Random Ramblings

Recently I read about the New Zealand cricketer Craig McMillan announcing his retirement at an age of 31, the age when players are often in their prime. Although he wasn't anywhere close to being a great player, he was certainly a good one, having played some good knocks in recent times. There was not much hue and dry, or fanfare and all, though there were some usual courtesies exchanged and all. I was just wondering what if he had been an Indian player and done he same ? In fact, first of all would he have taken a similar decision here, considering various stakeholders! Maybe, there would probably have been tons of news channel smelling something fishy, many fingers raised here and there and few extreme public reactions, and maybe politicians coming in to plead him to consider his retirement once again and return to game. Rest assured, the player who has retired might probably not have been let to live in peace ... at least for few days! And the decision to retire might have an el

1 holiday, 6 movies! 8 movies in a span of last 32 hours! Huh … That was too much … A mixture of good cinema and utter crap … of hardcore realism to escapism … of typical and offbeat … of some popular to some watched by a handful … a mixture of many differents actually! Just writing a purposeless random review of all of these – 1. 1. City of god – Excellent! Brazilian movie, at best understood with help of subtitles and visuals. An excellent depiction of a Brazilian slum, where kids having guns is not an uncommon site; where crime is a way of life. 2. 2. Love actually – Beautiful! A mushy love story … rather many mushy love stories …Karan Johar types, if some parallel has to be drawn to our desi phillum industry … with everyone from a school kid to Britain’s prime minister is falling in love. A good watch nevertheless! 3. 3. Jhom Barabar Jhoom – Crap Only good things are nice songs … but not that interesting with random jhoom baraabar

Ever wondered how many opposites coexist within you, within me ... probably within all of us? I live in present. Yet that present coexists with memories of pasts and dreams of future. I face life as it comes. Yet there are times that I become an escapist. I am often practical and rational. Yet there are moments when actions seem to have only one explanation, and that is irrationality! I may look at the problems and issues in hand, while I wander in the dreamland in the same very moment. At times, I am concerned about many things happening across he globe, and the very next moment I become completely oblivious to my very surroundings We may be attached to a million things. Yet we long for moments where we can break all these shackles and wish to break free. There are moments when one feels that the world is beautiful. Yet there are other moments when all surrounding us is just a big bad world. There are moments which seem like hours, yet there are many hours that seem like a fraction of

He waited for almost 2 hours. The Captain was about to come. He was about to be given a hero's welcome in his home town, a not so big city. And why not ? After all he had won the world championship after beating arch rivals in a nail-biting final, when people had almost written them off at the beginning of the tournament. They were now the world champions in that format of game. This was a shorter version of the game. But things were never the same. He was among many people who burnt the captain's effigy few months ago. They were protesting against him. They even tried to attack his house and car. Reason - Extremely poor performance in the World cup tournament., which was another version of the same game. The captain was then just an ordinary player, who performed miserably in the tournament. Back then, he was even referred by someone as a disgrace to the team by few people. But now it was a different situation. The noise was becoming louder by each passing moment. The captain

This is just another incoherent random collection of arbit thoughts ... rather questions, one of the posts of "direct dil say ..." kind of posts. Some of these are within some corner of my heart occasionally venturing to the surface and often close to the outer word but are once again sent to the same obscure corner of the heart where it was before. What motivates us to do things we do? I think more often than not we are guided by the fact that everyone else is doing it. There maybe a small element of "we wish to do it" ... but again after some probing it comes to XYZ is doing so OR others are doing it kind of things. Maybe it is too deep rooted. Why do people expect us to be different ... yet be like "everyone else" ? Maybe, it is due to a kind of peer pressure, or due to a fear of 'rejection', Or is there any other reason? Why are many people not even open minded enough to realize the need of being open minded. And how can we make them realize t

Dictionary meaning Hospitality - 1. the friendly reception and treatment of guests or strangers. 2. the quality or disposition of receiving and treating guests and strangers in a warm, friendly, generous way. Indians are believed to be one of the most hospitable people. It may be true to quite an extent, but there are some elements which seem strange. Say the obsession with eating, or to put it in some other way, guest eating well being a surrogate of a good, hospitable treatment. This may be more visible in interior or 'traditional' parts of country where ofter the person who is 'guest' is supposed to be 'following' or 'eating' thing served by the host. Plus there are some unwritten rules like you need to be always smiling, you need to get along well with everyone irrespective of age, believe with XYZ rules and all and blah blah. To hell with what you believe in, to hell with what you like or dislike, to hell with what you are as a person! It all rem

This is one more post with nothing in particular. It was just that I was feeling like writing something crappy as no one was listening to me. I was watching a movie, not studying, was in a mood to do nothing in particular, getting bored and all that stuff. Actually I was browsing through people’s Orkut profiles. They have written such a nice bunch of krap. I mean all sounded so unreal, so phony. I mean, every second guy is a cool guy. That I must have seen million times by now. This all scares hell out of me. I mean I don’t say that I am someone great or someone like Howard Roark or John Galt, nor I can be. I don’t have such great ideals or morality or any such krappy stuff. But it all sounds so unreal and millions tonnes of aaattitude and exhaggerations thrown in. Dude … they are so arrogant. I mean, they are such idiots that they think that only they are the only human beings on earth, and others are just crappy combination of cranky bones and muscles. And all those artificial and c

This is just a random take on some of the Bollywood movies. Have tried to represent on a graph, with two axes. This classification is quite intuitive and may at times seem devoid of logic. It is inspired by techniques of perceptual mapping in marketing research and somewhat from strategic mapping. But this is about my take on it, with minuscule impurity of the world view. Also, a classification doesn't automatically label a movie being good or bad. This is done with no particular end in mind. It was just a random time waste ka idea while watching a movie and surfing the internet in parallel (Please click on the pic to see it clearly) My personal favorites are available in my profile though !

The lights faded. The shooting for the day was over. The hero retreated in his van, away from the public glare. He was one of the most popular man on the silver screen in the tinsel town. He had been ruling the roost since over a decade now. It was he who dictated shots to the directors and producers. He was linked with half a dozen ladies, mostly the top most beauties of the silver screen, before tying knot and breaking it up with his schooldays buddy. He enjoyed public adulation to the maximum. The public once went gaga over him, only to love to see him fall after a string of flops, before he came back with a bang with the biggest grosser of the decade. This was four year ago. Since than there has been no looking back. He had delivered 9 blockbusters in a row since then. He now commanded highest billings in the industry. Calling him a superstar would e an understatement. Now he called shots. The public loved to imitate him. He enjoyed the limelight earlier. He had always dreamed to

Feels good to have the following published on IBNLive website ... wo bhi photu ke saath :-) http://www.ibnlive.com/blogs/iday2007/blog_story.php?id=46747 Below is the direct copy paste from the above link (sans photu) _________________________________________________ In history, very few nations can boast of having a journey as monumental as India’s. We were once considered to be sone ki chidiya few centuries ago, we lived as a British colony for few centuries, and then we became known by the western world as ‘the land of snake charmers’ and are now considered being a potential superpower. Yet, India continues to be a land of contrasts. Our GDP is growing at a rate of 9%, yet there are places which remain decades or even centuries backwards. Businessmen are entering into exclusive club of world’s richest men, yet a fourth of the population lies below the poverty line. We have 5 star hotels coming up, yet there are hordes of people who cannot afford even a square meal per day. We are