Me

Just as you have done now, I too do log into this blog. My intention being to catch up with the comments that my viewers might have posted. I do like to hear from my friends as to what they feel about what I have written. Most of them are very appreciative about the content on the blog, others commend me on my writing skills. Not many are critical of my writings though I would also like to face the rough end of the stick. Though the visitors count indicates around a quarter of a million hits, the comments enumerate to just less than hundred. This could be attributed to the fact that many of my viewers convey me their views over the chats rather than posting in the comments section.

One such incident happened when a long lost friend of mine pinged me. She was a junior at school and later at junior college. An intellect herself she wasn’t in contact off late, so a message from her was really welcome. Normal exchange of pleasentaries include ‘hows u’, ‘wheres u’ etc; as was expected since we hadn’t had any updates about the other for quiet some time now. As the conversation progressed she mentioned to me that she is a regular on my blog. That was a pleasant thing to hear but the question that followed wasn’t so.

“Why are your write-ups so negative?” she questioned. Well, frankly I was taken aback by this. May be I was attuned to hear only appreciative comments till now, so when the reality struck it struck me hard. I was able to convey to her that I am not a pessimist, not even anywhere closer and I will die an eternal optimistic. She had known me for quiet some while and I sincerely hoped she was convinced with what I told her was true.

But, in hindsight I guess she had a genuine query. An unbiased glance through the posts and one might not be entirely wrong if they sense a hint of pessimism in my writing. Thus, I owe it to my readers to put a true picture of mine. If one reads through the description of my blog, I think they will experience the “eureka” moment. For the ignorant lot, the description reads “the plight I find myself in and the things happening around me”. I use this blog as a vent for my frustrations about the wrongs happening in the vicinity and some awkward situations I don’t want to be in.

Not that it’s always something gloomy that happens to me but those are few and far in between, as sparse as the number of posts here. I associate myself with the most jolly bunch of people, be at office or otherwise and try to take pleasure from the smallest thing. And for the lesser pleasant things? Well you guessed it … I keep it for the blog.

Even in my posts, a little bit of pondering and one could see the real self of me. The real me, the light humored, witty, jolly me. Who else would you find making fun of oneself, be it loosing money or flunking in exams? I am someone who has taken everything in my stride and still have the nerve to let know it to others, albeit in a very phunny :) manner.

Now that we have got to dissecting, lets do a detailed postmortem. From the parodies of Bryan Adam hit numbers to describe the joy ;) of flunking to a descriptive narration of erosion of hard earned mullah at the markets. From describing the plight in the IT world at one hand and simultaneously the ordeal of being benched and onto the significance of Google in our life, I have penned it all. It isn’t unusual to find a grumbling IT professional but only a few have the ability to pen it down in a enjoyable manner; and I am saying this without a tinge of arrogance. In fact the positivity in me even prompted a haiku out of a faulty fire detector. From the title to the content and onto the presentation of each post, I try to project the humor and wit I embody. So much so that I put more effort in deciding the apt and often humorous title once I have hurried through writing the content.

Once my friend described me as a person who has views about everything, and often contrarian. I choose to second him on this especially the first half of the statement. And views I expressed about most of the things around me. Be it the Hindu Mythology or be it the economic crisis we are undergoing through. Be it blatant plagiarism or the ills plaguing Goa. From the electioneering tamasha to a single procession to file the nomination papers, nothing skipped to feature on my blog. The Quizzer in me make sure the audience are fed with some dose to churn their white matter while the sketches make tall and by far overstretched claims 8) to challenge Pablo Picasso. In the same vein that I cursed myself for my dormancy, I had even praised others for their entrepreneurship and vision. I described my failures but at the same time commended someone on the other side of the globe for their achievements. Yes, I have talked about the ills plaguing our country, but then its just depicts my concern and potrays the patriotic side of me. Isn’t it? From the need of a strong leader to the manner the electorates are being treated by the politicians, what I have written is plain hard truth. Even the hot topic of terrorism didn’t manage to skip my blog.

So as you might have rightly guessed by now this was an sincere attempt of mine towards self redemption, an attempt to shed off any misconception about me that you might have formed in your mind. I am an eternal optimistic and will continue to be so, be what be. My motto in life has been “All for the best” and I have been dedicatedly living up to it. Things might look bad on face value but the long term repercussions of the same are always fruitful, that’s what I believe in. Takings things in my stride, I attune myself for anything and everything that’s comes my way, because……. That’s “ME”!

The P.D. Quiz

(A report by Dr. Luis Dias on the quiz conducted by yours truly. This quiz was held at P.D's as part of the monthly SEQC event for the month of March 2009.)

A Wikipedia search for P.D. gives you, among other things, Peu difficile, a French grade for a moderately difficult mountaineering route.

This seemed to be the objective of our designated QM, Ameya Mardolkar.

And a Google of "A. M." gives you (4 hits down) City AM, a business paper (Business with Personality). Coincidence? :-)

The evening kicked off with a heated dispute, Seed vs Leaderboard, which seems to be still raging, although I can sense a con-sensus emerging.

(Incidentally, couldn't help wondering, at least from a purely botanical standpoint, do you have to be nuts to be seeds? I think perhaps every nut is a seed, but you don't have to be a nut to be a seed. You however have to be a seed to be a nut).

Anyway: back to the review:

Following the seedy start:
We had a maiden over from Niyati; her first foray into QMing, and a superlative effort. Knocked most of us for six. This is a QM to watch, for sure.

This quiz also featured for first time, the Double Your Money rule, which has a lot to do with the final tally. You can gather from this comment that yours truly didn't capitalise (such a decadent word) on this very much. Note to self: Pay more attention to rules, or get ruled out.

As if to underline this, A.M. pointedly familiarised us (Can one POINTedly underLINE something?) of QM rules 1 and 2, which required several repetitions as the evening unfolded.

The first round was the Pehchan Kaun round; this was followed by a whole series of brilliantly (craftily?) crafted rounds. A memorable one was the acronyms on the NYSE tickerboard, which surprisingly all teams seemed to have fared rather well. Not bad going, considering none of us has dealings with NYSE.

The break featured a steady stream of food and drink emanating from Suraiya/P.D's kitchen, and we had to tear ourselves away to get back to quizzing.

The winners, by a landslide, were the runaway TRAN team (Tallulah-Rajiv-Anjali-Niyati).

Post quiz,we had PD's birthday bash, which began with birthday bumps (oh to be sweet sixteen again!), a delectable fare, booze flowing like water, and conversation spilling late into the night.

I speak for us all when I say: A good time was had by all.

Here's to the good old Quizky, one more round, one more round...! "

Scoff the people, buy the people, forget the people

The election fever is in the air and everyone is feeling the heat. The elections are one of the important cornerstones of democracy. The adult franchise or the universal ballot thus bestows us with the right to rule the affairs of the country, though not directly. The representative nature of our democracy enables us to send our representative to the legislative body who thus forms the rules and laws which in turn affects the public. Thus, in a way we ourselves are responsible for all the good and bad that happen to us. Virtually since the elected candidate is the nominee of the majority of the people from the constituency, he is considered to be representing the views and opinions of that majority. He or she is thus supposed to act in a manner that would be beneficial for the larger mass of the country. Thus our democracy was aptly labeled “of the people, buy the people, forget the people”.

However off late the candidate have been showing utter disregard for the human populace who has elected him or her to be their representative. They show no concern for the voters when it comes to formulating the policies and are least concern for the larger good of the constituents.

They are not to be entirely blamed either for this. For they spend huge amounts of money to see them getting elected. The electoral trend and results don’t exactly show the people’s choice and one could argue it’s the outcome of how much the candidate has spent. The election results should be the endorsement by the people in the abilities of the candidate. However, current trend shows the candidature overtures in spending money and enticing his electorate with his promises, false or otherwise, is the major attributes in deciding s/he is on the winning side or no. The votes are literally bought; or one could say people are selling themselves for short term gains.

On getting elected, there happens to be no connect between the candidate and the people. For s/he believes his seat in the echelons of power is been literally bought and there are no leaning left towards the people. The candidate gets more and more aloof for the ground reality and he comfortably forgets about the existence of those voted for him till the next such time when their votes would be needed.

Going by this trend, one can blame if we call this democracy “Scoff the people, buy the people, forget the people”

A "Guns and Roses" Affair

One… two… the rose petals continued to drizzle. It reminded me of the scenes from a magnanimous epic Hindu mythological TV soaps, where the gods from the heaven blessed some holy incarnation on the face of the earth. This isn’t less an incarnation, I laughed within myself. Three… four… the Ray-bans covered their eyes but no one could skip their hawkish glares. These safari-clad and guns wielding army were dotting every square foot of the earth and were further mapping 360 degrees. Five… six… The lesser privileged khaki clad souls were busy hustling the bustling crowd. Cajoling the female folks and threatening the rowdy men, they had a task at hands of making way for the cavalcade. Seven… Eight… The bunch of toadies who had managed to hitchhike on some vehicle was having an experience of lifetime; as was evident form their expression on the faces. Nine… Ten… Ooph! I sighed, as I missed my count.

But determined that I was to enumerate the set of wheels, I started back for the vehicle leading the pack. As I counted on and on and on the number had reached 27, inclusive of couple of ambulances. Much more surprising was the site of hooter blaring police patrol cars. “What makes them the part of the cavalcade?” I wondered. Have these cops shed their political neutrality for larger personal gains or is it just duty calls? I chose to give them the benefit of doubt and believe that they were just performing their duty of protecting a VVIP who was out on his way to file his nomination for the upcoming General elections. Somehow I withheld myself from adding a few more Vs to the VVIP but guess I wouldn’t have been wrong if I had done so. Afterall he is been tauted the “Yuvraj of Bharatvarsh”.

The very mention of ‘the prince of Indian polity’ should make it clear as to whom I am talking about. After all for the zillions dotting the planes, mountains and deserts of my motherland have been overtly obsessed by the single clan a.k.a “Nehru-Gandhi family”. But just to take a leaf of from the congress policy of ‘minority appeasement’, and for the larger good of the ignorant minority who might be oblivious of the great Indian political tamasha, I am talking about the scion of the Gandhi family and if I may take the liberty of adding a few more adjectives as in the ‘messiah of India’, ‘the PM in waiting’, ‘Obama of India’, the one and only Rahul Rajiv Gandhi. So, the protagonist is identified and so is the situation.

The huge cavalcade is not something new, more so if you have been brought up in Goa. The Mickeys and Babushs of Goa are believed to directly relate the number of vehicles in their rally to their popularity. If it is to be believed, there is an unsaid competition amongst them, about the number and types of car that form the part of the rally. More the Pradas, CR-Vs, Mercs, Audis and BMWs behind you more the influential and powerful you are. Cutting long story short, these local leaders weren’t a match for Rahul neither was the parade.

Getting back to the more relevant incident, unlike the Goan version the cavalcade assumes more significance as this was not a victory march and was just the first step towards contesting the seat. However the die-hard congressmen would confidently argue that the congress tally is 1 the moment the congress candidate files his nomination from that constituency. And frankly even the most die-hard congress opponent should give in on this, the constituency in focus being a town in Sultanpur district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India a.k.a ‘Amethi’. It is known as the seat of power of the Indian Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty. And why not? Former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, his grandsons Sanjay and Rajiv Gandhi (the sons of Indira Gandhi), as well as Rajiv's widow Sonia Gandhi have all represented this constituency. Rahul Gandhi himself was easily elected to the seat in the 2004 general elections, making him the fifth member of the family. And if my memory has not betrayed me, it’s the only constituency to have sent the most numbers of PMs to the Indian Parliament.

And probably the history was on the verge of repeating itself. That was evident from the exuberance of the people who had lined up all along the road to catch a glimpse of their representative. They had dared the mid-day sun just to cheer their candidate and wish him luck. And as if that was not enough, the rear door of the sleepishly moving armored Tata Safari opened and emerged the whitest white kurta clad and somewhat blonde ‘Rahul’. With him moving out of the safety of the bullet-proof cocoon, the body guards sprung in action. Amongst the AK-47s and the raining rose petals, now much more than before, each gesture of his was applauded and cheered. The scorching sun seemed to fail to sap out even a bit of excitement from the crowd as they cheered, waived and shouted slogans. They had been fanatic of their hero and they made no attempt to hide it. Just then the other door of the Tata Safari opened and emerged the mother of the candidate (will I be wrong if I chose to say ‘mother of mother India’?). Her sight just took the adrenaline levels amongst the crowd to new peaks as they jostled. It was a perfect setup for a rock concert. Just could not withhold myself from the wondering what if Sonia Gandhi would have crooning “Sweet child of mine”. Wouldn’t it have been a perfect Guns and Roses affair?