Date:	2009-06-24 23:55
Subject:	Book
Security:	Public
Mood:	happy

If there is one word that I think my friends will not associate with me (and I am in complete agreement with them) then it has to be the word romantic...but after having read the book I must confess that if liking that book is akin to being romantic then I have a discovered a new aspect about myself even if that aspect was limited to the duration of my reading the book "Love in Time of Cholera" ....one of the best fictional novel that I have read...if you are into fiction you should give this book a try.....

----But he could not respond as he would have liked , because then his heart played one of those whorish tricks that only hearts can play:it revealed to him that he and this man , whom he had always considered a personal enemy , were victims of the same fate and shared the hazards of a common passion;they were two animals yoked together.

Date:	2009-06-08 22:41
Subject:	:)
Security:	Public
Mood:	content

I always thought that  I would shout on top of my voice for having made it....for having fulfilled a dream (albeit a bit late) , a dream which I think I carried from god knows when and yet the only time I ended up coming close to being emotional was when the papers were handed over......I am surprised by my own reaction...I guess that's what happens when you keep living and re-living a moment in future.....as I read somewhere "Long waiting can be quite educational.But a long wait can also make one conjure up the awaited encounter in such detail as to destroy all possibility of a happy surprise." and so when that moment arrives you feel a certain void you search how one would search in a dark room trying to feel everything with one's hand and you desperately try to come up with the right emotion and a reaction that will define that moment for the rest of your life.......nothing happens and yet after a few days you realize that even though there was no waterfall of emotions there still is a stream of it....a stream which makes you smile every time you think of it.....I am not ecstatic but am certainly satisfied about my first house a "two bedroom flat" not the big ego boosting kind but more aptly described by Gulzar sahabe's lines "thodi see zameen .....thoda asmaan , tinkon kaa baas ek Aashiyaan" :)

The most amusing thing about this election was that it was issue-less ,and so most of the political analyst just assumed that people will vote like they have in the past.So they very conveniently made the prediction that U.P and Bihar will vote on caste lines...T.N voters would be swayed by happenings in Sri Lanka so and and so forth...and yet Indians in my opinion have voted for performance ,so if the much famed machinery of the Communist did not deliver in their bastions then the much touted "Social Engineering" of Mayawati in U.P ended up being a no-show ,just as casteism was not a major voting factor in Bihar and anti-incumbancy was not an issue for Naveen Patnaik...and all this makes me wonder, has the Indian voter de-coupled himself/herself from ideology and identity based politics?Will this election finally signal the end of deep divisions that Mandal Comission had unleashed? for I am certain of one thing that apart from the BJP lacking a leader with a pan India appeal it has also found itself without an agenda..In economic front they who represent the right wing cannot boast of as many reformers as Congress can...as for Hindutva the problem is it's very definition as interpreted by the BJP ensures limited returns and moreover it's beyond it's expiry date so does this mean that we are back to the days when each one had his/her own idea of India and these ideas existed without violent clashes with each other?

Also the big question is will Congress be able to handle such unencumbered power now that they don't have to worry about the Left?(their history certainly does not suggest that)Will this mean unfettered opening up of the economy?They will do good to remember the lines "With great power comes great responsibility"

Just like in one's life similarly in a Nation's life we not only have to make a decision but also hope that luck smiles on us so that when we look back at our decision it can be judged as the correct one...here's hoping that the decision the Nation has made will end up being judged as the correct decision..

PS:I have not gone through the caste breakup of the votes in various regions but I guess it's safe to say that voting preferences cut across caste lines for this kind of verdict.

As an after thought I think Indian TV news media is fast losing it's legitimacy if it hasn't already and that may to some extent explain the popularity of newspapers as a serious source of information

Date:	2009-04-07 23:41
Subject:	It's Official
Security:	Public
Mood:	amused

It's official (at least as official as it gets..)and the reason is as Bill Clinton famously said it's about the economy stupid...

They are going to auction some personal belongings of Gandhi-ji and the ironic part is the man who used these things,in my opinion was against monetary symbolism of any kind...and yet today most Indian cities have their best malls on MG Road...all Indian notes carry his picture and if that was not enough his belongings will go to someone who in exchange will pay notes which will have a picture of Benjamin Franklin...a representative of a nation which has not just used but also abused Money Power to the maximum extent....Gandhi ji to be exchanged for Benjamin Franklin....

I guess Sarojni Naidu was right when she said "Only if Gandhi ji knew how expensive his poverty was..."*

To end ,a line from one of my all time favorite short story:
Thus truth and falsehood mingle in life--and to what God builds man adds his own decoration.

*not a verbatim

I think I may get married next week...no it has nothing to do with the fact that I will be in India next week or that something is on the works...nothing like that....I just realized that on Valentine day the moment I see someone with a camera and some turmeric stub all I need to do is go the nearest  girl....ask her some fictious address and viola the Ram Sene guys would do the rest for me......damn getting wife in India just became easier than cooking Maggie Noddles......I love these guys.....I am sure somewhere in the past we have had similar experiences .....like never able to hitch up with a girl.....and stuff like that....so I think now their thinking goes something like this.....since we never had the happiness of having a girl friend so we will not allow anyone else to have that pleasure.......so that if that pleasure itself vanishes then we won't feel like retards....but I think deep down inside what these guys are really hoping is that seeing these antics some girls will take it upon themselves to reform these guys and so based on purely sympathetic grounds they will finally get a girl......you know how they used to show in Hindi movies back in 70's and 80's.....Anywaz I don't care what their reason is but I think I have a very high probability of getting married this Valentines Day....and the slogan will be like that Maggie Ad ...."Ram Sene Marriage" ........"baas do minute"

Update:guess what??? my suspicion about the Ram Sene guys was true....they are all just  gas and nothing more....I stood next to 13 girls smiling...asked 17 girls for addresses and yet these guys could not get me married ........agreed getting me married off can be a challenge but aren't these guys suppose to do things much more challenging than that...like bringing India's glorious past back.....so that we can have rivers of milk (hopefully fat-free) and birds of gold flying around????

Date:	2009-01-26 12:05
Subject:	Elegy--a mournful poem; a lament for the dead
Security:	Public
Mood:	calm

Beautiful women are invisible......they have a beauty barrier,which prevents us from looking into them ,knowing them.......because the beauty barrier blinds us

Those are the lines (not a verbatim) from the movie 'Elegy' and after a long time I ended up watching a movie which explores a man woman relationship at a very basic level (if I may say so...) it's about a man who is old but does not accept it or is simply not aware of it till he comes across this very beautiful looking girl who is some 30 odd years younger than him......and he finds himself irresistibly attracted towards her and even though this attraction at first is physical soon he finds that her sense of self binds him to her in ways he had never found himself...on the other hand the girl is conscious of her beauty and yet at some level unwilling to use the power that that beauty bestows on her....

I liked the movie because of the various levels in which one can interpret it....if at one end it's about a man trying to re-define his identity through his lost youth then on the other it's about a women who is so self assured that she does not mind falling for a man who 'worships' her body as a work of art......and shows no inclination to "know" her.......and yet the other interpretation is the aspect where a work of art is not owned by anyone and maybe it is this underlying truth which leads the professor to jealousy and insecurity which in turn leads him to a conclusion (which turns out to be baseless) that sooner rather than later she would leave him.(which again points out how little faith he had on her intellect or judgment making ability) the interesting question here is what if "art" itself had a will?....would it like to mean different things to different people or would it be happy to be with someone who "worships" her......

I also found myself questioning that are we as a society in some ways discriminatory(for or against)  beautiful people? for in some ways they do make us vulnerable and is this vulnerability that we try to over come by attaching words like brains/intellect with beauty....I mean beauty in itself is a quality which we all desire than why not accept it on a stand alone basis? just like we accept so many other things.....

PS:I know beauty/intellect are subjective but here I am referring to it in the conventional sense....

Date:	2008-12-23 22:48
Subject:	Seeing things where none exsist
Security:	Public
Mood:	cranky

I think there is more symbolic value to the shoe throwing incident than meets the eye (in the first glance at least)did you notice how the second shoe which Bush ducked ended up hitting the US flag? just like how Bush after ducking the democratic process first time ducked it again a second time and in the process hurt America itself....here's the link

PS:Sometimes in a cranky mood I like exercising my imagination :D

She:If you like kids so much why don't you get married?

He:hmmmm...

She:What does that hmmmm... mean?

He:You know I like the Taj Mahal also but that does not mean I start staying in it...it's a mausoleum after all...

She:hmmm....

He:What does that hmmmm... mean?

She:You know I think I should be allowed to kill people who come up with such idiotic reasonings...

He:hmmm.....

She:What does that hmmmm... mean?

He:You know when death is staring at you from such close quarters then one should offer her an invitation for coffee

She:that's it just a cup of coffee?

He:You see a cup of coffee...I see a lot of conversations and possibilities

She:So what will conversations,possibilities be about?

He:Economic crises,India's response to Pakistan...

She:Maybe I will stick to killing..

He:Maybe I will change the topics...let's instead talk about kids,stars and far away lands....

He:coffee?

She:coffee.

lessons:
He is a big kajoos even when death was staring him on the face the best he could come up with was coffee and the thoughts of diamonds did not even occur to him....

She has a violent streak in her....

Date:	2008-11-29 01:07
Subject:	Mumbai Blasts
Security:	Public
Mood:	aggravated

Honestly ,saying the obvious would be just a waste of time specially since there is no immediate contribution that I can make but guess I do need to get this out of my system......

It did not start today it started when in '93 there were blasts and we suspected some people and instead of getting them dead or alive went begging to countries that they be handed over to us, those guys are still roaming free(remember what Israel did ???).....then a few years later our Home Minister escorted terrorist to Afghanistan so that a hijacked plane could be brought back(remember Russia...and the school hijack??? )...thats when we declared to the world that we are a sissy nation and then after the Parliament attack we made a circus of mobilizing the army only to do nothing and even after the top court of the nation passed a ruling convicting a guy for attacking the Parliament we will not hang that guy because of his community and with this kind of a history the Prime Minister of the country has the guts to come on National TV and say we will not tolerate???whom is he kidding we will....because the whole point is we simply don't care......we have a Home Minister who will not be questioned because in this government loyalty to Mrs. Gandhi is more important than one's competence for the job.....the last few years has taught us a real hard lesson about democracy that if not exercised judiciously then people like Bush and Sonia Gandhi or someone like them end up exercising power with their limited goals in mind and it's we who suffer...if you are reading this maybe what I suggest will come across as naive but let's just do one thing....next time elections are there let's make an informed choice and not just us but also coax our near ones to exercise their voting rights.......for as long as we don't start making decisions about our decision makers they will keep taking us for a ride by suggesting "foreigners" are involved....let's remind them that one of the primary jobs of a government is to prevent foreign aggression so saying this was planned outside the country does not absolve them of their crime of being callous about their job for no matter where a plan is hatched it is being executed in our country and that's what the govt. is there for .....for preventing it..

On another note I wonder where are the Right Wing guys who pick up on office going or exam giving crowd....why don't they send a few of their men to fight these terrorist oops terrorist will actually fuck them....it's so much easier to pick up on people who cannot hit back...wonder why doesn't Mulayam Singh and his cronies come out in open and say that irrespective from which communities these terrorist are they will request the government to hang them if proved guilty.......but then that would disturb the electoral applecart...so let's wait till this gets over and then after a few days we can start all over again till such time that it happens again....which going by our record it will....

Date:	2008-11-23 18:00
Subject:	Time Pass
Security:	Public
Mood:	bored
Music:	Tujse

---Being a part of a team that has people from different cultures can have it's own challenges specially if the team decides to go out for a "dine-out together" in a Chinese restaurant (and Chinese as in Chinese and not Indian Chinese or watered down Chinese) which made me declare myself a Veggie and soon looking at the intensity of the Chinese conversation that my collueuge and the waiter indulged in I was pretty certain that being a veggie in China is considered a crime punishable with capital punishment..and after much deliberation I was provided with water in which a few pieces of something red was put.....I was informed that I could pick the veggie stuff of my liking and when I entered the place it almost felt like walking into a vegetable mart......I was suppose to dip these in the "steam-boat" and have it......somehow I managed the ordeal for sometime and then got myself excused saying my friend was waiting for me....

---In the last fortnight I had been to two shows the first being "Masters of Percussion" by Ustad Zakir Hussein and Troupe and the other being "An evening with Ustad Ghulam Ali" and to say that both were an out of the world experiences would be an under-statement even though Gulam Ali saheb's evening was less of a concert and more of a mehfil and I so wished that I was attending this show in an open air stage on a chilly north Indian winter evening and the mehfil would go on till late into the night.....and now I wonder if there's anything I wish for.....maybe a recitation by Gulzar saheb....but since that right now does not look plausible so guess got to do with this ...one of his best of the one's I am aware of...

---They say I am not serious about my life......and I don't understand why should I be...I guess one of us is right and either way it's scary but for now...
Kyun sooche kee kya hoga...
Kuch naa hoga ....
too Kuch Naa hone kaa*  tazurba hoga....


* I added the "Kuch naa hone kaa" ,original is without it....

Date:	2008-11-04 22:24
Subject:	A Post
Security:	Public
Mood:	blank
Music:	Mora Sayian

It's very rare for me to be nudged to make a post.....for I usually make posts almost out of need and for the past few weeks I have been denying myself this need.....the funny thing is I almost succeeded in overcoming my need to blog.....guess like all habits this one is also difficult to give up and yet over the past few weeks what I realized was just like you live with a habit similarly you can deny yourself a habit and soon that denial itself ends up being a habit.....as they say

"aadate bhi ajjeb hoti hain......
saas lena bhi kaisi aadat hain...
jiye jaana bhi kya rayawait hain....
jiye jaate hain...jiye jaate hain.....
aadate bhi ajjeb hoti hain"

maybe I should have written about my short trip to India but that trip was so much along expected lines...it was almost like I was reliving moments...but for all those repeated moments there were some moments which I guess no matter how much one anticipates still manage to surprise......for one the intensity and hopefulness with which friends thought that the trip was for a purpose really surprised me......and I realized that if one is on the other side of thirty and single then a short holiday is only meant to change the status-co....having a holiday for the sake of holiday is out of question.....I also realized that we are a nation obsessed with marriage...in fact I came across a reality show where couples actually danced for weeks on end just to get married on national television and if all this was not bad enough I was visiting a dentist* for an RCT when the dentist got a call on his phone so out he went to attend the call with me lying there with an open mouth.....needles inserted into my gums when the dentist's assistant decides to get chatty with me and asks "Shaheb aap kee Shhadi ho gayi".....hopefully one day they will make one murder pardonable and I shall have my revenge......damn he could have asked me anything like if I follow cricket or the economy or Aishwaryia Rai but no all he could come up with was that......the other reality that hit me hard was the ability of a few months old baby to completely dictate the routine of adults...all that my niece needed to do was raise her decibel levels.....in fact for Diwali I suggested to my sister that she need not buy crackers....for her daughter would do a more than good job of matching all the cracker sounds...in fact Shristi reinforces my views that babies should be born with a mute button.....that being said I must confess that after coming back whenever I have thought about my niece all that comes to my mind is her smiling face....I guess that's their magic....they will cry.....they will poo and yet it's their smile that makes all of it worthwhile......

*The day I am able to pay my dental bills without feeling the pinch that's the day I would know that I have arrived in life (in economic terms) Dentist's are seriously expensive......

Date:	2008-10-02 16:17
Subject:	Money Money ---3
Security:	Public
Mood:	bored

The communist in India are taking credit for having saved India from an economic crises like the one's facing US and Europe and it does not really surprise me because somehow in India we love to pat our backs for "not being as bad as others" like if there's a coup in Pakistan we immediately go into self congratulation mode about our democratic set-up....we never question the health of democracy in our country ,like why is there a large scale dis-content in Kashmir and North East or why does the Naxal issue refuses to go away......I guess self introspection is not really our thing.....but still I would like to ask Mr. Karat and all his ilk that if they think that their model is right then why did USSR collapse under a massive economic failure....why go so far if only he could answer why did India which till the early 90's was following a socialist model end up facing the payment crises in '91 which finally led to the opening up of the Indian economy....and why does Kerala and West Bengal have the highest number of unemployment in the country??? I think the fact that India has not faced the crises owes more to the fact that when we decided to embrace the open economy model we were lucky enough to have a Prime Minister (Mr. P.V.Narishima Rao) who was intelligent enough to understand the effects of the process he was unleashing...and hence against everyone's advise he went ahead and made some decisions in 94-95 that did not make sense to capitalist...he was the one who coined the phrase "reform with a human face" and instead of just following the diktats of IMF etc he insisted on an Indian model which meant that we were not rushing into things like full account convertibility etc which not only helped us stave-off a crises like the East Asian Crises but has served us well even now....I think like our present Prime Minister says India has not been thankful to one man who has played a pivotal role in shaping the economic model that we follow today...so the communists can go ahead and keep trying to suck credit out of other people's failure but I still think that we will need to continue with our economic model which need not necessarily be based on models prescribed by others but a one which evolves from our own requirements...

So does this crises and the bailout mean the end of Capitalism as we know it????In my opinion it's not....I think what has happened is more basic....imagine someone lands up in your colony with truck loads of money and starts distributing it just like that....you know that because money is so easily available to everyone,cost of things around will go up (too much money chasing too few things)in other words the 100 rs that you already had has lost some of it's value because what earlier was available for 100 rs now costs more.....and who is responsible for this???of course the guy who brought in all that money for distribution....and this is what exactly Mr Alan Greenspan did....he allowed so much of easy money in the system that banks were forced to find ways to spend that money....and since banks could not just spend money they chose real-estate as an asset class that is always in demand...just that most people could not afford it most of the time....so the financial wizards came up with smart plans whereby they mixed people with different kinds of credit ratings so that the average risk comes down....once that happened they go to the rating agencies to get these instruments rated.....the interesting thing is that these rating agencies would get a fat fee for providing a good rating and this is where the failure kicked in....there was an inherent conflict of interest...both the rating agencies and the IB's were market players...it was like allowing an umpire to also be a fielding captain.....

Anywaz so why can't we just allow the market forces to play out and let the banking system collapse...you see the banking system is to the economy what arteries is to the body and the blood that these arteries carry is money and the oxygen for this blood called money is credit....basically banks borrow from each other all the time..(and in turn me and you borrow from the banks),charge some interest and thus the economy remains healthy...what's happening right now is none of the banks are sure how much "toxic asset" the other banks are carrying in their books and hence they have almost stopped lending to other banks for fear of losing that money....and without that oxygen called credit ,the system is sure to die and that's why the govt. wants to buy all the "toxic assets" so that banks are assured about each others books and start lending again....and all this would be deja vu to Indians whose government in the past have done what the US govt. is doing today.....so in a ironic way "matured" markets are falling back into doing what a developing market had already done a few years back.....

Date:	2008-08-01 19:18
Subject:	Pleasantness
Security:	Public
Mood:	refreshed

There is this girl who works in a different office but shares the same floor as my office......she always has her hair open......seems lost in a very non-obvious way.....I wonder if she has a world of her own....a world detached to the "real" world around her.....has a natural spring which she unconsciously tries to restrain but doesn't do a good job of it....dreamers they make such lousy workers...her looks does not qualify her for the word "hot"......she is someone whom you would find standing next to you in a queue and would take notice but maybe nothing more....and yet she has this thing about her......a whole lot of enthusiasm......an enthusiasm not for anything in particular.....but a restrained enthusiasm for everything...if there's a word I would use to describe her and her looks then it would be the word "pleasantness"......maybe because I have always sensed a smile hidden somewhere in those eyes behind those glasses......and today she was wearing a t-shirt on which was written..."I am feeling Cold give me a Warm Hug" ......and I duly fell for it....NO I did not hug her....I just told her that it was the cutest t-shirt message I had ever seen......she smiled and her face was splashed with the color of blood.....she said Thank You and hurriedly walked back to her office....like those kids who when they get a gift which they always wanted but least expected take it to some secluded corner to explore it ......that's the problem with people who have a dreamland of their own.....they refuse to believe acknowledge that there can be moments or maybe just a moment in real life that can match in pleasantness to their own dream world.... :)

Just when you thought it was difficult enough here ......they just go and raise the bar (the pun was really not intended)......what is it with rocket scientist???why does everything with them has to go up(again pun was really not intended)

Date:	2008-07-06 10:34
Subject:	Jaane Tu Yaa Jaane Naa...
Security:	Public
Mood:	happy

I saw Jaane Tu...yaa Jaane Naa....a very very delightful movie.......

Before I start my "analysis" or rather "ramble" (take your pick I believe in democracy ;) )I must confess that I have not done any independent research or anything on this subject....the points put here are based on the different articles I have read on the net.....

So Oil is almost at 140 USD and if you don't have the patience of reading through this whole thing then the summary of this whole post would be that the cost of oil has nothing to do with Market Dynamics or in other words demand and supply as is being made out in popular media.....

Oil was bound to go up by some extent not just because the demand was rising but also because after 9-11 all oil installations required extra security for without the extra security oil installations would have become easy targets to disrupt the world economy.....but then this extra security did not require too heavy an investment for the oil wells themselves were secure zones and the soft spots which were the transportation links could easily be secured by making the area through which these pipelines passed a restricted area.....so under normal circumstances oil prices should have increased not more than say 15-20%(a completely random figure)so what is causing this price rise???as I said earlier it's definitely not the demand and supply dynamics because even though there has been a rise in demand of oil this demand is nowhere as high as to make the price increase almost 4 times.....for at one level price is always a function of demand and supply and even though in case of oil it's not a linear relationship but even considering the in-elasticity built into this the prices simply don't add up.......

And so the first culprit in my opinion (and also of the OPEC countries)are the speculators....guys who guess(some also say they "deduce" but I will stick to guess) the price of oil in future and who on that future date deliver the oil at that price,conditions attached.....and even though there is no solid relationship between a future's price and spot price but I think it works like this...imagine you have some gold with you and someone tells you that in a future date it will get you much more than what it will get you now.....so you will obviously hold on to gold for some more time thus automatically causing a supply constrain....on the other hand if you are the buyer of gold you will try to buy as much as possible now itself so that when the prices go up you can sell it to make profit ....thus causing the demand to go up.......and we are already looking at skewd up demand and supply relationship....and I think initially when the prices started shooting up this is what happened the OPEC countries refused to supply extra oil for they believed there was enough to meet the market demand on the other hand some countries notably the US started buying oil for their SPR.....but the question that begs an answer is are few speculators so powerful as to bring the world economy to a brink???the obvious answer is "NO" so who are these speculators???well it works out these are guys who work for some of the biggest investment banks(read that as GS and MS) in the world....and is it any co-incidence that these banks are making money and turning profits even in such adverse conditions because of their "commodities" desk???and so now we need to repeat the last question with the characters changed....so are these banks so powerful that they can manipulate the world markets???the answer this time is a bit tricky...remember these are banks which when in trouble can turn to the Fed and ask for help and get it too.....and if that's not good enough then how's this....the last 4 CEO's of Goldman Sachs have served the US federal government in very high ranking positions and one of them was also responsible for talks with China with regards to Yuan valuation......and this is where according to me the answer lies.....this whole nexus of big banks and the US govt which according to me is causing the oil prices to be screwed up.....and it is here that the real story starts.....

You see it is common knowledge that the US has a large trade deficit and if needs to keep itself afloat as an economy then it's an absolute must that the dollar maintains it's status as a premier currency......and since this demand for dollar cannot be maintained on it's own(since the central banks of other countries looking at the deficit will start hedging by investing in other currencies.....remember there is no gold standard to fall back on for the US dollar...but just a promise by the US govt)so US needs something to keep the dollar in circulation......works out that the only currency you can trade oil in is the USD and since oil is to the economy what blood is to the body so the USD remains in demand.....(and this is the fun part...the WMD that Saddam was supposed to have had must have been bought in Euros for he refused to trade his oil in USD and that I think upset Mr. Bush big time).....and with the deficit widening the value of dollar was coming down which started showing up in oil prices and so if one needed to compensate this downfall in value of the dollar the cost of oil had to go up further....and it did...but is only the US self interest reason for the high prices......as they say "abhi picture baaki hain mere dost"....Mr. Bush started his carrier in oil business but then was not very successful in it but apparently still has some huge interests in it......one of the first things Mr Bush did after becoming the President was to declare that the SPR would be made full which meant that he at one stroke had increased the demand for oil many times......and now when the prices have gone up so much that they have started hurting the US citizens, he goes to them saying they should start drilling on their own shores something which was stopped almost three decades ago.....isn't it cool???now the US citizen has a choice between living with high oil prices or drilling on his own shores (fuck environment).......and obviously if that drilling does start it would not be an LJ blogger's oil company which will do the drilling unless of course Mr. Bush is an LJ'er...so to sum it up it's not just economics but a combination of economics ,politics and self interest that is keeping oil at levels that it is now but I do believe that just like the asset bubble this oil bubble will also burst.....moreover I see this as a last gasp attempt by oil players to make maximum money out of it as it's a fast diminishing commodity anywaz

PS:I think Mr Bush before going to sleep each night must be holding his stomach and laughing himself to death...telling himself World calls me dumb,idiot and what not and yet I have been "their" leader for almost a decade and if having me as the President was not bad enough they elected a Dick to be the Vice-President....I so love being those things that they call me....

PS1:I have moved in with a new flatmate who also happens to be a colleague and he keeps complaining that I spend too much time on my machine.....which used to confuse me because these days I am making a conscious effort not to log on to chat etc....after this post I know I am spending way too much time reading conspiracy theories......I seriously need to get a life by visiting some dating sites instead of news sites....

Date:	2008-06-10 21:48
Subject:	Names
Security:	Public
Mood:	amused
Music:	Kaal Chaudvin Kee..JS

Baywatch has been blessed with a daughter......of all people it's Baywatch ....I mean there have been other college friends who have had kids but I never took notice because I always would maintain that they were doing it in a hurry.....but with Baywatch even though the marriage itself happened in a hurry I think he got married at an age expected of Indian guys....and so now when he called up to say about his new born I suddenly felt this whole generation thing....somehow it's not sinking into me that the same guy who,lets it put it this way...if there was a competition for cleanliness his name surely would not be shortlisted....is now a father.....

Anywaz so we in office were discussing kids etc when one of my friends asked me what would I name my kid....I think I have this ability to turn my friends into eternal optimists who go by the diktat "Past Non-Performance is no Guarantee for Future Non Results" I mean if school biology is to be believed then for kids to happen one needs more than just friends that too who happen to be of the same sex as yourself wanting you too.....anywaz since this was a game I decided to be a sport and started thinking about a name.....well even though earlier I had pretty much decided that my kids would be named "mini-me" but after Gau's trip I am having second thoughts what with him also planning to call his kids "mini-me" imagine during holidays when we decide to meet-up with our families there would be too many "mini-me's" to contend with and since age does not necessarily make you smarter it would be too much of a hassle....of course one solution would be call them "mini-me GJ" and "mini-me MT" but somehow I don't like the sound of "mini-me MT" it's like there's this guy whose top faculties are empty so he tries to make himself dense and ends up with a mini-himself who again is MT :| ......and while we were still on names as if on cue I got a mail from a Japanese client...and that's how I settled on the name 'Yamazaki'..there's this thing about Japanese names they have this announcement quality to them....a finality of sound so to speak...."Yamazaki" is such a cool name...it's almost like having a kid and a cool 1500cc bike rolled into one.......and imagine if the kid turns out to be a giant who is the biggest bully in his/her school...then the moment s/he enters the class other kids would say under their breadth...."Yamazaki is here" such an impact...and what's more as a parent you will never shout out his/her name because it would always conjure up an image of a warrior piercing a samurai sword right through you as a response to that shout....

PS:I have noticed that Chinese name are like that kid who runs away the moment he sees his teacher...they end even before they start names like "wee" , "woo" , "lee" but Japanese names especially their surnames have a definite permanence to them names like "Yamazaki","Ozawa" etc......

Date:	2008-05-30 19:11
Subject:	Last Few Weeks
Security:	Public
Mood:	calm
Music:	Rahe Pae Rahte Hain..

I wonder why I thought that I will not be posting about it....and yet I was always going too....after all the whole idea of a blog is to capture some of those moments which in someway makes you,you.....

It was after a gap of four years that I was meeting Gau and yet it never felt like that....I guess it's got to do with best friends.....time unlike how many would want you to believe is not able to create that distance which makes best friend a mere friend.....I have felt this with my other friends too.......and maybe that's why we end up saying "You have not changed"......

Even though the last two weeks were fun filled what with me discovering parts of Singapore which I had only heard-of but never visited....my favorite was the trip to Bintan an Indonesian island...

The trip to Bintan was on a ferry....but some how I have never liked that trip maybe because in the whole of that trip you do not get to see the the Ocean on it's own....there's always a small island or a big ship to remind you that there's civilization nearby....and this view is in complete contrast to the view one gets of the Ocean sitting at that beach.......there you get to see the Ocean extending into eternity.....with ships moving away to a distant land ever so slowly...ships like that dream you have lived so much that it stops exciting you and it fades away into distant memory......and all that is left are waves relentlessly splashing on the shores....that evening we just sat in almost complete darkness each one in his own world just listening to the waves and watching small crabs fight it out against the mighty ocean......

Next day we went for the Mangrove trip...usually in these trips they arrange for a guide who tells you some general things about the forest......and the moment the guide came to know that we had a Canadian amongst us his eyes lit up and he started asking about Canada and how it is there......and the amusing part was initially that guide made eye contact only with me...maybe because I was from "his" part of the world.....later when he felt at ease and also when he realized that the guy from "his" part of the world had very few words and a perpetual expression of "wtf am I doing here" all his conversation was with the Canadian.....and his questions about snow etc. clearly showed that he dreams of visiting that part of the world someday.....funny how a guy who gets to earn his living showing the same place again and again repeating the same stories day in and day out to people from different parts of the world keeps dreaming of visiting their world too....I guess that is what they call human spirit.....a desire to explore....to keep searching....."talaash"

( then 2000 )( then 2003 )( and now )

and between these photographs there's a small decade to account for...as they say so far so good......

I am not really enthused by this whole IPL thing(I think I have these anti-fun genes deeply embedded in me :( ) but do catch a glimpse once in a while and since today was an off so decided to watch yesterday's match between Delhi and Bangalore....and one of the cutest thing was the way Rahul Dravid was trying too bat......it's almost like how small boys arm wrestle with their dad...the other day he tried this cross batted shot with all his might...mistimed it and the ball very grudgingly rolled over to the bowler......and the next ball was a good ball slightly on the leg stumps and he manages a classical ON drive for a boundary......I simply don't understand what made Rahul Dravid pick up a bat and become a cricketer...I mean with his discipline and approach he could have been anything....a surgeon,an artist or maybe even a professor anything but a cricketer....or maybe he got into cricket because of the test format and now finds himself doing things the times/market demands......In my opinion some of these guys especially Sachin,Dravid and Laxshman should give this whole T-20 thing a miss and try to prolong their test carriers....almost like how we steal that one extra last lap in the swimming pool even after the time is up.....and that way they would have done themselves and cricket a big favor....