A costly affair

The Americans, the British,
The French, and the Germans
they did a lot of consuming
and gladdened the Arabs

The sheikhs decided
to fill their bulging pockets
and hence up shot
the price of oil like rockets

The airlines that we were fond
of calling low cost
decided that their profits
were now getting lost

And the era of low cost flying
vanished overnight
the railways made gains
as we were back on trains

But them americans, they enjoyed
but forgot to pay
their bills and loans
worth billions they say

and banks crashed all around
the markets plumetted
people were fired
and houses vacated

and soon there were no
long queues at the gas stations
and price of oil was
brought down by scared Arab nations

and people like me,
were happy again
because air travel
was again a bargain

But the kings of the air
they said they were still making losses
and air tickets were still
kept dear by aeroplane bosses

And then, out of nowhere
came a man called Otis
he said he was selling
the Mahatma's glasses

and chappals and teeth and what not
to the highest bidder
suddenly through the country
passed a collective shudder

People took to the streets
to convice the government
to bring back our heritage at all costs
trash all development

The government were not sure
exactly what to do
Otis said spend on the poor
and take them without a sou

But if they had had
any money to spare
they would have offered a drink
to every poor, elections were near

And then rose our man
our knight in shining armour
he decided to spend
sitting in a French parlour

He paid a million dollars
and then paid some more
for an old chappal, specs and teeth
of a man considered pure

But that beer baron
that king of red planes
from where did he earn it
from where it all came?

Its we who payed
for all that booze
and we who spent money
to go and air cruise

So we can be proud
we can lay claim
after all when fuel was cheaper
we still paid the same

But if only we had spent
all that money for progress
that man would have been happier
if there was no one without a dress.

Its just a line?

Tensions between India and Pakistan are at an all time high once again. Both sides are insinuating against each other and people's minds are being poisoned as well. Here is my humble attempt at peacenicking, hope people don't call me unpatriotic for this :P

Extract from a jewel of a poem from Veer-Zaara (film) -:

Main qaidi number saat sau chhiyaasi, jail ki salaakhon se baahar dekhta hoon
Din mahine saalon ko yug mein badalte dekhta hoon;

Is mitti se mere bauji ke kheton ki khushbu aati hai,
ye dhhoop meri maati ki thhandi chhaachh yaad dilaati hai;

ye baarish mere saawan ke jhhoolon ko sang sang laati hai,
ye sardi meri lodi ki aag sek ke jaati hai;

woh kehte hain yeh tera des nahi, phir kyun mere des jaisa lagta hai?,
woh kehta hai woh mujh jaisa nahi, phir kyun mujh jaisa woh lagta hai?

Translation -:

I prisoner number 786, out of the prison bars I see,
Days, months, years, changing into ages I see;

The fragrance from the soil here, reminds me of my fathers farm
The glare of the sun here, and I remember the cool buttermilk of my ma;

The rain here brings back memories of swings in childhood,
The bitter cold brings back memories of sitting by the burning wood;

They say that this is not your land, then why does it look like it is?,
He says he is not like me, then why does he look like he is?

Applause :)

Full poem recited beautifully by Shahrukh Khan -> here

Chiranbama

I'll let the pic do the talking.... Found it near my office in Hyderabad on a huge hoarding usually used by 5 star hotels :)

A new post in a NEW year

Suddenly this thought has hit me that what is so new about the new year? Why is there such a brouhaha about this day - the 1st of January, every year? What exactly has changed at the stroke of the midnight? The only universal answer is probably, the Date. And even that changes at different times in different parts of the world.

Now, you might be wondering, why is this eternal pessimist ruining our ephemeral sense of euphoria? On the contrary, I am not being a pessimist but an optimist. My point is that, there is nothing to stop us from celebrating with the same zeal every other day. Someone arbitrarily chose a particular day 2009 years ago and decreed, "From now on we are going to be happy and optimistic about something new and better every 365th day. And because the mathematics is a bit complicated and the earth moves a bit strangely, every 4th year(that is the 4th period of 365 days) we will wait for one more day before we can celebrate again. Except that every 400th year we will again not wait that one day extra. And sometimes we may have some more problems and we will keep adjusting the time when you may be happy that something new lies ahead. So, err I hope you get it. Happy new year."

So it is we who decide if something new is going to happen or not. Any time.

And for your information, 1 second extra was added yesterday. :)

Gym mein bheja fry!

English: "Driven to nuts in the gym"

I quite enjoy translating such idioms from Hindi to English and vice-versa for two reasons.
1) I enjoy being able to. It gives me immense relief to know that I am proficient in atleast two languages.
2) It always amazes me that even though word for word, the meanings are so different, still analogues always exist.
If you know of a better translation (either way), please enlighten me.

This post, however, is not about random linguistic facts. This post is a true story of how a poor soul, whose only intention was to exercise honestly in the gym for an hour or so, was bothered, nay tormented by a crackpot in the true sense of the word.

It so occured that I was jogging on the treadmill, panting and heaving, huffing and puffing, and trying to complete my daily target. In came the defending champion and three times runner up of Grasim Mr. India contest (or so it seemed from the airs he had, not from his physique, mind you). Unfortunately the treadmill next to me was unoccupied and he happily jumped on to it (literally). Now, it would not have been such a tragedy had he been a harmless stranger. That was not to be. The clown was an acquaintance of mine. He smiled at me and I returned it in good measure, quite unaware of the fact that that particular gentelman was not going to let me have any peace for the next hour or so.

Within half a minute of ascending the treadmill, this bufoon sped up to an unmaintainable speed. Now I had been jogging for about 25 minutes and hence was merely trundling forth at a speed which can neither be called walking nor running. It was then that the bird brain blurted - "Yaar...huff..puff..if you run so slowly then whats the use?". More huffs and puffs followed alongwith a sudden decrease in speed. I was surprised by such an attack on my method of exercising and naturally tried to defend myself - "I have to run for longer, so naturally I will have to be slower". The master of unintelligent repartee was ready - "You should not run for so long. 8 - 10 minutes is sufficient. Otherwise all the energy will be sapped and you will not be left with any for other work outs." Now it so happened that I was following instructions from the trainer while he was quite obviously self taught. I merely nodded and faced the other way.

By the by, I went on to the next exercise - "Push ups". I have only recently started doing this exercise and am far from proficient at it. I donot however, like being reminded of the fact with every single descent of my expansive derierre. And ofcourse, this was exactly what Superman thought I needed to hear. "Yaar chest should touch the floor tangentially", "yaar your hands are too far apart", "try sitting on your knees and doing it for some days" and who knows what else. After some time I gave up and asked him to give a demonstration. This request did not elicit the enthusiastic response that I was expecting but a pitiful - "Arrey I have come to the gym after many days, let me get into shape and I will show you in a few days...hehehehe".

I was just standing and getting a breather before the next exercise when a strikingly beautiful maiden happened to grace the gym with her illuminating presence. What bussiness she had in the abode of ugly misshapen humans, I could not fathom and nor was I allowed to ruminate on this subject for long. A sound for which my ears had started forming a distinct hatred by now fell upon their drums and I was woken up from my reverie by who else - Sunny Deol fan no. 1.
"You should start doing weights!" he spoke with gusto. "Huh?", was my passionless reply. It did not dampen his spirits in the least. "Weights!", he lifted his left arm and displayed a dumbbell. I laughed in my heart, no wonder he liked a dumbbell. "No thanks...", I muttered and went on for some abs exercises. He was adamant. Sitting beside me in a kneeling position while I went back and forth, exhaling air from my lungs with my hands behind my back, he carried on, unmindful of my utter disregard for his suggestions. "Arrey all these are foolish totkaas. Whats the big deal in becoming thin? Just don't eat for a month or so. Real exercise is pumping iron". "Yeah, I will think about it once I lose some of my body fat", I said a bit irritatedly. His eyes lit up. "Lets start from today itself."

I was on the point of shouting "What have I done dude? Why are you so hell bent on trying out all your ideas on me?". But as you might know, the polite soul that I am, I gave in and followed him. Soon I realized what his idea of "doing weights" together was. He lay down on a bench and asked me to hand him the barbell which was supported by a rod directly above his head. Then he would go on to lift it 3-4 times before turning a deep shade of blue and frantically signalling me to help him place the barbell back on the support rod. This I enjoyed thourougly for a few minutes. :)

Then seeing that there was no chance of getting in even a couple of sets of any exercise, I decided to get the hell out of there. To this he said, "What leaving already? Abhi to warmup shuru hua hai!". "Yeah, sorry got some work to do yaar", I half shouted as I almost ran out of the gym. He followed me to the door and shouted back, "Ok see you same time tomorrow hehehe"

And now I'll have to change my gym timings. What rotten luck I say.

For a long time I have been neglecting this blog. I have been itching to write something but the great ideas just don't come. So I have decided (not for the first time but yet again) that just like batsmen need to spend some time in the middle when they are out of form, I need to spend some time writing before the ideas arrive. We will neglect the small detail that batsmen who have never shown promise don't get any time in the middle. Since this is my blog its like that street match in which I am the kid with the bat and ball. I get as many innings as I want :)

So as the ideation engine is just outputting garbage, there is only just one way to go. Write about a cliched topic, which every tom,dick and harry has written about (and Sarang is about to be added to that list).

26/11, India was attacked yet again by terrorists. More importantly Mumbai was attacked yet again. Between the rains, the Raj and the ruffians, it looks like the city is soon going to be declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The terrorists are bad and yes, it is a shameful thing to do and all that. The thing that comes most to my notice is that the sense of outrage is so much more because they attacked the centers of elite prodigality. When I see all those theatre personalities and socialites sitting on the news channels talking about taking radical measures, I only see their mouths opening and closing but not really the words they emit. What I hear instead is, "How the hell did they dare attack the Taj Hotel? See we are all peace-loving Gandhi followers as far as you bomb those ruddy local trains and create havoc in murky back lanes of Pan Bazaar in faroff Guwahati or even in the parliament. But attack 5star hotels, disturb our cozy repasts with foreign businessmen and you have crossed a line. Lets just bloddy carpet bomb Pakistan."

Seriously, all this talk about waking up of the middle class angers and frustrates me more than the attack itself. The news channels are in it just for the moolah. Why are Simi Garewaal and Kunal Kohli talking about what India's strategy should be now. And who in hell is listening to them anyways. Much ado about nothing.
What is even more exasperating is the venom venting that some people start after such incidents.
E.g -:
1) Lets just kill all their families. They are not afraid themselves but the only thing that scares them is potential harm to their families.
Yeah sure! Great Idea. But who exactly are they here? If we had any clue of that it would be a better option to catch them in the first place. And yeah, in case you don't remeber, some have already tried this option. Remember Gujarat?? Yeah that helped a lot, thanx.

Now you might ask, what do you have to offer in way of a solution??
I might not have some big plans like carpet bombing Pakistan or declaring war, but I know two things. The motives of the terrorists are two-fold -:
1) To disrupt our lives, and scare us away from venturing out of our homes and also maybe scaring away potential foreign businesses from coming here ultimately denting our economy.
2) Divide us up, make us do foolish things and gain legitimacy for their actions.

I think that as individuals we donot have the power to bring about a sudden change. What we are capable of is, a) A slight bravery - Instead of being afraid of the next attack and playing into their hands we need to be defiant. I think most of us are. Its natural to be scared but not cowardly. And b) Not listen to the devil's advocates and be united.

It is such simple acts which will help us not only recover but make their jobs more difficult.
The setting up of a dedicated Intelligence department and carrying out of covert ops behind enemy lines should be left to the experts. If you want to contribute, then choose your leaders wisely, instead of just blindly going forward and choosing someone who is a co-religionist, speaks your language or is a champion of your caste. If more then become a leader yourself. Appearing on television and talking seriously, as if you are the director, CIA doesn't help.

Recent Developments ...

I guess we are all aware of the recent upheavel in the financial world. There was a lot of media coverage and a lot of people got scared as hunted rabbits. Banks and other financial institutions either started falling like nine pins or were badly shaken up. Personally however I don't know a soul who has been badly affected. It could be plain coincidence or I just don't know enough people.

Now you must be thinking, "Ok! whats the point wise guy?". Well I donot really have a point. Or I should say that whatever I have will probably not be considered much of a point.

Well immediately after the meltdown there were news reports of people who had been badly affected commiting suicide or worse, killing off their families and then themselves. These were people who were just like us. Middle class employees of reputable firms which had ceased to exist. Ofcourse such news shocked us badly.

I will cut to the chase now. Enough beating around the proverbial bush. In India, we have a lot of farmers who are extremely poor. It is not my aim to highlight their plight nor am I any champion of the oppressed. I just wish to juxtapose two similar situations here.

So where were we, right the poor farmers. Now for many years poor and highly debt ridden farmers of India have been resorting to taking their and their family's lives. There are random news articles about these events and some NGOs try and bring their misery to the front pages. Also several times the politicians announce loan waver schemes to the tune of hundreds of crores of rupees. It does little to help the farmer's cause as obiliterating previous debt does not imply that the reason for that debt is removed as well. However everytime such a waver is announced there is a lot of hue and cry against it in the corporate world. Its bad economics they claim.

Cut to the recent "meltdown" and we see many airlines asking the governement for financial aid. And ofcourse everybody is quite ready to admit that what else is the governement for if not to aid in troubled times. In the US, the government already has given massive aid to several ailing banks.

However if you reflect a little, all these loan waivers and aids to airlines are actually indirectly funded by us - the taxpayers. And its us, the middle class, who pay most of the taxes. So I think we need to reflect what is more important - agriculture or aviation.

The finance minister has come up with a brilliant idea - creating a soverign state sponsored fund of $20 billion for shoring up the stock market. What this means in lay man terms is that taxpayers money is going to be used to increase share prices, bringing the sensex back to a rosy red figure.

So millions of poor farmers die, if you provide for them its bad economics and if you spend money so corporate shares rocket thats good economics.

I don't know about you but to me this economics subject looks a bit dicey.