Sunday, July 31, 2005

Correct usage of terms.

I have always thought of political correctness as a politically correct way of saying something totally incorrect. With feminism or political correctness call it whatever you want, coming into full force recently, you suddenly have school forms requiring ‘parent’s signature’ instead of ‘father’s signature’ and certain corporate terms like ‘manpower’ being converted to ‘workforce’. The 'policeman' is now the 'police officer'. A 'chairperson' has replaced a 'chairman'. 'Mankind' to 'humankind' and 'manhours' to 'workdays' are other examples, But for this transformation to be complete, why don’t things work the other way? Like why isn’t India now referred to as ‘our beloved parentland?’ OR why don't we speak in out 'parenttoungue'? I was searching for other examples, but turns out that there are few. I asked this wo.. person, "are there any jobs that are specefic only to women?" and she burst out laughing and said I shouldn;t ask such questions. I understood what she was referring to, and my emberassed silence was mistaken for innocent wonder, so anyway.... on the other hand, pretending this hasn't happened would be politically incorrect, especially since 'stewerdesses' are now 'flight attendants'.

Bananas

Actually, this is about only one banana, the title is slightly misleading. So there is a joke from a cartoon strip called Chyrag that goes “what is long and yellow and lives in an apple tree? – a stupid banana.” Now some people might find all of this very funny, and might have even taken the trouble to burst out laughing – either at the stupidity of the banana, or at the absurdity of the idea of one living in an apple tree. The moot point is, however, the banana’s stupidity - such a matter merits a deeper consideration, and maybe all of us will realize that we might be underestimating the intellectual capacities of the banana.
First of all, the banana has managed to get itself to an apple tree. Now that is a pretty difficult thing for a banana to do, especially since most bananas are not endowed with limbs or wings of any kind (some scientifically oriented people might be inclined to argue that wings are a kind of limbs, but that’s just against common sense). Most bananas, as things turn out, are not even provided with a brain. Contemplating on how the banana managed to get to the apple tree is a pretty futile line of thought to follow, because this is already given, without any background data. However, it is relevant in this context because moving out of a banana tree on its own accord (apart from falling off the tree in a rotten state) is such an achievement that it will allow us to at least attribute some modicum of intelligence to the particular banana in question. The very fact that it is in an apple tree at all can allow us to attribute it with considerably higher amounts of intelligence. First of all, a banana in an apple tree is viewed upon with extreme suspicion. Someone may crack jokes about its stupidity, someone else may take it home and treasure it as one of those freaks of nature that deserve to be exhibited to neighbors who politely act astounded, and if spotted by a person with a camera, it would be photographed, and turn up in cheap tabloids and weird corners on the internet, but no one, absolutely no one, not even a stray chimpanzee will eat a banana in an apple tree. A banana in an apple tree is a very suspicious object, and most people refrain from eating suspicious objects. By getting to an apple tree, the banana has managed to save itself from being eaten. By this it would follow, that any banana that remains on a banana tree is more stupid than a banana in an apple tree.
Some might find it fit to argue that what is the purpose of the banana if it does not get eaten? Especially since most bananas do not possess seeds, there is nothing for a banana to do in an apple tree. Now it is not clear whether the banana in question is of the seeded or non-seeded variety, but a problem arises only if the banana is of the non-seeded variety. Maybe it enjoys sitting in an apple tree and being called clever for it. Maybe it hopes that it will end up in the hands of apparently astounded neighbors of people who have a sharp eye. Maybe it enjoys the attention of the alternate press that it is bound to receive, or maybe it enjoys the fact that stray chimpanzees do not have an inclination to ingest it, I frankly, have no clue, ask the bloody banana if you can be bothered enough to find out, it might be clever enough to answer you – but you cannot argue that anything is preferable to being eaten by humans, especially if they think you are stupid.
After explaining this logic to a friend who had almost as much brains as the banana, the friend pointed out an interesting fact which raised the issue of the banana’s stupidity again. All the logic was fine, he said, but didn’t take into consideration that segment of the population who don’t like bananas, and also possess the additional quality of having low IQs. There are bound to be a considerably amount of such people on this planet, especially since some would find it fit to attribute eating of bananas to intelligence. Now, a lot of people are fond of apples, or at least eat apples to keep the doctor away. Now, if such a person goes to the apple tree with the banana in it, then the banana that would otherwise have been safe in a banana tree would get eaten under the assumption that it is an apple. So all bananas that stay put on banana trees are the cleverer ones.
Now the whole issue of the banana’s stupidity was finely balanced on one point – whether more people in the world hated bananas or liked them. So the friend and I decided to conduct a survey – he asked me if I liked bananas and I said yes. I asked him if he liked bananas, and he said no, but I think this was just because he did not want the argument to come to an end. We decided that we’d enquire about an affinity towards bananas to one more person to settle the argument, but that evening, we bumped into only people who were moving around in groups of even numbers. It was as if God was purposely working against settling the matter once and for all, and since the matter’s perusal began to get exponentially boring, we came to the conclusion that the world was divided 50-50 over the preference for bananas, and therefore the banana’s stupidity remained considerably in doubt. We decided we’d contemplate something else for a change – and moved on to the more fruitful occupation of wondering how kangaroos mated.
Finally, the conclusion that one reaches to the entire issue is that one should not be prejudiced against the intelligence of a fruit based on what tree it is found on. To put matters in perspective, whether you are at a friend’s house or at your house, you remain as stupid. The moral of the story is that the tree is not a deciding factor of a fruit’s stupidity, but you probably already knew that.
-Aditya MJ

Music videos/pr0n

I downloaded some music videos yesterday, and as it always happens when you get stuff off the net, some porn sneaked in in the guise of a video. Something labeled Lindsday Lohan’s roumers turned out to be something slightly different. First I watched crazy frog, the froggy even has a little weiner. Then the gorillaz one. Funny how many animated videos are coming in now… and suddenly there were sounds of a dozen ecstatic pseudo-orgasms as a highly lubricated fuckfest came into view. Frankly, some of the porn is gross, despite the fact that I am a guy and all. I also downloaded the gorillaz song, but it was corrupted. I think the US music guys have already mobilized their plans of crashing the p2p networks by spreading grossed versions of the files on the same networks. I am almost sure that gnutella is affected by this, but I have no way of telling for sure. Stupid bastards, if this happens, I am sure they will fuck up the music industry. You just don’t get the things you want in India. Forget things like Yankovic or Bic Runga, even relatively better off musicians and bands (take culture club for example) almost never show up in the Indian market. Even planet M had only one album of culture club, and it was a best hits one, and I had gone their cashed out to buy all their albums. The only option was to pay through the net using credit cards if I wanted to buy a legal version, but I don’t have a card yet, and I save up for my own music, so I don’t want to ask my parents. They are a bit old fashioned and don’t trust the net with credit card numbers yet.
So the only way I can get hold of music is through p2p networks, and since these companies don’t have a market here anyway, why not?

The inscrutable Americans

Anyway, so today I found a lot of things I had lost. First of all, my watch!!! My three grand watch is safe and sound, and was found in this cardboard box that I was sure I had not thrown it into. I also found born that way, and all my library books are hideously overdue, and I have no clue if the deadlines have been extended because of the rains. But all this was towards the evening. My comp is on for more than twenty four hours now, because I’ve managed to establish a very fickle Bluetooth connection with my phone that I have no intention of breaking. My comp is gonna be live for a long time now. So I downloaded a few vids yesterday, mostly music, but some porn sneaked in under the guise of music videos, and there is no helping it. I spent the rest of the day sleeping, listening to music (cranberries, George Michael, Gareth Gates, and Kiss), sleeping, and reading “The inscrutable Americans” by Anurag Mathur. In fact, I finished it off today, and it is a pretty cool book. Although the humor is corny and looks like it is copied off old internet forwards in some parts, and Gopal’s linguistic inabilities are rather exaggerated, the book still rises to the occasion, don’t ask me which occasion, but some occasion, and satisfies you for dedicating a day’s read to it – that could be an occasion. The saddest part was that he leaves without saying goodbye to sue. It is really insightful as far as Americans are concerned, although the author irritatingly ignores apartheid tendencies in India. Still, irritating in parts, but a pretty good book.

Never satisfied

There is this one relative who always cribs about ancestral property breaking up and going to weird places. Also about heirlooms that are unjustly distributed, jewelry that was wrongfully taken away from the real family, about artwork that has gone where it is not deserved or appreciated and things like that.
Today, however, the relative was talking about the large amount of utensils in the house. Like how the number of plates, vessels and cutlery was enough for three generations to come, and how nothing further had been thought of.
Funny thing is how much time, money and effort we spend acquiring new possessions, and how much of what that remains we spend in complaining that we have too much junk around.

Mosh mania

Mosh mania cancelled. Damn. Actually postponed to 13th. That's dreadfully close to iRock. This was on the flier:

Get ready for the biggest rock show in Mumbai this monsoon -- “Mosh Mania” presented by 3 Global Services and powered by Mumbai Mirror is a valiant effort by Gravity Events in association with Only Much Louder to create a platform for showcasing Indian Rock bands at a professional level.

POSTPONED from 31st July to 13th August!

Mosh Mania will feature the biggest live acts in India today and has a line-up of bands which boasts of Glastonbury returned Pentagram, Zero, Pin Drop Violence, Them Clones (Delhi), Helga’s Fun Castle and Sceptre all under roof.

Scheduled for Sunday, the 13th August at Goregaon Sports Club, opposite Mind Space, Link road, Malad (W), Mosh Mania will have the best sound and lights money can buy and to top it off the biggest mosh pit ever witnessed by rock fans in the city. So get hold of the tickets immediately.

Mosh mania

Today is going to be my introduction to the rock circuit. The biggest bands in india are gonna perform in goregaon today,and I have got passes. All my friends are saving up for iRock, but I wanna go to this one too, just to see the scene before iRock. I know about Pin Drop Violence, and Sepentra, but haven't heard of the other bands. Bhayanak Maut apparently broke up, I remember seeing their album. have heard only a few songs here and there, and have gone to ONE half a gig in SIES college... where they screamt and shouted, and a friend headbanged so much that he started bleeding - but that may be partly because he hit the bamboo seperating the girls from the boys.
Today, its gonna be a total mosh. I am imagining a zion like setting. Will blog how it goes.

Draco dormeins nunquam titilandus

Hippo iratus nunquam dilectio for the new hogwarts motto. Figure that one out. I am looking for funny, crazy mottos to use as my profile names, so that they show up in the mobile phone's screen. The 6600 is full of surprises. It is a really good phone, and the symbian OS is frankly better than the XP. It has a load of programs you cannot delete, but still, it is a pretty good deal.
I have managed to store 15 full length songs in the phone, despite of having only a 32 mb memcard. I have like ten mb of free space after that, plus there are loads of pictures and stuff... I did that by first reducing the bitrate of all the songs, and then converting them into mono, because the phone cannot handle stereo songs. I tried a couple of mp3 players, and settled on ultramp3, mostly because it is skinable. Also, despite downloading many themes off the net, I never came across a better look than the default one. I still wanted some variety, and was wondering what to do, when I stumbled on the palettes in edit. That much variety is enough pour moi.
Il est tres bonne.

Phonce conversations

A typical conversation between Aashray and me

A: yeah
AA: nice?
A: 7:00?
AA: ok.

Two words each, and two of them unnecesary. In the conversation, we decided to meet up at nice collections, at seven. People on his side hear nice and ok, and on my side hear yeah and seven...
pretty funny.

Saturday, July 30, 2005

Another day

It just rained cats and dogs... not cows and buffalos as usual. Anyway, the thing is, i got up early and all, and set out for college, but came back from the station because of the insane crowd. the trains have not yet normalized... and are still pretty irregular. Some of the tracks between thane and Kalyan are properly screwed. Only fast trains are running here, and they do not stop at all the funny little stations in between. Even towards CST, the trains are stopping only at select stations, probably because the trains are plying on the fast lines between the affected stations.

So did not go to college today, a HUGE revelation about harry potter hit me as I began to read parts of Book 6 again. Won't blog about it as yet. Slept pretty much the whole day, the comp screwed up and I lost a bunch of pics I had taken. My entire profile got currupted. XP is THE dumbest OS ever. Listened to a few songs I had downloaded over limewire. BAsically, I have nothing witty to blog about today, so I will stop here.

Friday, July 29, 2005

sleeping politicians


Ghulab Nabi Azad is the guy sleeping behind the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, as the PM, talks about his visit to the US, and how it has affected the nuclear programme.
We have politicians like that. This is an image taken from TV - NDTV actually.

About today

Went to the college early in the morning. Only special trains were plying, and I got onto the six forty which left after waiting for atleast ten minutes on the platform. It took a pretty long time, and stopped for apparently random reasons at random times. The tracks were pretty clear, but the train still inched along the kurla-sion stretch. Went to college fifteen minutes late for the first lecture, and didn't give my attendance. no serious lecture was taken. a few people showed up for the third lecture, the beggening of which, the long bell went off, signifying the fact that it was an emergency, and the students had to be sent home.
The emergency turned out to be pretty phantom, and was probably one o those cyclone or tsunami roumers that the police were quick to squash. The trains were better off in the afternoon, although, still, only special trains were plying. We had to wait for an hour before a train showed up, and the ones going towards CST were hell packed, with people riding on top, and on the windows too. Must have been pretty dangerous. Even with such a crowd, the new ramp at the station continued to be unused. People are so habituated at using the old one, that they don't even consider the new one.

Tried to boat at talao Pali, but obviously couldn;t, so we had pepsi near the edge, and came home. Went to chrag's amazing penthouse in the evening, it is an apartment with two storeys. cool eh? After that pretty much came home adn am contemplating activating GPRS. Resisting the urge, knowing that it wouldn't be too helpful beyond the fact that it allows you to blog on the go.
The prices are pretty cheap especially for postpaid, where it is a 49 basic deal with an additional 3 per mms, but with prepaid, its a 99 deal and 0 per mms. I have prepaid...
there is also a paise per kb charge, and different charges for various games and stuff.
But wouldn't need them... just the ability to check gmail and blog. will bide my time and see developements, before going in for anything.

Dog eating fish


Thething to note here is not that the dog is eating the fish, but that the fish is on the other side of a shed that is adjacent to talao pali, which means that the water had risen to a level OVER the shed. the boatshed was flooded too... and boating activity has come to a halt.

caller tunes

If you have an orange cell, and I mean a cellphone that has an orange sim card, not a cellphone in that stupid color, and the sim card is…
Ok screw it, get a bloody orange sim card, so if you have an orange sim card, 123 is the last number you might want to dial. First o all, it drains you of six rupees every minute, and second of all, the menu is so fucking long. Almost for a minute and a half, the stupid thing babbles on about astrology, and cricket, and news, and dating, and caller tunes and loads of other services that only mentally retarded people use.
I wanted to set a caller tune, California dreaming. Liked the song very much. Some people do call me retarded. Some people just call me, and for their benefit, I wanted to arrange the orange network to play them the song. It was not a service that I was using. It was a bloody fuckin service that people who call me are using. There can be a couple of jokes made about people calling me mental, and people calling me, and people calling me to call me mental, but I have no mood to crack them, and also, I already have. The point being, I was mental enough to get the ridiculous idea that anyone who calls me should hear a song instead of a boring tring tring, exactly like the orange ad tells you (no wisecracks, even from me) and I fell for it. So I called, and spent forty five filthy bucks, just to get the stupid song on. And after that, I have to spend thirty bucks every month just to keep it active, and all this is within my first three free caller tunes, after I set one more, by which time I will be rotting in hell, I have to pay ten bucks for every caller tune I set. The worst part is that the bloody synthetic girl who synthetically navigates the abnormally long menu for me bloody laughed synthetically when I went for the international option.
Someday, I am going to put tar on the face of the guy who owns orange. More so because of the continuous stream of SMSes. They advertise that they will send only offers that are “beneficial to the customer” when they came under the public scanner for disturbing people too much. Assholic bastards.

*#06#

to reveal your IMEI code of any mobile, any model...

The unknowable room



The rare bottom view of a toilet seat.

We were wondering along the twenty fifth floor of a building, and what do we see in a room hiding away in a little corner? Loads of Potties! Our bowels started convulating in pleasure, but we had to control it...
Here I am, sitting on a whole bunch of toilet seats. Pretty cool eh? All the hay is just the packaging. And all of this on the twenty fifth floor of a building! Pretty cosy place actually. In weirdland, I would be king and this would be my throne.

I title myself "the LORD of the POTTIES"
Yeahahah!!!
You know like Albus Dumbledore going into the Room of requirement, by mistake, when he was roamingthe castle with a full bladder, and finding it full of chamberpots. Apparently the headmaster is not provided with a toilet attached to his room.
Oh yeah, forgot, the headmaster, is no more. Alas! I will remember Dumbledore everytime I see a potty...
which would meen I can never visit this room again.

Thursday, July 28, 2005

The diary of Anne Frank

Started reading the book called Anne Frank: the diary of a young girl. Thought that it would be one of those boring war books that no one ever reas. I saw the book by chance in this second hand bookstore, and decided that I would buy it since it was around thirty buks. That's like dirt cheap for such a book. It was one of those books that you don't really want to read, but have to read just to say that you have read it. Like wings of fire by our president.
But it was totally different. You know one of those books that you always wanted which says exactly what is going on in a girl's mind, unguarded from judgement? This is THE book for that. For example, she talks about the supressions of Jews in one chapter in a very matter of fact manner, she talks about the "amusing" and overly amourous actions of boys in the next chapter, again in a more or less matter - of - fact manner, and in the next chapter she gets all worried about a looming teacher's meeting. The book is FUNNY. Who the hell would expect a war book to be funny? This one is a MUST READ.

Desert island s60 downloads

There is this ongoing feature on download.com where they ask their staff to list five programs they would have on their laptops if they were to be stranded on a desert island. I decided to blog my list... but I am stuck with only my 6600 and nothing else. So these are softwares that work with a s60 phone I guess. And maybe an n-gage too...

5) Obviously, I would need a torch. This small, simple program, just whites out the screen. torch.sis. clicke here for a direct link to the file, or click here and here to go to the homepage. This is freeware, but usefull nonetheless.

4) Ajile messenger. This is a messenger that you can use with msn, yahoo and a couple of others too. It is also free, just click here to go to the official site.

3) Mobipocket e-book reader. To kill the long hours of boredom till the rescue gets there. The official site should pretty much impress you.

2) GPS, compass and map rolled into one. Bluesky is primarily and GPS software, that shows your exact position so you know where you are lost. It also has a compass, and a speedometer and other stuff for better times. Still pretty useful. click here .

1) Anti-mosquito. Tropical island, need to keep them mosquitoes away from me. Just click here for the unofficial site, or here for the official one.

Most endearing villains in hindi cinema

Gabbar Singh




Outfit: Light khaki shirt with trousers
Famous line: Kitney aadmi the?
Sidekick: Kaalia
Weapon of choice: pistol






Mogambo




Outfit: Military uniform
Famous line: Mogambo kush hua
Sidekick: no one
Weapon of choice: Missile





Ajeet

Lion, Loin king

NO IMAGE AVAILABLE

Ajeet
Outfit: White suite, white hat
Famous line: Ise liquid oxygen mein dalna, liquid ise jeene nahi dega, oxygen ise marne nahi dega
Sideckicks: Robert (Raabert), Mona darling
Weapon of choice: blackmail


No one else even comes close, so the list is limited to three…

Advani back for some reason

Advani is back in the news today for some reason. He was screaming something and making a point, but I didn’t care enough to find out exactly what this was. The situation has definitely improved here in Mumbai, the roads have cleared, the trains have began to function. Sixty people have died in Thane alone, and the causality was 431 the last I heard of it. Bombay high is down now… forever, so that’s a loss of 80000 barrels of oil everyday. The stock markets were closed today, so was the RBI, which has never happened before. But since the situation has greatly improved, college is bound to be open tomorrow. There is a 10 marks assignment tomorrow, for which we were supposed to receive the topic today. However Sion was one of the worst hit areas. Especially the part between cine max and gurukripa is bound to be flooded. So SIES may not be open even tomorrow… but I donno. Trains are functioning between CST to Dadar, and between Thane and Ghatkoper. They will be slow for sure between Ghatkoper and Sion, Kurla being the worst hit area. Trains inch forward there even when there were lesser rains last year… so traveling is going to be hell tomorrow, but I will have to do it for the sake of those marks. And I will have to do it early in the morning to boot. Damn.

Potter mania.

Can’t wait for the seventh book, and she isn’t coming out with it for at least another couple of years. Damn. Anyway, this is a store that stocks the sixth book, and no one is buying.

I have no clue why this has happened, and he is selling it at just 650 bucks that’s like 16 dollars or something. Pretty cheap actually. I got it for 800 bucks. That’s like twenty two dollars or something, and that is still cheap. But the books aren’t selling… Pottermania still has to reach Mumbai. Only eight or nine people read potter in my class, and only three are fanatics.
One book to go…

Golden rules of blogging

Golden rules of blogging – to make sure that your blogs get read. This is looking at the readership of many weblogs. The blog survey has taken a backseat now because of all the college activities… but I will try to revive it sometime. Anyway, here they are, in that order.
1) Keep it short
2) Make it funny
3) Use English
4) Use photos
5) Update regularly
All of these are pretty obvious already. And yeah, I do not follow these rules for my own blog.

Underage sex

The rains messed up everything, so I donno the date of the Bombay Times paper where this came, but it is in the last three or four days. Apparently, the number of teenage pregnancies are on the lies. 25-30% boys and 15-18% of all girls below 16 are experimenting with sex. This can mean that either the 18 go out with the 30, or that the 12 are gay. Or a mixture of both.
Those businessmen in the train are horny gay bastards. Both, a friend and I were nibbled in the ears on the way to college. I got irritated and got off at ghatkoper, and that fucking bastard had the nerve to ask me “are you getting down?” with an air of frustration…

Screen cleaner

An amazing thing to clean your monitor. Really works, check it out - it will be fun.

P2P file names

Only being a peer for a long time can make you appreciate the finer aspects of using torrents and p2p software. Filenames start having words like "real", "original", "working" and "really working". It becomes funnier when there are exclamation marks worked in after these words. "cracked!" and "very funny!!!". For some reason, "cracked!" is different from "fully cracked!!!" and I haven't been able to figure that one out yet, despite being a peer for a long time. This makes files so damn long. This is a problem with songs, once you download them, add them to your media library, and then after a few days, you try to put them in your mobile phone, you cannot, because the file name is too long. Which means you'll have to edit the filename, which means the media library wont recognise it. Unless you remember all the locations of all your songs, you have no option but to rescan your comp for media. there has to be some standard of nomenclature for p2p networks, but this is nearly impossible to enforce. This is not the best one, but finally, I saw something new in the filename after a long time.

SkyForce (sky force) cracked - WORKING! NO BULLSHIT! by Lazarus2004! Nokia s60 3650 6600 7650 n-gage.zip

No Bullshit!

BTW, the file was bullshit, also in typical p2p fashion.

View from the top

In the evening I went to the terrace of Jasmine towers, that is close to my home. It has an edge over other towers by three storeys. Now I donno why they chose to make a tower of 23 storeys, either they built upto 23 then stopped because they were bored, or built upto 23 and stopped because they realized that it would get unstable, which as astounding as it sounds is perfectly possible in this country, or, as is most likely the case, it was good for the vaastu.
Anyway, the next tallest building near the area is just 20 storeys tall, and the highest I have ever been before was 14 in kalpavavriksha, which has a measly total of 15, which is nonetheless, a round figure, and probably bad for the vaastu. So being the highest for atleast a twenty kilometer radius is a pretty empowering feeling, especially because everything looks flat below you.
I can only imaging the 100 plus towers in foreign lands. I think a 53 is coming up somewhere in Mumbai. But a 23 is pretty scary… am going there again tomorrow. These are some pics… which are pretty useless…
The wind was intense... and there was this room full of potties. The pics are here bunched together, and I've added a little lighting effects from photoshop to make them look clearer. Actually chuck it - i tried that technique and it did not work very well. ok here is ONE image.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Rain rain go away






I know I said I would blog the images later, but they all turn up together at the top, so I wont bother.

Today was just the aftermath. And the images will be blogged later. The stock market is booming, but nothing else is. My parents spent the nights at their respective workplaces, and I spent my first night alone at home. It was not the big hooplah that I thought it would be when I was young, but it was fun nonetheless. The extent of my anarchy was to play music all night long. A friend spent the night on a train, and I have no idea about another bunch that went to Bandra day before yesterday. Traffic is in a standstill all over Mumbai, with people abandoning their vehicles to go home. At least 30 are dead, and that’s just in my part of the city, and that’s more than the count of all the London blasts put together.
I also took two videos, one of the bunch of fallen trees near talao pali, and another one the broken wall, to show it in its entirety. There was no food because parents were too tired to cook, so I survived on half a pizza all day. Actually, I survived on half a pizza, half a chakli, two pongal undes, six pieces of banana chips and two marshmallows. And yeah, a spoonful of sugar. These are the biggest rains Mumbai has faced in a 100 years at least. College closed today, donno if I have to try and go tomorrow. The CM has declared a red alert all over Mumbai, and also a red alert particular to Sion, that’s where my college is.
I bet the gurukripa area is totally flooded. There are many open manholes there… will have to see about that.
Interesting thing one guy said about the rains is that the system cannot handle four hours of rains, and that they say they are prepared for a potential tsunami.

Here are the headlines from NDTV. four of the seven are related to mumbai Rains

Fire at ONGC's drilling platform, 3 killed
Rains wreak havoc in Mumbai
Landslides claim 56 lives in Mumbai
Employment Bill will be passed: Sonia
Mumbai rains hit Ahmedabad air traffic
Rupan case: SC upholds Gill's conviction
Kupwara families turn down compensation
click here for the story.

Haunted house


This is the pic of a house that is falling apart near thane station. Though I would blog it. Can also be mistaken for being haunted.

A friend, a teddy bear, and a coconut

Ok, this is the image blog that I couldn’t blog yesterday because of a lack of a cable connection.

This is a rare picture of a friend without his cap. Nearly impossible to get.

He has this nice scheming evil expression. Actually, he was looking back surprised as I called out his name to take the pic.


This is a picture of a teddy bear that I drew on the bench.

You might notice that the teddy bear has a dick. Funny how tiny little things make girls looking on go from "oh sooo cuuuute" to "eeeeeeeeewwwwww"


This is a picture I don’t know of what, but I remember that there was one more and I will write about it after I find the pic and put it up.

Oh yeah, this is one about that stupid sa coconut which began to sprout. cool eh?

Raining hippopotami and killer whales

So much that the ears are no longer recognising the sound. Trains are still grounded, but the buses are begening to work now. My father spent the night in goregaon station, and my mother in her office. Friends were stuck all over the place, and are holed up here and there even now.

There is this old marathi rhyme that goes

yere yere pavsa
tula deto paisa
paisa jala khota
paus ala mota


Translates to, please come rain, I will give you money, the money turned out to be false, the rain came like hell...

or something like that.

Sify is down, still online in mtnl. All the other phone lines were jammed and are only onow clearing up.
PArents became so damn anxious... Vilasrao Deshmukh has released a statewide red alert. Like 22 people were killed in my city, and there are landslides happening left and right. Thankfully, I came home, just about resisted theurge to go out with friends to Bandra, dont know what happened to them yet.
No college for two more days...

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Salman-Aishwarya tapes

Salman-Aishwarya tapes



When the dubious funding of the film Chori Chori Chupke Chupke was traced to the underworld gangsters, the close relationship that the film industry and the Mumbai underworld share was brought into focus. With the arrest of Bharat Shah, many prominent personalities of the film world were closely watched by the police, one of them being Salman Khan, who played the leading role in the film.

The relationship between the film industry and the underworld began in the late 1980's when Dubai was a popular shopping and entertainment destination for the Mumbai glitterati. Wannabes started asking the gangsters controlling the Mumbai smuggling scene for favors, and the most famous example is of the current Mrs. Dawood Ibrahim, actress Mandakini who bagged Ram Teri Ganga Maili, a Raj Kapoor film. Financing bollywood films was a hitherto untapped source of income. In the mid nineties, Dawood shifted base to Karachi, and placed his aide Abu Salem to manage his bollywood contacts. Stars started paying "protection money" at this point of time, and the underworld helped some like Sanjay Dutt who asked for arms to protect themselves during the periods of communal violence. Slowly the influence of the underworld spread, with the gangsters dictating terms and choosing the stars. People who didn't co-operate like Gulshan Kumar were gunned down. By this time, the relationship between the underworld and the film industry was well known and well established. The underworld started hosting shows abroad, and calling in stars who owed them favors to take part in them. Soon, the underworld and the film industry were associated with the very identity of Mumbai.

Hindustan times, when it was launched, perhaps cashed in on this association. The headlines read "Salman Tapes: Shock and awe." It definitely made it to the news, with all major news channels broadcasting parts of the tapes, of what seemed like an inebriated Salman Khan demanding Aishwarya Rai, to participate in a show in Dubai by Abu Salem. The exact origin of the tapes is not specified anywhere, but it appears that Hindustan Times got hold of the tapes from the Police, where it was lying idle for all these years. The demands soon turn to threats, as Aishwarya Rai keeps reminding him that the phone lines may be tapped, that Salman could get into trouble, and that Salman was drunk. Khan, apparently, lists his various powerful connections, and suggests that he can get rid of Rai if he wanted to. Rai still does not give a proper reply, and finally, Khan confronts her with a yes/no answer, and asks; "You f****** bitch. Are you doing the Salem show or not?" to which, Rai replies with only a "Oh really, you got drunk." The tapes go on in this fashion for a while, and the tape ends with Khan convincing Rai that everything he had said was true. After the news spread around, there was certainly shock, but little awe. Politicians who weren't involved in closing down movie theatres that showed Salman Khan's latest movie, Maine Pyaar Kyon Kiya, demanded high level probes into the tapes, and that the judicial system should mobilize and work on the allegations.

Soon, the tapes began to be known as the Salman-Aishwarya tapes, with little doubt remaining that the two celebrities may in fact, not be involved at all. There was the usual silence from Aishwarya Rai, and Salman Khan's lawyers immediately declared that Salman Khan denied any involvement in the tapes and that the tapes were fabricated. Those who openly supported Salman Khan instead of doubting the authenticity of the tapes, suggested that Salman Khan was merely bragging in an inebriated state in an effort to beguile Ms. Rai. If the tapes are true, then certainly this is the case, because Salman Khan claims in the tapes that Sanjay Dutt had no involvement in the Bombay Blasts, but that he, Salman Khan, had all the information before hand. The Mumbai police have done a commendable job in investigating the blasts, and in fact, their over enthusiasm to dole out justice came under the public scanner when entire populations from certain areas were taken into custody under blatant abuse of POTA. Even Sanjay Dutt, who had no involvement in the Bombings themselves,was booked by the police under POTA. Because he and his father were actively involved pro-muslim social endeavors in the aftermath of the communal riots, he felt it was necessary to protect himself, and therefore procured a few rifles from the underworld. In the aftermath of the blasts, when this was discovered, the police charged him with POTA instead of the possession of arms act. If Salman Khan was remotely involved with the blasts, he would have come into police custody then.

The media has however, managed to do it again. Salman Khan has been branded guilty until proven innocent. The media as a whole should be more responsible, if not for the celebrities, then for the sake of the social repercussions. The connection between Bollywood and the underworld gets reinforced, and the people lose faith in the justice system. Even though there are some hints in the media that the tapes may not be authentic, no one is debating the fact that the tapes should have been in the news our years ago, when they apparently came into the hands of the police. The society is led to believe that celebrities are above the law. In fact, celebrities are prosecuted more than necessary, because of the general perception that they are all gangster puppets. For example, Salman Khan himself was put into lockup because his driver ran over some people. The media should therefore be more responsible when covering stories like this, more so because the people will lose faith in the media as well if the tapes turn out to be false.

The police have procured audio samples of the celebrities involved for verifying the authenticity of the tapes. Time and the Mumbai police will tell if the tapes are indeed authentic and only then can the real story be reported.


-AMJ

Nidi Razdan's interview

I wanted to blog about this today morning but couldn’t because of time constraints. Yesterday there was this hartal by the Honda employees because around fifty workers were laid off… and the silent protest got pretty violent because the police began to brutally lathi charge the people, who in turn reacted by burning the police jeeps and attacking the police themselves. Then the police came back with reinforcements, and managed to subdue the… miscreants. The point being, that when Nidi Razdan of NDTV interviewed the fellow who was the head of the union or something, she managed to make him angry. When he became angry, he also became frustrated and started giving all nonsensical answers, started spluttering and such like. Many NDTV interviewers think that it is cool for their show if you get the people you are interviewing angry – especially when political motives are involved. Those idiots do not know that people who are angry don’t give correct replies, and if they do not give correct replies, then probably there is no point in the interview.
But when it comes to politicians, you really cannot say. Myabe when they are angry, the truth comes out.
Yeah right…

The rains

At first the farmers began to commit suicide, because it didn’t rain enough. Now the rains are probably killing the plants, the livestock, and the farmers themselves. Stupid water keeps falling, and has fallen so much that my parents are stuck at their respective work places right now, and I have to hold fort at my home. Resisting the urge to call friends over… but they probably cannot make it because of the fucking rains.
Went to college on time today – have somehow developed the knack of doing it even though I leave the house just an hour before college. The phone chain is not functioning right now, and I don’t think word will spread around that the college is not there. Dumb thing. Anyway, the point being, I reached college on time, and apparently surprise tests in economics are around the corner. That was one class where I never paid any attention and now I am properly screwed. Stupid madam was marking us all along – she has this technique of… I donno, she just has a unique technique.
Anyway, there is this Ferrari fan who ALWAYS where his Ferrari cap, and this is one rare occasion when he isn’t. A crow pshat on his precious cap – and now he hopes that the luck would change for Ferrari. Everyone were talking f1, and I don’t watch, so I just said some random nonsense, like “Schumacher pushes his car too far” just because it rhymed somewhat. People knew I was doing this for the heck of it – but turns out that I was right. I must be clairvoyant about f1. woohoo!
Came home… and then it began to rain, the trains stopped and everyone were properly screwed. Will probably blog images from ndtv’s new channel…
All pics later because I am online through mtnl because sify is down because of the rains.

Monday, July 25, 2005

coconut plant

This is the birth of a coconut tree. considered to be very lucky. I am going to bury it osme place, so that the tree comes up. It is not everyday that you can plant a coconut tree...



So basically there was this boring day of college, where the profs blabbered something about economics and socio, while the students blabbered about their lives in FMC.


Someone won th president's award for a move they had made in ninth standard.

Someone saw three ghosts. I have seen only one, a friend I already blogged about.

Someone won a race and died. Poor kid. oh that was a story by the call centre girl.

Someone made it bloody fucking rain.

All this does not bother me, what bothers me is that someone got full marks in biology because he saw two people having sex. When they were having sex, were all the body parts labelled or something?
This was teddy bear i drew on the bench while listening to everything.



Anyway, as usual, the customary dead rat outside college. I just took a pic:



Worked on the sex and media FMC project today. Came out pretty well actually, so woohoo...

Sunday, July 24, 2005

More photoshop ghosties

A friend was clicking my photo, and he jumped in surprise when he saw what came out on the mobile camera. Not only was a ghost haunting me, the ghost was infact, of himself, Aashray, the guy who was taking the picture.

Only the sight of his own ghost reminded him that he was dead, and he disappeared into the underworld. Till I leaned over the edge to see where he had gone that is, because he came right back up, and I managed to take this picture before dying.

Unfortunately no one was around to take a pic of my ghost, so if you want to capture a ghost on camera, come round to the Chandan terrace, vasant vihar, thane, Maharashtra, India. we haunt that place between seven and eight... i am a ghost who refuses to rest in peace until I am photographed.

The evolution of a terrorist.

In london, the standard "terrorist" goes through the following phases.

Man running from the cops is gunned down
Terrorist
Suspected terrorist
Miscreant
Asian
Brazillian
Innocent Brazillian
Hey I should photoblog this. Maybe later.
ah well. Will go into about today... The aim was to see Phir Milenge somehow. A friend having managed not to procure it, I headed over to thane station, and tried to find the movie at three different stalls brimming with pirated versions of soft porn flicks like “Punjabi dayen” and “khoon ka rishta” but unfortunately Phir Milenge was not a movie worthy of piracy.
The plans were almost skulled until this one person managed to get hold of the cd from this rental shop, and we sat and watched the movie.

It was good, it was focused and it was sensitive. I would say that all the three actors have acted their bests in this movie - Shilpa Shetty, Salman Khan and Abhisheik Bachan. Really liked the movie.
Here is an apple that looks like a face when I have half eaten it.



God I am reduced to eating half blogged apples. Shit - that's blogging half eaten apples. If I am reduced to that, I might as well be reduced to saying this: "An apple a day keeps the doctor away, if the doctor is handsome, keep the apple away."

Although doctors will not be inclined to fuck sick patients...

Came home after the movie and fooled around with paranormal stuff as usual. Will blog that later. I have a load of things to blog later.

Interesting



I had no idea Garner was his wife...


This is an excerpt of the interview by mugglenet.

MA: OK, big big big book six question. Is Snape evil?

JKR: [Almost laughing] Well, you've read the book, what do you think?

ES: She's trying to make you say it categorically.

MA: Well, there are conspiracy theorists, and there are people who will claim -

JKR: Cling to some desperate hope [laughter] -

ES: Yes!

MA: Yes!

ES: Like certain shippers we know!

[All laugh]

JKR: Well, okay, I'm obviously – Harry-Snape is now as personal, if not more so, than Harry-Voldemort. I can't answer that question because it's a spoiler, isn't it, whatever I say, and obviously, it has such a huge impact on what will happen when they meet again that I can't. And let's face it, it's going to launch 10,000 theories and I'm going to get a big kick out of reading them so [laughs] I'm evil but I just like the theories, I love the theories.

ES: I know Dumbledore likes to see the good in people but he seems trusting almost to the point of recklessness sometimes.

[Laughter] Yes, I would agree. I would agree.

ES: How can someone so -

Saturday, July 23, 2005

feeling better... but still could do with a lungi

Slept for a while, half-watching the nes all the time, and took an angelesic crocin. The diference between angelesic crocin and paracitamol crocin is that one relieves pain and the other is.. I donno... also relieves pain but is just different. Anyway, the angelesic one or whatverer seems to have worked and i am not feeling to sick anymore.

While half-watching the news, I came across this item where the jails in some place had dress codes, only pyjamas no lungis because people used to hang themselves with the lungis. After the university, now the jails.

Im so sick


not in the sense that college people use it when other college people crack bad jokes. Sick as in the old fashioned my body is paining like hell has taken it over sick. Also, my body is burning like hell has taken it over sick. I don't know how I am surviving, let alone blogging sick. My ead feels like it is enduring a cheap rock concert sick. My stomach feels like... I am pretty sick.
figure out what the photo is about. I wanted to capture a metaphorical representation of essence of the complex social organisation in amongst street dogs who are horny and stuck in the rain, but instead I got this.
Sort of like that lady who wanted to show her inner torture by covering herself with meat, and instead managed to torture the innards of others. Her exact phrase was "My work is a metaphor for the relationship that people have with themselves every day when they look in the mirror."
She must be one ugly woman to let THAT happen to her. It's probably a new form of therapy or beauty treatment.

Atleast beats the father of twelve who admits he's gay...

Anyway, I am sick not because I found out about these two news stories, but because, well, I thouht my umbrella was stolen by another class, and I came home soaking wet in the monsoon rains, under the impression that nothing would happen to me.

This did. I just cannot blog anymore... and bloody four blogs to maintain.

Friday, July 22, 2005

Photoshop tricks

Me as a ghost.



And the joke from whatever crappy movie it was that sid watched. oh yeah, Kya Kool Hai hum.


I also forgot to blog... plans are on to put me in a band as the base guitarist. And I have no idea whatsoever about music. But I can be in a rock band... We need a drummer though... we wont work with a synth. also, the same guy is going to make me a char in his comic strip that comes in JAM...
which reminds me, I have to update my own comic strip.

More peeing in post boxes

So went to college... as usual. Landed a couple of unfinished projects... as usual. Impressed the coordinator... not usual. Am coming up with a new theory in Sociology that neither Marx nor webber has touched upon. Pretty cool theory actually...

Came back, and on the way back noticed how much people resist the breaking of a routine. So there's this new ramp built to the station, but EVERYONE, except this one guy in the pic prefer to use the old one... whether going up or down, or no matter how much rush... there is always rish in the mumbai locals... these guys are using ONLY the original ramp, and the new ramp looks deserted. Weird eh?



came home and don't rightly remember what I did. Transfered a few stuff to my mobile, and then read sociology, trying to develope my project. After that I went for a walk, and we did all sorts of nonsense again...

Like pretending to be ghosts...



Watching a guy play solitaire through his window and being unable to photograph him because of a lack of a zoom in the camera, but the family of the guy noticing nontheless. All of them were topless. All of them, also, unfortunately, happened to be males. Met Tuhin who wanted to go to the cyber to check his marks, but the servers are apparently clogged, OR the marks were not yet up. So we fooled around a bit, decided to make fun of A doc's clinic by changing his name a bit... from Agarwal to Bose...
I remember the doc torturing me over a ear problem. My normal physician wasn't at home, so we went to his office instad. He stuck a stethescope in all werid places, talked about diabetes, assimilation problems, flu, the weather, jaundice, AIDS, the cricket series going on there, the political scenario in the world, malaria, took five hundred bucks and recommended an ENT specialist.

We also managed to convince Aashray to smell some shit that had somehow been wiped against a wall, but he blocked the camera just as we were about to click him. in effect:



On the way down from the doc's office, and on the way home, we saw this:




The tiles were put in the corner to prevent people from spitting.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

ten meanings of the word bastard

Aashray and i wanted to redefine the word bastard, as half of all americans are bastards, and they wouldn't like this fact.

for some reason, a bastard is anyone who:

1) Goes to Madurai (spares most americans, and most people too)
2) Half of all Americans
3) Person who does not know his own father
4) Person who has a different father from the one he thinks he has
5) Any person named Sridhar
6) Any person not knowing the meaning of the word bastard
7) Someone who fucks dogs or chicken, in any body orifice
8) Any person who invents new meanings for the word bastard
9) A cuntlicking buttfucking asshole
10) A Bastard

A wannabe bastard is defined as someone who does not attempt to make round figures in everything.
Ah well...
the next post is more interesting. Or rather, the previous one is. am talking about the next post someone reading this blog will read...
figure it out.

Forgot the potty


There was this toilet in the middle of the road, and I forgot to blog about it. Now I have - so I haven't actually. Figure that one out. I am not drunk - just very sleepy.
The next post is even more interesting. I can probably keep saying this. Probably I should...

About today

Went to college in the morning. There was only one lecture - one about computers. We learnt mail merge today. Something apparently very complex... After that people hung out at the canteen, but I came off. Fresher's party was yesterday, and people were all talking about that. Damn I missed it. I also missed out on a chance to be an editor for zest, thats the BMM mag. I went to glaxo though, and caught up with a few friends. seems like I caught up with a lot of old friends. Around five of them showed up in front of the club... and tuhin, Aashray and I went for a walk. A really long walk where we came up with new definitions of the word bastard, which i will blog later. Since we were not financially endowed enough to buy booze, we decided that we would pretend to be drunk.

Right now, I will post a pic of a place I had nightmares of. I once dreamt that this place was a prisinor of war camp where we were all camped together and regularly burnt.
I died in this place in my dreams.


Then we fooled around a lot.

Here are both of them, trying to move a lot so that they appeared blurred in night mode after I explained how it works...


Here is Aashray peeing in the mailbox.


Further on, here is a guy actually peeing... but unfortunately, not in a mailbox. Tuhin clicked the pic, and he says the guy looks like a stick peeing. We missed the photo of the year, when we could have captured a cop peeing, in uniform, on the road, throught the door of his parked jeep.
Unfortunately, our guts and his bladder did not permit that.
But atleast we got this:

Invasion of privacy anyone? Well this guy is invading my... dysfunctional sense of hygiene. We made Aashrya pee in a mailbox - closed enviornment right... like the cupboard toilet in life as a house. saw that movie today, by the way. Pretty artsy actually. but then most art movies are box office failures with subtitles and awards from foreign countries which pretend to understand them.
Anyway, back to the walk:

Here are the three of us standing over wet underwear on the road.


and here is me showing the finger... or rather the fingers to aashray while he defends himself with an umbrella.


After this, we realised that we weren't, actually drunk, and it was late, so we went home.
We are going out again tommorrow... don't know what will happen then.

Ah well.. better things to persue. Now I have to go eat.

And yeah, Aashray just pretended to pee in the mailbox. Or atleast, I sincerely hope that he did. i don't remember, we were pretending to be drunk...

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

"Severus... please"

dumb people are starting the fourth movie with the first task. they have cut out a lot. read parts of the script at mugglenet. At the same site, there are stills of the quiddith world cup. I wonder how this is possible... some explanation and the movie is not so fucked up afterall...



Harry looks like such a retarted doofus. He is supposed to be THIN for god's sake. And supposed to have GREEN eyes. Anyway, the movies are pretty messed up and so are the books... now. Both hindustan times and mumbai mirror had articles that said that if the last pages were read carefully, then clues to what happens in the next book would be found out.

I know what that is. there is one damning thing in the funeral chapter... which gives me hope. I understand why she killed Dumbledore though - there is now no one between Harry and Voldy.
Although Dumbledore goes in a pretty obscene way - his last words being "severus... please"

ngalad

Yeah Im into LOTR...

Went to college on time today - but I don't know how. I left home exactly one hour before college, and when this used to happen one year ago, I just could not have made it in time. Last year, one and a half hours before college, and I used to worry. now it is almost the norm. Chyrag - the guy who writes at JAM, wanted me in his cartoon strip for some reason.
The fresher's party was there today - but I didn't go for some reason. Am kicking myself for doing that - because the party is not what I expected it to be. It is still bloody going on. Wonder how many people will make it in time tommorrow...
Came home and slept. damn my blogs are getting boring of late... donno why. Vacations are over and therrefore am getting into a routine...

routine maketh boring blogs.

Oh yeah - I have a nice thought to blog - "political correctness is a politically correct way to say something incorrect"

will probably write an article on that. \m/.

Oh yeah - my umbrella got stolen. fuck. Some guys from sybCom did it. Assfucks. The same class stole two mobiles from the class. I did the mistake of leaving my bag in the classroom - although the bag was left unopened - though I haven't checked if they have stolen the two decks of cards inside. damn.



This is a pic of a truck stuck in deep waters. I was taking a walk with chyrag - he's this really nice guy who cracks really sad jokes - sometimes. But he writes a pretty cool strip for JAM... Anyway, it rained a lot, and as I said, my umbrella was stolen. So I got wet. Hell, I wuld have gotten wet anyway... mumbai monsoons.
Listening to songs from dil Chahta hai now...
jab saas hai... awaaz hai, phir kisliye hitchkina?

abt ystrdy

Got up a bit late so I missed one lecture of college. Apparently, we landed ourselves with another project. ANOTHER PROJECT!! That was the last thing I needed yesterday. Rest of college waspretty much a blur probably because i was reeling from that one other project.

In the afternoon, Blesson came home again, and I recorded is original pieces from his synth.



After a while, I started experimenting too, and it was mostly cacaphonic, this image is just an illusion, I am anything but an expert.



He started playing in the middle and started convertingmy cacaphony into music. This clip here is a perfect example. I play the first part, and he plays in the titanic music.
After that, I worked on a few projects and hence could not blog yesterday.

Monday, July 18, 2005

Still getting over the death

Of dumbledore. just cannot believe he died. Anyway, reading deception point again, just to take my mind away from stuff. Went to college today and got a project on udupi hotels...
Anda funny thing happened. I flashed a copy of Mumbai mirror I found in college for free, and the guys on the station gave me this



It contained ten packets of rasna that probably didn't sell...

damn dumbledore dies...

But two of my best friends started going out. This was pretty funny actually.

Sunday, July 17, 2005

HBP

Spent the day getting over Dumbledore's death, by making fun of it, and telling friends about it before they read the book.
Got punched in the stomach for that...

TOI ran this article on the front page. The most circulated paper in the world practically tells who dies in this fron. Hell its not on the official site. Maybe I will get the article from the BCL site... nope not there either.
No point...

No spoilers

HBP is out and YOU are reading THIS filthy blog? You won't find any useful information here...

This was supposed to go on yesterday night, but unfortunately, blogspot.com refused. so did technorati - I wonder why the servers were down...

Just finished HBP. No wisecracks about high blood pressure.

The good:
1) Hagrid does not die afterall...
2) Harry and Ginny happen

The bad:
1) Emmeline vance, Amelia Bones, Florean Fortescue, and probably
Ollivanders die
2) Snape is the half blood prince
3) Snape is a filthy traitor afterall
4) Aragogg dies

The ugly:
1) Dumbledore dies. He's killed by Snape.

Cheers and happy reading
.
.
.
.
For those who are ardent fans, sorry I couldn't resist.

PS: Tonks and Lupin too do it.


I think the reason she killed Dumbledore was that now there would be no one between 'the chosen one' and the dark lord. Ah well... what is infuriating is that there are three or four more years before the swan song.

funny thing is, a friend thought it was going to be named "harry potter and the swan song"

hehe

Fresher's party

There was this fresher's party yesterday from eleven thirty to two thirty. I wanted to read potter desperately, and therefore was restless throughout. there was the usual talk on descipline and stuff, and a few people came and talked about the career avenues, and finally they showed us three short films. Jackass, which translated to jackass in hindi, which means "cool" for some reason was a really nice short film. then there was a "technically RAW" film on college girls having boyfriends which soon excalated into a debate.
After that there was a fresher's introductory session which went very well. At least most of it did.
End of story. Back to potter.

HBP

Today morning, The people at Times of India laid their hands on a copy of HBP at six thirty. It was in my hands at six forty five. I took it from this bookshop called paperbook in Siddachal.



I had booked it from there almost two weeks ago. I got it for 799 bucks, that's like less than half the prize for which it is selling aborad AT A DISCOUNTED RATE. my friend, Ashwin, who stood outside with an expression of "oh fuck you got it before me!" but smiled for the camera.



But that was only marginally before the time he would get the book. We headed over to Kapoor's. another book shop. Pottermainia hadn't exactly caught on here, mostly because:

Ths shop was closed. I sat down right there and began reading the book, and was saying things like "oh fuck!" and "oh shit!" any times over, just to tautn Ashwin. He went to second hand bookshops, asked for harry potter ,was offered a bargain on the third book, decided that he did not want it after all...
eventually, Kapoor's opened up, and Ashwin looked plain stupid because he had been waiting or forty five minutes. Another person came in and got it before him. I recieved an SMS from a fried saying "Hagrid Dies. Happy reading"

I almost believed that guy. Anyway, we had the book, we headed over to college to read it...



This is Ashwin with the book, so THIS story had a happy ending. Unfortunately, te same cannot be said about the book - but that deserves another post...

Saturday, July 16, 2005

potter

HBP in another ten minutes. These are the last of the potter free minutes...

my profile


From some wierd site, I will link to in this blog for sure...

Friday, July 15, 2005

Liberalisation will help liberate the indian economy

I have to write in on that on monday. I only understad the words 'will help' and 'the indian'.
Screw the project - HBP is coming out tommorrow and I am sleeping extra just to be able to read it. Nother else to blog today.. except there was a slight tiff over this movie we were about to make. I backed off, which was interpreted as wierdness...
anyway.
HBP.
TOMMORROW.
A friend thinks the HBP is Hagrid...

Thursday, July 14, 2005

NDR-114

Long time since I had a typical about today blog. But of late, things have been anything but typical. Or rather, they have become anothersort of typical than life used to be before BMM days.
found out the hard way that BMM is in fact, not the long vacation I had dreamed about. Still going to classes, still doing wierd things in the last bench, as I used to since kintergarten...
and stuff like that. Saw Bicentennial man today. I actually started clapping when the two kiss... pretty good scene that. As usual, I headed over to IMDB to check out the trivia. Turns out that the aria that Andrew is listening to when he first uses the record player is from Dvorak's opera "Rusalka." The opera is concerned with the fairy-tale story of a water nymph who wants to become mortal for love.
Also, the car driven by ma'am is the same car driven by stalonne in demolition man. Cool eh?
What I like about Andrew is that, wehn he talks about sex, he goes from "It all sounds so very... messy" to "That you can lose yourself. Everything. All boundaries. All time. That two bodies can become so mixed up, that you don't know who's who or what's what. And just when the sweet confusion is so intense you think you're gonna die... you kind of do. Leaving you alone in your separate body, but the one you love is still there. That's a miracle. You can go to heaven and come back alive. You can go back anytime you want with the one you love." Maybe I can use it in that "sec and the media" project that I am working on.
Still have a backlog of two JAM articles - just biding my time for a while Wrote the submission for tommorrow... will blog again tommorrow.