Pakistan mocks itself once again!!

How many times can Pakistan make a complete fool out of itself??
I have lost count of it .. Here is one more time they have successfully done that again. Wow, atleast kudos to these guys , it takes guts to do that on such an international platform .
After placing 4 of the Jamad-ud-Dawa top guns on house arrest and promising to crack down on the outfits purported extremetist actions, they have released all 4 men and says it wont ban Jamad-ud-Dawa for "lack of Evidence". this inspite the UN having already banned the outfit.

Are the Pakistani officials really blind?? or are they "pretending" to turn a blind eye on such outfits, since well its a well known fact that they are the sole reason the Pakistan government is in power. All the politicians have become a puppet at he hands of such outfits, primarily L-eT.

Well, i still am of the opinion that America is , if not "wholly" but partially reponsible for the situation , with them funding such organisations to train these guys against the Soviet Russia
Now, when they have turned against America, they are feeling the heat. They have become a perpetual nuisance

Struck gold!!

Look what i found casually browsing( Of course I may be very late in discovering this, but nevertheless was ecstatic at my find).

A walk down the memory lane,

http://www.ddnational.blogspot.com/

9 Is Not 11 (And November Isn't September)- An article by Arundhati roy in the latest edition of OUTLOOK magazine

Arundhati Roy, the famous author and social activist takes a look at the Mumbai carnage and dwells deeper to take a look at the fact that Pakistan is not our only concern, and both India and Pakistan are states ready to implode for reasons like VHP, RSS , SIMI , who incite sections of people (their respective audiences) to act against their own countrymen to prove their loyalty and to glorify any particulat sect or religion. She also goes onto justify her stand on questioning the crdibility of politicians, policemen, armymen, the very people that we trust our lives with. Worth a read.

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20081222&fname=ARoy+(F)&sid=1

(I am not sure if you can access the article without first signing up and logging in with your username, which of course is free. There is the hard copy of course that you can get in the stands)

Mumbai bleeding- 2

Helplines: Help Mumbai

Hotels(Via Twitter):
Taj: 022-66574322, 022-66574372, 1800 111 825
Trident: 022-23890606
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J J Hospital: 022-23735555,
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Helplines for Foreigners:
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From elsewhere: 1-800-387-3124

USA:
Help line number US: State Department number: 888.407.4747
Foreign Affairs: 1-613-996-8885

United Kingdom:
Forgeign Office Emergency Telephone Number: 0207 00 800 00.

Brazilians:
Brazilian help line: +919820686143 (C)

Australians:
In Mumbai: 1800 002 214
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(Source: http://vignettinglife.com/shot-through-the-heart/)

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Mumbai bleeding

This time I am speechless.
Time and again we have had the visions of the trains blown apart, markets bombed, mutilated bodies lying everywhere flashed across the news screens. These were times when these so called terrorists came in stealthily, planted these bombs, went into there safe hide outs, where they might have their last laugh. And all these times we were speculating the identity of these people. Based on few ambiguous descriptions from the people around, the forces were deployed for manhunt

This time around its different.. They are there, out in the open, with their young faces, clad in casuals, who if not for the guns in their hand could have passed off as any normal college going graduate. They openly entered TAJ, OBEROI , considered one of the most prestigous /luxurios hotels in Mumbai . Itsthe worst nightmare come alive. They have made no effort to conceal their identity, which clearly shows the extent to which these guys are motivated to carry out whatever intentions they had . They fired indiscriminately at the hostages. Not yet made any demands, They are willing to take on the whole police force, commandos head on . My god!! That speaks volumes about these guys

Taking out the top cops in the force, holding hostages at gun point, they have given a all together new dimensionto terror!!Spine chilling .

But, bottom line to it all is that innocent lives are lost, dreams cut short abruptly,. The wound from the previous attacks has not healed yet and Mumbai is bleeding again .

Some interesting statistics

http://www.sentex.net/~ajy/facts/statistics.html#f1111

Beta Shaadi ki umar ho gayi!!!

This is a conversation that personally i think "most" girls( of course, Indian girl)s, with the exception of those who are already committed, has with her parents/relatives when they cross the magical figure of 20 in her life, after which they begin the whole process of looking for a suitable groom for the girl. I will give present excerpts of the conversation through the years(i.e from the time she crosses 20 till lets say 23 or 24 , after which all hell breaks loose, it gets maddening out there). Agreed some of these I have had myself with my parents/relatives and some well, based on the experience of mostly aunts and cousins and friends. Huh!! quite an experience, I tell you

I will keep this a conversation between a mother and daughter .

Girl- Age:20 years, Mostly doing her Bachelor's degree.
The conversation begins with Ma being extra cautious , generally starts off with the casual," Oh, so how are your studies going on?? Whats happening in college?" . The girl senses the hesitation..
And starts wondering as to why is she reluctant so much(She has no ideaaaa!!!) . Then after a little while of talking about nothing in particular, does she drop the bomb

Ma--[clearing her throat)-- Beta, Well , Uncle ABC called up yesterday. He was ,uh , mentioning about a guy, the son of family friend of theirs. He is going to complete his masters and has already landed a very good job in this company X. I hear he is a very well mannered boy and very intelligent. Uncle thinks you both would make a good pair. So what do you say ? If you say yes, you can meet him, and then decide. I thought it best to ask you

Girl( totally dumbstruck for a while, eyes wide open, and then almost instantly retreats)-- Ma, but i am only 20, and you are thinking of marriage!!! I am yet to complete my bachelors. I dont even want to think about marriage, let alone meet him!! Ma, atleast i thought you would not bother me with all these until I complete my studies. Let us talk about it, once I finish my bachelors

The first time always ends up with the girl fuming, and giving an hour long explanation on how she so not want to think about marriage. SO a year passes by, Ma realises it best to close the chapter for now.

Girl- Age 21 years--22 , Just about to complete or just completed her bachelors and has just landed a job or just started working or started her masters degree
this time Ma does not hesitate

Ma -- So you have completed your studies now. Remember I had told you about a guy last year , whom Uncle ABC had mentioned . Well Uncle says, now that you have completed your studies, and he is pretty well settled, I think at least you should htink about this proposal
Girl( this time a lot more patient, she knows such a conversation was imminent) -- Ma, I want to do my masters now.
Ma-- So do it after marriage. Nobody is stopping you from pursuing your studies.
Girl-- But Ma, marriage means a whole lot of responsibilities, and I have just started working, let me work for a year or so. I want my own time out for myself before I engage myself in family responsibilities. Let me concentrate on my career .
Ma-- ( Knows that if the girl says no at this point of time, it is going to spell trouble later) 2 years for your masters then you woul dbe 24. It is very difficultto finnd guys then( Gal thinks,-- Aha as if they are an endangered species, soont o be extinct fromt he face of the earth)
But Beta, a good proposal is hard to get, I hear his parents are gem of people. And they would n ot object to studing further. All taht you want !!! Dont think it would be easy to get a well suitor later. this has happened before too(giving some far off relatives/ friens daughter's example) , see she rejected so many proposals in the beginning, because she kept saying that she is not ready for marriage and now she is already 25 and single. Their parents are so worried. They are hardly finding boys these days
Girl --But ma, I have to know the guy before I marry him. Dont yout think so ? All i am asking is to just let me be by myself for a year or so . As if I am going to run away with you guy.Then I would meet the guy you show me and think about him. I understand that you would be worried about me and its a great responsibilty for you , but do understand my point of view .
Ma(already panicky)-- I dont know what has come to girls of these days. During our itme, we didnt even have a choice. Here atleast , we are giving you the choice of meeting him . and you would have to compromise on things. You wont alwasy find a guy of your choice. Dont act like a hhardcore feminist and give all this individualist ideas to me. If you ahve any particular expectatios then tell me. you want a guy who had done his Masters/PhD or an MBA would do ?? Height ? Looks??
Girl( wants to laugh out aloud, at the same time , feels like screaming on top of her voice):
Ma, please just onemore year is all I ask you. then I would look at the guys you show, OK?

The conversation continues about how the girl wants to have career as a priority for now and Ma coming forward with counter arguments. Ma gives in finally after much hesitation. Fast forward to a year later

Girl- Age 23- 24 years , Working/About to complete her masters

Sorry, there is no conversation at this point of time. The girl is shown the guy. I am sure the situation is equally awkward for the guys too

Phew!!! To tell you its really a pain to make them understand. But then,evn they have a responsibilty to fulfill and thinkof the best of our iinterests. So , you have to endure these conversations.

Gals reading this post(i know that case to be rare) amy drop in some of their own experiences
Guys I would like to know if any such "conversations" you have had at home.. :-)
Would be a relief to knwo that we are not alone in this ..:)

Inference

These are some conclusions that i have come to recently
1. People change over the course of time,whether you like it or not. But do keep in mind that "you " yourself belong to this set of "people". However, expectations from them or vice versa remains the same, until one day you realise it that these too need to be refreshed over the period of time
2. You cannot claim to know somebody completely even after years of being with them. Human nature is a function of the circumstances that a person faces in his everyday life . You keep discovering new traits.
3. Some wounds never heal. May be you dont want them to. They are too precious to be locked away and forgeotten
4. You simply cannot get angry at some people. The heart has a special place for them . It was more than 3 years since i last spoke to a friend of mine and all my attempts to keep in touch with her went in vain since she was always busy, leaving me frustrated. When she called some days back( obviously with a reason) , I just couldn stop jumping with joy . There just aint an explanation for that
5. Ego plays a big role in any relationship,in friendship too, however good friends they claim to be ( Confused about this point , ego should not come in between two good friends , but it often does , though they are good friends)

Yeh hai Mumbai , Yeh hai Mumbai, Yeh hai Mumbai meri jaan

"Yeh hai Bombay... Meri jaan " crooned Johny Walker in the movie of the same name. When I think about the Bombay, memories come flooding back . Even 5years after leaving the city,deep down somewhere I am and I guess,will always be a Mumbaikar
--I miss those times I used to travel in the crowded local trains, precariously hanging by the door, as to the same time precariously hanging on to my life
--I miss those times I used to get down from Malad station and stroll outside to catch some mouth watering dahi kachori, vada pav( I still crave for vada pavs :-()and Samosa at M.M. Not to mention Dabheli
--I miss those times, we as kids , everyday used ot gather at the basement of our apartment building and play. right from cricjet to throball to volleyball, antakshari, dumb charads , hide and seek and what not
-- I miss those 10 days before Holi that we used to feel like hunted ont he road, and almost never entered class room without having been struck by water balloons and on the day of Holi, fighting it out with the folks of the other apartment building , devising strategies to hit as many of them from the other side of the febce as if it as an indo -Pak war
-- I miss going to watch dahi handi
-- I miss walking all the way from home to school , with the heavy school bag at the back
--I miss goign to all the fun fairs that used to be organised during Diwali and New Year time and play all those games at the stalls ( putting a ring across al the items, catching an apple in a bucket of water with a knife , and some weird card games ). and the list goes on and on

When I still think of all this, I can still smell the city. Hope to return to Mumbai some day

School,College,Work

Just a random thought.
Now that I have started working(its been close to a year, dont ask me as to what work I did in the past one year :P), I keep wondering,
--Now I feel What glorious days were that of engineering(bunking claases, never completing assignments, last minute preparation for internals, frustating labs , night outs during the semester exams, hanging out all most the whole day at the cafe, copying during internals)
--While I was doing my engineering course, used to wonder what wonderful days were those of two years of junior college(the innumerable visits to Juhu beach, never attended the second year of college , commuting to Vile Parle, hanging out at Snow lops(our favorite ice cream joint!!! )
--And during those two years, there was a constant thought at the back of the mindthat school days were never to come back ever in my entire life again. And it still saddens me . Golden days, truly.

Answers

This is just the first day of blogging and my head is already inundated with ideas for the blogs. Guess I have taken a liking to it already :-). Which of the stuff I write is actually readable by others by readable, I mean that people would genuinely sit and read the entire blog (whatever crap that might be)and may be share some of their ideas with me, remains to be seen. I usually take to writing as a stress buster, a window by means of which you realease all the thoughts that you have locked up in your head, sit back and try to make a sense out of all of it.
Oh great I am getting all philosophical again. but then who doesnt at some point or other in their life??

I have always wondered about certain things in life. Often trying to come up with answers, only to realize that you dont have definite answers with you, but only a bunch of "may be". "May be this is like this, that's y , or, may be it is not meant to be like this " "May be "
Often times we have to be contented with the " May be's". This is I must say one of the most optimistic ways of taking a perspective at certain things. Some of those I would state here.

!. Your life is going smoothly and suddenly one day lightning strikes and you lose something or someone you loved the most in your life. For quite sometime your mind goes blank, not knowling whether all that is happening around you is real or you are just living a nightmare. Somebody has to snap you back to life and that is when you start wondering or throwing questions at oblivion , " How did this happen?? , " Why did this happen? " " But why me ??"
You dont have answers.. Just plain nothing. Blank.. It is then that you start formulating these May be's.. May be that person;s time had come and he had to leave
May be "God" puts you all this because He wants you to be stronger
May be he wou;d be happier there in some other world(even if you dont believe there is another life beyond death, you would for the sake of some one else) rather than here.. May be .. And you would bever know
Beleve me everyone will face this situation sometime or the other in their life, some really early in their life, some a little late

2. One other situation is when you look back in your life and wonder ,
" May be if I had said what i really felt to that person , things would have been different" " May be if I had taken music a little more seriously early on in life, then I wouldn sit here today and regret"
Many such may bes . You would never know. What I mentioned in the first point is not in our hands, but this one is. Time is a good teacher and teaches you to take decisions wisely precisely so that some years down the line you wake up and not regret for ceratin things not having done or said the right things at the right time

3. Is the more optimistic one.
May be in the future, we would have a better understanding . May be.. May be

Office Office.

Actually I had planned this as my "debut" blog
But plans changed. Anyway

The two most common reasons why people get pissed off in the office
1. Work load ( Not really for me )
2. Your manager is givoing you a hard time ( I am lucky to have a really great manager)

I just said two.. you might be wondering whats the third one.. exclusive to me

3. Some very annoying personalities in the office
(People who had already read the uncensored version of this post would be knowing as to whom I am talking about)

this is still in the editor.. watch out this space for some very interesting excerpts from the conversation that these people have , which obviously I have to hear... Mind you i am not eaves dropping here..( Sorry for the editing :-))
Will be updating soon...

The Panda Fever

Some days back, I came back home, determined to watch the "Kung Fu Panda". Why suddenly did i feel like watching this movie after almost two months that it relaesed?? You will get to know it soon. So switched on my laptop, got my dinner and started watching.

The movie opened with the line " Legend tells of a legendary warrior whose kung fu skills were the stuff of legend." And I burst out laughing. At first, I didn know if the line was really funny or was it that the movie was so much hyped about that I was just waiting to laugh out loud at every single scene of the movie, which even before starting the movie, i knew. How???

Flashback.....

Some days back...

I am not a big animation movie buff, so when Kedar ( He is a friend from work) first remarked over lunch ( 90% of time at lunch is spent discussing movies), "Guys, you got to watch this movie.. Its simply awwwesome" . When I asked him what the movie was all about, he told me its about a Panda who has to learn Kung Fu to defeat some bad guy in the movie.Obvioulsy I did not get all excited about the movie "Ok, dekhenge kabhi". The Kung Fu fever had already caught him so much that he actually went about describing some of the scenes, ewhich I found funny and obviously raised my curiosity level, but the fever had not caught on to me yet.
HE kept telling for some days after that,every time cracking jokes from the movie " You havent watched it yet??? You really are misiing out some seriously good stuff", I reacted casually yet again, "Will see"


Then I saw people putting up wierd gmail status messages, "There are no accidents", "You have to believe" When asked the meaning , then had just one reply, "You didnt watch Kung Fu Panda ???? "".. Hmmm.. Ok ok I will watch it.. Aisa kya hai movie me ki log paagal ho gaye hain ???

A couple of days later, Kedar inflicted Aniket (another friend from work) with the fever. And all hell broke loose. Those guys just couldnt stop laughing the whole day. They would make weird references to the movie and burst out laughing. Arreee woh yaad hai, jab Po aata hai shi fu ko bachane, "Stares!!!" and then both of them would be rofl. Aur wohhhh.. "Enemies would be blinded due to over exposure to pure awesomeness.. Classic yaar !!! Aur fir roshni hoti hai and everybody shield their eyes from the light.. sahi tha woh " Aree haan.. Mushi's finger hold.. Oh baap re.. khatarnak tha.. There is now a level zero... That was awesome.. Aur end me woh fight.. mast tha.. Aree usko kaise bhulo sakte hain...Dragon Warrier.. kya khata hai yaar woh.. There is no charge for attractiveness.. And that part where Po enacts shi fu .. uff.. I cant stop laughing "
And I just sat there not knowing what is going on . With Kedar almost enacting certain scenes, I felt all the more lost and all the more curious Also kept wondering what had come into these two. They seemed to link anything and everything to the movie and start laughing. They did explain to me the sequences, but well you can never enjoy the movie that way

And all the while they were like," Are tujhe woh movie dekhna hi hai " .. that is when I decided that I have to watch the movie. I certainly did not want to miss out on all the jokes

Back to this day again( the day I watched the movie)...
I dont even remember if I finished my dinner properly. I was literally rolling all over the bed watching the movie . "Hit it!! Are they going to be watching or shall we wait till they get back to their work", " I am not upset" " There are no accidents" " Get ready to see some thunder" "You are free to eat.. Am I ?? Am I ??" " you have not seen the bear style " " I dont know"

An absolute masterpiece from DreamWorks. A must must watch. Probably it was because of the hype that these guys created that I enjoyed the movie evry bit of it but there is no denying the fact that the movie is simply brilliant. More so Its Jack Black as the voice of Po who is absolutely wonderful..

And there you go , I caught on "The Panda Fever " too . And boy O boy we had one hell of time in the office laughing at all those jokes .

I cant remember the last time an animation movie like this came where we almost had the all dialogues at the tip of our tongue. Lion king , Madagsacar, Finding Nemo, Shrek all were good.. But like rightfully Kedar said " There is now a level awesome "

Cheers to " Kung Fu Panda"










I

My First Blog

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, when I was just searching for ways to kill time, I decided to write. I do have a habit of writing, but more so in an old fashioned way, i.e with a pen and paper I simply never felt like sitting in front of a laptop and typing for hours together. Have never been a big fan of blogs. Its only recently that i took to reading some blogs pointed to by some of my "blog" crazy friends. So I finally decided to try my hand at blogging myself. So here it goes.