Van Phool

Just to show off I have decided to jot down here verbatim a Hindi poem that I had learned byheart for my fourth standard exams and that has stayed with my ever since and probably will till the day I croak. Its called Van Phool. I don't know who the author is and I don't know whether the poem is still available in fourth std. Hindi textbooks. This is a futile exercise in wasteful pointlessness and you can skip reading this post if you want to. I seriously mean it.

वन फूल
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फूल काँटों में खिला था
सेझ पर मुरझा गया।

जगमगाता था उषा सा कंताको में वह सुमन,
स्पर्श से उसके तरंगित था सुरभिवाही पवन.
ले कपूरी पुन्खुदियो में फुल्ल मधुरुतु का सपन.

फूल काँटों में खिला था
सेझ पर मुरझा गया।

प्रकार रवी का ताप झंझा के असह झोंके कठिन.
कर न पाए उस तरुण संघर्ष कामी को मलिन.
किन्तु प्राची से अलग हो रह ना पाया एक दिन.

फूल काँटों में खिला था
सेझ पर मुरझा गया।

Maximum City

I just have completed reading the bestseller Maximum City by Suketu Mehta. It's a book about Bombay or Mumbai as it had just been rechristened when Mehta moved back to it after having lived 20 odd years in New York. The book is almost 600 pages long and people who generally get scared of such huge books (must be something to with the childhood fear of textbooks which themselves were gargantuan monsters) or those who don't read anything other than the Harry Potter meganovels, would be apprehensive to wade through its pages.

However once you do so, you find yourself entrenched into a world that seems at once so familiar to Mumbaikars (when he describes the crowded state of the metropolis) but also sometimes seem to be happening in some far off world. For Mehta's book is peppered with the accounts and experiences of some of the more extreme citizens of Mumbai - extortionists, gangsters, bar dancers, super-cops, Bollywood directors and super rich and super-orthodox Jain patriarchs. Mehta has found himself in the company of varied personalities like Bal Thackeray, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Sanjay Dutt and Chotta Shakeel at one point or other during the course of the book.

I found myself hating and applauding Mumbai at various points of time, alternating between wanting to move from this accursed city as soon as possible or strengthening my resolve to stick it out here between different chapters. But throughout I was constantly completely engrossed in the simple words (he also has peppered the novel with coarse Bombaiyya phrases that seem so natural to our ears) that Mehta uses to weave a rich and vividly coloured tapestry which is what this novel really is.

I spent all my free time this past week devouring up pages of this book, while I should really have been studying for the dreaded CAT which looms ever closer. But i have a long history of starting mega-novels just before an important exam. Like the time I started and completed Ayn Rand's Fountainhead 10 days before my second Semester Engg exams.

Anyhoo, I seriously recommend this book. I am sure that once you start, you will be hooked onto it, and when you finish you will have that heady feeling within you telling you that you've read something worthwhile, something that will remain with you.
Peace out.

In reality ...

I hate reality shows.

They have almost nothing to do with reality but everything with theatricality, artificiality and have basically been reduced to the status of farces sometimes even degenerating to the level of a perennially putrid Ektaa Kapoor Saas-Bahu drama.

I must confess though immediately that when these shows first started even I was hooked onto them as much as the next idiot-box addict. I had slavishly followed the first Indian Idol Season, watched all episodes of the second season of Nach Baliye (more to do because I wanted to watch a particular female contestant) and partially followed Indian Idol 3. But as time has progressed I have come to realize that what a colossal waste of time it has been for me. There are many reasons why my outlook on these shows has changed -

Un - The fact that the fate of the contestants is placed on audience voting means that talented contestants get kicked out at crucial stages, ugly regionalism, factionalism, gender biases all come into the fore as people tend to vote for a participant just because he is from their region, regardless of how talented he really is. Thus a Vada Pavwala will never vote for an Idli Dosa Sambhar wala who in turn will never vote for a Bloody Communist Rassogula.
Also women hardly ever seem to reach the final rounds of these competitions no matter how well they perform, so what incentive do they really have of even participating! Finally the people who really win are the channel and the telecom companies who make crores of rupees on the millions of smses that are made. (scope out how many times i use the word really)

Dos - The new fad of upcoming movies being introduced on these shows, with the makers, stars of these films descending on the music show and pretending to be a big fan of the singers and many promise the wide-eyed participants that they will be singing in their next film, promises which they never keep.
Also these shows seem to function on only 2 levels, sentimentality or controversy.
Needless and over exaggerated and nauseously irritating in both cases.

Tres - Ever since loudmouths like Himmesh (Oo! I hate him with all my heart and all my soul!) have become judges on shows which my mother unfortunately is a huge fan of, all I can hear in the house at nights is their obnoxious voices booming from the telly. To see pompous buffoons like Himmesh and Ismael Durbaar and Abhijeet prancing around as if they are all-knowing all-wise kiss-my-ass-if you-know-what's best-for you-types gurus, spouting their equally inane fundas makes me ... grr ... it makes shiver me timbers.

Thus after having put forth my reasons (I'm sure there are many more, I just can't think of them right now) I again strongly reiterate - I hate reality shows...

...But not as much as I hate the current garbage that passes of as news on the hundreds and thousands of national 24 hour news channels out there.
It's funny in a way but sometimes these reality shows seems more real than what news channels peddle as news.

Buts thats a grouse for another time. Enough negativity for one post.
Lets all fold our hands, close our eyes, exhale out noisily and get rid of all the bad vibes and negative energy. Aum Shaanti Shaanti Aum!

Bheja vu ki Deja Fry?

As October begins to sinks its teeth into me, as I spend another Saturday morning glued to my PC screen reading nondescript blogs, the occasional movie review and chatting with umpteen friends online while all the time having this uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach I get the feeling that I have experienced all this before.

Of course, just last year I went through this same routine and the reason for it is so achingly obvious - come mid-November, December the entire jamboree of MBA entrance exams will begin, few of which in I will fare well enough to have an outside chance of securing a GD/PI call and in most of which I will score miserably average percentiles. CAT, XAT, SNAP, NMAT , SHIT ....

Okay, I made up the last one but they seriously should consider naming an exam that. Even last year I did not study well enough, just commuting to and fro to office taking away most of my energy. Foolhardily I have decided to try again. Fortunately this time will be my last, one way or the another!!!

Why am I dong an MBA? Is it just because the rest of humanity (the brown skinned ones that is) is also doing so? The answer is yes!
Why not remain in technical field, to which my talents (or the lack thereof) are more suited? Is it because the Indian IT industry sucks? Yes again!
Why not give up all mortal attachments and go do penance in the Himalayas then? I wish it were so easy.

People who have graduated can empathize how difficult it is to start studying again once courses as abominably unbearable like engineering have finished!

So once again, this year too, I will be spending a lot of cash on applying for these exams and colleges, with very low returns on my expenditure.
If again I am unsuccessful in garnering admission by way of these exams I will hop onto the GMAT bandwagon, then maybe something else.

Who knows one day I might actually even sit down and study something.

How I went for looks over features, bought an Ipod Nano and screwed myself over

The title of this post is misleading. I am not going to bitch over here about my Ipod Nano which was originally my intention but rather I'm gonna pump about a fake-somebody blog (a fake blog written pretending to be someone famous) called fakesteve.blogspot.com . This ones a fake blog by Steve Jobs, Apple's co-founder and personality extrordinaire.
I first read of this blog in TOI (a famous purveyor of putrid journalism itself) when the actual writer of this blog was outed by a New York Times Reporter. This pricked up my curiosity about the blog which led me to visiting it and I've been faithfully following it ever since. Actually it's kinda facetious of me to say that because I only started reading it after it got so popular.
Neways I am a fan mainly because I've always been fascinated by the Innovator that is Steve Jobs ever since I read his biography - iCon. A man who has revolutionized the Computer, Movie and Music Industries.
So I do take time out everyday to read this fake blog about El Jobso and Apple's struggles against BeastMaster and his cohorts at Redmond.

Siooma Suckaz!

Oh the horror of it all

Heyloo,

Somewhere before I had mentioned about some horror story draft which I had discarded midway.
Well I have managed to complete it.

Its located two posts down (apparently blogspot.com arranges blogs based on the dates on which they are started, not when they are completed as I would have done) and is rather fatuously called Nightfall

Read it and you will understand the reason why I have never achieved success and fame for my writing like say a Stephen King or a Sidney Sheldon has.

It might not scare you, It might not give you much to think about, It might not do much of anything actually.

It is however the closest I have ever come at penning down my autobiography.

Hah! I can hear you sniggering already!

Back to the present

Allo' Allo' Me Peeps,

Me is back from the wedding of me bro.
Freshly rejuvenated and raring to go.

Me Had a whale/blast/gala of a time out there in me muluk, i.e. the birthplace of me forefathers and me foremothers.

Me Bro's wedding was a smashin'/dashin'/friggin' success and was a joyous week overall.

Me participated in a stage dance for da first time in mes life (Yes me peeps, do not rub ye eyeballs in disbelief!) It was a folk/gangsta'/ghati dance and me is glad to report that me performed horribly above expectations.

There was a also a skit written and performed by meself and me couzin brethren which was a huge multi-platinum/major-rocking hit and was something that Shakespeare fella' would've given a arm and leg to have produced.

Everywhere me went, the peeps were all ova me, insinuating/indicating/exasperating me that me is now next in line to be married. To that all that me sez is - 'Pshaw/Ptuii/Puhleeze!'

Mez happy to be single and plan to stay that way for a coupla' more weeks/months/years.

Arebedarchie youz alls.