Aawaz de kaha hai?

HT reports

A jar of air exhaled by Hollywood's 'It' couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie has been auctioned for $523 on eBay. The jar of 'celebrity air' was put up on auction in June by enterprising celebrity spotter Joe Wilson r has been bought by an anonymous buyer, reported Daily Mail

I am guessing their fart (captured in a hagarbatti) will be worth much more.

Great North Run

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

I am running the Great North Run, the world's largest half marathon.

This is my fourth attempt at the half. My personal best is 1 hr 45 minutes. I am aiming at 1 hr 30 min this year. If I achieve the £500 target, then I will do my best to achieve the time. If not, I will cry trying.

Akansha is a charity I have come across when I was at Accenture. They do loads of fantastic work for kids, primarily in the field of education. I have interacted with the kids they support and could see first hand, the great work done by the charity.

People in the UK can donate via "Kids in need of Education" charity.

http://www.justgiving.com/kinoe

People elsewhere can click on appropriate links here

http://www.akanksha.org/

Back in Brighton

Am in Brighton this week due to en-masse trainings scheduled by my division at The Firm here. Great opportunity to get to know the rest of the team on speed, considering I just joined last week.

THe sessions have been quite useful and the evening programmes are also good - you get to mingle around a lot, you are allocated random seats at dinner tables, so you have to make conversation with new folks. Works for me.

Didn't realize that the guys didn't have a habit of withdrawing to their rooms immediately after. People go out in clubs etc. and are awake, drinking, having fun into the wee hours. I am not one for talking over the din and after a couple of drinks - its not a trait I have been able to develop in spite of umpteen attempts. I am not going to start now.

Have gone around running though along the sea-face. Has been lovely to see the city slightly differently. Have stayed here more almost a year and a half, and have very fond memories of the place. Still a tourist destination, beaches are busy, and has a fantastic vibe.

My second most favorite city after London. Though, my first love :-)

God takes centrestage!

A R Rahman show at the Wembley Arena. This Sunday, the 25th.

Met him once almost 15 years ago. For the music launch of Love Birds ("Cmon Cmon O Kamachi" - loved it!!) at Rhythm House. There was Nagma, Prabhu Deva and A R Rahman. I had won some on the spot prize and was called on the stage. Royally ignored Nagma. Just shook hands with my idols - Prabha Deva and the real Deva, the man himself.

After that, saw him in person only this April at Southbank Centre, London, where the London Philharmonic Orchestra performed his music. It was a pretty good show, but Rahman didn't play or sing. Just spoke a few words during the show, and then at length, in the interview after the performance. He was in his element though (plenty of witty answers, and I can't remember anything). THough he did promise that he was going to be back.

The Jai Ho Tour is going to be all-out extravanganza. A full-on spectacle. Don't mind if the man still keeps the shell around himself -like he always does even when he is belting out the most moving numbers. I just want to be there.

Sit straight or relax?

BBC has a report on how it is not right to sit upright, but rather to sit leaning back at an angle of 135 degrees celcius.
But what this study misses is that most office workers now used laptops, or computer screens which are about 10-15 cms high, ie, the close as high as the chest max. So if you leaning down in the manner suggested, you have to tilt your head at an angle at about 30-45 degrees to look at the screen. The reason for severe back injuries is the position of the screen with respect to the eyes. If the worker has to significantly tilt his neck forward, it results in slip disks - the disks on your spine start jutting out and cause the nasty back-problems. To avoid this, the laptop of the screen should be at the eye level or above.
So indeed, it may be good just to sit leaning back IF you are not working on computers, but, it is certainly more preferable to sit straight otherwise. Best is to adjust the height of your screen.

English Football Juggernaut coming to naught

Supporting India and England (when they are playing other teams, not each other) is a nerve-wracking affair. I am specifically talking about when these nations are playing their favorite sport - for India, it is cricket (the only sport), and for England, it is football (and followed by rugby and cricket).

Both the teams never make it easy for their supporters. Their approach is never cohesive, assuring, and you never have a guarentee of a flawless performance in big matches. And invariably, it ends with a disappointing loss.

It is really sad especially with the kind of disproportionate attention and money cricket and football get in India and England. I think the best approach for stopping the associated hair loss is not follow the games closely, i.e. not be a devout fan. If the team wins, a bonus. If it loses, who cares!

BTW, I definitely feel England have no chance in winning the World Cup. Nor does the much favored Spain. My money for some reason (gut-feel) is on Argentina.

Lets wait and watch.

Stampede due to Sabotage

Stampede at Delhi Railway Station.

Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee called the stampede ‘unfortunate’ and ordered a “high level inquiry” into the incident.

“We have to find out whether the accident occurred due to anyone’s fault or if it was an act of sabotage,” Mamata said in Kolkata.

Mamata Banerjee of course doesn't need to apologize, forget resignng. It was an act of sabotage!!

Derailed thinking

The Railway Budget for 2010-11 is out. One particular announcement caught my eye.

Railways to set up Rabindra Museum in Howrah and Geetanjali Museum in Bolpur -- both in West Bengal -- to commemorate Rabindranath Tagore's [ Images ] 125th birth anniversary.

Precious!!

Mamata Banerjee should also start broadcasting Rabindro Sangeet on the train platform PA system between announcements.

Burning the soul and loving it

After a year for fairly rigorous sedentary existence (bar the few arm stretches done playing badminton at weekends), there is promise and sweat in the air.

Have managed to get into my dream race - not the 7 km SCMM race, I am talking about the Great Run.

To keep my training for that on track, have registered to three low mileage runs during the spring and summer.

So, here's my schedule

1. Hyde Park Jog - 14/04/2010 - 5 km
2. Tower of London Jog - 06/05/2010 - 10 km
3. Canary Wharf Jog - 02/06/2010 - 10 km

The great thing about them is that entry is free, t-shirt is free, they are in London (home of free-running!!?) and they are well-timed (evening after office hours means free weekends).

Nice run-up to The Ultimate Event - 19/09/2010

Happiness Writes White

A lot of folks ask why bloggers are always ranting, raving, complaining, and being generally angry with the world.

Well, there is a simple answer.

"Happiness writes white. It does not show up on the page”.

Unfortunately, I like the times when I am not blogging

Terrorist attack in Pune

I had predicted a terrorist attack this year. Less as a brag, it was more a commentary on how the Indian "system" never learns its lessons and continues to make the same mistakes.

In mean, wasn't the German Bakery one of the blindingly obvious targets after the attack on foreigner frequented locations on 26/11? The attack on German Bakery feels like an execution of something planned as a part of 26/11.

Of course the attack in Mumbai hasn't yet happened. But in a way, it did.

I continue to hope I am wrong!

Great North Run - Here I come

May be God realized that I was turning into a lazy bum, and needed to get the laptop off my lap and my ass off the couch. He's given me a place for Great North Run, one of the largest half marathons in the world.

It is in September normally, so have got plenty of time to prep. But am well-chuffed to be finally running my first long distance race in the UK.

Here's to plenty more.

Beyonce wins the Song of the Year Grammy

As I said...

When the world is full of morons...

...its stupid to be sane!

To bridge the chasm

A very long time we needed the SarcMark. It is excrutiatingly difficult to write even slightly humorous mails without the fear of upsetting people. Writing masks the emotions of writer, and it is easy for the reader to misinterpret the message. After all, what we are asking him is to not intepret the message as it was written, but as it was intended. An intention is abstract, unquantifiable.

We can't get all uppity and say, "D'oh, the reader is a dumbass, and isn't getting the irony". Also, one might question, well, the old authors - of books and newspaper articles - didn't face the problem.

Well, that writing is completely different to email, or texting. Email and text can be one to many (where many can be privy to a barb sent to one). It might just be upsetting that the receiver to whom the sarcasm is intended gets it, but others cced in, don't and think that sender has actually insulted the receiver.

The sarmark eliminates that ambiguity. Great invention, I think.

Will I pay to download the SarcMark. No, I would rather insult people (Sarcmark here!)

India losing territory

Something that I always feared might be happening . China is encroaching on Indian territory without any firm challenge. They are drunk with power and have history behind them, and the Indian government lack will and courage to take on the mighty neighbours.

 
They will continue to claim more Indian territory and put Indian government on a diplomatic backfoot (if you are fighting for your terrirtory all the time, you dont really have time to look at their disputed territories and historical LOC issues). The people who will suffer are the native tribes, and long term, it will cause loss of control over the nearby areas that India continues to hold on.

 

 

Grammy Song of the Year 2010

Goes to Single Ladies (Put a Ring on it). Prediction.

In fact, going by the difference between a record and a song, I thought that it was the awesomest record (singing, music, production, mixing) but it is not nominated in that category.

The words to the song are alright, but thats not what makes the song special. The whole package (99% of it is Beyonce) is brilliant.

In case you haven't seen the song, its here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mVEGfH4s5g&feature=related

Its the first song that my daughter 'tuned into'

There's more where that came from

I am one for predictions. And betting. I want to put my money where the mouth is. It also gets people who sound cock-sure to reevaluate their belief.

I get some right. Then gloat when I get it right. This is not a place to gloat about them.

I am going to make another one. And I will pray to God that it doesn't happen.

I predict that in the next year, there will be at least one significant terrorist attack in Mumbai. I don't want to measure the significance in terms of number of deaths. But its a terrorist attack, so we are looking at atleast 5 innocent people dead(one can never underestimate the impact that a single life lost has).

THis will happen because in the last year, the situation in Pakistan has worsened considerably. And our politicians, police, intelligence etc, have just found excuses and reasons for absolving any responsibility for the Siege of Bombay.

Read Outlook special issue special issue. The response on the other side has been really pedestrian - what is needed is new processes, much advanced training (not just new vests), and better communication between various teams. There should have been a coherent action plan to tackle this - as far as I know this is none.

People will die.

Nahi chalegi, nahi chalegi, gandi bhaasha nahi chalegi!!

Cross posted here.

Bound scripts, targeted audiences, massive publicity budgets, media tie-ups, and merchandising - Bollywood has indeed turned a corner in the noughties.

One clear sign of an increasing corporate hold over the film industry is the instillment of test screening. Good, bad? Well, definitely good for producers who want the film not to bomb for the lack of UAT and appeal to the widest audience possible. By the same token, bad for audiences with a keener palate.

Take the case of Ishqiya. During focus group screening, women squirmed and shifted in their seats. Indeed, they found it uncomfortable to watch. (give them cushions I say!)

Now, I wonder if Satya had been shown to such a focus group. Would Bhiku Mhatre saying "paagal" instead of "chutiya" conveyed the same nuance?

Ishqiya seems to be of a milieu where people swear to punctuate their sentences (the male protagonists are thieves, you ar*3$0735!). Indeed in my opinion, expletives qualify and elaborate the exclamation mark oh so wonderfully.

Why, oh, why, should we then curb the beauty of the rustic lingo?

Uneventful Life

It has been fairly uneventful few months. You won't have guessed looking at the update to my blog!

Really, apart from my daughter having learned to stagger (and she IS an ace staggerer!), and learning to alert us of her excretions AFTER she's done it, there's nothing much really that has happened.
You shout, nay, say calmly, "soo, soo, sheee shee, in the pottyyyy!", and she repeats, "Shee, in the pottyyyy!". Cute but deceitful!

Have been working quite furiously for the last couple of months. There's huge responsibility of making the right architectural decisions, or its literally, my (as a tax payer's) money down the drain. Yes, working for one of the UK banks nationalized to save it from going under during the financial crisis. It's difficult to keep your sanity about you, with all the chaos happening around you - absence of business involvement, poor IT engagement, EU issuing orders effectively undoing part of our work. The good part is that the work is in London, so have been able to spend them with my drunken, uncivilized daughter.

Spending time with the family also means coming home to a war-zone - toys lying around, empty coffee mugs tipped over the sofa, food (that followed a kid's mouth now embedding itself in the carpet, overflowing laundry bag, crumb-infested dining table, perpetually crumpled beds and scattered wet towels! Wife refuses to clean because, as per new rules of conjugal partnership, both husband and wife are supposed to 'share' responsibilities. I don't know who invented this drivel, but that person needs to die!!

So, you see, all in all, I have been extremely happy, nothing wrong at all, thank you very much.