The Super X Code

It is time for one last stand
Humans and mutants cant go hand in hand
Its also time for the man of steel to land
and demolish the bald villain's castles in sand..


When battles within and without make us sore
Super heroes are what we are searching for
Maybe we need to think about it some more
Seems humanity is what we choose to ignore


And if at the end of the road
There is indeed a heavenly abode
Would it actually lessen our worldly load
If we managed to break the code


until next time, rhyme is crime :)

Singh.. when you're happy

The Bangalore University syndicate is about to pass a resolution which will prevent boys and girls from sitting next to each other in class.. about time, i say, after all, each gender needs to have its own space... hell, no one objects when they make separate loos for guys and girls.. :)

but you cant blame these poor profs.. when guys start roaming around with long hair, and girls with short hair and all of them wear the same kind of clothes, the profs need to be able to have some sort of separation to distinguish among them... no one is thinking about the poor prof, there he is, walking around the class, lecturing and sharing a joke, he slaps a student on the back, it turns out to be a girl, and the next thing he knows, he is slapped with a sexual harassment lawsuit...

okay, okay...thats enough of slapstick.. while i admit that its not exactly the greatest move by the university, a few years back, it was definitely an unwritten practice among students to sit separately in college classes.. yeah, maybe Kerala was a bit on the conversative side of things... a lot of kids come to colleges from all boys or all girls schools and therefore it is their first chance to learn to behave and mingle with the opposite sex... and creating an official barrier in the classroom may not be a good start at all... but hey, that still leaves the rest of the college.. and i bet the profs are thinking that while it would be a good idea to have sex education in classes, having both sex and education in classes may not be a great idea...

But the problem that could arise is that pretty soon, the entire lot of students being churned out of BU will be of a very reserved type... and that should definitely make Arjun Singh happy, he loves the reserved types...

until next time, boys and girls, whats your say on gender blenders!!

Sex Scam

Up down, up down,
faster faster, unstoppable,
like a raging bull
slowing only for bear hugs
up down, peaking
and plunge....
having sensex !!

until next time, if you have a share, now's the time to take stock :)

Deserving vs Reserving

In movie halls, flights and trains, restaurants etc, there are those who are fighting for space at the last minute, and there are those who calmly walk in and take their seats... the latter deserve to do so, because they had the foresight to reserve the space .. the point to note here is that both sets of people started out on square one, some before the other, and that made the difference.. and so everything is fair.. now, if someone in the late entry set got in by just knowing the right people, thats perhaps unfair...

and so, if we apply the same scope for reservations in the educational/ job system,. everything would be fair if everyone started from square one.. but that isnt the case, and so it makes sense to reserve places to level the scales... but what if, over a period of time, the reservations have done their job and further addition would start tipping the scale against those who normally occupied square one.. thats exactly what is happening... and that perhaps is unfair, because the regular folks havent gotten there by unfair means...

and so perhaps it would be a good time to go back to square one, examine it and define it properly so that reservation is done only for people who are eligible even after multiple filters are put in, and since i am no expert, i can think only of socio-economic conditions as the key parameter... there have been too many changes these past few years for caste to be made a criterion.. a case in example would be that the erstwhile 'upper castes' in kerala are in a much poorer condition than the so called 'lower castes'...

it is absolutely fair that a person should not miss the chance of an education and a good life just because he doesnt have the finance for it... but in the same breath, it is absolutely unfair that a person should cede his right just because he made the most of his adequate finances and worked hard...there is an argument i made quite sometime back on the subject of meritocracy... if educationis the key to a better life, then, judging people by their intelligence levels is also perhaps unfair.. for only so much of intelligence is self gained, most of it is installed without our having a say in it... and so we are back to the theory of survival of the fittest.
until next time, who is fit to decide what is 'fit' ?

Of Missions and Missionaries

Consider your general position in life...:) with a title like that, thought i'll start with that statement myself before one of you smart ones decided to comment... but the statement wasnt just for the sake of it..

what we do in life as a profession has very little to do with what we really want to do in life.. having said that, we are part of a timeframe when this is being realised, and more and more people are setting out to do their own thing... but different things like finance, peer pressure and the sheer lethargy of moving out of a comfort zone prevents the majority from starting all over again...which is where we come to the subject of people who walk a path that they have voluntarily seeked out... missionaries so to speak.. not just those of religion, but with various other purposes like saving the narmada or setting up old age homes... does their single mindedness ever fade, do they ever begin to doubt the cause? or is their faith so strong that they go through their life without questioning the purpose at all? maybe, just maybe, its perhaps better not to have too many options...

i have always believed that to every life there is a reason.. every person is here to do something that wouldnt have happened without him.. he is a link - big or small, in a chain of events that when seen it totality, makes a profound impact... pravin mahajan is a case in example.. by himself he might have been a nothing... but by his action, he has altered the course of a national party, and perhaps the nation itself..each of us is a case in example, some of us realise our action and its effects, and some of us will be left wondering at the end of it all, what difference did we make?
until next time, a different position, a different life :)

What ya?!

Thats my sister's lingo :), and i bet if she knew Ms Vishwanathan, she would have said exactly that 'What ya Kaavya?!'.... but yes, $500,000 is a lot of money... and while the blog community can make jokes on 'How Kaavya Vishwanathan got rich, got famous and got ruined', and we can all pontificate on the evils of plagiarism, we should maybe spare a thought on how a 19 year old's mind works.. coz we have all been there, and its most definitely a different world indeed...

For once, ToI (last Sunday) has done a good job in a purely journalistic sense, and given the story a coverage from different angles.. it acknowledges that a person of the calibre of amitav ghosh (who was her faculty in Harvard) feels that Kaavya did have a lot of talent, and the fact that everyone from william Shakespeare downwards have been doing a lil bit of copy paste job here and there.. and also the fact that the editor of both the authors (the one who copied and the one who was copied from) is a common factor...

not that i am supporting plagiarism, but like the saying goes, its a crime only if you get caught...unfortunately Opal Mehta got a bit too famous and therefore ran a higher risk of getting caught..and Kaavya and the 40 thieved passages from one book and more from another book did get caught.. the world has changed since Shakespeare's time, and information is too easily available for something of this sort to go unnoticed...Hopefully, she will get a life after this, and can pick up enough of the broken pieces to start afresh... for its a huge burden to carry, and theres still a long way to go...
until next time, such is the prize of fame and the price of fame...

The price of fear

1989... Rs.15... Bees Saal Baad
2006... Rs.170... Darna Zaroori Hain

until next time, there's a reason to be afraid

Ash's to ashes

and dust to dust.. thats how ash's relationships seem to be going.... and the latest reason sounds like the title song of Aamir's mutiny movie... funny that both the relationship and the movie sank without a trace... nope, it isnt a connection for the sake of a pun...:)

wonder how many of you remember 'Hi, I am Sanjana'.. that was the first time i remember Ash on Tv... it was a much awaited ad from pepsi, featuring the nation's then chocolate hero, Aamir Khan and a relatively less known Ash.. and thats around the time i convinced a certain 'Cool Drinks' shop owner that the pepsi poster featuring Ash would look much better on my wall than in his store... and then came the beauty contests, and the movies, and Ash went from looking hot in cold drink ads to looking cold even in hot scenes.. cant actually think of any exact time when the transformation happened, but yes, do remember the huge black and white poster bought in Chennai to celebrate the 12th Board results, for a princely sum of Rs.50 :)

There have been many men in her life after that ;) - Salman Khan, Vivek Oberoi, with the latest being Bachchan's bachcha... and while Ash has been wearing whole range of hats from a modelto a Miss World to a Bollywood Diva, i have completed a hat trick too, a hattrick, for April 29 marks the end of the third year of blogging...
until next time, for a mistress of spices, variety can only be another spice in life :)

Reel...

That was exactly what Bangalore did in reaction to the death of Dr Rajkumar... no, correction,that was what it was made to do... in a city where less than 50% of the population is not native of the state, it is difficult to imagine that the death actually made the entire city mourn... rather, it was fear that made the city come to a halt...a halt which almost got the bachelor population go hungry for a day, which forced all forms of entertainment to be out of access - that included all the shops, malls, theatres and the staple cable TV!!...

and which all but killed the long anticipated weekend.. although most parts of the city was peaceful there was an 'anything could happen' air about, which hampered the regular functioning of the city.. and after the scenes aired on the news channels (which weremercifully spared from the entertainment ban), not many people would have wanted to open their shops for the few people who might actually dare to venture out...

two millenia after Jesus died, when his followers make up the largest religion in the world,i wonder what would happen if the same logic were to be adopted by his followers every Good Friday.. Perhaps its because of the knowledge that He would be back on a later day, and that,i guess, is the difference between a god and a demigod.
until next time, end of reel

(yup, delayed by almost a fortnight, but am almost settled, so from now i should be on normal mode)

OK Dada Bye bye

and that was a stupendous performance against england and pakistan.. and the politics of the BCCI notwithstanding, it could very well be the end of one Saurav Ganguly.. for perhaps only the second time in his life, Ganguly is now the underdog, and the favourite to seal the matter is none other than the chap from down under, whose candidacy (ironically) Ganguly himself had vociferously supported ...it has been a see-saw battle, which started even under Ganguly's reign... Ganguly's tirade against Chappell, the leaked e-mail and Chappell's stoic silence..

Unfortunately Ganguly spoke when his bat should have done the talking, and perhaps Chappell was indeed betting on that not happening.. and while everything else worked for Ganguly - selectors, crowds, commentators, one thing was conspicuous by its absence - the batting form that had made him the captain of India... and its persisting absence then made everything else stop working, and Ganguly was out... Chappell gave in to pressure and brought him back into the team... and still betted on his batting not working.. he was right again...

who knows what might have happened if dravid had not shielded Ganguly in pakistan and opened the batting.. because all said and done, ganguly possesses one other thing than his batting skill, that might have saved the day for him - a champion's heart.. he might have ducked the bouncers, fished outside the off stump, given a fewchances, displayed a technique with a million flaws, and at the end of it all made a century...thats exactly what sachin had done to his critics, slapped them in the face with a century...

I am by no means a Ganguly fan, but the bottom line was that he had transformed Indian cricket,made India win matches, supported a young bunch of talent and in the process, made himself a persona which aspiring youngsters could look up to..he showed what India was capable of.. maybe for selfish reasons, maybe not... It is ironical, that just when it was time for Boycott's (and Kolkata's) prince to become king, he was dethroned..

until next time, up against a wall

Go Ah!!!

Yup, thats exactly what you do when you are in Goa... after 4 long years, i finally made the trip.. to the place where i spent the 2 best years of my life... and i can safely say, discovered severals facets of myself... and so it was a trip i was looking forward to... not just for the sun and the sand and the way of life, but also a trip to my alma mater...... and discovered that things had changed, in Goa as well as at the insti.. the people, mercifully hadnt changed, still lazy as can humanly be, oh i love them for it... :).

i saw an excellent campaign by a liquor brand -Arlem, i think the name was, which hit the nail on thehead. it said 'Its Goa...chilled' but some of the places had changed... Panjim, for example, had 2 Coffee Day outlets and an Inox... the time i left Goa, a Barista had opened in Panjim, but there is no trace of it now...

and there had been 2 theatres in Panjim which were reasonable, Samrat & Ashok, i bet they must be having a tough time now...

the 'kingfisher' neon that was a landmark is now joined by Airtel and RIM... there is a bridge to Arambol instead of the ferry, so yeah, things have indeed changed...

All the students at the insti now have laptops and cellphones.. in the three batches that i have seen there (1 senior, ours and 1 junior) only one person had a laptop and a mobile phone (the first in our senior batch and the second in our batch).. so the students dont speak much to the faculty, they call them or mail them... and there are no messages on paper, they have (i guess)e-chits...the beaches are there, so are the firangs, and the view from Chapora, and Titos, and the Mandovi still flows silently..but like everything else everywhere, the winds of change keep blowing...and like all the other pieces in my memory, the one about Goa is also frozen at the time i loved it best..

until next time, keep the change...

Hot and Happening

A hiatus for a week.. from most of everything familiar and routine.. work, bangalore, blog, mobile and so on.. and while the first three happened by design, the last one was (i guess) His version of 'Take 3 get one free'.. while i was crossing a little ford on palolem beach, i happened to forget that my mobile was in my pocket and that it was allergic to sea water..:) and thats how i got a hiatus from ringtones and messages...

The 'Hot' comes from the fact that Goa was really hot... and the 'Happening' from life per se..a really happening week, the first two days were part of the first proper vacation i have taken in 3 years (no, going home is not exactly vacation), i took up a job offer in the middle of the week (again after 3 years) and shifted house (no surprises, again after 3 years) :) And that, i guess, is why 'The Byrds' have sung

For everything turn turn turn

There is a season turn turn turn

until next time, wonder whats around the next turn....

The Answer lies

In the soft breeze that blows across your face and makes you feel alive

and the hurricane that sweeps across the face of the earth and makes you pray for life

the innocent toothless grin of a toddler about to embark on his life's journey

and the toothless grin of an 80 year old who has seen everything on his life's journey

the starlit sky that makes you humble and contemplative of life

and the stars that can predict everything that happens in your life

the minds of those who left their progenitors to live their own life

and in the minds of those whose are left by their progeny to live their own life

the white blood cells whose cancerous growth threatens life

and the defficiency of white blood cells in the immune system that threatens life

the fire whose invention changed the destiny of humanity

and the fire in you that could change humanity

the money that can be used to better millions of lives

and all the money that cant save even one life

the minds of those who ask questions but cant wait for the answer

and the minds of those who are unquestoning and accept the answers

until next time, yes, my friends, it is blowin in the wind

See D !!!

D and i wanted to see Zinda.. and being pirate friendly, had been asking the CD guy for a copy..but every weekend we asked, he had already given it to someone else, inspite of us asking him to keep it for us...and so the general conversation with the CD guy was

D: Zinda hain?

CD guy: nahi madam

and after this ritual for 3 weekends, i really couldnt blame D when this conversation happened,

D: Zinda hain?

CD guy: nahi madam

D: Home Delivery hain?

CD guy: haan madam (and takes the VCD out for her)

D: yeh nahi, hum paas main hi rehte hain, jab zinda hoga to home delivery kar dena..

naah, i told her, but she didnt do it, it would have been fun.. :)

until next time, zinda hoon main ...

Vrooooom....

When every traffic signal is seen as a Starting Grid

When filling petrol is thought of as a pit stop

And the petrol attendants your pit crew

When all the different routes you take are circuits

and turns are thought of as chicanes

You oughta know that the F1 season is on......................

until next time, everyday is a raceday..