Train to Nowhere

On my trip back to Hyderabad, a man came and asked me if anyone was sitting on the opposite seat, hearing “no” he sat down. He enquired when train would reach Hyderabad as he was taking kids to enroll them in a madarsa at Hyderabad. My radars caught those words, I had a look, a look seeking lots of answers. Just a few days back media was splashing mews of poor socio-economic condition of muslims in the country and once again the popular (and politically beneficial solutions like reservations were sought). I had lotsa questions for this man, but despite knowing that almost none of madarsas did not provide for any certification exams, I asked him so they have any provision for SSC or HSC exams, thought it would probably make him realise where he was heading kids to!!!
He plainly said NO, even those which let students to appear privately or open school, fair miserably coz students were never prepared for it.

I further asked “How they compete, don’t they feel lagged behind?”
He replied awkwardly “its Religious education”. Then TTE came and made perfect interruption. Later that man got busy with his religious thread.

I felt loss of chance to ask him and convince him to better take kids to some other school. After all how many madarsas and students do we actually need to keep religious knowledge alive? Do we actually need these students to pile up over existing levels of Maulvis?
Will madarsas ever produce best architects, Sufis, poets, scientists and industrialist. Isn’t all this is required by so called muslim world. How come getting away from it, will do well for them.

Few weeks back, I saw a talk show; it had around 50 muslims comprising audience to discuss their financial condition. It was hard to believe that only 1 in 50 had life insurance, none had medical insurance, almost none of them wanted to take loan for any purpose and some even felt bad at interest being credited to their account on their on savings. Now, tell me what exactly government should be doing? Doling out financial incentives, provide for reservations or simply try to change their perspective and economically integrate them. I know what most of you exactly think that government would do !!

Makes you CRANK

Crank. This is the movie that I watched last weekend. Its one of those super stylish slick flicks that gets you hooked.

The movie creates a new genre in film making. This movie tries to mix videogame visuals into the movie and you will be surprised that it succeeds; in fact it delivers beyond anybody’s expectation. Crank also adds some other elements of action oriented videogames; it is fast faced, violent with some amount of blood shed, good action sequence, nudity (more or less compulsive these days) and non-stop.

After Wachoski brothers brought comics strip style action scenes into movies, Crank brings a new style of cinematography. From the scene one the movie runs like a videogame. The camera work is totally what you see in new age 3-D videogames, it follows the hero from different camera angles. Combine it with slick editing and fast pace camera work, you get the mind blowing action treat. Like all videogames it too has incredible but not death defying stunts.

Plot is simple our hero, Jason statham, the Transporter movie guy (known for no brain all brawn kick-ass stuff), plays the assassin, poisoned by his rival. He has one hour and needs antidote. So he runs for his life and thus trail begins. Needless to say to you should look for logic here, coz that guy does lotsa stuff to keep him alive- getting electric shock, half nakedly standing on bike, driving car on escalator and much more, believe me I’m not telling the most interesting parts.

I bet when this movie will end, you will count it as cult classic.

Gandhi versus Bhagat Singh: Guns and Roses for Oscars

Now that both Lage Raho MunnaBhai and Rang de Basanti are vying for Oscars. They are up against each other again. Who will win this time?

Historians have fought who should be taught more in schools. Almost all non-pro-gandhians were thin lined in the books and their contribution/relevance limited to a paragraph (and for Mahatma they used 1.5 line spacing on word file, hahaha!!; this used to be my trick in mba days). I remember the school days when guys used to voraciously used the defend Gandhi and Bhagat Singh against each other. As their means to end were different actually poles apart, those arguments used to get polarised.

Coming back to the movies, both the movies have been extremely liked by the junta of our country who are terribly confused the condition of this country and looking for solutions. Both the movies lead in to this direction (solution). RDB has Bhagat Singh in backdrop while Lage Raho has Gandhi in focus. Now question is who will make it? Which movie Americans will identfy with?

Well, Gandhi is a well know figure (1 Oscar old!). And this time he is giving not only NON-VIOLENT solutions for political system but also PEACEFUL solutions to all personal and social problems. Devoid of all negatives, he is likeable as usual, probably more for the American souls, who are in desperate need of peaceful solutions to the mess created by them at home and abroad.
On the other hand, RDB has revolutionaries guiding the youth to take matters into their hands and try to find solutions, which turn out to be VIOLENT. The movie tries to put youth on dock and solutions they can look up to, violent or not? It leaves youth to debate decide. I don’t know how much Americans will identify with RBD and the measures taken by the youth in the movie. I don’t know if the Americans, already tired of domestic violence and killings in the society will really look up to RDB, will they really approve of killing their own politicians, I mean can anyone imagine Americans ever approve murder of Mr.Bush.
I think not, they would rather rally around their leaders no matter how corrupt they are. Thanks to Bush’s biblical statement of Us or Them, all the violent means have been dubbed as Terrorism by Americans for their convenience. So, will Americans ever vote for terrorist actions??

I really don’t know which one they will choose? Will RDB dance all the way or will it be Cheers for Gandhi (with dry glasses!); or will they neglect both?

My Corporate Pickup Line

“I am available.”

How this will sound to you if someone says it to you?
What exactly would you infer from it? Will you slap the person or laugh at it?

Well, this statement is actually our corporate jargon that means availability of resource for assignment. This is the first thing that most of the people in my division say in the Monday morning meeting, yeah it doesn’t get them really HOT date of choice but may add to your Monday morning trauma.

Though I have never dared to say it in outside world, but if you are a guy and you happened to make this statement unfortunately, this would perhaps be considered as one of the worst PICKUP lines ever used!!

It may never become a hit pickup line to get girls but in our division it is more used as seduction tool to get the exciting piece of work. Everyone makes a point to stand out when they say “I’m available”, so, the manager can see the passion (which may be very dim on Monday morning) in your eyes and may assign it to you (though it doesn’t happen).

Just imagine different people in your division saying it and that too in different styles. Try out people and see what it does to you? Post Austinpowers movie on Sunday, every time I hear people saying “I’m Available”,
Yeah babeeh!! I see Austin whispering into my ears – “Corporate Slut Babeeh”

Men will be Men

It was 8 in the night on Wednesday, 23 and I had crossed the main road after coming out of my office and was waiting for auto rickshaw. There were men and women waiting for the rick too, but I was in hurry. A shared rickshaw came, a man was already sitting. I asked the lady lady if she wanted to get in. she nodded “NO”, I got in. not loosing a moment another guy got in and then we looked at the lady and realized how mean we are, so both the guys (not me) got down and then sat aside the driver, I shifted to right corner of the seat, and then we again looked at the lady but she didn’t respond and seemed not interested in taking the rick. The guy on the left side of driver quickly jumped back to his seat and then another guy rushed to grab the last place. Auto was filled in with men and then it moved. I was in too busy to understand why that lady didn’t get into the rickshaw; I was looking for the restaurant where I had to get down to attend my roomie’s birthday party.

I reached the place and met my roomie and his friends, there was one, yeah a single, and I mean both - one and single, gal in the entire gamut of guys. The place was restaurant cum bar, so guys quickly got involved what they wanted – alcohol. Smoke and booze created all together different atmosphere for guys. Sometime later guys asked this gal IF she was feeling out of place (every one had to ask for the sake of it, like we didn’t know). What gal could answer?

At that point of time it struck me why that LADY didn’t get into rickshaw. The LADY didn’t want to seat herself in middle of the seat (probably thought of getting harassed), so, she declined it first when I offered her and then we didn’t leave her any option. Even after we made adjustment it was thoughtless concern for a woman. It never concurred to me that women have to tackle so many issues for almost everything they do. I don’t know if any men ever thought how it would be if they always have to protect themselves from getting harassed anywhere. Men don’t have to be bothered in man’s world, though they may show concern about other half but always forget to be thoughtful about it.

Independence Day for a Lousy Guy

It was aug15, I woke at 9am and switched on my tv, flag was hoisted and speech was delivered. I saw all that and speech of our Weakest Prime Minister who told us how strong the citizens are, braving all the govt.’s apathy and calamities. Then I switched to the patriotic songs for some time, even that didn’t last long. There was no flag hoisting in my apartment (there is no provision and nobody thought of it). I was left with nothing to do for a day that seemed endless. My roomie woke up and suggested we go out. I panicked, after all there was threat on my life and on everyone else, and who wants to become Shahid on that day, but we ventured out as my roomie hates crowded place.

So, we ended up at a shopping mall which was luckily empty (coz of terrorist threat). I thought, this was the opportunity to do something for nation’s economy – buy something and make it strong (that’s all this generation does in the masquerading for self consumption) - there were discounts and I could have bought something but then I heard something.(No, not sound of a bomb blast). This mall was playing patriotic songs, I wondered why? But after listening “takat watan ki hamse hai” (have you ever heard it?), manoj kumar & sunil dutt patriotic songs, I was finally nailed by “aiye mere watan ke logon”. I didn’t know what happened but I just didn’t buy anything though my roomie asked me several times. Then I realised something!

I don’t know how many people have ever noticed the difference in the way a person’s perception and meaning of days like Independence Day (or national days) change. But I thought about it this time, though I used to remember how it used to be in childhood. I remember that when there used to be holiday on ID, it was celebrated in our housing colony.

I never realised the fact that I used to take bath to go to flag hoisting ceremony. I mean, it’s only RELIGIOUS Festivals when you take bath to purify yourself to go for a ceremony. Our INDEPENDENCE DAY had such significance that it was considered inappropriate to go for flag hoisting without bathing. I mean, mathematically INDEPENDECE DAY = RELIGIOUS FESTIVAL!!!
And you are not worth it if you didn’t do it properly. In those days, I would wake up early and get ready to make sure that I don’t miss the ceremony and specially those Jalebi and Samosas. Yeah, but that was not the only thing, I never understood the rationale why kids used to keep running for hours with national flag in their hands, but who cared, even I used to run. Watching parade on TV was a family affair (tv was new those days and there was hardly anything to watch).

But when such celebrations became compulsory in school, I had to do little more than the usual to get those Samosas, sometimes parade, and sometimes cultural program. But that running with flag thing went off though I used to catch up with the Independence Day celebrations around the country on TV. One thing that added up to my list was the “Gandhi” movie, which was broadcasted every year, no matter how it bored me - I still used to watch it. By the time I was in college I lost some passion about Independence Day, I would wake up but only watch the ceremony on tv (bathing and preparing was gone), only exception was MBA days when I did go to flag hoisting like my school days.

Now that I’m working, I do watch the whole Independence Day coverage and the remixed desh bhakti songs on it, but hardly care about going to flag hoisting or even putting effort for that( may be some day I would do that again). I seldom realise how less we care and value our independence - take everything for granted. Faith is probably still alive within coz I still put that tiny flag on my shirt.

SMART Work and FART Work

Though its just two years into professional life but I have heard this noise SMART work at almost all levels of organization. Some one from top level management giving ‘BHAASAN’ on it to your team lead, there is just no end to this funda, you see.

You will realise that smart work is actually not ‘TOP NOTCH’ work or the best quality of work ever done!!! (Yeah man, this will happen when you self actualize.) Smart work is just managing the outcome which will satisfy the client most. It is shallow and doesn’t have much depth, of good work, but can hold and superficially looks better than most of the outcome in same line of work. It is delivering just what is required without actually fulfilling most of requirements. Smart work something that successfully deviates client/user from the original concern but make him feel that it concerns have been met. Since everyone gotta save his ass but that doesn’t happen all the time, so smart work comes in. what people don’t realise when they ask for smart work. What people don’t realise is the kind of work person has to do to smart work.

I think there are just two types; I call it Good work or Fart work.

You see, good work, when people get the kind of work they desired in the life or the kind of work that really use the potentials of a worker and helps in his/her development. Now, this kind of work is actually hard to get. In fact, I believe that most of the people actually don’t get it and they just dream for that day when they will have what they wanted. So, I won’t waste much time on it.

Then

There is FART work. Yeah.

You know when you eat something and your stomach doesn’t take it well then you fart. This happens with the work also. You don’t get the good work but you are asked to make it good. The work that disserved to be dumped sees the daylight of your desktop. There is nothing that can come out good from that work but since someone in the system has to do it, so it is thrown at you. You don’t like that kind of work and it upsets you sometimes. You don’t feel good about the work and then it start creating trouble in your professional life, makes it stinky. You take some help (kind of medication) manage the work and come out with smart work. But in long run every thing stops working for you and fart works sucks everthing "Fresh" out of your life and the stink of your life becomes visible in your language especially how you describe your work. The more you are force to do fart work, more helpless the situation becomes.

You just end up hating your work.

India Shining

Yesterday morning my milkman knocked the door for his payment. Before I could say anything further, he asked me ‘sir, which one is better – computer science or electronics and telecomm?’ I asked why to which he replied that her daughter has applied for admission. I said both were good but the milkman had probably made up his mind, he wanted to stick to EVERGREEN career options like Computers. I really loved talking to the milkman coz it’s not everyday that I get to see milkmen who want to educate their children with tech/professional education that too a daughter not a son. It really makes you feel great in the morning that your country is progressing so well.

My milkman is not the lone case. Newspaper vendor at my Mumbai home is auditor in an automobile retail company and he travels all over the country to audit its branches. I remember, five years back he used to come on cycle now he has bike and he seldom comes to collect his payment. I really want people like these to move forward in life coz then only we will fully develop. I really want people to all aspect of professional life but I know it too tough to dream that an Indian father will ask, ‘which is good rockumentary making or film making?’ I will wait for that day.

Mid-night Pidhu and Hero Hiralal

Since Thursday nites infuse much of weekend enthusiasm, its pretty difficult to discard mutations of couch potatoe and sleep early, as its just matter of day’s work (Friday). So I was, with my roomie, who still live upto their hostel days, late night tv and games; actually they got flexible time and they go office when its mid-day. As usual there was nothing worthwhile, but we were waiting for one filler “Pidhu da gre8”, it’s a spoof character and cyrus’ voice matches charaches (Punjabi with dikra accent). Though not as creative as ‘Simpu’ of channel v, but it surprises u sometimes and specially when you are bored and there nothing on tv at midnight. Alas, this time it was rerun, since my roomie had already seen quite a few episodes he realised it, anyways after a song it was over.

When flipped channels, caught one channel playing this movie ‘Hero Hiralal’. Its one late 80s flicks of bollywood where lover is ready to give up his life for love and such flicks are rarely made these days. I watched it mid night and I tell you the reasons why you should watch this movie:

It has those old hindi movie concepts of ‘Ameer ka pyaar aur Garib ka pyaar’( rich man’s love and poor man’s love). You don’t seen such kind of flicks as no one makes it these days, only NRI flicks for a billion junta who haven’t been outside.

Garib ka pyaar prevails and wins over the capitalists. Yeah, these days this doesn’t happen as everyone is realistic.

Extreme side of love- deadly sacrifices and suicide !!! Which hero does that these days? They only make effort for extra marital affairs or one night stand.

Movie has one of my favorite dialogue “Phata poster nikla HERO!”

Well, a portion of movie is shot in Hyderabad, where I’m living now. And I guess the place where it has been shot resembles ‘Hi-Tec City’, where I work (yeah I getting personal now) it once was rocky and empty space.

For record, Hyderabad ricks and specially rickshawala looks good, this can happen only in movie.

Lastly, this genre of movie has become extinct now, that’s why you should watch. I bet you are mostly likely to sympathise with Garib ka pyaar, as most of middle class dude do.

Sad but True

Mumbai 7/11: Resilience, Apathy and Myopic Concerns

Man, Mumbai’s bomb blast made each of us angry. Why can’t we stop such acts happening again and again? Mumbai’s 7/11 could have been averted if the police and intelligence people hadn’t failed to crack the arms seizure. Those guys just claimed the success and forgot every thing. I don’t know why police and government have such adhoc concern towards terrorism when the whole country is suffering from it. What saddens me is that I heard at least filmi guys taking local trains next day to show support to the common man but not about any MP or MLAs.

Resilience and Courage
I remember the last year july26 rainfall, when the mumbaikars showed their resilience, their camaraderie and their binding for the city and its people by giving helping hand, when needed the most. Rich, poor, labourers, students and every one on the street, took care of unknown, showing directions, distributing food and whatever one could do. Those gestures touched every one in the city, but I also had a few colleagues ( from delhi) who though had witnessed the wrath but were adamant that only poor people come to help as they don’t have much to loose. Now a year later, when the blasts occurred in Mumbai on 7/11, mumbaikars showed their courage and resilience once again and came out in full support for fellow mumbaikar at time that counted most. This time my new colleagues from delhi were flattered at the courage of mumbaikars. One of them said “people talk and communicate a lot in delhi, but nothing like this happens in such kind of situation”. I loved everyone’s appreciation for the people of Mumbai and was smirking at those Raspberry people who maligned the city by awarding ‘the rudest city in the world’; those guys will always remember courage and camaraderiship of mumbiakars as sh*t on their face.

Normalcy- need or compulsion
Everyone asks how come Mumbai gets back normal so early; well, there are several raison d'être to it. Mumbai is the business hub and the financial capital of the nation. It generates billions of rupees and dollars of business every day. If Mumbai is shut down for one working day, it leads to loss of billions of rupees which both the government and corporates don’t want to loose. Mumbai’s economic strength has become its compulsion, the compulsion to continue no matter what happens. But there is another aspect too. Mumbai may look glamorous and rich to outsiders but in reality is made largely of labourers who contribute to the mumbai’s economic strength. Earning livelihood is a compulsion for such people and it is this compulsion which forces people to return back normal so soon. It this economic strength that terrorist like to target and it’s the need for normalcy that politicians take for granted.

Myopic Concerns
News channels can never stop amusing you even if it is a moment of grave concern. They gotta do something to make you bang your face on the wall. Instead of covering hidden angels to the 7/11 blasts they were out to the Janta with some really thought provoking analysis – what was the astrological pronouncement, what was the numerological significance to the day and event. Not leaving behind was one news channel that broadcasted ‘blasts and the bollywood’ to make our day. Thankfully, there was no karan johar explaining the relation between his new movie to blasts.

Nazi Indians on the web

I'm quite new to this online networking thing that has become rave nowadays. i joined this site, orkut, as it has most of my friends online. the website got lotsa communities created by its members which you can join in and further network.

I was horribly surprised to see a 'Nazi Community for good of world' and to my embarrassment that stuffed with so many Indian members. I couldn't get the fact that how could Indians, whose cultural symbol was stolen and tampered by the white supremist ever become so sympathetic to their cause.

The list was full of indian dumbasses, actually dicks, who thought that i made them look cool to be on some anti-establishment site if they couldn't make it jihadi websape; like arabs and paki islamist and intellects. You can see their profiles; a set of losers wanting to do anything to get attention, hopelessly tryin to look like american teens.

I don't know why Indians are so good with their ignorance, how could you fall for such totalitarian and exlusivist political thought that teaches only hatred and tyrannical views against one community. Actually most of them have never done any good in the public life and have grouse about corrupt system in their surrounding, which they believe can be overran by such extreme political program.

I feel that everyone checking out such links and its members should definitely bash up their profile to make them realise what they are doing.