Tuesday 18 December 2012

Yes, I Need a GUN...

 

         With the recent Connecticut school shooting massacre ,  where 20  kids were shot dead, the debate  on Gun control bill  in news again. I was surprised to see the media here voicing an opinion on the bill. Or perhaps this was a prime example why Facebook is famous. We were more interested in the bill debate of the USA rather than worrying about our own problems. Precisely,we were more interested in other's life. Now I might have a personal opinion  that the law and order is better in the USA  and the society is more civilized so they do not really need Guns , but again I want to worry  about what happens here first so I wont go in those details.

           
 There were 3 incidents reported in the last 2 weeks that I would like to touch upon. First, a girl gang raped in Delhi with her beau beaten and thrown out of a moving bus,second, a bunch of thugs killing a young boy who came to help the girl who was been teased by those thugs  And third,when an elderly lady of around 40 walking with her husband and son was subjected to cat calls in public and then the male duo thrashed by those thugs. Doesn't give us a pretty picture right? I have always been proud of my country, India , and have given the good side  of it to my friends overseas. Needless to say, they and the rest of the world would be in for a shock if such despicable truths continue to rear its ugly head. 

           So, is the common man in this country really so
 safe? Are we portraying ourselves as uncivilized? And that is where the thought  arises of me owning a gun in India, nevertheless being unknown of what could happen if I own one in the US.But certainly, I feel the need of owning one here for the safety sake of me and my family. Unfortunately  I spend a lot of time trying to earn money  to give my family a decent living.  Unfortunately, surviving in this booming rat-race of a metropolis called Mumbai doesn’t leave me much room to learn martial arts or other forms of physical combat. That’s when the coveted gun could take its charge. If ever I see myself in such situations, wherein a woman is being eve-teased by a handful of goons, I will brandish the gun, deeming that would be the best way to cow them into dispersing.. On the other hand, it is equally appalling to see a dozen ‘onlookers’ who do not bother to take up the cudgels against those involved  in such petty anti-social   elements. Perhaps they are to be blamed too.Why is that when the husband and son trying to  guard the lady of the house were getting over powered and beaten by those goons, the remaining people around  deny to save them??

           Like the rest, I would be pleased if my country's law and order  became one of the best
  in the near future. However, I  do not expect these  abhorrent individuals to become civilized.They know  they belong to a country where the Minister says that girls should dress up properly to save themselves from being eve teased. They know they belong to a country where a few institution[ bars girls from wearing  denims to keep them safe. They know they belong to a country that is made up of selfish and self centered bunch of losers. And so I need a gun and I do not feel my demand is unjustified.

          All I want is to stay
 in a civil society. A society where, when your car gets crashed, the person doesn't come running to you hurling abuses ready for a fight, but like the one in the Europe or the US where human safety seeks an utmost importance.And I do realize that owning guns might rather take us away from forming such a civilized society. But then what are my options if the educated and civilized people around me choose to look the other way when an innocent girl is eve teased.

        Life always gives us options. Either we continue to live in misery or we decide the need to stop this. And for that we, the common men, will have to raise them to the occasion
 . Do not expect anyone else to bring us out of this. So let’s decide, do we want to stop this shit  by getting involved or shall we all have a GUN






Friday 24 August 2012

All Ye Who Enter...


             Yup, the title is coming from the line you would see on hell's gate 'Abandon Hope, all ye who enter here'. But Hell is not what I mean here. I was talking about all the people who enter in your life. They might stay or they may leave. The experiences may be happy or may be sad. But they all enter you life and help you learn or help you grow. I had heard of the phrase that people enter your life for a reason or a season or lifetime. I kinda feel that no matter what their length of stay is, they all enter for a reason.

              In one of the movies they say, whenever you fall do not forget the reason. Same holds true for the people in our lives. One of my male friends, who is a good guy actually, had a girl who liked him alot.But he always ignored the girl. Would not accept her calls for a reason as simple as watching a movie which could be paused. A few years later, he started liking another girl who treated him the same way. Now like any other guy, he could have just cussed about it but as I mentioned he was a Good guy. He realized how he had been on the other side before. He learnt his lesson. The girl in his life might have given him some pain but she did teach him a valuable thing. He would be a better man now.

              This also leads me into what we Hindus believe. We believe that there is no heaven or hell after we die. Both are faced in this planet earth itself, when we live. We believe in Karma and that Karma is a bitch ofcourse. For every good deed you do, Every good Karma, you get good in return. May not be from the same person but you do get good things back. Same holds true for all the wrongs we do. I love this concept. This is how God maintains a balance. This also means that all those people who enter our life and do good/bad is actually coz of the good/bad we did before. Someone who enters your life and treats you like shit is not actually his fault. He was there just to give you a lesson for your Karma. And his time will come later. May not from you but it will.

               One should therefore never blame the people. And should always remember the reason they came in your life. I know a friend of mine who was an under confident shy teenager till he fell in love. He had one of those epic love stories but in the end they had to quit. Not coz they fell out of love but coz of other reasons. Whenever he feels sad or feels like cussing the girl who left him, I remind him that the super cool awesome and confident guy that he is, is just cause the girl came in your life at the right time and made you what you are. And he agrees.

             I always had this notion and could also be said as conclusion from observation that girls in USA are so unlike Indian women.They do not want to compromise. The concept of sacrifice is rare. But just when I am in my final few weeks of journey in this country, I became good friends with a good looking blonde in my office. She is recently engaged to a guy who does not reside in US. He is away from USA in his home country from last 1.5 years and the girl still patiently waits and loves him. A country where PDA or physical intimacy is of paramount importance, such example gives you a new vision. It opened my eyes and mind. She probably entered my life so that when I leave, I do not leave with my established notion.

          Maybe it is time for us to think of those reasons and thank all the people we have in our life or were a part of our life. Good or bad, they help us grow. They help us learn. All I wanted from the post is to help you guys think...

Cheers!

Monday 13 August 2012

'Cocktail' - Movie Review and more..


        The big Bollywood fan that I am, I thought maybe its time to break the lull in the blog by writing a movie review. Just got the opportunity to watch the movie Cocktail'. Before I start let me assure the audience that I will not be revealing the plot of the movie any more than what is already evident by the trailer of the movie.

         Since we mentioned the trailer, let us start with the trailer.I like the tag line of the movie. ' Friendship is confusing and Love is complicated'. So true. This line alone should get a lot of young audience inside the theaters.The movie trailer also mentions it is from the makers of 'Love Aaj Kal' which is of course for Imtiaz Ali. So what makes the movie different from all the love triangle movies we have seen so far. The movie has to be little different as the Bollywood audience is so used to watching Love triangles right from ' Sangam' to 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai' .We have a  few recent releases also as Love Triangles but I stuck to mentioning the mega Hits only.

          The first half of the movie as it always is in such movies, fun. It moves at a good pace with some comedy. The second half as always adds more drama. The best part of the movie is that you will not be sad or upset for any one single character. Yes, it is equally distributed. I felt sad for Meera ( Diana Penty) , then for Veronica ( Deepika Padukone) and then for Gautam ( Saif Ali Khan). Later I was waiting in the end if I would feel sad for myself too for watching the movie but fortunately I did not.

          The movie plot is not only comic and dramatic but also helps us connect with the characters. I felt for Veronica where she realizes that it is so important for us to change for Love. The whole he should accept me the way I am shit never works in real life. Once you love it is always best to go through some changes so that our Loved one feels less hurt. As far as Meera goes, the way she mentioned, she was the kind of girl the guy's mother would like. I so accept. I thought of taking my mom for the movie to show her that this is what I need my girl to be. And ofcourse I felt for Gautam, cause as always, it is always the guy who suffers most when he really gets serious about a girl. Women keep complaining about Men being dogs but the fact is as soon as we turn human, we are prone to being hurt and most of the times we do end up being hurt.

        As far as acting goes, Deepika and Saif both have acted to their potential and both to me seem to be maturing and improving every time I see them. But kudos for the newbie Diana Penty. Not only is she truly simply beautiful but her acting skills is way above average. Specially after looking at some model turn actress like Nargis Fakhri and company, my expectations from Diana were very low. But she has the potential to be a what we say as ' Lambi race ka Ghoda'. Dimple Kapadia and Boman Irani in their short roles have done justice to their capabilities.

        The Direction is good. The Music could have been better. There was only one song that I really liked.  The 'Tumhi ho bandhu..' song. I would have preferred better music and that would have helped the movie more specially cause the story is something the audience has been exposed to from last 40 odd years. The end is predictable but it still manages to keep you on your seat.

         I would definitely rate the movie a one time watch. And would be looking for more from Diana Penty. So enjoy the movie guys.

Cheers!

Saturday 7 July 2012

Blogging Ideas of an Agile mind..

       
        Blame it on the writer's block or the sudden pace in my life or just my laziness but my blog was been neglected for some time now. Also the fact that I do not write for indiblogger ranks or to please the people but to let out my opinions and feelings contributed to the lull in my blog site. Not that I completely forgot or never came across ideas, just that I did not articulate those ideas into a post.

         Being the 'voice of the guys' that I am, I decided to write an article on men PMSing. Lets face it, we never get an excuse to behave like women do during PMS. We also suffer from similar mood swings, bouts of depression and then the sudden positiveness of life. And I was going through that phase for atleast a month now. So much so that within 5 minutes on a call with my childhood friend I went from showing suicidal tendencies to claiming that everything that happens in life happens for a good reason, just that we find the good behind it later. It was at this moment that I had the brilliant idea of writing about men PMSing just as I had written about 'A Guy's Silence' or 'The Indian Husband' . But life and laziness got the better of me.

              Some time alone also made me ponder on how God balances each and every individual. Something like 'The theory of Balance' that I wrote before. I was thinking that God gave me the looks and the charm and sent me to a country like USA where I could have exploited those ( for those who feel I am bragging or am not good enough, I don care , it is my blog :-) I can write what I feel ) but at the same time he imbibed me with a strong sense of ethics and culture to stop me. He gave me an emotional fragile heart but at the same time the brains that remember every thing, catch the lies and analyze the situation. I am still not sure if God did this to maintain a balance or was he just messing with me. There I go PMSing again. The fact is this topic could have been a nice post but blame it on Kalam refusing to contest the presidential pools that avoided me to write. Comeon you cannot expect me to blame life and my laziness always.

           I also watched the movie 'Ek Ruka Hua Faisla ( A pending decision) which is the Bollywood version of the famous movie '12 Angry men'. The movie was so good . The plot is about how a man  tries to put his point through to people against all the prejudices that people have. He maintains his cool, persuades others and helps people fight their own misconceptions and let's them come out of their parallel universe. I see such people around and know they need help. They need that one guy like in the movie. I decided to write a post on this movie and the topic surrounding it and someday when I am in a mood when my writing will do justice to my thoughts, I shall write about it.

           So friends, the bottom line is the thinking never stops. On the blog or not, we learn new things daily and feel about it strongly. I felt strongly about these ideas and wished to share with you all. Someday more details on all these topics. And finally I also did what I did not for a long time, I wrote a post.

Cheers!

Wednesday 20 June 2012

The Missing Piece...

 A good friend recently shared this you tube video with me...Loved it so much I decided to share it with the world...
 If you internet is slow, give it some time to buffer..the video is surely worth it..
 Click to play.. and leave your comments...Mine are below the video..

  I was amazed to how simply somebody could explain the depths of life and relationships. It once again proves that Life is a journey and not a destination.  We go through so much ups and down till we find that perfect missing piece. And once it is found, it is time we realize that things change. Everything that we could have done or did without the piece may not be possible now.

 That is also the part, in the end, where I disagree with the writer. Yes, there are things that can now not be done, but that is life is all about. We should understand that once we are completed with the piece, life is not just about I, life becomes WE. There might be new ups and downs and that will define life.

 Could have written so much on it or so little but nothing can explain like the video does..

Friday 18 May 2012

My Facebook Profile pic


              Once upon a time ( that is how most of the bedtime stories or fairy tales start) people clicked photos for the memories attached to it. They were seen in albums kept in storage areas once a year and smiled upon. These days we click photos just to put it on facebook. Fortunately since I do not have a facebook profile, I do not go under immense pressure to pose like a stud every time someone is clicking a photo.

              Facebook profile pics are deceptive. And we might hardly have people who would disagree with this fact. How many times have we seen the most awesome looking girl on facebook to be an average looking girl in the real world? I don't know about others but I have been deceived far too many times to keep the count. As if the pic is of the same person but in some other parallel universe. Perhaps the movie DejaVu was not fiction after all. There does exist a universe parallel to this which is known to most fb users. They go there every month to get their photos taken so that they could be uploaded on fb.

             I only wish if people looked the way the fb profile pic is. I would have loved the world. Not that I am a materialistic mcp who does not value inner beauty but comeon who would hate to see only beautiful faces around.Even the Lords had only beautiful people around. I have never seen an average looking dancer whenever they showed Indra's palace in television serials.

             The poses I see on fb would make SRK hang his head in shame.The plain Jane next door girl I remember from school suddenly looks like the hottest chick in town. The regret of missing the bus in school overrides other feelings.And then the school reunion brings you back to reality.You start getting the confidence back on the decisions you took.One more strange thing I have noticed is no matter how the fb pic of a girl is, she will surely get likes and superlikes from guys, but more on that when I write on the gender discrimination on fb.

               Most of the rant also comes because of the fact that I am the rare unlucky person whose pics look worse than the already bad God gifted face.Only if someone showed me the door to that parallel universe. Only if I could have gone back a few years and saved a pic when I actually looked cute.( before you judge, all kids look cute). Anyway the bottom line my friends is that never judge a book by the cover if the cover you talk about is the facebook profile pic ;-)

PS: The hypocrite that I am, I am attaching the pic I would have used as my fb profile pic.

Cheers!! Give my pic some likes please!! ;-)

Wednesday 2 May 2012

The 'Indian Husband'

               One of my favorite movies RDB starts with a line ' I always believed there were two kinds of men in this world, men who go to their deaths screaming, and men who go to their deaths in silence. Then I met a third kind.' I always get a feeling that the third kind he actually refers to is about the one I am writing about. The kind that is different than others. Even different from the other married men. He is the most underrated superstar of the world. He is the one who is more like Spiderman caught in a web built by the society.He is bright, charismatic and still so humble and modest. He has suffered from centuries and will probably suffer for a few more.And yet he stands tall, fighting the odds, delivering the goods ( I do not mean the grocery here please) , easy to please. Yes, I am talking about ' THE INDIAN HUSBAND'.

              When I say this guy has suffered from ages and will continue to do so, I meant no exaggeration. The Hindu religion talks about two main holy wars fought. The causes for both were women and the people who fought and died where Indian husbands. Be it the father of Lord Ram who had to send his son to jungle or Lord Ram itself who had to fight after he went looking for the golden deer on his wife's wish. The Indian husband was torn between his duties and his wife if he was the king of old times. The Indian husband is still torn between his wife and mother in modern times.

                In the Indian wedding, people dance and celebrate and have fun. But little does the man on the mare knows that people dancing in his procession are celebrating a different cause. The married men are dancing cause they are happy that the people who suffer like them have increased by one more, the singles dance because they are saved and the women dance to know that they got one more from the enemy clan. What he has failed to realize is the reason why most Bollywood movies get over right after the hero gets the heroine and before they get married is cause we love happy endings. And they know that after marriage there is just ending to the poor guy's life. Nothing is happy about it.

              The poor husband suffers right from Day one. If he listens to what his wife says, he is a henpecked husband. If he listens to what his mother says, he is a 'Mummy' boy. Not just that, if a guy is liked by his in-laws he surely will be hated by his own parents or if the parents find him an ideal son, the in-laws are complaining. When he works too hard to make some money so that the family gets a good life, he is blamed for not spending time with his family. If he spends time with his family, he is blamed and he will be no matter how much he earns, that he could not get enough for his family. Poor guy keeps getting squeezed from all corners of the world.

                He gets into the mode of listening. Everybody has an opinion which will be a new battle waged if worked on. He tries to find solace in the newspaper and news channel. But the most important work to be done will always be remembered by the wife when he just opens the newspaper. The kids have taken control of the TV remote. He is expected to know everything that the wife thinks. He is expected to know how his parents feel. He is expected to work the way his Boss wants.The pressure of expectations makes his shoulders slump.His Blood Pressure increases.And then comes a time when people start saying, Ohh that Mr X, what a man he was, now he is married.

               Like a table tennis ball, he keeps going back n forth between his wife and mother. Like a football, he keeps been pushed around by his boss, colleagues, kids, parents and society.Like in Baseball, he keeps making 'Home runs'.And just like the cricket ball, he is battered and bruised in a few years. He is playing all the sports but is not enjoying it. But the guy still stands tall, remains humble and modest about his achievements of his daily life, keeps a smile on his face and asks the bachelor sitting next to him, 'So when do you plan to get married'?

              So please stand in silence for a couple of minutes or salute the guy, but find some way to respect this superstar.Gift him something whenever you can cause he doesn't have a day for him. Archies makes no cards for him. He just sits there, suffers and does it with grace. A salute to all the Indian Husbands. May God give you the will to be strong. :-)

Cheers!

Sunday 15 April 2012

Types of 'Drunk'


            Being a non alcoholic bachelor in your mid twenties has its pros and cons. One of the pros is that you get invited to a lot of parties where alcohol flows and since you are a non alcoholic, you tend to remember the most that happened last night. There is also a sinister feeling attached since you are the one who is having the most fun at other's expense. Having being traveled around the world, I have believed in the world known fact that no matter which part of the world you belong, you always tend to drink in excess when the booze is free. I have so far distinguished people on the types of 'drunk' based on their behavior after they get high.

            The first one being the most common one called the 'sentimental' type. These types of people get emotional every time they get drunk. They cry, love, hate and show all kinds of emotions. They are the ones who most often are the 'shayars' of the group or the love smitten ones. Though this is a broad category but I reserve it for those who are only in this category and show no other symptoms of the other type of drunks. It is better to not cross their emotions or engage them in a discussion when they are drunk because even if they do not have the tendency to be violent, they are often the brawl starters.

           Then we have the type which probably is common only in India. They are the 'English speaking' drunk. These people are the ones who start talking in English as soon as they are high. Rather this is a sign to know if they are drunk or no. Repetitive use of a single word or sentence is their most common phenomenon. They are fun when they get going. Right on the other end of spectrum, and I say this on the risk of hurting a few people I admire, are the ones I call 'Silent' types. They are the most boring ones because they just switch on the mute mode as soon as they are drunk. In case you hold a grudge, this is the time to tell them what you have always feared cause there will be no retaliation.

             We also have the 'all out' types of drunk. They are the ones who have the tendency to drink to an extent beyond control and they lose their sense of prevail. They have the tendency to be either the most fun person cause they have no clue what they are up to but also at the same time the most difficult ones for people in control. I kind of hate these types cause one or 2 people from the party have to curtail their fun to take care of these types. They are also the most stupid ones cause from what I know they suffer the most horrid hangover the next day.

           On the same lines at the other end of spectrum, we have a type called as 'tanker'. These are the ones who are always in control no matter how much they drink. They are my personal favorites. They are the ones who have the most fun or rather are the cause of fun for most people in the party and at the same time have the capacity to switch straight into the 'savior' mode. If anything goes wrong or anyone needs help, they are the ones that are on the front or help the most and even more than the non alcoholic ones. It is often advisable to not compete with them when you are on a drinking binge. It is always best to have a couple of such people in the group.

          Off late I also discovered a new type which I term as the 'irritating' types. They tend to switch on the 'irritate everybody' mode as soon as they are drunk. They often feel they are the wisecrack ass of the party but more often than nor they are just the crack ass.It is better to stay away from them if you want to enjoy the party to the max and be around the 'sentimental' or 'tanker' types.

          These are the most common types and the drunk can vary type to type on occasions but still can be based in a group on the symptoms they show the most. Again these types are made from a non alcoholic perspective. This post is a humorous attempt and I have no intention of hurting anyone. The declaration in the previous statement is very important cause without it I may face the risk of not being invited into the next party. Till then, Enjoy and do add if you feel there are more types I have missed ,in the comments section.

Cheers!

Saturday 31 March 2012

Old Age Homes - A Social Disgrace

              Whenever I watch the movie 'Lage Raho Munnabhai' , apart from the excellence of RajKumar Hirani to portray the power of Gandhi's values , the other thing that hits me hard is the concept of the '2nd Innings house' . The dialogue where the old man mentions that he brought up 4 children in a one room home now they do not have one room for their old father in 4 houses hurts me to where the Indian society is leading.

               I do understand the problems faced by young couples when the wife cannot gel with the in laws at home, but staying nuclear to avoid these is like running away from a problem rather than solving one. And in my personal opinion, only cowards run away from problems. Why have we become so selfish that we forget all that our parents have done for us and we send them either in old age homes or staying alone. If this is what we learned from the west, perhaps we just followed them in half measures.

               Whatever we are today is cause of them. The Indian society is very different from the west. Our parents do not leave us when we reach 18. They play an important part in our life to take us where we are and sponsoring our education is just a very tiny part of what they do for us. They spend their major part of the golden years saving for us or giving us what we want. Giving us the best they can afford. I have seen parents sacrifice necessities so that their children can get luxuries. And later when it is our time to repay them, all most of us think about is excuses to run away.

               I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I have seen my parents work hard to earn what we have today. As a kid when we visited our relatives, we traveled in public transport and buses. I remember me pestering my dad to take a auto to the station rather than waiting 20 minutes for the bus. I got angry on him, said him things I should not. He just kept telling me the bus will be here within 5 minutes. I did not realize then that the reason he took shit from me to save money was so that he could afford me a good education. Today when I think of those incidents my head hangs with shame. But I was a kid then. Today I am not. So today I realize that what my parents have done for me and so even the thought of leaving them to stay alone will never cross my mind. I wonder why those who do send their parents to Old age homes do not remember such things or incidents that might have happened to them.

           The girl who feels she could not get along with her in laws and pesters her husband to stay separate should think if the same would have been done to her parents by some other girl, how would she feel. The guy who does separate cause he needs peace at home is nothing but a coward who runs away from problems. It is time we stop being so self centered and selfish.

          I feel the concept of Old age homes is bullshit. There should be no such homes and no need of such places. All we have to do for this is stop being practical. It is not just the heart but also your head who will tell you to respect your parents and give them the best you can when they are old. And one should never forget that there will be a time when you will step in their shoes too.

Cheers!

Sunday 25 March 2012

Mutual 'LIKE'

            " What do you think of that girl?" , My friend asked. "She is good" was my standard answer. "I really like her yaar", he told this for the 20th time now. "Did you find out if she likes you too?" , I asked. "Not yet but she will some day"  was his optimistic reply. A few months later the girl had a bf or got married. Now I am sure this story is a part of our life. And when I mean our life, it means we may or may not be in one of the roles of the conversation but this definately happens all around us. Alas the world has no feeling of mutual 'Like'.

              So how many of you Facebook addicts after reading the Title thought I was talking about the 'Like' button on Facebook? You losers :-) . I was not talking about that mutual feeling which is rampant in the world. You like my profile pic and I will like yours. I was talking about true feelings. Though I will be talking about this Facebook profile pic in my upcoming posts ( yes, you guessed it Right, I am learning some marketing skills) but not in this one.

              I have always been surprised that why the feeling of Like do not work similar to the feeling of Dislike. Now I have stated in my previous post 'Hate:A feeling as strong as Love:' about this feeling. The feeling of dislike or hate is always mutual. You hate somebody and with time the person hates you back. It always happens. And I can say that by personal experience too cause I hate everybody and everybody hates me.:-) This statement also takes out the angle (if you did develop it) that I am ranting about it cause I got recently dumped.  And I think mutual dislike is fair enough but alas when it comes to love or like we forget fairness.

             It is important to have this feeling mutual. And no I am not talking about the people who like everybody. When I Like or Dislike somebody I give the person enough importance to harbor this feeling about him. So people who say they like everybody just means that they are self centered ego maniacs who do not care about anybody or find anybody important enough to show any kind of feeling towards that person. So stay away from such people unless if that person is Like Mother Teresa who loved all people.

             Coming back to the topic, how I wish this feeling was mutual. And I do not mean to say Love.You may not Love the person who loves you. I am talking about Like. If all people we liked, liked us back the world would have been a better place to stay.We could have avoided so many wars and lies. The whole world would have been happy with a proper distinction of Likes and Dislikes.

PS: All those people who are members of the site or comment, I like you all so please like back the post cause frankly I am not sure what I wrote, why I wrote what I wrote and if it makes the same sense for which I wrote, what I wrote being confused of why I wrote.

Cheers!

Sunday 18 March 2012

It's a Women's World

                   It was just a casual conversation with a colleague of mine during the coffee break that she decided to explain to me how the dating system works in USA. She said, "Kapil, it is really simple out here unlike in India. If you go somewhere and you like a girl, you have to walk up to her, strike a conversation, buy her a drink and give your phone number. If she is interested she will call you otherwise you keep trying." You know why this sentence stood out to me, cause it is at this time did I realize that the saying 'it's a man's world' is actually a myth. Actually it's a woman's world.

                   In one of my previous blogs 'The Weaker Sex', I did try to give you a lighter version of how it's actually the man who suffers in the fight of two females.Perhaps that is why the term 'weaker sex' kept getting gradually replaced by the new term 'fairer sex'. So I do not want to offend the feminists or sound like a sexist, but the fact is that it never was and never will be a man's world.

                   Women rule the world. It is a known fact that the cause of a fight between two drunk friends have always been a women. A female who may not even be aware of the mere existence of these two friends still manages to get them to blows with each other.Most of the times, it is always the girl who has to call it quits on the guy. The guy never does so. And the reason for that is simple and even stated in movies. When a girl leaves a guy, there are other guys and so called best friends ready to replace that guy. Just waiting for a chance like the dogs we are. The girl again gets options and choices but sadly it never happens the same way with a guy. He either gets drunk with his male buddies or cries for few days. But no girlfriends of his girlfriend will pounce on this now single guy.

                    From politics to boardrooms they rule men with just a smile. Now how many times have you seen this that when a male jumps the queue, he is been abused and pushed back again but if a female does so and says that she is in a hurry ( with a smile ofcourse) even the most hardened guy would let it go. And let me ask this, how many guys are forced to see the daily soap operas by Ekta Kapoor cause one women in the house wants to?

                    I have never heard of a men's day but they have a day for women. And then be it Valentine's day or any anniversary, it is always the women who gets the gifts.
 Most of the commercials on TV are made to attract the women. They know if the women agrees, the man has to. The marketing greats know where to hit to get the product sold. The lows were reached when they started asking men to buy a certain brand of underwear cause women like men in it. What?? Should I not buy something that's rather more comfortable?

                    Without offending the religious minds, i would like to state that most of the wars in Hindu mythology also occurred due to women. If Draupadi would not have insulted Duryodhan perhaps he would not have challenged for a war. If Ravan's sister would have kept her eyes away from Ram and not got her nose cut in the process, perhaps Ravan would never have met Sita, Kidnapped her and led to a war. So from centuries and as far as you could go till today, women have ruled the place. And whenever we are led to believe in the myth that it's a man's world , and some do, the super powerful super intelligent just uses her weapon of mass destruction.She just SMILES...

PS: This post is just a light attempt on humor and so I have not touched any serious topics against women or for women. Enjoy

Cheers!

Tuesday 14 February 2012

The Month of LOVE

              Some say what's so special about Valentine's day. You should love your partner and everybody else no matter what day or month of the year it is. I agree. So true but still this month and this day gets the romantic best out of most people in the world. Hey, it's the only day even my dad turns romantic and gets something for my mom. This month gets the special out of me also.

              It is this month when I produce some of the Hapless Romantic posts of my blog. I came up with Valentin's day Special  and then I tried to define what I feel about Love when I wrote Love is all about You.. Though I would still say my best post on the subject came in the month of December when I wrote That One Person.. Anyways the point is that you believe it or not, it is a Special Day and a Special Month.

               Some argue that most of the times when I write about Love, I try to beat around the bush on the topic without revealing any personal information. Well for starters, the blogs were never meant to reveal my personal info and come on , lets be honest, who cares about my personal Love Stories. I am not a celebrity, heck I do not have more than 12 followers on twitter.lol

             Personally I would feel Love is the best thing that can happen to any person. The only other feeling which comes closest to love is hate.But Love still wins. I understand that in an Indian society we have to pay alot of cost for love. In a society dominated by regional and religious differences, most people opt to be practical. This may be good as it can save you from alot of heart break but then there is nothing that makes a human more complete than the feeling of love. Yes I agree Love can be pain or some might say Love is lethal, but it is still worth the death that you would die.

            Like Alcohol drinkers would say, you do not know what you are missing till you have it. The same holds true for Love. Love is like Ectasy. It keeps you High, it keeps you happy, it makes you sing, it makes you dance or it may give pain, might make you cry but then it gives you a feeling to be alive.
         
          Cannot say alot as I have already said enough in the previous posts and the fact that I suck big time when it comes to show my emotions about Love, worsens the cause. Perhaps it is beyond me to talk on a feeling that beats any other thing in the world and I salute the authors who write eternal love stories. But then , you can write a love story and you still cannot explain Love.

          I would just like to end the post with an awesome line from a song that I hear almost twice a day. It just explains how much Love and the person you Love matters.
                                       " Dil hote jo, mere seene main Do
                                     Doosra Dil bhi main tumhe deta Todne Ko"

For my friends who do not know Hindi, it loosely translates as ' Even If I would have had 2 hearts, I would have given you both to break them'

To all the  wonderful people in LOVE, had been in LOVE or will be in LOVE,
 A Happy Valentine's Day!!

Cheers!

Tuesday 7 February 2012

Sachin Tendulkar : the GOD of Indian Cricket

           With the thrashing that we got as a test team in England and Australia, the talks of retiring senior players is on it's peak. I do agree that there are certain players that need retirement and we need to retire our captain from the test team too, but there is nothing short of shocking disbelief when I hear people say that Sachin needs to retire. I have my reasons to believe that no-one can dare retire Sachin from the game. He is not called GOD of the religion of cricket for namesake. He has earned and deserved it.

           And for those who feel the man is past his prime I would give some stats and facts to make them believe that Sachin still is the best you have. he is still the GOD of cricket and will always be.
     
           Sachin started his career at the young age of 15 yrs and 232 days when we all mortals where studying just to get into a college. He scored a century on his first class debut and was the youngest to do so. And he became the only batsman to score hundreds in all of his Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy and Irani Trophy debuts. In 1992 he became the youngest and first overseas born player to play for the county of Yorkshire. He has the highest number of centuries and runs in any form of cricket ( I do not wish to include T20 as any form of cricket. Its fun and not sport) . But for those who argue these are things of the past, let us talk about the present.

            In the recently concluded Australia series, Sachin was the second highest run scorer after Virat Kohli with 13 runs short of him. By these standards also he is the second best batsman in the team and It would be sheer stupidity to ask your second best batsman to quit the game. In the series in England also Sachin was the second highest run scorer  behind Dravid and in the series in South Africa, Sachin was the highest run scorer in the series. These are a few stats to prove that GOD is still your best player. And when it comes to giving a chance to new players, nobody gave them chances by sacking senior players. The newcomers just have to prove it to the selectors that they are better than the current crop, which cannot be said for Sachin Tendulkar. I do not see any player in the country capable of replacing the GOD.

           To give examples that the GOD has almost alone taken care of Indian cricket in the last 2 decades one can use examples of the 2003 world cup. He has scored 33 centuries for a wining cause which is greater than any other batsman in world cricket. And out of that 33, 26 have come out against the top teams of world cricket. If all these stats and awards and his performance still leaves any scope of doubt among the non believers, I would like to quote some sentences from the masters of the game. From people who play and understand cricket much better than us.


Nothing bad can happen to us if we're on a plane in India with Sachin Tendulkar on it."
- Hashim Amla, the South African batsman, reassures himself as he boards a flight.

 "Sometimes you get so engrossed in watching batsmen like Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar that you lose focus on your job."
- Yaseer Hameed in pakistani newspaper.

"To Sachin, the man we all want to be"
- Andrew Symonds wrote on an aussie t-shirt he autographed specially for Sachin.


Sachin is a genius. I'm a mere mortal.
- Brian Charles Lara

"We did not lose to a team called India...we lost to a man called Sachin."
- Mark Taylor, during the test match in Chennai (1997)

 "The more I see of him the more confused I'm getting to which is his best knock."
- M. L. Jaisimha

Shah Rukh Khan: There was a big party where stars from bollywood and cricket were invited. Suddenly, there was a big noise, all wanted to see approaching Amitabh Bachhan. Then Sachin entered the hall and
Amitabh was leading the queue to get a grab of the GENIUS!!
- Shah Rukh Khan in an interview.

 "India me aap PrimeMinister ko ek Baar Katghare me khada kar sakte hain..Par Sachin Tendulkar par Ungli nahi utha Sakte.. "
- Navjot Singh Sidhu on TV

 He can play that leg glance with a walking stick also.
- Waqar Younis

On a train from Shimla to Delhi, there was a halt in one of the stations. The train stopped by for few minutes as usual. Sachin was nearing century, batting on 98. The passengers, railway officials, everyone on the train waited for Sachin to complete the century. This Genius can stop time in India!!
- Peter Rebouck - Aussie journalist


There are 2 kind of batsmen in the world. One Sachin Tendulkar. Two all the others.
- Andy Flower

 "I have seen god, he bats at no.4 for India"
- Mathew Hayden

"Sachin Tendulkar has carried Indian cricket on his shoulders for 21 years. So it was fitting that we carried him on our shoulders after this win,"
- Virat Kohli

And for those who still refuse to believe in the GOD of Indian cricket, all I can think of is, that it's not really an issue, we have atheists too. Open for discussion in the comments section, where I can prove what GOD has done with more examples and stats.

Cheers!!

"Sachin Tendulkar has carried Indian cricket on his shoulders for 21 years. So it was fitting that we carried him on our shoulders after this win," Virat, who carried Tendulkar on his shoulder for an emotional lap of honour

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/sports%20news/sachin-carries-us-we-wanted-to-return-the-favour-96044&cp


"Sachin Tendulkar has carried Indian cricket on his shoulders for 21 years. So it was fitting that we carried him on our shoulders after this win," Virat, who carried Tendulkar on his shoulder for an emotional lap of honour

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/sports%20news/sachin-carries-us-we-wanted-to-return-the-favour-96044&cp



Monday 23 January 2012

My Nephew's Gold Medal


   My 2 year old nephew has done something that I could not manage to do in 26 years of my life. Wining a GOLD medal in a sporting event.

  It was his playgroup's sports day where kids from the same school but different branches had come. Guess it had kids from around 7 to 8 branches.

 I couldn't see it but my brother says he won the race by a distance. The way Usain Bolt wins in Olympics. Here are a few pics from the event.


 The man on the podium himself.On the 1st Position.

 Flaunting his GOLD Medal.

Awesome!!!
Cheers!

Sunday 8 January 2012

Revolution2020 and Chetan Bhagat

            I thought I may not be doing it soon but finally I did manage to read Chetan Bhagat's latest attempt to write. Revolution2020, the name of his latest book. Considering the fact that I stay in a city in USA with not a great Indian Population, getting a book by Chetan Bhagat would have been a challenge. Thanks to my roomie who suddenly felt the need to get the entire Chetan Bhagat pack from his latest visit to India. And no I will not be giving any spoiler alert cause I will not talk about the plot of the book more than what is mentioned on the cover page.
           
            So the book is his latest attempt at writing stories for a movie. I have no objections to that. Rather I love couple of his books but this time it was the lamest attempt he could make. I might go to the extent of saying that the story was in equal terms to the movie Bodyguard or any Ekta Kapoor serials. It is a story of three childhood friends. One girl, 2 guys. Both love the same girl. Both are heroes at the end but the path they take are very very different. I mean Come on how many movies have we seen with the same story and same ending. Right from beginning to end the movie..oops..book was entirely predictable and bland.

            It is a  fact that I am an avid reader and would normally complete a 300 page book within a span of 3 hours. It took me more than 3 days to finish this book. Somehow every other lame thing seemed more important than reading the book. Which for starters is not a good sign.If I go by stats, I did finish 'Five Point Someone' in 3 hours and '2states- the story of my marriage' in 4 hours'. In order to give an unbiased review of the book and not to forget that he does actually have awesome writing skills, I read '2 states' again before writing this blog.

          Compared to his set of books, I would rate this even below 'One night@call center' in which he had kinda screwed the end. Apart from a predictable boring story this book also did not have his uncanny knack of describing the heroine of the story.Or any scene of the story. If the reader cannot imagine the scene, it is a big failure of the author's skill ,according to me. The reason why Dan Brown or JK Rowling are so successful fiction writers cause of the way they describe the scenes.And this is really important for people who rate books more than the movies made from it. As long as we are into description of scenes or characters, I would like to recommend you all to read a book called 'Anything for you Maam' by Tushar Raheja. It has the story on the same lines as '2 states' ( and of-course it was published before '2 states') but unfortunately the author was not as renowned as Chetan Bhagat. The description of Characters in Tushar Raheja's book would make you fall in love with them.
 
          I guess Chetan Bhagat got more busy in answering the calls of the Murthys who asked for a better system in IITs. Well Mr Murthy was not wrong, we do need a better system in the IITs or our education system but more on this topic later. I do not want to get diverted from our main topic. Only if he would have given more thoughts on a better story than to use his reputation, we would have enjoyed the book more. And all this cause we do expect great books from you.

         I know that most English authors condemn Chetan Bhagat for his books which has a lot of grammatical mistakes but they do so for Dan Brown also. And trust me for a normal reader all that matters in the end is a good story. After coming up with classics like the '2 states' ( I just love the book cause I can connect so well with it) this book was really disappointing. Hope we get a better book next time. And sorry to say but no one would dare make a movie on this book.We all watch Ekta Kapoor serials in India.

Cheers!