Where is India??

It was on the 23rd of December, as a part of the college street play team, we had been to the beautiful Lavale Campus in Pune for SIMC's street play competition. We saw a play about India. The corruption, the politics, the lack of any apathy, the cribbing, the bickering. All of us thought that, yeah, so what about it? It is so cliched!! And you actually know what? After seeing the last few days' events unfolding in the media, this play came to my mind and I thought, yeah, actually we still haven't learnt anything from our (in)glorious past! Actually the only word that comes to mind after seeing all this is the one I learnt from Ishqiya - "Ch%$$^msulphate! "

I have never been a fan of the RAJ and the Uddhavs, (jesus, help me if they see this blog and send hooligans to beat me up). I mean, apart from making the usual big claims of "Aamchi Mumbai" for the Marathi Manoos, what have they done? Have they at anytime talked about developmental politics? Have they at anytime talked about growth of Maharashtra?? If they are so passionate for the cause of the Marathi speaking people, let them show it the correct way. Why are they taking it out on poor taxi drivers? Pray, what they have done? And in first place, aren't they Indians?

The entire issue started off with the Reliance baron, Mr. Mukesh Ambani stating:

We are all Indians first. Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi belong to all Indians. That is the reality

I do not think that is wrong at all. People from other linguistic backgrounds live in different cities of India. If local parties from those places block entry of people who do not speak the local dialect, what would happen then? What would then happen to the "great Indian diversity". I actually want to ask one question to the Senas: Had Mukesh Ambani not set up anything in Mumbai, had there been Maharashtrians working for him??

So, to again highlight the plight of the Marathi Manoos and trying to play vote bank politics, the sena quoted:

Marathi people have as much right over Mumbai as Mukesh Ambani has over Reliance companies. Mumbai is Maharashtra’s capital and will remain its capital. Don’t meddle in the path of Mumbai and Marathi manoos

I mean, what kind of sense does that make? And then, we had Rahul Gandhi. I had expected at least the Gandhi scion to be a little sensible. And he comes up with this gem:

In Maharashtra, MNS leader Raj Thackeray keeps saying ‘throw out people of Bihar and U.P’. But, who killed the terrorists who had attacked Mumbai? They were the NSG guys from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and from the rest of the country. At that time they did not say throw away Biharis

Weren't they Indians in first place? Why drag the martyrs and the heroes of a National disaster into petty politics! Not to be undone, even the Sena dragged the slain heroes of Mumbai police like Ashok Kamte, Hemant Karkare into this! There is a Bihari, there is a Marathi, there is a Malayali and there are others. Its cliched, but where is India??

I would like to quote the song that the team at Lavale sang in their street play, it still plays in my mind and now all the more...

Socho Socho Socho...........Socho Sochi Socho

Kab tak chalega desh mein aisa...sangi saathi Socho..

Socho Socho Socho...........Socho Sochi Socho

Yeah, we do need to think...

A frustrating end ....to an Exciting week..

Its been an eventful week alright..if I start from last thursday, i.e. the 14th of January 2010, the first thing to spice up the week was the start of a barrage of Financial management tests!! The first one a 45 minute on Thursday. Meanwhile we needed to start working on L'oreal's Brandstorm event. Plus I received a call from IIM-Indore to be a part of their flagship event - Cult Icon. Probably this was the most challenging week of my entire MBA schedule!

So where was I...yeah..thursday morning - the first of the FA bouncers! After the test, we also had a discussion on the paper wit faculty, boy did he give some wonderful insights. I dont mind getting tested like this as long as there is learning. After that I finally decided that I would be going to IIM-I just to experience some different campus life. But before that I had to counter another FCQ! Nights before FCQs are awesome, people discuss endlessly as to which paper would be next. Lo and behold, it was FA again and this time a 2 hr paper. Fortunately for some of us, we did prepare and it went off well. After the test, I left for Mumbai and by night in Indore. How quickly things change!!

Experience at IIM-I was good. Met up with a few interesting people - an all in-one drummer, an all in one entertainer - many takeaways. Lots of talent out there in India, if only they are not engineers or MBAs :). Finally I managed a prize for myself in vocals - it was a burden - people used to praise me, but prizes eluded for me so long, so it was good :). Cult Icon was not meant for me and I returned home with a certificate and much richer in experience. IIM-I also made me meet up with my old classmate at VJTI and it was interesting to know that their lifestyle is not much different from ours - only thing being they can wear casuals in class,they have only 4 hrs of classes everyday, permanent rooms...err..I guess there are quite a few differences, but the one thing that I realized that there was no need to get overawed by the IIM-ites. Even those guys are like us :) (pardon to any of the IIM-guys if they feel Ive hurt their pride )

Monday - back I was in Pune. A whirlwind trip to Indore made me sleep for only 3-4 hrs for each of the past two days since I was preparing for the first of my outside class management presentations - L'oreal Brandstorm. Credit to Nikhil and Adish for supporting me when I went to Indore and working their asses off. Well, even I did my bit from Indore. Can't thank technology enough, can we!! :) Fortunately for us, we made it to the top three from the institute albeit in the midst of some drama :). Next day we needed to show our ppt to our assigned student mentor - Ms. Priti Rajput. We cannot thank her enough for her analysis of our ppt. She was brutally honest about "how good" our presentation was! And for the first time we worked for 12 hours on one presentation. And just then realized that how casual we have been while dealing with presentations for classes :) ..well..things are better learnt than never :). Oh, and how can I forget, we had another FM test on monday evening. I actually wonder why, because barring a few, no one could answer the paper :)...well..but my mind was solely on Brandstorm.

Wednesday was a day of anticipation for good things. But little did we know that there are murkier things to happen during the day. When we reached Mumbai, we heard news about the terrible things to happening to students at the SIC campus. Possible cases of food-poisoning were reported, but yet no one could confirm what happened exactly. People were reportedly showing symptoms of nausea, vomiting, motions, high fever. Even one of our fellow competitors at Mumbai was in a bad shape. But hats off to the girl for showing guts :). The "just" girl was fabulous and she truly deserves an applause. Bravo Girl! :)

But coming to the serious issue, it was not a good sight to watch my fellow classmates in hospital beds. Some of them were looking totally worn out, fatigued. I would really like to thank god because I could have very well been in that situation. It pained to see my mates in pain and I just hope and pray that they recover well. But what was most irritating was the response of our MAIN Doctor who said that students might have eaten food outside!! How insensitive can that be! Have the faculty and one of the insti directors also eaten from outside??? Why play the blame game when there is no one else but self to blame! Why is it so difficult to accept the fact they we have made a mistake and work towards rectifying it! Why is it so difficult to provide the students who have not been affected a briefing, an assurance as to what should be done so that there is no relapse of this! Why is it so difficult to put students up with decent facilities, so that they can atleast rest peacefully when their bodies are in trouble!! It is totally frustrating. Hearing that statement from the MAIN Doc, one felt a cringe! Are we stupid buggers to hear all this crap?? Doc, you are accountable for this and the students demand an explanation. More, our parents demand an explanation as to what has been done so far on this matter.

To all my fellow mates - I hope you get the strength and emerge out of this a lot stronger. Life is full of troughs and peaks and this is just one of the many troughs that we may have to face. Let us show the world as to what stuff we are made of. Rather we show a FEW PEOPLE as to what stuff we are made of. (Sorry if I got too philosophical :D)

Cheers!

Amar Singh in a Malayalam Movie!

Wow.. this is mind blowing news!!

Well, actually the first shock was that he has a blog of his own!! Here

Its in english!! Well, Amar Singhji I thought after your manifesto, you would probably type in Hindi. Oh well, did I mention type??? Where did the computers come from??

Arre yaar, ek point pe sthir raho... yeh cheating hai :D

Oh well, coming to the topic.. ende mallu brothers and sisters are going to see a dynamic new star in their filmdom! Check this

Messrs, Mohanlal, Mammotty, gone are ye years!! Take a bow Chetta Amar Singh mole!!

The blogger's back :)

Hey folks!! Well...its been a long time since I did this..but am not sure..feeling pretty excited about it. Let's see how long does the excitement last :D .. I have decided that starting from this year, I would make blogging a regular habit, so a sort of a resolution. A few other things that I want to do starting from this year...shrug off laziness to start off with :) ..laziness from all fronts.. and read more.. for an MBA grad...I dont think ive been doing the required amount of reading, and no better time to start off other than now ;)

So, its been almost 6 months since I last blogged. Back then it was the frenzy of the IPL and the excitement of getting back to school. I was ready to kiss goodbye to the world of elevators and get ready to get into a college where the director advises "ruthless competition". Competition there is, haven't seen the ruthless side of it yet.

2009 was a pretty good year of sorts. Started off with my first contract in professional life. Although it turned out be pretty messy, (ouch I still remember the guy bashing me up on the phone and I getting some bad dreams) it was good. Real world is tough and it was a good lesson to start off with. I realized the importance of being patient and being a good listener does help :). February-March was spent in a few more orders and the whole dilly-dally of whether I should join MBA or work for another year. After working out all the pros and the cons, I finally decided to move into what one of friends describe this as "A Martinet of a B-school' :)

There were a lot of people saying that B-school life is tough, but hey its fun. As long as you enjoy it, life does get a lill easier. One of my profs said this in class,

"U should say this in b-school. Kya maari, par jo maari usme mazaa zaroor aaya"

First sem as promised by our beloved director was madness. There were quizzes and there were some more :). Couple that with compulsory attendance during non-academic sessions (ahem...that was some time back..wasnt it!! ) and sprinkle a few "vedanta" sessions with a twinkling of the "oh-so wunderbahr" mess(y) food, what you had was a group of grumbling students. But we learnt...learnt it well. And as i mentioned, it wasnt bad at all.... first sem exams bought me back to engineering days. Only difference was this was engineering exam^10. We guys also learnt a new word (well my vocab was enhanced courtesy my friends from the north) "phaaff". Anything and everything that is not related to the topic you have been assigned to write/speak about, yet you include them. Thats "Phaaff". My favourite word learnt from the northies was "vella" - Now that I use it pretty frequently, one of my southie school friend asked me today "what!!!" :D. Our batch also got a few really good names - "the goti batch!!".. the other one.. (the more EAR-catching) - "c ******* ka baarat" :D. There is a lot more to tell, I guess each and everything would gradually come out when I hit the blogging zone with a little more vengeance :)

Lots to tell, lots to do, lots of things to catch up on, lots of dreams to fulfill and oh so little time. My motto continues to be "try to enjoy everything that you do". 3 Idiots does give a good tagline - "All izz well" - I think I'd use it when I feel I am cribbing too much ;)

Hopefully, the next post wont be after another hiatus :) .. I would try to be here and as frequently as possible. Sowmya Nagarajan - you are my inspiration (hehehehe.....)

Wish you all a very and a prosperous 2010! :)

Cheers!!

My Fav Commentators

Well, the IPL fever is back again and so is setmax's cast and crew. A few refreshing changes though from the past. Out goes Shiv Pandit ( he is better sticking to jhalak dikhla jaa...but words around that he has signed a movie!!! mere mein kya buraai hai!! ) and in comes Meiyang Chang ( I didn't know Indian Idol organizers were looking for a cricket host as well, why wasnt I given a chance...hmph!) Mandira's back!! ( though shes better off in her noodle straps..hehehe)

But the so-called experts are still at it again. Here are my favourites..

1) Ranjit Fernando - aka - "the hoarse cryer"
Man, this guy is one piece. Take him to an IPL match, and he still roots for Sri Lankan players (can someone make him understand that the players are playing for the franchisees). His pronounciation skills.. SUBHAAN ALLAH! Mahela Jayawardene will be called "maayla jaya-waar-dna". (chyaala gaali deta hai!! )
Kumar Sangakkara - "kumaara sanga-kaaara"
He certainly "neeeds" some help in that respect. Calling his own "Sree-langan" players names! RF, you are in for some trouble mait!!
Only a few things that I need to ask him, "when did Mohd. Asif start bowling really quick!!"and "when will he start talking some cricketing sense".... hmm..tough questions both of them
He has a few other fans as well... I managed to catch up on one of them, boy he loves Ranjit!

http://ranjitfernandosucks.blogspot.com/


2) Raavi Shastri - aka -Kishan Kanhaiya (fake ipl player rulez!..lol)

He is my personal favourite and is an all time favourite of Wanderer :D
Folks! Are u ready!! Dont go by his size... He is a tall man you see and he can hit the (deck) mic hard! He is a big, strapping lad. Dont go by his deceptive looks, he can rattle(quite literally with the same dialogues) you with some serious ....... (boredom)

When there is an LBW shout, you know what would be sounding on the TV..no no..it is not the ball CRASHING into the pads, it would be " Rapped on the pads.... up goes the finger!!!" and when there is an edge, you won't hear the "tiniest of edges", you will hear a big "EDGED!!.. TAKEN!" and then at the post-match presentation, after you have seen the match you will get to know whether the side has been COMPREHENSIVELY beaten or whether the match was a "HUMDINGER" which went "right upto the wire" (Gawd!!)

But, dont you dare say anything against these commenting greats. They are made for this job and we are made (sigh) to hear them.

Garv se kaho हम समाजवादी हैं !

Sunday mornings are usually pretty lazy for me ( and for a lot of people), so while having the "chaai ki chuski" and reading TOI, the headline was quite staggering। Talking about the election manifesto of our very own pyaare bhaiya, "Mulayam Singh Yadav". Wow, this guy is THE LEADER that India wants and Samajwadi party is truly SAMAJWADI, ओह, क्षमा करें, यह पार्टी सचमुच समाजवादी हैं |

They say they would need to cut down on the English medium schools, absolutely right! We need to go to the other countries and teach them hindi & our regional languages. After all, aren't we supposed to be the second most powerful developing nation in the world? (now, that is truly a wonderful epithet for our country). The likes of Obama & Gordon Brown need to be taught Hindi, and it shouldn't be difficult. If our film channels (Max,Star Gold etc.) can make the likes of Nicholas Cage, Tom Cruise speak in Hindi, then why not the leaders. But then SP would face opposition from the likes of AAPLA RAJ as to why not "aapli rashtrabaasha". I guess that would be solved with the after-poll alliances.

Next, Computers should be banned, since they cut down jobs. Actually, yes they should be banned. If they are, then I won't be able to convey these thoughts to people (if at all they read). Apart from that, we would be isolated from the world, भाड़ में जाए दुनिया, मुझे उससे क्या? मुलायम जी, मैं यह आशा रखता हूँ, की मेरी हिंदी ठीक है | And moreover, people, all that word processing, calculation would be done by people! There would be jobs! Imagine jobs in times of recession! Congress, BJP take a cue! This is the way forward for economic growth!

And how wonderful it would be. We would be back to the "मैंने प्यार किया" times! Kabootars & postmen would be back in the fray! The old typewrites would be back! Imagine all R&D people going back to the actual experiments, no more virtual simulation! We would be back by another 20 years!...err...did i mention back?

Hmmm... so the writing is pretty clear on the wall. You know, you vote them & where will our country go, forward or back. I hope we don't get back to milking cows & buffaloes as our main source of income. Please vote carefully.

P.S. No offence meant to our languages. I love them, I still communicate in them. I guess, these people are making a fun of it. Grow up people. Lets talk about development & not going back to giving rice at Rs. 2 per kg or speaking in Hindi..

2009..the year of the elephant??

Come April 2009, the largest democracy in the world will vote for a new government. New people, (the same old hats with refined promises), new ideas (ideas in a new different way....still a far cry from being implemented). From all the various analysis, it is pretty clear that there will not be a single majority party coming to power. Regional powers would bargain and would bargain hard with either the Congress or the BJP whoever has the chance to form the majority.

There also has been this talk about the third front. RLD,RJD,SP,BSP,CPI(M),CPI,AIADMK...(oh well..I am getting confused in this flood of alphabets).. in short the A-Z of Indian Politics except for the big C and B ruling roost for smaller regions & states. This has compelled even the wise Prannoy Roy ( OH WHY!) to conduct a "contest" on NDTV as to who will become the next PM of the country. This election thing is hotting up as the next big thriller in Bollywood except that after seeing the bollywood movie, it does not affect our everyday lives, but this will decide our fates for the next five years.

All this talk of the third front is actually giving me the creeps. What with the likes of Mulayam,Jaya Amma, Lalu, Sharad Pawar trying to pitch in as the PM. Apart from these people, the one which is giving the most creeps is the thought of the big elephant head of MAYA coming to power. She has made no bones of the fact that she wants the PM's chair.

Come to think of it. Mayawati being the next prime minister for India! It is a huge possibility with the dalit folk being in big support. But the image just doesn't fit right. India, touted as the next big thing needs someone able enough to handle international issues competently. And for all her claims of being an able administrator at the state level, imagining her shaking hands with Obama for tea at the White house, or hugging the queen (that is not allowed!)...hmmm.. I just feel like starting to apply for my MS right now

People, please vote and please vote well. In many ways, I just believe a single majority is required at the centre wherein then the majority party would not be held at gunpoint for sharing of seats and ministerial positions, but that is not going to happen. But then, I urge, vote carefully. 2009..year of the elephant...well..I for one just hope, it does not happen. I wish Urbane India does not let it happen.

Jaago re!