PURSUIT OF HAPP-"Y"- NESS

Merry Christmas to everyone. The holiday season has arrived, bringing with it hypothermic cold. The rate at which the chill is increasing in the winters every year, I feel the predictions for an upcoming apocalypse in 2012 isn’t far off really. This write is dedicated to all those hapless children who aren’t fortunate enough to gloat about the last toy they ripped to pieces, the last dress that isn’t wearable anymore, the last book they dog-eared, aye even the last night’s meal they just didn’t wish to eat.

My trips to Sambalpur always bring out a myriad of events which not only are heart rendering but also shocking to put it mildly. So here I was chomping down on some French fries( road side, amazing isn’t it?) I see these two girls(at most 8) trying their best to convince an unconvinced customer to buy some paraphernalia which perhaps was no use to him. After all what use could he put to, toy cars which looked they had survived the Ice Age? After much convincing he makes a quick deal and buys a balloon , perhaps only to shoo those kids away. These two bravehearts, appareled only with frocks that were thoroughly worn out, were nevertheless not shy of showing their gratitude with ear-to-ear grins and profuse happiness. They jumped in happiness after the customer was at a safe distance, perhaps feared that the apparent trade was something that was too good to be true. These kids are forced to walk 5-10 km everyday just to get 10-20 bucks which are just the paycheck to their fathers for being such a sorry-ass human being. The money almost always ends up at the illegal liquor stores . But still these kids wore such infectious smiles.

It really made me die a little on the inside. I mean how could I even grumble at those little things like allowances and make terrible faces after being denied a bike on my birthday? These kids faced so much more still they hardly even had sad eyes. Unable to quench my thirst of information I walk up to those girls and no sooner had I reached them did they start their familiar chants of “ Ye dekhiye bhaiya , kinta mast khilona hai. Aur yeh dekhiye kitna acha balloon hai. Isko agar aap chod denge toh yeh ud ke chanda mama tak pahunch jayega.” Amazing was all I could say. How could somebody be so unbelievably immune to their apparent misfortunes? I asked their names. “ Pinky and Milli” pat came the reply. My belief’s were confirmed after a chat with them. Their father was a good- for- nothing drunkard who beat these bundles of life after getting drunk every day. I and my friend each bought a toy car making these kids beam at us as if we were god send…..

And the best thing was what happened at the end… I heard them talk-“ Aaj papa ko paise nahi denge, chalo kuch khaate hai” said Pinky to Milli. Milli nodded in the affirmative… The girls had boiled eggs as dinner and smiled naughty smiles…. Live on rebels … live on...

p.s.- all my earning readers kindly visit the following link and see how you can make a difference. To the non- earning save a few bucks of your allowance and help these kids plzzzz. I will and you can too.

http://www.savethechildren.in/index.html

GOD-NESS GRACIOUS ME!!!

I am back. As cheesy as that sounds I always loved “ The Terminator” movie for that specific dialogue. Arnold with his “Pronunciation-experts-go-to-hell” English was just oh-so-brilliant. So was busy preparing for my IIFT tests. Thus the gap. Was thinking about what to write about when Shiv Sena gave me fodder with their comments critising Sachin. So here goes for my God.

First of all let me just give some numbers:

30000 runs with 88 centuries and 144 fifties. A highest score of 248* in tests and 186* in ODIs. 208 wickets in all. And still going after 20 years of List A cricket.

I mean how some people have the audacity to challenge the career (one way or the other) of the great man is beyond my rationale. But this is not about his cricketing career. So my God (read Sachin) goes on and says –“I am first an Indian then a Marathi”. And some people just lose the plot. Accusations whirl around about him not being a true Marathi, not helping enough Marathi players into the side, advising him to stay out of politics and the whole nine yards.

First of all kudos to Sachin for standing up to those Vandals, who for the dearth of better name, call themselves MNS. I don’t understand all this hara-kiri about such a seemingly innocuous statement. I mean if anything the man needs to be praised for wearing his heart on his sleeve and proclaiming such a statement that reeks of nationalism. But these hooligans, having nothing better to do, have jumped upon the back of Sachin. And having the backing of their parent organization the Shiv Sena is just a blessing a disguise for Raj Thackeray and his band of mischief mongers. I mean to say that Sachin hasn’t helped Marathi cricketers is a statement so far below the belt, it’s absolutely unimaginable. If by helping , the Sena means using his apparent power to include more Marathi Cricketers in the Indian team, the world will agree with me that is actually a blessing. I mean that comment was more insulting to Sunil Gavaskar, who the Sena proclaim, used his unwielding power over the selectors to browbeat them into selecting more Marathi crickets.

The Sena and now the MNS, for political organizations, have so narrow an agenda that it is unbelievable that they are branded as political parties and not terrorist organization. I mean isn’t disrupting the harmony of the country a terrorist activity? How is burning down Gift shops, on Valentine’s Day, helpful to the people of India. The abrupt disregard of the indigenous nature of the human mind to imbibe everything that is good in each culture has been starkly violent and mass- destructing. Raj Thackeray is nothing better than a Dawood Ibrahim or an Osama bin Laden.

I will wind up by saying that, leave the man alone. He has done more for India, aye even Maharastra, than all the people in your organization put together. He has made us all laugh in rejoice or cry in despair. He has made us believe in India. Your petty politics is way below his level.Let us cheer for the man that he is. The master blaster. Batsman Extraordinare. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.

p.s.: About my IIFT exams. Gud scores. Quanti might just kick me out though.

"HEARTLESS MAN"

It has been a long while since my last post. Been keeping busy with lots of things. So I apologise if any of you have been eagerly awaiting my posts. Although I know nobody was waiting for my blog that eagerly so my apologies are wasted. But I digress. The length of my blogs has been point of critique by many of you , so I try to keep this short.

So the other day I went to the Bank to apply for XIM, Bhubaneswar (Still laboring under the delusion that I am management material). I want to report one of the appalling that disgraced humanity. It was like a day where the elder people are paid their pensions. So the bank was crowded. It has always been one of my fascinations to view people in alien environments. It is always amazing how they react to it. So I kept looking at different people to the point of being certain times (One time I saw this kid picking his nose, and when he found out I was looking at him, he looked almost crestfallen. It was like he lost one of his favourite toys). So amidst this amalgamation of sights and sounds I saw something that created a profound impact. There was this man in his late 30’s dressed in what appeared to be decent enough apparel. He was dragging his mother who barely appeared to be able to stand up let alone walk. I can vouch for the fact they was not a ounce of interest of that woman to get her share of pensions (apparently good enough for such a display of aberration of humanity). That really left a taste as sour as vinegar in my mouth. I mean how someone could do something so cruel and vilifying to a person was above me. I mean are we brought to this world by our parents so that we can do something this pathetic. For god sake’s did the man even forget what that woman has done for him? The nine months she beared the pain of having a living soul inside of her. The painstaking efforts so that he could make himself someone of respect. Is this one of the aspect that makes us human?? The apparent absence of emotion for someone who has held you dear all their lives. I would rather be a beast with love for my mom rather than a heartless human.

P.S. Check this link. http://www.kalingakusum.net/ . This is something Rakesh Mohanty sir (Our Teacher for those of you don’t know him) started in 2008. Let’s all contribute.

DIWALI- festival of disappointments

Happy Diwali to everybody. This being my final year I was awaiting this years’ Diwali with the kind of enthusiasm that a child usually displays.in a candy store But things started going downhill from the week leading into it.



First my roommate,Samir, got afflicted with flu and to his credit spread it to 20
odd students in the hostel. Being his room mate I got affected with this new stream of virus I would like to refer to as SAM-FLU. So sniffs and cough ruled the roost and even a suspected swine-flu outbreak kept us humoured for the week. Just when I thought things could not get any worse Mr.X(identity kept hidden in case he stumbles upon this blog by gross single clicking), an attention seeking and power wielding freak of a teacher, brought out a notice which banned fire crackers . As bad as it sounded we still hoped some semblance of joy would be spared for us and we still went forward and got ourselves our favourite crackers. Come the day the sounds( isn't it ironic) weren't very promising . A visit by Mr.X and his favourite sidekicks at 4 p.m. warning us of the obvious punishments were right on cue. Still the crackers went off. Before I go forward I want to tell you of this supervisor guard who was an almighty grudge against me my room mates and friends for some kind of misunderstanding that I care not to comment on. He is a lousy son of a gun, in my opinion though. So at 8 pm this guard finds two of my friends trying to sneak off to drink of cuppa tea at our fave. Shop. He absolutely refuses to let them go through the gate. In the ensuing hullabaloo that followed the only thing that made sense in a twisted way was that the guard called Mr.X . He arrived with his trademark sniff of disgrace and started to blast off at one of my friends for going out. Aye even promising on god to rusticate him( the melodramatic little…..). Things turned from bad to worse when the faithful sidekicks of Mr.X started to fire left right and center in search of the so-called culprits.The melee was slightly defused in the end when we took upon us to downright slaughter the credentials of the guard. We still await the dis-co and the aftermaths that always eventually are hellish.
So went the Worst Diwali of my lyf.


Thank You my teachers for ruining my last year at my favourite place. I owe you a big one…

LOST SYMBOL,,, urghhh

So this is my third attempt at writing a blog. I have failed monumentally in keeping up with the world of blogdom due to reasons apparent and inherent. Perhaps I envisioned it to be some kind of expression of mind and maybe I thought I could dedicate to it time that I spent on trivial things. I really did not expect to be so far south of the real world of blogdom, so perhaps after months of research ( God, I am using huge words here!!) I hope to be third time lucky. So having finally decided to re-enter blog-world again, I really was under some duress(There I go again) to think about something interesting to write about. And then there was light…

I have always been keen on writing reviews, I am quite a tough critic and mostly never find a book, movie , TV series completely flawless so I have always been egged on by my never satisfied(others call it difficult) brain to write pages about how things could have been right about a certain thing. But the book I am about to review, no amount of editing or re-editing can make it right for readers.

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Dan Brown appeals to all the guilty pleasure that a human mind indulges in like solving crime-scenes, puzzles, whodunnits , engrossing chases and what nots. The Lost Symbol provides you all that . Robert Langdon is back with his 3^rd adventure after batting the Illuminati in Angels and Demons and the Churches in the oft mentioned Da-Vinci Code. And back with him is his irritable nature to find symbols and mysteries hidden in every walk of life. I can bet my bottom rupee that if he walks into any of our colleges he will find tons of symbols of Illuminati, Freemasons and heaven knows what other God-awful secret socities.

The novel start off promisingly enough with Mr.Langdon discovering the hand of friend-philosopher-guide(I always loved that phrase) Peter Solomon at the Capitol, Washington D.C. and after a whirlwind 330 pages later he is still stuck at the same place just the hand is missing and the person is alive. I kid you not this is such an absurd write that Dan Brown novel, 187 Men to Avoid: A Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman, under the pen name Danielle Brown sound an amusing read. The prepice of the novel is flawed with the great secret on which the book hinged upon very general and not ground breaking. The Da-Vinci Code was similarily badly written but at least the climax brought upon a surprising and dare I say Book-burning theme. With this one it seems Dan really wants to hide from all the attention that a “path breaking fiction” can produce.

The characters are all encylopaedias of information who dechiper codes and solve puzzles without blinking an eye-lid. Plot errors are continual and unending to the point you ask yourself “wasn’t going out a better option”. And all the so called twists are so predictable that you can tell what happens on the next page without leafing through the book( Sorry to burst your bubble all ye Nostradamus wannabes, but predicting Dan Brown’s novel isnt quite as shocking as you hoped). So why does such a bad book sell? This is just Dan Brown revelling in success generated from all the controversies created by the Da-Vinci Code. I mean at this point Dan Brown can write “5 ways to pee better” and even that will sell half a million copies.

So I commiserate the loss of all you people whose hard earned bucks went down an elegantly crafted drain. And for those who are waiting for the paperback my sincere advice is “Don’t”.

TTFN.