Hey, Welcome Back

I am back to writing this blog after a hiatus of 8 months. I had stopped writing cos of a lot of issues. Work pressure, followed by a long state of joblessness and stress, personal issues, a long trip to home, but primarily due to my laziness.

A lot has happened since I last penned down my insignificant thoughts.

I've played dozens of games, seen even more movies, heard a lot of alternative rock and read a bit whenever I got time in between the abovementioned activites. So I've been fairly busy and have had a tight schedule which changes according to my whims.

Saw some really good flicks like city of god, no country for old men, the day of the jackal (1973), the unforgiven, the kite runner, the pianist, hotel rwanda, schindler's list, gran torino etc.

Have been hooked to Kings of Leon, Radiohead, The Killers, Coldplay and my all time fav- RHCP.

Played some awesome games like Fallout 3. competely groundbreaking stuff that will influence games for generations to come. There were some interesting moves in the Indian gaming scene. Some of the biggest titles on PC were released at extremely low prices. For eg: GTA 4 is retailing at Rs 499/- whereas its PS3 and XBox360 counterpart are being sold for 2500-3000. Its nice to see that game publishers are selling at realistic prices after taking into account the net disposable income of the masses.

Signing off now. do drop in a comment or two. see ya soon.

PS- if i fail to update this blog every 2-3 days, those of you who know me personally, please feel free to call up and yell.

The Dark Knight

Yes, the movie was fantastic. I am not going to harp about the excellence of the movie out here. Instead, allow me to justify why he is the best superhero ever:
1. He is darker than anybody else out there.
2. He is completely ruthless. (if you think the Punisher is ruthless, you don't deserve to live)
3. When he bashes villains, they don't get up again.
4. He doesn't have any superpowers (also read as- he doesnt spin web and he can't fly)
5. He has far better gadgets than anyone out there (btw 007's gadgets suck)
6. He doesn't wear his underwear on his pants
There are a whole lot of other reasons, but i guess these should suffice.

Google Analytics

I just added google analytics a few days back. And it hasn't failed to surprise me as yet. Every day i get some strange stastics. Day before, a guy from birmingham spent about half an hour on my blog, interestingly he went through all the comments as well. Yesterday, a dude entered 'himesh reshammiya' on google and landed here. Of course he closed the window faster than he got here. To everyone who blogs: make sure u add this little app.

New Religion

Someone who commented on one of my earlier posts gave me an idea to start a new religion. Reason: In India, you get to follow whatever your religion preaches, and you can do whatever it allows you to do. So instead of allowing myself the limited privileges my religion has to offer me, I am starting my own. All those who are interested can join in.

I haven't yet thought of a name for it though. Do post your suggestions for the same in the comments section. Here are some prominent rules for the religion:

1. You can continue to worhip your own god(s) or choose to be an atheist. This is the beauty of my religion, it offers you complete flexibility.
2. Worshipping the creator of this religion (read: Div) is strictly banned. I am neither an incarnation of god, nor a prophet.
3. Pop, hip-hop, rap, trance, himesh reshammiya, altaf raja and the likes will strictly banned.
4. Himesh reshammiya is to be viewed as the "son of devil" sent to the earth to corrupt an entire nation.
5. Rock is to be held at the highest pedestal.
6. The biggest sin would be to stop your children/husband/boyfriend from playing computer games.
7. Anyone who abandons PC gaming for consoles will be grilled by god once his time on earth comes to an end. playstation, xbox, nintendo wii etc are all to be viewed as weapons of satan himself.
8. Discussing stock market tips in public will lead to severe punishment.
9. While accepting this religion, you have to solemnly swear that you believe mayo college to be far superior than doon school in all aspects.
10. There are absolutely no restrictions on food and beverage.
11. There are no mandatory minimum hours (or the number of times) you have to pray in a day. 12. No bias for or against against any religion, caste, creed or race.
13. One can sleep for as long as he/she wants to. I recommend sleeping for atleast 9 hours a day. Waking someone out of his/her slumber is a punishable offence.
14. Graduates are to be given equal preference for jobs as MBAs and CAs.

I'll keep revising the rules every now and then based on feedback and popular demand. All those who wish to join, please acknowledge it in the comments section.

Quotation of the day

"I have a bad habit of stubbornly clinging to my preference for life over death, and I am told this interferes with my ability to have fun."

- Scott Adams

For those who don't read scott adams, do check out his blog at http://dilbert.com/blog/

Religion Centric Laws

If you are a religious fanatic, please read no further.

They say we live in a secular democracy. And like a lot of other things they say, I don't believe this one as well. The two biggest biggest proofs I can present are:
1. Our civic laws
2. Reservation
I'll write about the latter some other time.

Let's discuss some of our religion centric laws today. The most absurd ones are
(i) Hindu undivided family act
(iii) Muslim marriage act
Why give privileges to someone, just because he or she belongs to a hindu family which happens to be indulging in business. Basically, its just an archaic law to appease the 'baniyas' of our country.

The second law, Muslim marriage act, makes even lesser sense. Why allow followers of one religion to have upto four wives? 'Cos its written in Qu'ran and even Muhammad had several wives? Krishna had 16000 wives and almost all the kings had multiple wives. Does that mean you alter the laws for Hindus as well? No. It just isn't fair to the women. And as for it being allowed in the Qu'ran, during those days, most ment used to die due to conflicts in the arab countries. Mostly between muslims and jews and other non-believers, and later muslims and christians. Therefore one man was allowed to take upto four wives to balance the rift created by an unequal sex ratio.

But why are these special privileges given to certain religions and communities even now? If we must decide to govern an individual according to his/her religion, then let's do so in its entirety. Let the Muslim Criminal Law (which dictates that a thief shall have his hands chopped off and a rapist must be put to death) also be applicable upon all practicing Muslims. And any Chirstian who spills Christian blood must be given the capital punishment. And all Hindu women must be made to worship their husbands.

Why can't we just have the same set of laws governing all the individuals in our country? To each his own? I don't think so.

A great business idea

I am writing this post in response to Dhawal's comment on my article "journalism is dead."

Dhawal wants to start a reality show. Its a talent hunt to find India's first "dhongi baba." It'll definitely be a huge hit. People in our country love reality shows and they love babas. He is offering people a mixture of two of nation's greatest pass times.

I have something else in mind. I want to create and promote my own baba. A couple of years back, I had entered into a pact with my younger brother to enter into this business. He was going to be the baba and I, his manager. My brother has extremely curly hair which, if grown, will add to the baba effect. If I pulled the strings correctly, I could've created the most sensational and popular baba in the history.

But to my dismay my brother pulled out of the agreement recently. So if anyone out there is interested in living a comfortable, envious life, please contact me at the earliest. The main job of Baba will be to, obviously, preach. One need not possess any knowledge of Vedas, Gita or any other religious scripture. There are three trick involved here:
1. Say random stuff that no one can fully comprehend. Don't speak, gibber.
2. Don't delve too much into religion, speak more about ethical, moral stuff. These things come naturally to a person, somehow people still love to hear all this.
3. Invent your own stories. "Once Krishna went to the jungle and there he saw........" Just don't cite any reference. No one usually challenges religious stuff.

Dhawal, you completely fit into this job description. lol.

Following are the fine points of the partnership agreement, which I've drafted:
1. Partnership will be on a 50-50 percent profit sharing basis.
2. The two partners will be referred to as (i) Baba (aka CEO) and (ii) Manager (aka Managing director)
3. Baba cannot drink, consume non-vegetarian food, wear western clothes or seen with women in public.
4. Baba will have to attend all the public meetings (referred to as "pravachans" in lay man's tongue) arranged by the manager, unless he is medically unfit or has a bad hangover.
5. All the revenues will be divided equally after deducting all the operating expenses (salaries, travel, purchase of equipment, sponsorship of events etc)
6. Lodging is generally arranged by devotees, hence does not require any expense from our side.
7. Salaries will have to be paid to the PR Manager, Sanskrit Interpreter, Chartered Accountants and a few retirees who will be planted in the crowd to handle the situation in case it goes out of control. This list of employees is inexhaustible and more people can be hired if need be.
8. All the donation (money, land, ornaments etc) will be in the name of the trust. Chartered Accountants will specially be hired to siphon off this donation into the name of a SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle,) which is a company designed specially for these kind of activities.
9. If at any time, the Baba is exposed, the manager has full rights to act as a victim of the situation and save himself.
10. In time we will have our own temple. This Idea has been borrowed from European football clubs, as they all have a stadium each.
11. More conditions can be added as and when necessary after being agreed upon by both the partners.

What say?

Things i hate about social networking sites

Few things i really hate about social networking sites are:

1. How the hell can you possibly "make friendship". People come up with crazy pick up lines on orkut.
2. Why the hell does every testimonial have to start with "well, what can I say about Mr. Loser Symptoms."
3. I don't care if you added a new application or posted a new comment, why the hell does it have to show everytime I sign in?
4. And I don't give a damn about your mood. Whether you are feeling orphaned, distressed, lonely or simply gay, please keep it to yourelf.

Guys, feel free to add your own favourites.

Voters

With union elections happening next year, and Rajasthan govt elections due this december, I was wondering how can I even trust voters in our country even if they genuinely want to vote for the best candidate. Having best interest of the country in mind is one thing, knowing whom to vote for is another. And i doubt most people can make the right choice. To give you an example of the voters' choice: most of them listen to either Himesh Reshamiya or hip-hop.

Journalism is dead

One news really bothered me today. I am not referring to the crap shown on india tv ot tej. All that seems more of a joke. I tune in occasionally for my dose of laughter.

What i am referring to is probably the most ignored news of the last decade- maoists taking over nepal. Even today, Aarushi's muder and the gujjar protests took precedence over the king of Nepal leaving his palace for good.


There goes another ally country. Our politicians have been too busy stacking hay in their godowns to realise they should've sent a few army battalions to nepal long back, for defeating the maoists. Or atleast to help them keep at bay. God alone knows when are we going to give up these policies of non-intervention.

What came as a real shocker was the lack of coverage in news. This issue was being discussed in the editorial section of a few newspapers alongwith a small column on the front page, while the limelight was taken by 2 gruesome murders and gujjar protests. Way to go. I am sure I can create more ripples by claiming I am a reincarnation of Vishnu, than i I can by discovering a cure for AIDS.