were several incidents that really let me down , I began to (and still) doubt most peoples value systems, what exactly is right and whats wrong..........in college there were guys who used to copy in all the exams and pass with flying colours while I foolishly upheld morals and values and stayed back for a couple more years......In the workplace there were guys and gals who used to adopt unethical methods to make their stats look good while a couple of us tried to work in the right way and always managed to lose out on the glitzy awards and recognitions which the cheaters always manged to grab.......amongst family members the guys who amassed the highest amount of money was the winner and the person to be looked upto whether they make it the right way or not....in school and college, the nice, decent guys always lose out on the good chicks and most of them never get laid and in fact are also considered losers while the no-gooders, who give a damn about studies and decency, who manage to create an anti-establishment image always land up with the gorgeous babes and date/screw several girls simultaneously......and then I started seeing a pattern.

Amongst nations, amongst politicians, amongst businessmen, amongst people, for everything it all boils down to the size of our balls........not kidding......if we have the balls to pull it off, be it right or wrong, we can achieve whatever we want......In every situation, I began by doing the right thing......helping out everybody, following the ethics, basically just doing to the word what I was taught to do by my parents and teachers from time immemorial......but then its not really hard work that matters, its smart work........after a couple of times of gettin rubbed the wrong way inspite of doing the right thing, I focussed on doing the smart thing rather than the right thing.

In a similar context : Sri Lanka has been having a terrorist problem in their own country for a really really long time now, a bunch of people of one community have been asking to split the country into 2 and give them one half !!!! How fricking ridiculous does that sound ??? .......well for a long long time Sri Lanka dealt with this issue as though it was common cold, it will come and it will go, even if you try using medication it will take its own sweet time to exit our system, all we can do is not aggravate it further. Recently they discovered that it wasn't common cold that they were dealing with but a tumor which needed to be chopped off and they finally started dealing with the issue in the right way.......better late than never......but this internal issue has caused so much discussion and dispute in the world diaspora lately.......most world leaders and humanity organisations have condemned Sri Lanka's actions and are asking them for a ceasefire......I just have one question for them.......WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GUYS THINKING ???

SITUATION 1 : On a beautiful September morning, Al-Qaeda attacked America, the attack lasted less than 2 hours and killed around 2,998 people excluding the hijackers and destroyed around 5-7 major buildings, creating a big dent in the American economy........What was America's reaction ???......a 'War on Terrorism' which till date has lasted for more than 7 years, killed at least more than 1,011,000 civilians and counting, and has destroyed hundreds of thousands of buildings, power stations. industries and effectively totally destroyed the economies of 2 entire nations.

SITUATION 2 : After years of violent and political struggle , the Tamils and the Sri Lankan government finally reached a peace accord in 1987, the LTTE refused to disarm and continued their ultra-violent methods to secure a nation for themselves....their attacks on the government has been on going for 22 years killing at least 70,000 people on both sides....killing several prominent politicians including our ex-PM Rajiv Gandhi........and when finally the Sri Lankan government gathers its act together and does something that does not even faintly resemble the inhumanity inflicted by the USA....everybody wants them to stop and they get condemned for inhumanity !!!!!

" Waterboarding is a form of torture that consists of immobilizing the victim on his or her back with the head inclined downwards, and then pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages. By forced suffocation and inhalation of water, the subject experiences drowning and is caused to believe they are about to die. In contrast to submerging the head face-forward in water, waterboarding precipitates a gag reflex almost immediately. It can cause extreme pain, dry drowning, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, lasting psychological damage or, ultimately, death. Adverse physical consequences can start manifesting months after the event while the psychological effects can last for years."

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,a member of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization spent 6 years in the most inhumane place in the world....the Guantanamo Bay detention camp......He was water-boarded 183 times in a single month by the symbol of humanity, CIA !!!!!

You guys must have heard about the Abu Ghraib prison affair......one of the most famous (or shud i say infamous)and the least revolting picture is the one on the left....for those who haven't seen the rest and have the stomach to see them click here..... the Iraqi we see in the pic was hooded and made to stand on that cardboard box for hours, there were wires tied to him and he was told tht if he moved away from the exact spot he was standing he would be electrocuted.....this was a very humane & considerate thing the U.S. Army did......

Aren't all these gross inhumanities and injustices ???......well speaking about right and wrong I really got diverted onto a totally different track, but the point is in the present world if we have the balls to do what we want, be it right or wrong, we can do it..........inspite of all the religions in the world trying to lead us in the right way, and all the education and knowledge trying to help us choose the right versus wrong, more and more people are doing the wrong thing. This is a very dangerous pattern, to say the least about it......its really high time we think about what really is right....its high time we inculcate a feeling of respect for human morals and values.......every single wrong that goes unchecked will lead to more wrongs, every negative personality that gets endorsed will lead to more following the same.....all this in turn will lead to a total destruction of the society as we know it.

From my own experiences I got the feeling that if we always do the right thing sacrificing our own well-being, we'll get royally screwed up coz at the end of the day nobody really cares whether we are doing the right thing or not, everybody cares about statistics & numbers....our boss worries about our perfomance parameters, our parents & wife worry about our bank balance, our friends worry about the number of chicks we banged.......personally I feel the moral fabric has already totally destroyed and there's no point telling anybody anything about all this. Its like each one to his own.....I just hope I'm wrong.

If you harbor different feelings or have anything to add to what I do mail me at nishanth.nadarajan@gmail.com or leave a comment for this post.

Smokin...!!!

2009-04-30T10:52:00.008+05:30

One really good thing I like about Oman is we can exercise our right to freedom of expression and free-thinking (in some aspects at least !!!)....here we can bloody smoke wherever we want…..back in India we had to always be on the watch for greedy corrupt cops who are always lookin to make a fast buck…..somebody might be getting raped or slaughtered somewhere around but the cops won’t give a damn….they r more worried about protecting the youth from getting lung cancer….crazy country….fortunately for me Sutherland (the place where I used to work ) had a smoking zone…in fact 2 smoking zones, one on the top floor (It was actually the terrace of the building !!!) and one on the ground floor ….. it was a gr8 place to network coz all the smokers would be there…..u could freely mingle with the big bosses who would come down to bust stress, with the new joinees who would come down to gape & drool at some hot chicks smoking and a lot of other guys who used to lie to their team-leaders tht they were down with the flu and just came down to the zone to while away time……several long-lasting friendships were formed in those smoking zones……and then came the party-pooper, our dear Health Minister Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss. I don’t know what he really wanted to accomplish….but he made a new rule which banned smoking zones in corporate buildings….hundreds of thousands of smokers were really let down by this inconsiderate decision of the Indian government…….the smokers used to have a secluded place where they could smoke in peace with no qualms about ruining other people’s health with second-hand smoke……but when this new law was passed we had no other option but to take it to the streets…..literally…..no we didn’t go out and protest or anything….but since we couldn’t smoke in our own private smoking zones we just started smoking outside on the roads, behind trees and buildings, inside and around fuel stations, anywhere we bloody felt like……other peoples health be damned..…and the cops ?? the cops were like astounded….at anytime of the day or night there would/will be atleast 20-30 smokers puffing away to glory outside the Sutherland building in Cochin, and similarly around all the IT and other major companies...and that was during off-peak times.....at peak times there would be like at least 50 poeple outside near the dhaba havin tea and a couple of fags…..they didn’t have and still don’t have enough manpower to round up all the offenders and charge them….so they just left us alone…..

So what did dear Anbumani Ramadoss really achieve ??...instead of reducing smoking he actually just brought the whole thing outside into public from private spaces….so now many more kids see adults and wannabe-adults smoking out in public……they get inspired and they also pick up the habit……I am not trying to promote smoking here…..what I really don’t understand is if smoking is really all that bad for people’s health why the hell is the damn thing still legally sold everywhere ?? there is not a single shop in India that does not stock cigarettes, how many places stock cocaine, heroin or potassium cyanide ?? none…why ?? coz they are seriously injurious to health……so if tobacco and tobacco products are so injurious to health then shouldn’t these products be totally banned so that nobody uses them, so nobody is at risk ???

I am a huge fan of Discovery Travel & Living , and in it they used to show these restaurants & cafes in France where people used to sit around, chat , have a couple of muffins & coffee and smoke !!! …..yeah smoke !!!…..man I used to think that France was the ultimate country….the place where free-thinking and freedom of expression was really enforced and practiced….and then I came to Oman…..Initially due to the hangover of being in the smoking-repressed India for such a long time, and being out of touch with Oman for such a long time I didn’t know what was legal and illegal here…..and most of my buddies here being non-smokers they also didn’t have a clue….but now I discover that Oman is just like France, if not much better coz over here though alcoholism and drugs are not really appreciated smoking is just fine….neither the government nor the public gives a shit whether people smoke outside or inside……and that is just how it should be…..people should be given the bloody freedom to choose what they feel is right and wrong….till age 18 I can understand kids not having the maturity to decide, but after that age, if we can bloody choose governments then why can’t we choose what we want to do with our own lives…..if they are banning smoking why aren’t they banning McDonald’s or KFC, people are misusing their right to eat and hogging too much fast-food and becoming insanely obese and killing themselves….isn’t that a problem ?? Nowadays Pepsi & tomatoes have more pesticides and are more harmful than marlboro lights......isn't that a problem ?? What about all the ancient vehicles out on the road that spew out heavy black smoke ?? What about factories and power plants that turn the atmosphere into black muck ?? What about the bloody United f**kin States of America, a country so worried and concerned about pollution that it didn't even bother to sign the Kyoto Protocol ?? Isn't all these problems ???

Revamped !!!!

2009-04-29T13:45:00.029+05:30

Well after a long long hiatus its back to blogging for me......i just took a small break......the last post was nearly 3 years ago !!!!!!

Well I can explain......Like the great saying:

" Life is a kinky mistress who loves to whip ass " - The Unknown Monk

I was a very studious boy till my 10th Standard......11th and 12th was the beginning of Change, with a capital C....started focussing on everything except studies.....and then came the shift to India.....and tht too for studying engineering.....and tht too in Thrissur.....the mecca for
drinkers and no-gooders.......its not the city tht is the problem....its all the engineering students and other degree students tht are the problems......the city is the capital for drinking in Kerala and I believe maybe in India itself......there isn't a single place where you won't find a bar, and if there is one bar then I can guarantee there will be a couple more next to it, if not now then soon.....if there aren't then there will be a couple of toddy shops.......and there isn't a single place where you wouldn't find "illegal" arrack, SPEED (Toddy blended with Elephant tranquiliser), marijuana and the like....man what a place and what a blast we guys had......I got done with a 4-year course in like around 6 years...." Life is a kinky mistress who loves to whip ass "....then came a stint at a Multi-National BPO (call centre for more knowledgable readers..;-)) at Cochin, the most happening city in Kerala......had a hell of a time there too.....Finally I managed to get done with the bloody course after galactic amounts of determination and will-power ......life was just too good and i never felt like getting out of tht addictive environment......well all good things come to and end.....so I left India....came back to Oman and believe it or not have actually started working here.......started doing normal, routine things like......stayin with my parents, going to bed by 11, having 3 square meals a day ........" Life is a kinky mistress who loves to whip ass ".....

Its a totally different direction for me now......though I was almost literally born and brought up in Oman (I stepped foot, rather I crawled on my knees here when I was like 3 months old), the place is very foreign to me now.....more because nobody I knew back then is still here.....all my friends have left for either India or Abroad, all those family friends, uncles and aunties have also left back to India or to Dufai or somewhere else......and the development here, maybe not astronomical like in the neighbouring UAE, but nonetheless tremendous......lots of new buildings, tourism projects, nightclubs, multiple-flyovers, ferraris, lambos, and a disgusting amount of Hummers.......man this place has been heavily renovated......so i felt since my whole life has changed, since my "Motherland" Oman has changed so much, my blog definitely needed an upgrade.....Also the last 3 years has changed me and my viewpoint a lot.....I have been reading a lot, watching a lot of stuff and have been to a lot places and done a a lot of things....a couple of new role models have come up- Jeremy Clarkson, Swami Vivekananda, Shahrukh Khan, Richard Branson, Robin Sharma and many many other guys (No girls in this list...hehehe...weep whoever amongst u r feministic chauvinistic pigs !!!!).........So all this will definitely have an influence on the articles here....Hope u guys like it....constructive criticism is always wlecome....just shoot me a mail or comment ........Keep watching this space for more upgrades and updates......Hopefully this will not remain another unkept resolution !!!

CAT,MAT……..WHAT?????

2006-08-13T11:32:00.003+05:30

STATUTORY WARNING : This article is for the strictly non-intellectual, moderately ambitious and most importantly extremely lazy under-graduate students who aren't interested in doing a technical job and for those who can't work their lazy asses out of their engineering courses but aspire to boss around other people who are way smarter than them (sounds like you ?? Well it definitely sounds like me).

How many of you guys are writing the CAT,MAT,GMAT….and the other management examinations ??

Well in case totally ignorant people are reading this then for your kind information :

- MAT 06 first batch exams are over and the second MAT 06 is on the 3rd of September , last date for sending the application forms is 12th August 06 (in case you didn't know MAT exams are held twice a year, I didn’t know that !!!!)

- CAT 06 exams are on the 19th of November 06

- MAT 07 will be held in the months of may and september 07.

- For details of GMAT and the other exams that I probably have never heard of, you may pay a visit to the internet or your resident education counsellor.

Well those of you who know me might be wondering when I started thinking and planning about the future….and that too collecting info on these exams…well people you didn't believe me when I said I was topper did you ( check the previous post " long long time… " )??

No I'm serious…..it's long past time for us to decide what we want to do with our future (I know, I know that 99.9999% of my friends, most of whom are the intellectual type might have already got placed in one of the big MNC's and might already be planning which university their grand-children would study in, but as I said this article was meant only for the smart last-minute types like me….). I have been really late in getting myself upto the task, but better late than never as they say.

Joining engineering was a great idea but I can't even imagine a future in a pure white lab, working my ass off worrying about the Q-point of the second electron level of the thermoelectric equilibrium of monostable multivibrators, or designing the appropriate cut-off for the zener diode to be used in the 3rd emitter-follower stage of the impedance matched fixed frequency active filter enabled tunable oscillator or for that matter even the simple task of debugging the MPLAB program of the PIC 16F873X and 80196 microprocessor based meridian indicator…. (frankly I have a really cool imagination, but THIS is beyond my scope...) .

I'm serious …. I don't want to be soldering capacitors and resistors onto PCB's till the day my hair starts greying and growing thin. Oh yeah before any wiseguy says it, I really don’t think I have the capability or time to invent or discover something new and become world famous and filthy rich.

So my nearly obvious choice was to think about MBA….but I realized very late that I won't be getting anywhere near my dreams with just an MBA….that the MBA should come from a very reputed institution even if I just want to be a team leader at Gill Bates founded Microtough Inc. The giant companies won't even consider you if you aren't from the top 20 B-schools. And for getting there, there's only one way, and that way is the long, tedious, curving, pot-hole ridden and highly traffic polluted MAT and CAT examinations (an estimated 2 lakh+ students are writing CAT this year….from which only 2000 will get to the B-schools, from which only 1200 students will get the honour to rub shoulders with the world's greatest management gurus at the IIM's).

Hey these exams are not beyond the scope of anyone. It's easy, ok maybe that's not the way to put it…. It's not all that tough….if we try I'm sure we can make it. Actually I had got so nail-bitingly nervous about my future prospects that I paid a visit to an astrologer, he checked out my birth time and did several other calculations and came to the conclusion that I should start working immediately after my B.Tech or else I'll find it very difficult to find a suitable employer and might spend the rest of my life doing the family business or staying unemployed….but he said that if I get into a really good college for my higher studies (he must have meant the IIM's) then after my Masters, my 'Rajayogam' (period of life where we enjoy fame, fortune, and all the other good things and don't have any disappointments at all) will begin. So people, pray for me….and if anybody's got anybody who can pull strings at the IIM's or those who are placed in good firms and are in a position to recommend me to their companies, please let me know coz if I neither get a job or admission to the IIM's then I'm doomed …. On second thoughts soldering capacitors and resistors doesn't seem to be such a bad idea after all.

(P.S. - hey people that link called 'comments' is not kept there for beauty…. give me a feedback on what YOU think about my blog)

Long, long time.......

2006-08-08T12:50:00.001+05:30

I was on a long vacation and didn't take my laptop, PDA , Blackberry and other gadgets along........i really needed the break.......first of all , i was getting crazy with this engineering bullshit of a syllabus......all the guys in my university were cursing me for getting the Gold medal for breaking all the records in the fifth semester examination results and seeting an all-time high.....and then the calls from the companies began.....Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and all the bloody dot.com and software companies in the world were ringin me and begging and cursin and threatening.......first i didnt take them so seriously............ but when Bill Gates turned up at my doorstep, i decided to RUN...........i could cope with the anger and irritating behaviour of the nerds and the company honcho's but the girls ????......what could i do about them ????? so many were ready to sleep with the hostel warden in order to get an entry into my room........1 or 2 girls were ok, but a crowd of a thousand babes outside by bathroom trying to break in is impossible........i was living a life like a damn intelligent, extremely handsome & lovable and very very smart white lab mouse..........constantly under a million eyeballs..........the pressure to satisfy everyone was just too much ..........so i had to leave it all .....my engineering texts & books, the call letters & HR phone calls, and the gorgeous girls.......i really needed this break.........so i just threw away my mobile and my laptop and took the next flight to my dad's private island at Malibu...............and thank god that to reach there you have to fly at least 2 hrs from the nearest airport, and cross a lagoon infested with the deathly-poisonous blue spotted crocodile, and the lethal Kaka flies (f*ck, they are as big as a big cow !@#!!!) and other natural security elements........and if i didnt have the Israeli-made Anti-aircraft missile system and state-of-the-art-security and defence system i would have been done for.......thanks to all these i was safe............now after the long siesta, i'm back.......back with a
BANG !@#!!! and how...............

.........So keep reading this page for the latest updates, gossips, exclusive interviews, exclusive photographs and scoop news of the most happening personality of the 21st century......yeah, you guessed it......its' none other than me.........luv nish

Romance....

2006-03-10T13:46:00.002+05:30

It's funny how sometimes some small emotions can change a person's entire outlook on life.One of my friends (name withheld for technical reasons....let's call him 'Tom') was a guy who had a serious problem with his self-confidence and didn't know how to deal with his emotional problems. He didnt know what he wanted to do in life.....had no particular interests.......in short had no aim and ambition, so he had no motivation to do anything, simply bcoz he didnt want or expect or aim for anything. He himself began having a feeling that he was a loser and good-for-nothing. He also had a few unique characteristics .....like being extremely slow..........and his disobedient ugly mess of what he called hair was infamous all around the campus.Let me be fair, this guy has a few obscure talents like he's damn good at maths and is a pro at Vedic Mathematics, and ....er....uhmmm......yeah i guess thts abt it......maybe he's got some other hidden talents thats not yet discovered....well forget abt his talents, what i meant to say is that he was totally under an illusion that he was a "good-for-nothing" guy (maybe i exaggerated that a bit) when in fact with a little bit of self-confidence and motivation he could have become a hero (i think this i exaggerated too much).

He studied in this all-boys school , so girls were a huge weakness for him. He used to literally stammer and stutter when speakin to girls and even the most ugliest girl(i mean it) looked like a babe to him.Then out of the blue came a girl 2 years his junior, she was a friend from another life.They both were good friends from long back but had lost contact over the years. They started smsing each other a couple of weeks back and before he knew it, Tom was in love (just as expected). But he felt that she wouldn't like him (just like how all the other girls responded to him).This girl turned out to be different though, it seems that she had a crush on him for years, and before Tom could digest the whole thing, they went on a date.

After the date and all, Tom's a totally new man, this is the first time I'm seeing a person's entire behaviour getting changed (and that too for the better) within so short a time due to a single reason like this. Tom's now oozing with self-confidence, he's all smiles these days, and has become much much more active,smart and talkative.The biggest improvement is that he now takes only half the time to respond compared to the earlier days as a bachelor.I know this guys for nearly 3 years and this is the first time he's started cracking jokes(they still have a very low standard, in fact let's not call them jokes, let's just call them nearly-funny-sentences).He's now begun to feel complete and equal with his peers. Its almost like in those Tamil movies. Or to be more precise it's like in the song "Kuch to Hua hai...." in the movie "Kal Ho Na Ho", the picturisation of that song describes Tom's emotions perfectly.

I used to think that romance and sincere love were for school days (in college romance has either no meaning or a totally different meaning, which is synonymous with 'sex').I feel so happy for this guy, and if theres anybody out there in this big wide world craving for love, then just go ahead and say it. Theres no harm if a few others also improve the way Tom has. Best of luck with ur love affairs people.......but i just love the care-free bachelor life, and i seriously don't want to improve ..........

American Pie 4 : Band Camp -- Review

2006-03-03T12:03:00.001+05:30

American Pie 4 : Band Camp -- Review

The american pie series have always been slapstick hilarious and they all portray a very realistic picturisation of high school life. Yeah it's true that all of us won't connect to all thats shown in these movies , coz the high schools in the US are worlds different from those in Oman or India. But there are many small and big things that we can relate to our high school and college life.

AP4 :Band Camp is an extremely rib-tickling concoction of teen naughtiness and romance. The central character is Matt Stifler (played by Tad Hilgenbrinck) whose the younger bro of the famous pain-in-the-ass "Stiffmeister" Steve Stifler of the ealier american pie movies.Stifler Junior is no less naughty and everybody hates him without an exception.

Matt Stifler does a prank on the senior bandeez ("bandeez" is the term used for the geeky kids who form the school band) and things go awry and finally stifler Jr. is caught red-handed and naked backstage. He's sent to the counselor who's a weirdo and call himself "Scherminator". The Counselor decides to punish Matt by sending him to an annual camp of the Bandeez. Matt goes totally wild , but he can't do anything about it, he's consoled by the fact that he can get to really verify whether bandeez are actually horny or not. So buys a crate of spy cams and goes to Band Camp.

Matt looks totally out of place at Band Camp and he rubs everyone the other way, all the kids from his school pissed with him and he also manages to pick up fights with the defending champions. In the process his band (The East Great Falls High School band) loses 5 points for his unruly behaviour. Then he surprises everybody by winning back those points by playing the bagpipe. His school bandeez accept him into their group and he becomes very close to the leader of the bandeez , a female with whom his bro had a brief sexual encounter somewhere back in 9th grade.

All the while Stifler Jr.'s busy planting spycams all around the girls dorms and we get to see some very interesting footage. His acting and mannerisms are very cool and we actually begin to like this prankster, the way he always gets both his feet into his mouth is superb. On the way, he transforms his nerdy room-mate into his partner in crime. Stifler Jr. brings about a lot of difference to the bandeez. He helps his roomie get a girlfriend, brings about a lot of fun and enjoyment into the other bandeez and connects with Elyse (the band leader played by Arielle Kebbel). Soon he and Elyse get romantic and things are going perfectly, when his girlfriends drop in at Band Camp. These girls are the cheerleaders of Matt's school and are considered the "cool babes". They poke a lot of fun at Matt when they see him at Band Camp , that too wearing the junior's cap and t-shirt and all. Matt explains to them that he's here only for making a voyeur video and shows them his very own "Bandeez gone wild !! " video, but unfortunately Elyse comes by and she sees her own bathing video. She gets totally blown apart and everybody once again hates Matt Stifler.His final prank at Band Camp gets backfired and instead of the defending champions getting sick, his school bandeez literally spill their guts in front of the judges and guests. That way, East Great Falls lose their Championship and Elyse's dreams of getting a sponsored seat at a music institute gets shattered.

Back at school, Stifler Jr.'s back with his old buddies, the bandeez ignore him completely and stifler feels bad about whatever he did. he deletes the spy videos and tries to make up with the bandeez, they trick Elyse by saying tht she got a sposorship at the institute she wanted to get one in and when she goes there all decked up , she finds out that her scholarship letter was a beautifully executed fake and she knows that only Matt Stifler hates her so much to do something like this. but suddenly outside the institute, her banbd starts playing the music Elyse composed with Matt in the lead playing the Bagpipes. The Director of the Institute gets blown away and immediately hands Elyse the scholarship.Elyse once again falls in love with Matt Stifler and they live happily ever after......... yeah its not much of a movie but it's fun to watch and gets u all nostalgic about our school days. The movie didnt even have a theatrical release, it was a direct DVD release movie. If u have got the time and wanna have some fun then go ahead and watch this movie......it's definitely worth a watch.

Rating : ***

Zinda -- Review

2006-02-22T12:56:00.001+05:30

Zinda -- Review

I am a huge fan of the Sanjay Gupta-Mahesh Manjrekar-Sanjay Dutt team. Their movies may not make sense, usually they end up being stupid movies. Their movies start superbly, are shot stylishly, and their technical team is one of the best. Their movies action scenes are superb, cinematography is comparable to the best of hollywood , but their only and major problem is that they start shooting with an incomplete script. So their climaxes always end up being rushed and dont fit in with the rest of the movie. It was this way with Musafir and it's the same with Zinda.

The movie is all about the kidnapping of Sanjay Dutt (a successful guy called 'Bala'jeet), his 14 years with his captors, and his revenge.The movie is entirely located in Bangkok.Bala has a wife (Celina Jaitley) who is also pregnant,so everybody's really happy, suddenly Bala disappears. He's put in a cell for 14 years, no torture and all, in fact he isn't even allowed to die. After 14 years Bala is released and he's given cool clothes, and some cash. Bala meets up with a cabbie called Jenny(the 'sexy' Lara Dutta),and she drives him around to all the eateries in and around Bangkok.I forgot to mention that Bala was served Breaded Pork for the 14 years in his cell, so he's trying to find out who cooked those breaded pork for him for those last 14 years. These scenes are shot very well and till here the script is very tight and promising, so is the music ('Strings' with their 'Yeh hai meri Kahaani..'). The 14 years spent in captivation is also shown well, the passage of time marked by the television set in the room ( yeah, Bala was living in luxury).The movie is terribly violent, close-ups of stitching of skin, drilling people, plucking teeth with hammers and all.

Then suddenly John Abraham (Rohit Chopra), comes forward, he's the guy who's responsible for kidnapping and holding Bala captive. He tells Bala to find out why. But Bala is too busy taking the clothes off Jenny. Movie's really well taken till here. But then comes the suspense, why Rohit held Bala for so long .... long back, really long back,when Bala was still in his School shorts, and when Rohit was sucking his thumb, Bala lied to his friends that he had sex with Rohit's 14-year old elder sis.Rohit's sis becomes the butt of all jokes at school and finally she commits suicide. Rohit grows up, becomes a big business tycoon, kidnaps Bala , Takes care of Bala's kid (a daughter) and kills Nisha, Bala's wife. He waits till Bala's daughter becomes 14-years old , the same age when his elder sis died. Then he releases Bala , and puts his daughter on sale at the famous Bangkok Flesh market. Bala doesn't have any friends anymore and can't do anything, so he kills Rohit, comes back to his old house, and starts sobbing there, and surprise of surprises .... Bala's daughter is there , all fine and happy. It's the worst possible ending anyone could give to a movie so well taken till the first half. sad, thats all i can say. anyways worth a watch

RATING : **1/2

My first blog....

2006-02-15T12:08:00.000+05:30

Man i really got inspired to blog by a close friend of mine who is an avid blogger herself. i just paid a visit to her blog (outlandishmusings.blogspot.com) and i was blown away. She had coaxed and cajoled me into starting my own blog and i was like " no way, i am no good at this..", Then i came to know that a closer friend of mine also blogs and i checked out his blog too (tsgowrishankar.blogspot.com) and then i knew that i had to start blogging.

....and so here is my first blog. well since i am very punctual and regular, you can expect my blog to be regularly updated. did i forget to mention that i am also not at all honest ???

well more about my life later....my 5th sem unviersity exams are going on and i gotta get studying for it.