Ode to a friend.....

My friend Ruba left.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been about over a decade since I’ve known him. It’s funny remembering how we first met. We were both arrogant gulf bred brats who met in Class 7^th in a sleepy town called Kottayam in God’s Own Country. And like all Gulf bred brats, we hated one another because either of us knew that the other’s tall tales were all a bunch of bull.

“Yes, the Sheikh and my family are very close friends”, I would boast to the group of girls I tried to impress.

And he would reply to the same group, ‘Oh, that’s nothing. The Sheikh sends his car to my dad everyday’.

“Oh really, I thought the drivers went to the Sheikh’s car rather than the other way around.”, I would respond and then we would fight like crazy, fistfights et all.

It was funny that we never got along earlier – we hated the same teachers, the same teachers hated us and we both spent a lot of time in the principal’s office, mostly together and mostly because of trying to break the other’s face. But it was in Class 8^th that we got together – our English teacher, Reena miss, decided to put all the trouble makers of the class sit together and Ruba and me sat on the same bench with Kiron between us. Now the story was that both Ruba and I hated Kiron- so since the enemy of an enemy is a friend, we joined forces to fight the foe no single superhero could withstand and on that day, the Avengers was....oops, sorry.. wrong story J… but the point is that Ruba and I got together then to buddy up against Kiron. But later, Ruba n I realized that we had a lotta things in common and eventually we turned into the best of friends.

School life was never complete without Ruba. One of my most distinct memories was once when the Chemistry teacher caught us talking in class. She picked up on Ruba and yelled at him to repeat what she had just said. Since he obviously could not answer the question, she furiously asked Ruba loudly, “Reuben!!! Tell me why do we immerse the Copper rods in Copper Sulphate solution?”

Ruba thought about it for a long while and answered conclusively with this die-hard confidence, “To kill the germs, ma’am.”

After school, we ended up in the same engineering college. While he was interested in tran’sistors’ and re’sistors’, it was my classmates’ 'sisters' I was interested in J . While he learned C, C++ and other languages, I tried learning Tamil from the Hindi people staying there. Since I was always had a feeling that the college management would one day ask for my thumb as ‘guru dhakshina’, I used to proactively give them the finger anyways. If Standard&Poor had known me then, they’d have downgraded me from ‘AAA’ to ‘???’ (or even ‘WTF’!). But Ruba was always around to my rescue. And in spite of our varied interests, we still were the best of friends and used to meet every Friday night along with half the college at our local assembly point outside college, to pay our weekly homage to Shakeela aunty.

We even liked the same women in college. While I bitched big time about him and screwed his image with the girl he was hitting on for pitching my own ulterior interests , he later took revenge by charming the girl I had a huge crush on. We also had the same set of friends – the resident heartthrob Dannyboy, Estella, ‘Frenchie’ Chandy, ‘Kambi’ Jinny, ‘Commissioner’ Maathu, the mighty meek Ashwin, Moulana mon Moulana, Jetty ‘Dash’, ‘’kaaka’ Kiron, ‘Out’ Varkey, Leejoe Shukhla and a whole lot of other characters who still color our lives in their own special ways.

After four years of college, as it was fashionable then to exchange addresses, I was quite shocked when he actually started making use of it by writing letters to me. Today, I still have some hundreds of letters he’s sent to me. Later he revealed that I was the only person in the world who ever read any of his writing.

A few years later, he moved over to Germany and even though we never kept in touch, we could always pick up from where we left in the rare calls that we made to each other.

He recently got married and he told us of his secret to gaining respect from his wife- he grew a thick moustache. And sure enough, after marriage, he was the one who wore the pants in his house, behind his apron.

My dear friend Ruba left. And it’s weird having all these thoughts running through my…..

(Door Bell rings…)

Aah, that must be Ruba back from the wine shop with the booze…

Hope he hasn’t forgotten the salted chips…

Saala hamesha bhooltha hai.

J

Google Plus - a minus from the Googlezz..

I believe I have a gift.

I believe that I can predict the future.

And my super senses tell me that Google Plus will fail.

Even without a facebook account, a great Chinese philosopher once said, about 300 years back, “The way of the world is to meet new people through other people ”

And if you look at it, this is the fundamental premise on which all social networking works on -> you find new friends through your own and on your own. And once upon a time, you could find all your childhood bum chums and chuddy buddies on orkut but later when you started getting multiple fraand-shib scraps from the neighborhood hot, sweet and sexy guy(yuck!), you moved over to facebook (moreover, everybody you know was already there). And you could connect even better with your friends through gaming, poking, sending flowers, throwing sheep and various other cool ways on facebook. And things worked out pretty well so far.

Lekin picture abhi baaki hain mere dost…

Enter Google Plus, the new social networking site from the Other Guy who has got all the answers to all your questions.

You now see yourself agreeing to God, er, sorry… Google, that :

• you do not want to have your office folk know that even though your name on office rolls is something as cool as ‘Raj Aryan Malhotra’, you are actually known as Chuppandi Ram by all your school friends; so ‘Circles’ does seem like a good idea.
• You also nod in unison that yup, it is cool that you can now chat simultaneously with 10 people on HD video chat on G+, even though you have never done that before or ever thought that you would even have a need to do so, unless it’s a meeting with your onsite clients (but who wants to have their clients to be in their friend’s list anyways?)
• You also agree that since your default browser is Chrome, your email of choice is from the G and googling is the most productive thing you do in office (besides coffee), so hence G+, from the house of Google, has got to be superb.
• You also think that since you might most probably buy a android smart phone next, so G+ will definitely have a better interface with your future phone with all the above applications (so in a way, that’s like ‘the site you don’t use on the phone that you don’t have’ J)

And finally, it’s from Google, one of the coolest company you’ve heard about. So all in all, G+ looks like a pretty darn good idea.

But my point is, you still won’t let go of your facebook account. J

My super predictive senses tell me that G+ does not have anything addictive in it to hold the attention of the user. Most of its features (superb features btw) are just me-too variations of fb or things that are slight improvements over fb. And that’s just it. Unless G comes out with something really sticky on G+, my senses tell me that Google Plus will be a minus from Google. Sure it’s still the beta version, but if the alpha version is on similar grounds, me don’t think G+ will hit the sweet spot. I predict that going forward, everyone will have both an fb and G+ accounts and that’s about it. And later due to inactivity, G+ will die a natural death; unless it comes up with something so addictive that G+ becomes the networking site of choice. Of course, my inadequate research also overlooks the opinion voiced by a few sources that G+ is not exactly competing with fb in the same space(whatever that means J) and that the market is big enough for the both players. Adding on, almost everybody I know has got a G+ account but nobody uses it for even a fraction of the number of times they use facebook. Sure stats will show that G+ notched up 20 million users in about a month but how many of them are actually as active as they are on fb?

Let me ask you three questions:

• Do you have a G+ account?

• Have you used it more than 5 times in the last week?

• Don’t you have anything better to do than read this post?

If you’ve answered ‘No’ to the third question, then screw the first two questions and follow my blog.

And about my super predictive senses, well….

I must be honest to you. I don’t have any gift of crystal gazing. I can’t even tell if my house will have gold hidden underneath it, considering that its now becoming a norm in Trivandrum for people who believe in God, Gold and Google.

Of course, I live on a hill so geologically you can’t dig there or can ever find gold...

Of course, I don’t have a house in Trivandrum…

Of course, I’m not from Trivandrum…

But I still think Google Plus will flop.

J

Whaddaya wanna be?

Life, it seems, is the world’s most popular STD.

I read somewhere that life is the whim of a few billion cells to get together to be you for a while. Pretty serious stuff if you wonder what if all those cells are like Indian politicians and if they belong to a coalition party ;).

So my big bro keeps telling me that I need a goal in life (making sure I diligently reach home on time to catch the 9 PM movie does not count). He says that we all need to make long term goals, and relentlessly strive to achieve them – that, in his opinion, is the “beauty of life” (nope, he does not know about double burst cheese pizza). Bro also says that my life is like an elevator in which I still don’t know which button to push (I know… pretty deep stuff here. And Vegas is not a button, it’s just geography J)

Since total world domination was already taken by the Austin Powers movies (and world peace by the beauty pageant industry), I needed another objective in life.

And as I looked around, I see everyone following the same path – study well, get a high paying job, get married, have kids, buy a house, go on annual vacations, work for the kids’ education and then retirement.

I wanted to go the less trodden path; I wanted to do something which nobody else did; I wanted to make my mark in an area which affects everyone, I wanted to dwell deep into my soul and find out what I really, REALLY wanted to do – in short, I wanna be a pornstar!

Ok wait, I take back that – I just realized that porn can totally suck after a while. OK, so porn’s out of the window.

I could opt for politics, since I am getting the hang of asking random fine people to vote for less than worthy causes ( vote for this post here) – but I realize that the other guy with a name that sounds similar to mine is currently lodged in Tihar, which is not exactly my choice for a holiday destination (also the poor guy has not gone beyond 2G while my devices r 4G compatible). Again, I fail to see the fashion statement in white clothes and white ambassadors – it simply crams up my style. Oh well, so much for politics.

I could be a swami (no, not that swami, u filthy mind! J) and hold the government to ransom by threatening to fast. But since my art of living is the holy glory of junk food, booze and a sedentary life (my definition of ‘work out’ is flexing my fingers to change the channel on the tv remote – so yes, I do ‘work out’ regularly ;)), I figured swamihood may not give me the job satisfaction I’m craving for. Maybe I could threaten the government by ‘accept my demand or I’ll overeat till I die’ – that could work!

Or I could be the other swami (yes, yes that very swami, u bhola sa mind! J) and I could conduct holy acts with holier-than-thou actresses in the name of holiness to help them in their holy pursuit of eternal happiness (or “nithya ananda “;)).

I could become a banker since I always had an eye for figures and (vital) statistics. But I really can’t seem to be able to keep money – there always is so much month left at the end of the money. I found out that there is a powerful urge in me to blow up money. Its only later that I realized they even had a rule about that - they call it “a fool and his money are often parted”.

I’m starting to understand that there’s more to IT than just buying shares of companies like Satyam (great idea that turned out to be). Sure the lifestyle is tempting – 18-19 hours of a desk sitting job, a computer stares at you in the face almost all day (and vice versa), you eat only fatty and oily food and that too, at irregular intervals, and your idea of social life is online chatting, youtube videos and facebooking. You work hard and party harder – even though party is defined as getting sloshed at some seedy bar with the same people you just spent office hours with. Maybe I can consider….. Oh wait, I am in IT.

Or I could be a movie star – I’d get to wear goggles bigger than my face, tell my name with a weirder accent and carry a bottle of evian mineral water all around (cos even though evian costs ten times normal drinking water and contains the same number of germs, its cooler to be seen with). But since people like Salman, Hritik n now Ajay (et tu, Devgun?) have upped the ante by being so bloody damn fit, I don’t think I could even stand a chance against them (six pack, for me, has always been a beer can denomination at the supermarket).

I might even consider being a chef like the ones on TV who emit long (mating?) drawls after sipping or nibbling anything and everything that is made with and without fire. Like Nigella Lawson, I could popularize food porn, all the while having people drool at my preposterous weight problem. Oh wait, I don’t know jack about cooking…..

Making the most of your life is really a tough call. And the irony is most people have no clue what they’re doing with life. They just flow with the flow rather than make the flow flow (in spite of so many Rajnikanth movies).

Oh well, screw the elevator.. I’m getting late for my 9 PM movie.

J

Resto-review: Healthy Affair, Bangalore

My friend Soju fasts five days a week in order to hog on junk food for the remaining two. And this bright idea has not changed his weight, his body shape or his ever expanding waist line. Soju keeps lamenting his Health-Taste theory: “Everything that is tasty is not healthy and everything that is healthy is not tasty”.

Enter Indiranagar’s new eating joint, Healthy Affair, which seeks to make healthy food tasty (or vice versa). And it just about succeeds in this endeavor.

Healthy Affair attempts to make healthy our eating out affairs. They claim to choose their ingredients themselves rather than buy the tinned and canned versions from the markets so that they know exactly what goes into their dishes. For example, they use a lot of fresh herbs, skimmed milk powder and other healthier condiments to substitute for their commonly and widely used fatty alternatives. And they say they choose their wares with a lot of emphasis on the health factor. This idea is the central theme of the ‘Healthy Affair’ way of food.For me, my lasting impressions of Healthy Affair were the ambience, the service and their philosophy on food.

Healthy Affair occupies the first floor of the building that is right behind Kyra, 100 feet rd, Indiranagar, so you need to take the left immediately after Kyra (when coming from Old Madras road) and then the first left again to see their pale green board. Parking should not be much of a problem as there are a lot of arterial roads in the vicinity.

The ambience here is very cosy and homely and since we went for lunch, we found the place to be very well lit with natural light. In fact, there’s a lot of natural light which kinda brightens up the whole place and that gives a very positive feel about the place. Of course, I did make a lunch reservation for a table for two by the window, but at the venue, I forgot about the window side and my friend and I were ushered to another table at corner of the room, which was equally good and we never gave another thought to the window bit. The crowd consisted mainly of couples, a few families and there were quite a few number of foreigners too.

The service is good, but could have been great. The hostess, Ms Krupa Dass makes sure she comes to each table, asks if you been there before and explains their food philosophy, which I felt was a nice and warm gesture. Another thing which caught my mind was that she mentioned that the table clothes were made by the NGO she runs (http://www.sukrupa.org/). I told Krupa that my friend is a vegetarian while I’m a strict carnivore and asked Krupa for suggestions . Krupa recommended the garlic mushroom for starters and the spinach pasta in white sauce for my vegetarian friend, while I started with the Chicken Satay and main coursed with Chicken pasta with white sauce. I did feel that there were limited items on the one page menu when Krupa brought a larger and more comprehensive menu card.

The food is good – there was a herby hint in the Garlic mushroom (though we felt quantity was less :)) and the Chicken Satay was well absorbed with all the right juices and hence was very tasty. The Chicken Satay is accompanied with yummy Peanut Sauce. My friend liked her Spinach Pasta in white sauce. However she did wish that the pesto sauce would have been better and that they had chili flakes and oregano placed on the table. Also, she missed her usual Iced Tea as Healthy Affair did not have Iced Tea on the menu. Or any other cold mocktails. As for my Chicken Pasta, well this is my take: yes it was tasty and supposedly healthy (or rather, healthier). But I did so very wish that there were that taste of unhealthy cheese that I always associate with pastas. Sometimes, you just wish that there was a lot of cheese dripping in the pasta, health be damned. But having said that, let me say that it was nice - so it may not be the tastiest pasta you’ve had (but it’s almost there), its most likely the healthiest pasta you would.

Also in the desserts section, we had this same taste-health riddle – all the desserts were fruit based. We settled for the Fruit Exotica – banana and kiwi in plum puree. It had a strong banana flavor and I did miss the times when I used to end any meal with anything chocolate. You tend to miss that here. What need to be admired is that they stick to their promise – the food is light on the stomach however there are those days when I wish there was cheese dripping off my spoon. Overall, good place to go. Just remember to ask them for the bigger menu – they keep another more comprehensive menu card inside, which they are ‘in the process’ of printing, and they might hand you the one page menu, which does not do justice to their fare. Another thing we liked was that we sat there from 1:30 till about 4 in the evening there; we were the last ones to leave after lunch and we just sat there chatting and nobody came to us and reminded us that it’s closing time, like some other restaurants do.

Our bill for two with two starters, two main course and one dessert came to 920 bucks.

My veggie friend promised that she’d come back again. As for me, I might too; When I feel guilty about all the junk I eat with Soju, I’ll most likely drop by for a healthy affair with eating out. But if I want pasta with cheese dripping out in unhealthy but tasty dollops, maybe not.

But I’m sure Soju will be pleased.

J

From more of my restaurant reviews, check out here.

Happy eating.

J

Change - Yours is Here

Sneha Sharma was never considered an achiever.

She graduated with us in 2005 and she got into one of those obscure IT companies and later relocated to US. But nobody knew, nobody cared. After graduation, everybody kept in touch with each other via the Alumni groups. What initially started as active conversation later turned into random forwards, job mails and finally trickled down to just the odd birthday and anniversary wishes. Sneha also posted – but again, nobody knew, nobody cared. In the latter half of 2007, Sneha posted a Happy Birthday message to the Alumni groups. Just like she had countless times before. Just like everybody else.

But this particular time, everybody knew and everybody cared.

And suddenly, after that one post, Sneha Sharma turned into an overnight celebrity. Suddenly she was the toast of the batch. Suddenly there was an immediate buzz enquiring what, where and how about Sneha Sharma. Suddenly everybody wanted to know more about Sneha. Suddenly everybody agreed that Sneha Sharma had finally arrived.

One message had catapulted Sneha Sharma into cult status.

So what did she write on that fateful day? Well, actually nothing. Or rather, nothing significant. But her post to the alumni group had a small nondescript device-generated statement just below her message and it was this statement made her the darling of the batch.

That statement read, “sent from my iPhone”.

In 2007, the world was enamored by the phenomenon that was the iPhone. In 2007, the iPhone changed the way people used, touched and saw phones. And in 2007, Sneha Sharma was the first person from our batch to own an iPhone.

And the iPhone gave Sneha Sharma a personality that she hitherto lacked.

Technology does that. You are known by the company you keep, but you are also judged by the gadget you flaunt. In fact, a recent nielsen research report claims to be able to decipher one’s personality from one’s cell phone. Try deciphering your own personality the list below:

• If you own a simple bar phone: You are a person pursuing a simple lifestyle in our modern intricate life- generally represents a person afraid of trouble, with an open mind, is a balance seeker and is health conscious.

• If you have a Slide phone and slip phone: You try to pursue a sophisticated lifestyle and are more willing to enjoy life. You are always driven by success and is a harmony seeker.

• Rotatable phone: Not really big in India yet but research says these owners are usually under 24 years old, fashion conscious, fun seekers, and individualistic. They would like to attempt new things and lead the trendy. They are usually young women who seek enjoyment, are career focused, and success driven.

It also goes by brands:

• If you own a Nokia: You’re Family Minded, Balance seekers and Health conscious middle level managers (notice the link with bar phones J)

• If you own a Motorola: You’re under 24, fashion conscious, fun seeking and highly Individualistic.

• If you own a Sony Ericsson: You’re a young guy, ambitious, individualistic and success driven professional.

• If you own a Samsung: You’re a young career focused lady, success driven but also a fun seeker.

• If you own an LG: You’re a Stay at Home Parent, you are your mom’s favorite, you are success driven but also harmony seeker.

I use a Sony Ericsson slide phone and my personality type does seem to concur broadly to the above.(Actually I’m flattered that the research says I follow a sophisticated and success driven lifestyle – only I know the real truth ;) ). But my phone means a lot more to me – it’s the first phone which I bought with my own money. Since I was always into music and Bangalore FM was a constant in my life then, this phone gave me uninterrupted and really loud supply of nonstop music (God save the neighbors!). Also, the black color gave it a sleek and sexy look. It’s lasted me more than my girlfriends have (and survived them better than I did J). For me, my Sony has always been stylish, multi faceted and ‘with it’ - traits which I myself would like to be known by. J

But is it possible to change one’s personality with the help of gadgets? Sure it is. And I’m sure almost everyone is aware of it too. Just like the Indian sari makes every lady look good, a good gadget can up everybody’s personality quotient. I remember this time when we saw this shabby guy sitting at Coffee Day and we wondered how they let him in. But when he took out his Apple MacBook Air, suddenly the same shabbiness looked immediately cool. A simple gadget changed the hitherto shabby guy into a really cool dude!!

Similarly, you can change your personality type simultaneously with choice of gadget - my dad was recently gifted an iPhone and he also uses his trusted Nokia 1100. Whenever he goes to the market to buy vegetables, my tech agnostic mom reminds dad to take the Nokia 1100 because vegetable prices have a peculiar habit of shooting up in the vicinity of an iPhone J. Similarly, whenever dad and mom comes with me for the many arranged-marriage-girl-meetings, mom reminds dad to carry the iPhone and to display it amply at the venue with practiced nonchalance to diligently look at those pesky sms-es whish are otherwise always ignored J.

Today, the hippest trend in style is accessorizing – you can accessorize your personality with multiple watches, multiple glass frames, ties, shoes, pens and now with gadgets. They can be used to suit your wardrobe and your personality. This post is written for the Dell ‘Change is Easy’ contest for the Dell Inspiron laptop and it’s claimed that this laptop can change its personality with multiple interchangeable covers, something akin to changing one’s personality by changing one’s gadgets. So if you feel today is a corporate blue day, you can accessorize your Inspiron laptop with a shade of blue to give you the corporate look; if it’s a weekend and you want to let your hair down, your laptop can sport your ‘TGIF’ style with an appropriate cover.

They say that the only thing permanent in life is change. And change we must – it’s a given. But is it easy to change? Well like the Dell Inspiron, it may just be easy to change one’s personality by simply changing one’s gadgets.

And a gadget could give you that razor sharp personality that you always craved for.

Just like the rockstar of our batch, Sneha Sharma.

J

This one's for Dell. For showing that Change is Easy. Just like their Dell Inspiron laptop, which helps you get the look that you need and the performance you want, as can be seen here.

If you like this post, vote for me here.

If not, let's go get some beer J..

Colors of India

When an Indian bride puts red on her forehead, it means a lifetime of trust, hope and commitment.

Red is called sindoor.

When a believer smears yellow on his forehead, he gives in to the Almighty’s mighty Command.

Turmeric Yellow is our glorious tradition.

When a doting mother dots a black on her beautiful born’s smiling cheek, she prays it’ll ward away evil from her young little one.

Black is a mother’s guard.

For a country of many ways, many tongues and many Gods, we remain united within our divided pursuits.

Khakhi is the protector of our unique way of life.

Our brothers and sisters, separated from us due to a partition, but still united to us at some level.

Green is our long lost sibling next door, who sadly still seems to be lost.

While grey symbolizes old the world over, it also reminds us how young we are – over half of our great population is under 25.

Grey lets us know that we will remain as one of the youngest countries in the world for a long while to come.

Between three wickets, a ball, a bat and now a cup, the hopes of a billion souls rest with the Blue.

Blue is our national pride.

Holi, Diwali, Onam, Christmas, Id, Pongal, Durga Puja and a hundred other celebrations of colors, love and happiness.

All celebrating the spirit of humanity. All celebrating the spirit of being Indian. All celebrating with color.

A mini color palate within a larger color canvas where a million dreams are given color.

A crescendo of colors called Bollywood.

One chakra. Tricolored. 28 states. A billion shades. United.

Every dream On. Every color On. Everybody On.

On a rainbow known as India.

Never Black and White.

Ever.

Sometime back in our office, we got a photo catalog of a reputed photographer with the topic ‘India in Black and White’. They displayed some brilliant shots depicting everyday images of India- tree troves, mandis, children going to school, temples – but all in Black and White . Photographic brilliance aside, after a while almost everyone felt that there was something missing in those pictures. In hindsight, we realized that the pictures depicting India missed one very important trait of India - color. Color paints a very important shade in our collective consciousness that is India – it’s part of our tradition, our heritage, our festivals, our arts, our crafts, our movies, our folklore, our Gods, our Goddesses, our prayers, our hopes, our dreams, our lives, ourselves.

There are some things that can be only in color. India was never in black and white. India will never be in black and white.

A billion colors reside united in a dream that known as India.

HP is a world leader in bringing color to life. See how the colors of India can take flight with HP Laserjet printers here.

Now, like the Indian men in white say, "Vote for me here"

:)

Picture Abhi Baaki Hai Mere Dost!!!! :)

A great philosopher once said, “Dhinka Chika, Dhinka Chika, Dhinka Chika, Dhinka Chika, Dhinka Chika, Dhinka Chika, Ae, Ae Ae Ae..” J And a country of a billion dreams is doing “the pocket TT” a la Salman. Initial reviewers of the movie said that Salman followed his last year’s blockbuster with such a bad movie. Today, it’s India’s third highest grossing movie. So who’s laughing now?

Another colorful news: Shah Rukh Khan is mega pissed that his song for his much anticipated Diwali release, Ra-One, has been leaked online. The song called “Wanna be my Chammak Challo?” done by International singer Akon (yes, SRK paid him a bomb!) has already hit half a million views on You Tube at the time of writing this post. And btw, it’s an awesome song. J

Elsewhere, Bollywood Ka Baap is smarting as his home production is being released on the same day as the home production of Box Office ka Baap, the Perfectionist Khan. When the latter refused to accommodate the former’s request for a reschedule, the former’s official quote to the situation, “Buddha Hoga Tera Baap!!!” J

Again, Perfectionist Khan refuses to attend the award functions in India where he is always a winner and he takes the trouble to go to those award shows where he loses (remember ‘Lagaan’). But we still love you, Aamir. J

While the Hollywood’s highest paid actor looked like he made one long movie, cut them into three different ones based on scenery and named them “Departed“, “Shutter Island” and “Inception” (is it only me who thinks Leo looks the same in almost all his latest movies?), our highest paid actor Rajnikanth, well, is simply Rajnikanth. His last three movies, “Robot”, “Shivaji“ and “Chandramukhi” were as different as chalk, cheese and charcoal, same formula notwithstanding….no wait, he too looks like he made one long movie and cut it into three based on heroine…oh, well…. J

Catfights aside, man fights prevail too here – Vivek Oberoi called a press conference one fine day and then he realized that he doesn’t have any good movie worth talking about to the press; so he talks about his never ending love to his lady love and how much she suffered from the other man in their life, a certain Khan. Today, Vivek still apologizes whenever the press condescends to talk with him (Yup, he still doesn’t have any good movies to talk about inspite some real raw talent).

Rani Mukherjee is upset that she’s not getting as many roles as she once did cos well, she’s looking very “healthy“ nowadays. So she vows that she’ll work up a killer bod and hit the gym with a vengeance. Latest reports state she is not able to give her dates to the gym. J

Everytime a Hritik movie comes out, his liplock comes back to the news- remember the Dhoom2 one which cost him an invite to Ash-Abhi’s wedding (Abhishek, as expected, has no idea ;)), or the Barbara Mori one (where the audience just preferred to fly kites rather than watch the movie!). Well, the latest is that Hritik’s liplock with Katrina. Who cares what happens to the movie… at least he got to kiss Katrina… rascal!

After dating half the Indian Cricket team, ‘Shanthi’ has moved on to another sport – this time, it’s Formula One, or rather to the scion of the Indian formulaone team. Oh yes, his dad also owns a cricket team.

When a superstar was fatally hurt on set, a country of followers prayed for the Coolie’s well being. He came back to health and glory and thanked his countless fans for their prayers. This was some 3 decades back. Last month, history repeated again with the robot star.

The first Bollywood movie was in Black and White. Almost 25 years after that, the first color movie came out in India in 1937. Today, Bollywood had taken flight with color so much that Bollywood single handedly colors the lives of a billion souls.

Colorful personalities. Colorful people. Colorful films.

Where else can you find so much color?

But in Bollywood.

Big fan.

J

HP is a world leader in bringing color to life. See how the colors of Bollywood can take flight with HP Laserjet printers here.

Now, for my box office, "Vote for me here"

J

How to Renew your Passport

My initial choice of topic heading for this post was ”How to fool people and cheat them” so you get the idea, rite? J

So I needed to get my passport renewed.

Now the normal way of getting it done was find an agent, allow him to fool you, pay him money for it, allow him to fool you more, pay him more money for it and after that, repeat process again and again till you’re satisfied with the fooling and the money giving. How do I know this? Well, how do you think I got my driving license? J

Now, my passport would expire in August and my friend’s wife is pregnant and due in October. So how is it related? Oh it is.

• Point no 1: Since my friend’s wife is being taken to her parents in July, he will be living a bachelor’s life again from July to December.

• Point no 2: Since he lives in Dufai (also known as Dubai amongst non mallus; else it has always been ‘Dufai’), the house that he and his wife lovingly built (knowing him, I’m sure its only his wife who built it; he was just probably drinking beer and complaining bout the damn TV reception. No wonder we’re friends J)… anyways, like I was saying, his house is free and (ok, here it comes, background music rising)… he has invited moi to spent a week of bachelor fun in the Dufai with him.

• Point no 3: My passport expires in August and I can’t travel hence. So I need a new passport.

• Point no 4: Damn.

• Point no 5: Damn again.

• Point no 6: Damn. (I just like saying ‘Damn’J.. it’s my second most popular word after the ‘f’ word. And of course, Beer. J)

So I needed to get my passport renewed.

Now in Bangalore, the process is that you need to go online, download an application form, complete it and upload it again and schedule an appointment(that’s online too). At the appointment, you need documents to prove that you exist – mostly address proof, that’s all. Sounds simple enough, right?

Well, like they say the devil is in the details; and the devil and I have been fighting ever since he took Silk Smitha away from me . It was fairly easy downloading the form (maybe my extensive years of downloading porn seems to be finally helping). Filling the form too was comparatively easier too (I’ve always was good at copying from one paper to another – my degree certificate stands testimony to that fact). But after that, it’s hell. The damn (lovely word, ain’t it?) site doesn’t open after that. I keep trying to upload the completed forms and well, the damn site simply does not open. Finally, after a week of trails and tribulations, it just opened and I was able to finally upload the completed application form. Now I needed to schedule a meeting. That’s where the damn site started to take over my life. I started waking up early morning at 9(!) just to schedule an appointment and I was never able to. The damn (lovely word, ain’t it?) site doesn’t open. They even had a toll free number, which I whole heartedly abused.

Now, I love toll free numbers. I always like chatting up with women on toll free numbers - its free and they’re the only women in my life who do not hang up after 30 seconds of talking with me. If it’s a guy, I usually practice my bad language with them – So toll free numbers always used to spice up my (non-existent) love life and spruce up my (non-intelligia) linguistic skills. So, they tell me that it’s my browser’s fault and I needed to download Mozilla or the latest version of IE to upload my form. The other crazy thing that they told me was that they only accept government forms as proof of address- so I needed to have either a public gas connection (mine’s private – damn!), or a BSNL landline phone bill address proof (mine’s Airtel – damn!) or a public bank statement with address (mine’s ICICI – damn!). So essentially, even if I uploaded the form on the site, the passport office will not accept any of my documents as proof of address. In their view, they shared the same view that all my old teachers shared - that I simply don’t exist. My dream of going to Dufai seemed that it would remain a dream only.

So then enter my cousin who said that if you’ve spent more than the last five years in Kerala, you can apply for the passport there. So we got another agent in Kerala, and I told him I needed to go immediately to Dubai. He confidently said “Dan’t werrry saaar, you will go to Dufai soon. My ungle is ollso….” . He made my application forms, told me that I needed to go to the Kochi Passport office early morning at 4 and stand in the queue. Since my address is the same as in my earlier passport and I have a valid US visa, it shouldn’t be much of a problem.

So we did as he told, stood in Kochi Passport center from 4 AM. There are lot of other agents there who try to capitalize on your ignorance. We had one agent telling somebody that the ‘place of birth’ column always had to have the word ‘Kerala’ written in it.. even if he was born in Bhopal!!! Another guy was born in Kerala but did not have the word ‘Kerala’ written so the agent said that his application would be rejected. The panicked person requested the agent to help and the agent wrote the word ‘Kerala’ in his application letter and charged him 200 bucks for the same. Finally, the counter opened, I gave in my application. It was not too difficult and the officials were quite helpful. A week later, I even had a successful police verification (they didn’t recognize me :P). And finally, I got my passport renewed (This time, I got a better pic too J).

So I tell my friend in Dufai that all is done and that I’m coming over to help him relive his bachelorhood days and he sez that he changed plans and that he’s relocating back to Kerala.

Damn!!

L

King Khan Salman

And in other news, the whole nation thinks it’s a great idea to go “Dhinka Chika, Dhinka Chika, Dhinka Chika, Dhinka Chika, Dhinka Chika, Dhinka Chika, Ae, Ae Ae Ae..” J

I can’t think of anyone but Salman who can do the “Dhinka Chika”- I mean, Shah Rukh would probably make it way too stylish, while Aamir would make it perfect in every respect while Hritik would’ve made it a dancing phenomenon or Farhan would have probably sung it in his voice too. But it is Salman and only Salman who can turn street class lunacy into a national anthem for celebrating tomfoolery and still be proud of it. It borders on vulgarity but is not; it borders on taporigiri but is not and it borders on cheapness but hell, it is not.

I can’t believe that there was a time when people actually thought of writing him off. There was a time when Salman Khan was hated by the press once upon a time. And he was known more for his exploits on the wrong side of law and love. As for today, this guy consistently comes up with not just hits but blockbusters when the going is tough- the stupendous success of the movie Ready has shown his detractors that even a critically panned movie can become the third biggest grosser in history with the right choice of Khan. And movies are not only the space where he’s touched – even in the small screen, he has made his mark for himself. Bigg Boss and Dus Ka Dham are just Salman vehicles, where he’s just being himself. He’s known to help friends when they’re down, he’s known to think through his heart and he’s known for just being himself in front of a rolling camera. And if that aint enough, today he also shows the world what ‘Being Human’ is all about. Like he always said, “Ek Baar Se Dil Nahi Bharata Mudke Dekh Mujhe Dobaara.. Tan Tana Tan Tan Tan Taara” - Give him another chance n he usually delivers.

I have an ongoing argument with my friend who’s a huge Aamir fan. She says that a Salman can never be an Aamir. I highlight that the opposite is equally true. We have this discussion where I keep telling her that while 3Idiots boasts of a great script, some great performances and a great director which helped it claim the title of the biggest Indian grosser to date, the second grosser, Dabangg, has only Salman Khan as its selling point. And what a selling it has been!

As a kid, I had this rudimentary ‘CutnPaste’ method to determine a great actor: if you can cut an actor from one of his movies and paste it in another of his movies and if you see a difference, then he’s a great actor. Think Kamal Haasan – you simply cannot cut and paste him between any of his movies. His role in Chaachi 420 is so different from what he did in Hey Ram or even Hindustani/Indian – so he truly is a great actor (yes, very juvenile I know J). So from that count, is Salman a great actor? Well, Prem’s (his most popular screen name) versatility seem to span the action genre, the comedy crowd and romance, which in Bollywood parlance, is the entire span of emotions (J). But he did deliver some awesome roles in Tere Naam or as the brooding Radhe in Wanted and Chedhi Singh has no ‘conpyujen’ that only Salman could play Robinhood Pandey with such rustic finesse n glee . So Salman may or may not be the greatest actor in town but is he a great entertainer? Oh Bloody Hell Yeah!!

If you see the evolution of the man, he’s always been doing nonsensical but fun riots like ‘Dhinka Chika’ in ‘Oonchi hai building..’, ‘Janam Samjha Karo’ and a whole lotta other such numbers, but what has changed now is the absolute confidence he has in his moves – like Farah Khan said on choreographing him in Dabangg, ”U don’t choreograph Salman, he choreographs u” - Salman feels the beat of the music, evolves it into his own way and then brings out something that is distinctly his own making. In a way, Salman has always represented what Bollywood always stood for – while the other stars carved names for themselves as the thinking man’s actors, Salman represented the jatkas and the matkas of Bollywood and today his confidence in himself is a showing of Bollywood’s new found confidence in itself.

Munni’s basically family, he was dating Shiela and his character isn’t as Dheela as it is was once made of to be. He doesn’t have an IPL team yet, he doesn’t market his movies as innovatively as Aamir and yes, he is the son of a yesteryear bollywood big daddy. But he has his name stamped on four of Bollywood’s biggest all time blockbusters, has got oodles of star power and is the guy who first showed everybody else that taking ur shirt off to show off ur six pack is really the way to go.

While Shah Rukh is the King, and Aamir is beyond superlatives , Salman is just well, just Salman.

And yes, Prem.

And yes, a bloody safe bet.

J

What is the real Ugly? ;)

A great philosopher once said, “Life badi kutti cheez hai”… since I’m not wise enough to say such profound statements, I just end up agreeing to such universal truths.

I don’t know if it’s just me but do you get the feeling that there’s a little too much of beauty all around you here (this very blog holds three instances J); so I realized that since everybody is busy thinking of the beautiful (n since I’m done with my tribute to beauty J), lemme come up with the real ugly in life. So, here’s my list of the plain harami things in my life:

• I hate the fact that whenever I go to the mall, I see absolute gorgeous angels (the super bombastic dynamite hot babe-licious type of women) hanging out with absolute creeps. I keep asking God, “What has he got that I don’t?” (Convinced by that stupid old ad, I even bought a year’s supply of Frenchie’s – my unfortunate revelation is that contrary to what that stupid ad says, Frenchies does not help at all in this dept – or maybe I haven’t got lucky enough to find out. So now I’m stuck with a whole cupboard full of undies in the weirdest of vibrant colors L). As the angel of this girl sits behind him and holds him tightly from behind on his shiny black Harley Davidson (rascal!), I hate the fact that the only person who has smugly sat behind me on my almost-in-ruin 10 year old Yamaha is the garage mechanic’s helper boy, Chinna. Life saali kutti cheez hai.

• I hate the fact that my best friend is today in a better job and has a higher pay than me. Sure, old Hindi movies have said that you should be happy for your friend’s success. Crap! I’m not!! I so wish he was as underpaid and miserable as I am. Hell, even that other worthless guy I so hated so much in college is better settled in life!! L

• I so hate the fact that my ex is today madly in love with this guy who is so much better than me - he’s rich, more educated and has got better teeth (creep!). And even though I tell her that I’ve got women swooning all around me; she, me and the rest of the world knows that the only thing swooning around me are these damn, wretched mosquitoes.

• I hate the fact that my financial status hasn’t really changed much in the last 10 years. They say that the only thing permanent in life is change and maybe that’s why I have a lot of it – I always seem to have had a lotta 1 rupee and 2 rupee coins jingling in my pockets for the most part of the last 10 years. And my zero balance bank account has always remained true to its name L.

I’m sure I can think of so many more instances when I try to convince the world that the damn glass is really half empty. When some wise guy tells me that ”Mere Paas Gadi Hai, Bangla hai…..bol, tere paas kya hai?”I humbly reply the same thing I said about my IIT exam question paper experience - “Maybe the question is wrong”.

So for all the beauty out there, here is the party pooper.

Yours truly.

J

I wanted to submit this for the contest too but the contest closed L. Readers are requested to comment and add on their versions of the Ugly Truths in their life below.

J

Don't Stand up for Soumya.

Don’t stand up for Soumya , just the way the law didn’t.

The opposing lawyers said there were no eye witnesses to what happened that night and they are trying to prove that she was mentally unstable.

Don’t stand up for Soumya , just the way the government didn’t.

The officials made the right noises and sounds initially but once the government changed in Kerala, they forgot Soumya and did not appoint a lawyer for her and have instead have started thinking about which juicy ministerial berth to focus on.

Don’t stand up for Soumya , just the way her fate didn’t.

After her father passed away 5 years ago, her mother gave up her job as a domestic helper due to sickness, and the brother being a driver, Soumya had to abandon her course in Hotel Management to take up a job as a sales girl in a mall in Kochi to become the sole bread winner of the family. She was heading home that dreadful Tuesday evening for considering her marriage proposal when the incident happened.

Don’t stand up for Soumya, just the way everyone else didn’t.

She was attacked, molested and raped by a handicapped man in the women’s compartment and her family cannot afford to fight the case. He walked into the empty ladies compartment, tried to rob Soumya, pushed her out of the running train when she fought back, smashed her head and then brutally raped her. Later he then pleaded that he was handicapped to gain sympathy. He has his lawyers and she’ll most probably end up as another news headline soon forgotten.

Don’t stand up for Soumya cos she’ll never stand ever again.

Because Soumya succumbed to her injuries and died unjust, unhappy and ruined.

Don’t stand up for Soumya.

But stand up for all the other women in your life, who could become Soumya.

23 year old Soumya was the soul bread winner of her family. She worked in Kochi, Kerala as a sales girl in a mall but she always wished and wanted to be a bank employee one day. Her abject poverty did not curb her dreams, aspirations and hopes but something else did - all her’s and all her family’s dreams came crashing down on the night of 6th Feb. Soumya had taken the train for home to Thrissur for her marriage proposal and the hopeful lady boarded the ladies’ compartment. A handicapped man boarded the empty compartment, tried to rob her, pushed her off the running train and brutally raped her.

The government started the blame game blaming the opposition, the railways, the left, the right, the center. Since governments changed, they now lost interest in it.

This post is written as an attempt to make aware, awaken and alert others of this gross injustice that can happen to any lady.

Soumya died a few days later due to her injuries.

She could never be a bank employee.

More info here.

Youtube video here.