1) Everyday reality is a waking dream where you project yourself as observer and observed, dreamer and dream.

I project myself. Hmm. Interesting. How exactly? Everyday that is. Hmm. Am I crazy? I am not, right? Oh – this is a dream alright. The world has not ended. Promotion for ‘Inception’ maybe?

2) You are neither dreamer nor dream but the infinite consciousness in which the universe arises and subsides

This is taking one notch up. One statement earlier, he said we are both the dreamer and the dream. Now, he says we are neither. Even Einstein couldn’t be as clear, could he? Wonderful. We are the infinite consciousness. And what’s more – we are not static, we arise and subside, just like Barkha Dutt’s stance on transparency and integrity. Absolutely stunning and an astute observation.

3) Since the end of the Cold War, the world has spent more than $ 10 trillion on armaments. Can we cure this madness?

Ohh…so this dude is not just after your consciousness. He is out to get the military industrial complex. Global thinking. Strategic thought. We are just mere mortals when you realize that you haven’t have had this thought for a billion years now. Oh my – armaments, madness – who would have thought?

4) Today tell yourself: Let me be loved, let me be happy, let me be peaceful.

I keep telling myself Deepak. Trust me. I do this ritual daily. But Katrina Kaif isn’t listening. You need to speak to her about my ritual and your wisdom and how they both arise and subside in confluence.

5) Tell yourself today: I am a unique part of the cosmic plan. I am needed in the universe.

Unique part in the cosmic plan. Hmm. I don’t even think I have a unique role in my organization and you are talking about a cosmic plan, the blueprint of which nobody has seen till date. I am not too sure God agrees with my importance in the universe Deepak. In fact, I think He is drawing up a plan for downsizing due to redundancy in the universe. Not too sure. Why don’t you check again?

6) What is that which cannot be seen but without which seeing is impossible, cannot be imagined but without which imagination is impossible?

I don’t know Deepak. Tough riddle. I am inclined towards ‘Stupidity’ as an answer but ‘Crazy’, ‘Mentally imbalanced’ also might be the answer. Tough one Deepak – you need to be the editor of the NY Times puzzle section. You’d be real good at it.

7) In our willingness to give that which we seek, we keep the abundance of the universe circulating in our lives.

Wait a minute – How can I give which I seek? ‘Abundance of universe circulating in my life’ – you lost me at abundance. What exactly do you mean here? I mean, in one word – like money, love, sex etc. Just one word would suffice.

Any name or label you identify yourself with is false. The real you is unbounded and nameless. Beyond all labels.

And imagine the stupidity of parents worldwide, while they search in quest of a unique name for their newly born son/daughter. Ahh, their ignorance. I am beyond a label – wow. How liberating. So, I can be anyone – like Eric Clapton/Michael Jackson or god forbid, Justin Beiber? Really?

9) Through the flow of energy & information we regulate each other’s body-mind. Lets use twitter for planetary healing.

Our brain,emotions,endocrine autonomic systems &relationships are integrated Right now we are regulating each other’s biology on twitter !

Ok, this dude is pretty much nuts. Flow of energy through twitter is very ridiculous. I would accept Flow of energy through unknown asteroids in the universe, but not through twitter. And dude, stay away from my biology – have you no shame?

10) Death is our creative opportunity to recreate ourselves into new contexts, meanings & relationships .If you screwed up no worries.

Death is a creative opportunity. Hmm. Come again – what was that? Creative opportunity…hmm. Interesting. Opportunity, as I know it, gives you a chance to do something. What chance does death give? I fail to understand. I probably need to reach a higher consciousness state to decrypt the inner meaning. Alternatively, I could also join Alibagh Mental Asylum to get an answer. As the quote goes, mental illness also is a creative opportunity.

11) Every object is the universe localized. Every object is the universe localized , every mind is all minds with a unique perspective. We are all the total universe looking at itself.

Wait, you mean we are not at a global optima but are at a local optima? How can that be? We are the universe, remember. How can I, the universe be a local optima? This is an outrageous and a conflicted philosophy.

12) The one you’re looking for is the one who is looking.

No shit Sherlock. No really. Mirror Mirror on the Wall, who is the biggest Mr.Obvious of them all?

13) Landed in Delhi . The smells of India and so much nostalgia! Although I’m in Delhi, I long for Delhi.

Ahh, finally a quote which I can understand. No, wait. How can you be at a particular city and still long for the city? In your language, when your body, mind and soul are in that particular city. Which particular frigging longingness is this?

14) When you know what is happening at your very core, what you have to give becomes limitless.

Since this is a free-for-all-blog and not just restricted to Parental Guidance and 18+, I shall refrain from commenting on this tweet. It is just obnoxious.

15) To be overwhelmed by the mystery of our existence is the taste of spirit .

Finally, I mean finally, you have solved the reason behind my existence. Spirit – that’s what it is. Taste of spirit, much like taste of a alcoholic beverage, I think. However, I am not in the least, overwhelmed by any taste of spirit Deepak. Please clarify.

16) A lifetime is like a flash of lightening in the sky, rushing by like a torrent down a steep mountain, like a dew drop on a trembling leaf.

He moves into a Robert Frost/Ernest Hemingway category with this tweet. Adjectives, Connotations and the full army. A lifetime indeed is a flash. Tweets like these reduce the half-life of the flash. Thank you. And please don’t come again.

India gets a seat on the United Nations Security Council as a non-permanent member after a gap of 19 years via elections in the United Nations General Assembly. India was expected to be voted on following Kazakhstan’s pulling out from the race earlier this year. There is no other challenger from the region.

There. First, we became a non-permanent member and not a permanent member. Second, an insulting fact nevertheless, we won because Kazakhstan pulled out of the competition (am all for equality of nations, but Kazakhstan as a rival? Really?)

 Gee, if you read the media hype and hoopla around the issue, you would really think it’s a great achievement, on par with membership in the esteemed permanent member council consisting of 5 members since 1949 (US, China, Russia, France and UK). You’d be as sad as Arun Lal’s commentary if you had come to that conclusion.

 Some background is necessary here. India has been lobbying for a seat on the permanent council for about 15 years as far as I can remember. We have repeatedly ‘petitioned’ (in other words, beg) with the powers-that-be and the United Nations for this membership. As turned out to be the case, we have been repeatedly declined citing other important matters that are happening around the world like Rakhi Sawant in Big Boss and the mysterious case of Sania Mirza’s overwhelming media appearance versus her dismal performance in any tournament worth its salt.

 Permanent members get to veto any resolution/proposal in the UN – which is primarily the reason nations like Germany, Japan, Brazil and India have been lobbying heavily to get a seat. But why would any permanent member want to dilute their power? Then again, who wouldn’t want to beg?

 Last September, speaking at the annual debate of the General Assembly, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said that “an overwhelming majority” of nations wanted expansion of both permanent and non-permanent seats.

 Who constitutes that ‘overwhelming majority’ is up for international, national, regional and gully debate, and will appear as the 1 crore question in ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’. Better be prepared.

 Yes – back to our super win as the non-permanent member.

 As many as 187 countries in the 192-member UN General Assembly voted for India, the largest support received by any country for a non-permanent seat in the past five years. India, which has been on the council 6 times in the past, gets to be on the non-permanent member council for 2 yrs again.

 My question is – which 5 nations did not vote for the all-powerful, economic power called India? We need to ‘petition’ them to vote for us again. Secondly, the time period is only 2 years – I get fooled yet again by the media blitz. I thought it was atleast for 5-10 yrs.

Alright. We won. That’s great. What next? What are the immense powers that would be vested on us due to this privilege?

 Following their election, South Africa, India, Colombia, Germany and Portugal will become non-veto holding members of the Council in January with the mandate to impose sanctions, as well as deploy peacekeeping forces around the world.

Hmm. All we get to do is write strongly worded letters and send our military to the remotest parts of the world where nobody has any interest? Does this mean that we spend more on our military just so that some Indian government official sits on a powerless board?

 And here I was under the illusion that we have finally defeated the Axis powers to gain a seat on the moon, in a galaxy far far away. I am sorry. I was mistaken.

 Sources: Times of India, Indian Express, Wikipedia

 For some reason or the other, disasters happen. What is quite pathetic is articles such as these which contain the basic premise of ‘Is it safe to fly in India?’ Given that this event is tragic, hundreds of flights fly in and out of India every day. Nobody remembers when the last air disaster happened in India. Assuming we have flown for 50 years without any disaster, the all-knowing and omniscient media publish an article which probably will get marketed all over the western world who are just looking for such information.

 And then, you have politicians who announce relief money for the deceased sooner than I can say ‘Hello!’. What’s with the relief money almost everytime anyway? As if that is going to mollify and soothe the kith and kin. At the very least, the middlemen pocket most of this money (probably a percentage goes back to these politicians?).

 Sensationalism knows no boundaries. But in such tragic cases, please – shut the eff up.

 2) Fatwa-galore -   The other end of immense wisdom are these fatwa declarations by these god-knows-who-mullahs. First, there was this fatwa against working muslim women. When serious objections began to take shape, it seemed that the fatwa was misquoted. Don’t get me wrong here. Fatwas are usually written statements and not some random guy shouting on the street that there is a fatwa against so and so. Therefore, misquoting a written statement (the fatwa) cannot just happen. As if that wasn’t enough, some other fatwa was issued against insurance. Please people. There is an economic law called Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility. A fatwa is supposed to be a very serious exercise (anyone remember Salma Rushdie?). A fatwa here, there and everywhere will seriously reduce your mileage of issuing a serious one.

Again, religion is sacred. But in such blatantly silly cases, please – shut the eff up.

3)  Ban-Ban-Ban – The most hilarious news over the past week was Pakistan banning Facebook. And then Youtube. And then Twitter. Last known, they banned atleast 50 sites. Let’s just go ahead and ban the Internet, shall we? I mean, Internet is evil. Social networking reduces productivity. We might as well spend that time polluting young people minds and turn them into jihad. Imagine if these young people get addicted to Farmville. And tweet about their level in Farmville. And upload a video on youtube of beating everyone at Farmville. The horror! That just cannot be done. Let’s ban the whole shit down and sit in darkness, shall we.

 Again, majority of the Pakistani people don’t need this crap. So, politicians, please – shut the eff up.

1) The much awaited and eagerly hyped marriage has indeed come to an end. No, I am not talking of the Indo-China bhai-bhai pact or the India-Pak Aman ki Asha initiative coming to fruition. The talk of the town has indeed been the Shoaib Malik-Sania Mirza nikah. The media as usual went ga-ga over a nikah which had controversy written all over it with glee. Some commentators, of course, astutely questioned whether Sania Mirza should play for India or Pakistan? (considering the way she’s playing currently, do you really care?). And then came the news of Ayesha Siddiqui and the Pati, Patni aur Woh angle which made Ekta Kapoor’s mega-serials look childish. The media lapped it up with relish and played it more times than the Mahabharat repeat on Doordarshan. Subsequently, news emerged that Shoaib-Sania marriage ‘may be’ postponed. By now, everyone and their great grandfather had stopped caring about an event that hardly concerned them. Everything was going fine and no one was really bothered until the keeper of our national conscience, Arnab Goswami and Times Now, told us to GET ANGRY at the baseless allegations of Ayesha Siddiqui and rumors of the nikah being postponed. Various anchors at CNN-IBN were so damn loud that one could hear them even after muting the volume. The Mirzas and the Maliks could take it no more and pre-poned their nikah with Shoaib divorcing Ayesha Siddiqui first and marrying Sania almost immediately (In one of those moments off work when I was thinking about Shoaib, Sania, Ayesha and their future, I was struck with an epiphany. Shoaib divorced Ayesha, whom he denied marrying earlier. Then he marries Sania. That dude is brilliant!  His net marriage count is still zero. And according to Quran, he can technically marry 4 more!). Of course, you would not believe that there is a recession going on in the world today, if you looked at the food menu and the Mehr amount involved in their marriage. Anyhoo, let’s get to the Lahore part of the wedding quickly, shall we? Last but not the least, Times of India, in its infinite wisdom gave a peek into their elegant, yet insightful news ticker -  ‘Aman ki asha: Are Indo-Pak marriages the first step?’ Why didn’t we ever think of this before? (V had warned me against squeezing this topic further because of my extensive comments on it on Facebook. I think it was more like STFU. So yeah, this rant will be the end of this topic unless of course something incredible comes up in Lahore).

2) The other big news of the week was CRPF jawans getting slaughtered in a Maoist attack. Of course, keeping in line with existing media standards, I will not, WILL NOT devote much space and analysis on some event like this compared to the exiquisite and eye-ball grabbing news of Shoaib-Sania. However, being a responsible blogger, I have to reluctantly point you to some news which will obviously lead to incredible happiness among us, the taxpayer junta in India.

Sample this very well written report for instance.

In summary, once the remaining few jawans who were alive at the scene were rushed to the hospital,

“No chief minister, no state home minister, no other minister, no member of Parliament, no MLA, no director-general of police (Vishwa Ranjan, a man popular with journalists in all seasons), no chief secretary, no home secretary, no inspector-general (TJ Longkumer, who Chidambaram later told journalists had planned the dead men’s fatal foray into the forests), no district magistrate (frenzied a few hours later as reporters surged at Chidambaram’s press conference because he didn’t want anyone to throw a shoe at the Union home minister), no superintendent of police, not one high-ranking officer of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), to which 75 of the dead belonged, were here; just the very angry CRPF sub-inspector.”

“Typically, the survivors mattered less than the dead. Head Constable Raj Bahadur and Constables Pramod Kumar Singh and Baljeet Singh are lucky to survive the carnage, having taken bullets everywhere but in the guts. A hundred paces from the mortuary, they lie writhing in pain on dirty hospital linen stained from previous occupants’ dried blood. Only one has a mosquito net. There are no doctors or nurses. Two constables who’ve come on their own watch over their wounded mates. The ward is a hovel; the toilet is a stinking blocked drain.”

There is much more. The article is a must-read for such issues which cause immense delight and mirth.

So, in summary,

We had a surprise attack by Maoists.

The Policemen didn’t have proper equipment to fight them.

The Policemen didn’t have proper training to fight them.

The Policemen who fought valiantly and got injured were neither treated nor cared for.

Now, why have I heard this before? Anyone remembers 26/11? (and in this case, no prominent guy arrived at the scene till much later!)

Of course. We are Indians. We don’t learn from our mistakes. We are like that only.

Surprisingly, no relief packages have yet been announced. It’s a real shame that some politicians can’t get richer with this relief money. What has our country come to? Time for another useless bill? Certainly.

3) Not that this news is worth linking to, but then again again, how else do we document and understand our Indian PM’s calmness and calculated moves to assert global and moral superiority in the world?

First, our Un-Man-mohan Singh requests (and maybe grovel) Obama to put pressure on Pak.

In line with keeping relations harmonious, President Obama urges Pakistan to bring the 26/11 perpetrators to justice. (Of course, you might ask, what exactly does ‘bringing to justice’ mean? Silly you. Justice means different things to different people. For you and me, justice is behind bars and rigorous punishment. For people like Hafeez Sayed, it is a palace-lifestyle with Muttom biryani everyday!)

If that is not embarrassing, news is leaked that Obama pressed Pak on terror at India’s insistence. What I do not understand is why should someone leak this? Even Arjun Rampal would have seen through it like a transparent polythene paper.

And the brilliant Gilani wants more evidence against Lashkar. I have no comment. Just Respect.

I am just seething with happiness at us being called a global economic superpower, but with softer principles, nay, Gandhian principles. I think the time has come for us to slap on our own cheek and apologize to the perpetrator. The circle would be complete. As Miley Cyrus told me one day during our yoga class with Deepak Chopra, Karma it seems, is a bitch.

Some of the great moments in the game have been wonderfully captured by equally good, if not great commentary of those times. I still recall vividly how Bill Lawry and Mike Procter fell off the chair describing South Africa’s elimination in the ’99 World Cup semifinal. Or Tony Greig going hysterical over Sachin’s centuries at Sharjah in the ‘Desert Storm’ series. Or indeed, Ian Chappell’s incisive, but insightful commentary during the Ashes series. Those pieces of commentary, among many others were fantastic.

It’s sad how things have turned out in the commentary box – especially when it comes down to a small bunch of people. It’s gone from bad to worse in the India-Australia series happening currently. I did try to watch a couple of matches with commentary turned off. In fact, I tried this experiment multiple times at different intervals, but each time I had to turn the volume back on – not only to hear the crowd roaring for a 4/6, but also to hear some of the most idiotic commentary on the planet. It’s too much fun to miss. As one of Sidhuism goes “An apple pie without cheese is like a kiss without squeeze!” or some such, so is commentary to cricket.

What you hear today is the razz-ma-tazz of the T20 effect – commentary filled with clichés. The less said about Arun Lal, the better. Ravi Shastri and L Sivaramakrishnan are two cases in point of this blog.

Ravi Shastri, in my opinion, can churn out a book of cricket clichés in an hour. Actually, an hour is a stretch. More like 30 minutes. With his….

“This match, one gets a feeling, will go down to the wire” (who gets a feeling Ravi? And what wire?)

“The batting team is in the driver’s seat” (On a statistical basis, a wicket has fallen 99% of the time immediately after the utterance of this statement, I think)

“Next two to three overs are very important” (Referring to India in the 46^th over…seriously Ravi? How very insightful! Who would have thought?)

And in general,

“Terrific crowd, great atmosphere” (He used this even during CL20 tournament, when half of the stadium was empty!)

“Under lights, the ball will move and zip around” (and why not, ‘The sun will set too’?)

L Sivaramakrishnan is of a different beast altogether. Atleast Ravi Shastri knows that he is full of clichés and doesn’t try to hide it. L Siva actually believes the crap he speaks. I mean, he really believes he is a good commentator despite all evidence to the contrary. A few examples…

“Presscenting the foolll phase of the bat!” (Referring to Sachin’s straight drive…I felt like scraping walls with my fingernails hearing this line after such a masterly shot!)

“It’s all happening here!” (I think he picked this up from Ravi Shastri. And this was during the 6^th India-Aus match, when Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja were trying their best to play a one-day like a test match)

“India are in with a fighting chance….Australia were too good for India today” (Dude, watch your words – what do they even mean? Is that even commentary?)

“Hussey dives…and saves 1 run…very important in a low scoring match” (Are you kidding me? Any run is important whether it’s a low scoring or a high scoring match. Who gave you this job dude?)

Good commentators immortalize a passage of play, however boring. On the other hand, some jokers bumble on even the most interesting of situations. I’d take the incisiveness of Chappell, insightfulness of Sunny, intelligence of Harsha and the excitement of Tony/Bill Lawry over some of these jokers like Arun Lal, L Siva, Ranjith Fernando among others. They are an insult to the commentating community. We, the paying public deserve someone much better, someone who can explain us the nuances and subtleties of the game and not put us to sleep by their inane commentary and basket full of clichés. As one of the shrewdest commentators, Richie Benaud once said “Unless you can add to the picture that the average man already sees on the TV screen, you should just shut up”. So true. That ‘is’ priceless commentary.

P.S: Apart from the topic of the blog, wanted to share a couple of funny commentary snapshots I remember over the years….

- Once I was listening to commentary on radio.. and Arun Lal says.. “aur ye gend ek tippa khate hue boundary line ke bahar 6 run ke liye“(and there goes the ball taking one bounce over the boundary for a 6) – I went, what? Totally foxed by his brilliant commentary.

- Tony Grieg asked Raza on a World Cup 1999 Final Preview show on ESPN:

Q. How does Pakistan get so many youngsters in the team?

Reply: The youngsters are very young. (and Raza is now an ‘eminent’ Pakistani commentator…take that!)

It is about time I update my list of jargons. I mean, its been 2 long years in the corporate world since the last jargon-ic blogpost, and you can be dead sure I have been inundated with jargons in this time. In this blogpost, I present my humble view on what I think of the jargons I came across which left me ‘humbled’ (I digress, but is there a word in the English language called ‘humbled’? Every uncle and his son have been using this recklessly)

a) At the End of the Day

Yep, at the end of the day, we all die. That’s the ultimate truth. The corporate world, however, seems to think it has a different meaning for it – it means close of business on that particular day – it doesn’t matter if your day ends at 11PM in the night. ‘I want the report at the end of the day’ also can be construed as ‘I want the report on my desk tomorrow morning and I don’t care if you die or if you have a life apart from work’.

b) Take ownership

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I have heard this phrase. ‘Take ownership’ means different things to different people, which essentially boils down to no one really understands what the phrase means. Yet, it is used as frequently as Ajit Agarkar got out on a duck.

c) If you have some extra bandwidth

Dude, first thing, I am not a fiber optic cable. Criss-crossing electrical terms with my capacity to do work is insane, if not downright stupid. And no, I don’t have extra bandwidth. I never will have.

d) Take a stab

This one took me by surprise initially. I didn’t understand what it meant. ‘Stab’ as my basic English goes is a knife down someone’s body. Why would anyone want to take a stab? Eventually, I understood it to mean ‘I can try to understand/do etc’ How in the world is a crime matched up with doing something?

e) Apples to Apples

What? What again? Apples to Apples, Oranges to Mangoes? The English language has provided for multiple terms like ‘similar’, ‘same’, ‘congruent’ etc. Why would you want to force-fit visualization to something very simple? Beats me.

f) Let’s not reinvent the wheel

Oh, we can reinvent radio? TV? No? Ohh..you mean, let’s not reinvent the basic stuff? Why can’t you say it in so many words? The first time I heard this phrase, it took me a while to understand the phrase and secondly to understand why this phrase was used at all?

g) It is what it is

What the eff do you mean by that? It is…what it is. True. It can’t be something else. How can it be? What are you even trying to say? Random phrase with an iota of English and lots of garbage.

h) Déjà vu all over again

Ever heard of Pleonasm? Tautology? Ok, atleast ‘Redundant’? Just say ‘Déjà vu’ and shut up. What’s with ‘Déjà vu’ and ‘all over again’? That tells me that your understanding of the term ‘Déjà vu’ is either defunct or non-existent.

i) Net Net

 What’s with this Net Net? You mean, the net result, right? Only one ‘net’ is enough, no? Either you are from the 29^th century or I am from the 20^th century. Only one of those can be true.

j) Let’s take a 25000 foot view

Why not 50000? 5000? Is the distance directly proportional to the height of the corporate chain you are at? Is it inversely proportional to your IQ? Maybe. Or maybe you like aeroplanes, I don’t know.

k) Low hanging fruit

What’s with these fruits in the corporate language? Apples, Oranges, low hanging fruits? Some mystery here. Dan Brown might be interested.

And now for the grand sentence,

At the end of the day, if you have some extra bandwidth, can you take ownership of X and take a stab at solving Y. Let’s not go for the low hanging fruit here, but instead take a 25000 foot view and not reinvent the wheel. Net net, we should be able to compare apples to apples, else it would be déjà vu all over again. It is what it is, you know!

Makes perfect sense, no?

But as I realized later, over the past 4-5 years to be precise, I did not like all books. In fact, I despised certain kind of books. I have generally disliked classics, self-help books and certain epics and autobiographies. The latest addition to this category are books by personalities who have made it big in life.

I read ‘A Better India, A Better World’ by N.R.Narayana Murty. After reading the book, I frankly didn’t understand why people were going ga-ga over the book. N.R.N talks about the fruits of development reaching the poorest of the poor, wiping tears of the poorest man and all that jazz. He talks about his dream of India – much akin to Vision 2020, and we all know how that turned out. The same issues, solutions and risks are being talked about for over 25 years now. I don’t get this – Did N.R.N know that Infosys would become such a huge company 20 years back? If he didn’t, then how can he even think of where India should be 20 years hence? The rate of change usually is so drastic, that any plan beyond 5 years is usually defunct. If you want to hear about how India should develop, ask any street vendor/barber/grandfather/anyone in India with spare time, and he/she will tell you 1001 ways India could improve. Sure, NRN makes some interesting points – and my grouse is precisely that. The points that he makes all over the book can be condensed in 4-5 pages – an Outlook/India Today article. Hammering us over 250 pages about the same thing over and over again is plain boring. An even worse offshoot of this – people who read that book come away thinking that in 20 years, somehow India would be this idealistic country that NRN proposes. The keyword is ‘somehow’. A 4-5 page article would have had a greater impact on the younger generation (since it would restrict words to areas of development and the how of it) than the book (the rambling).

‘Imagining India’ by Nandan Nilekani, I expect would be no different from N.R.N’s book. I refuse to waste my time – again.

Similar is the case with Amartya Sen and C.K. Prahlad.

Amartya Sen with his ‘Argumentative Indian’ and ‘Idea of Justice’ expounds in an extremely flowery language – a language which needs a dictionary by your side all the time – about different topics. The topics by themselves are very interesting – but that is precisely what Amartya Sen tried to avoid. Instead, he chose to make his books a personal vendetta against the world – unleashing his intellectual stuff on unintelligible people like us. After reading 200 pages of each book, he made me promise not to touch his books ever again.

C.K.Prahlad, the acclaimed management guru with his book “Bottom of the Pyramid’. Frankly, what is this hoopla with ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’ (BoP)? If you take it from an Indian perspective, the BoP subsists on Rs. 5 a day on average. Do you think that some business can garner a share of that Rs. 5 minus food minus household expenses? A better book (and I am no guru) would be to talk about how businesses can exploit the middle of the pyramid or the middle of the diamond – the middle class. 500 mn of them in India with aspirations touching the sky and a rising income to go with those aspirations. But who am I to comment on what he should write? I neither liked his style of writing nor the content of it. So I will let his books be in the bookstore in the future.

In the future, I will resist reading all such books by famous personalities unless someone I trust recommends that book to me. I must seriously learn to unlearn picking up bad books.

P.S: I have concentrated on Indian authors in this blogpost. Foreign personalitiess are equally bad, if not worse. Jack Welch (crappy), Paulo Coelho (juvenile), Classics like Ulysses (James Joyce), Great Gatsby, any self-help book (don’t even get me started) – I can go on and on about galactic mistakes such as these. Contrast these authors with PG Wodehouse, Saki, Jared Diamond, Gurcharan Das – it’s a difference beyond infinity.

My usage of social networking sites has dropped down to a bare minimum. I had a very brief fling with Facebook but with all the poking going around and walls being torn down by spam messages, I was forced to abandon the monster. I do have an account but am no longer active. I am or rather was active on Orkut till about a year or so back.

It’s surprising how things have turned out for me in the social networking world. Orkut with its scrapbook, testimonials and finding long lost friends was brilliant for me. But as time passed by and the cheap thrill of adding long lost friends to my friends’ list only to forget all about them the next moment became bland, I began to gradually shun Orkut. The rate at which the number of scraps decreased exponentially, currently getting down to a trickle a month only points to the frequency of my usage. Guess I am getting old to ‘keep up with the times’ and waste time on useless stuff.

All said and done, this post is not about my decreasing usage of Orkut. Rather, it was an annoying conversation I had with one of my friend that leads to me to rant. As all users of Orkut/Facebook know, the ‘birthday reminder’ feature is one-stick-it-in-my-face facet of Orkut. I will be reminded of birthdays of my friends (as long as they have it in their profile) on my home page. All well and good and everyone’s happy. What pisses me off is this friend coming and talking to me about how his scrap count jumped by 100 on his birthday with 100 of his friends – close and far, wishing him a happy birthday. When I say ‘talking to me’, make that ‘gushing to me’. I failed to join in the enthusiasm.

My non-enthusiastic response probably emanates from the fact that people who scrap you on your birthday probably won’t even remember the next day as to whose birthday it was the previous day. In this era of fleeting attention-spans, this is bound to happen. I am personally guilty of wishing so many of these friends on their birthdays – but only on orkut. For one thing, I could just have easily e-mailed them with a personal note and wished them on their birthday (but nope, we don’t have the bloody time!). For another, I wouldn’t care to say beyond ‘happy birthday, have a great year ahead’ or something on those lines and almost immediately forget about it. It all sounds artificial. I am probably from the old school where I either pick up the phone or drop in a personal email and wish my friends a happy birthday. All this orkut scrapping and birthday reminders sounded nice initially but I have grown out of it. Over the past 6 months, if I could not call/email, I simply wouldn’t wish the other person on Orkut. It simply didn’t make any sense.

That brings me back to my friend’s gushing and blushing face. I obviously didn’t want to disappoint his enthusiasm but I did ask him as to how many of those wonderful 100 friends called him up/emailed him/would remember his birthday say a month from now. He clearly didn’t understand what the fuss was all about when love was radiating from his friends from all parts of the world. I didn’t bother explaining. I left him alone to deal with his ignorance.

P.S: I still don’t understand why Orkut has not come up with different anniversary reminders, along the lines of birthday reminders? You know, with all those happy engagement anniversary, happy marriage anniversary…choo cute, choo sweet et.al., its quite a market for increase in scraps and hence visibility. Who know, with the different gift ads that will pop up on the side, it may well be worth a try for Google.

P.P.S: The other day when I logged into Facebook after nearly 6 months, I had a question on my…what do they call it? The Wall or something. ‘What kind of German philosopher are you?’ Apart from uttering some niceties on this profound question, I just replied ‘Sorry, I Kant’.

“Sample this: Mumbai, the commercial capital of the country and the city that witnessed massive public mobilisation after the 26/11 terror attacks, managed a figure of only 43 per cent in the phase held on April 30 (the lowest since 1977); Bangalore, the seat of the country’s IT revolution, notched up a figure of 46 per cent on April 23; Lucknow, the capital of the politically most important state of the Hindi heartland, Uttar Pradesh, disappointed with a pathetic 34.5 per cent turnout; Kanpur, an industrial centre and the second largest city of UP, managed 39 per cent; Bhopal, a politically important state capital, saw 45.1 per cent polling; and Indore, Hyderabad and Gandhinagar (L.K. Advani’s constituency) crossed the 50 per cent mark, but only just, with 50.89 per cent, 52.46 per cent and 50.82 per cent, respectively.”

 Fantastic, ain’t it? I mean, what better response could we give to the leaders of our country than the verdict that

 -   Urban India just doesn’t care who gets elected.

 -   Urban India is ‘resilient’ to false/no promises at all from any political party

 -   By logical extension, ‘Spirit of (insert name of Indian City)’ is a given, irrespective of any political party in power, considering the number of terrorist threats to our country every day.

 -   Urban India will not make the issue of terrorism a part of any political party’s manifesto. Why should I? I mean, it’s a national issue, no? It is military/police/politicians’ automatic responsibility, no?

 -   Urban India (probably) didn’t want to brave the summer heat to vote. Obviously, Health is Wealth, no?

 -   Urban India doesn’t want to educate its children (by means of their actions) that every vote counts. In fact, children might grow up to understand that all this voting is a big circus/tamasha. Good for them, they realized it much earlier than all of us.

  -  Urban India is pseudo-elitist; it doesn’t like being preached by stupid campaigns like ‘Jaago Re’. I mean, who are these ‘Jaago Re’ morons to tell US to vote? We are bloody well intelligent.

  -   Urban India probably doesn’t believe that any change would come by irrespective of the political party. Wonder, if they knew who were the candidates contesting the elections? Wonder if they even bothered to enquire if there was any good independent candidate who didn’t affiliate himself/herself with the two main political parties?

Nope, who has the time I say, dammit? Who the hell has time to vote? Who has the patience to research candidates in the constituency? We care two hoots about who gets elected. But, BUT of course, we will complain.

   1)  We will complain if infrastructure is bad; roads, electricity – you name it.

   2)  We will complain if terrorists attack our nation and kill 150 people every 3 months. We are a ‘effing’ spirited city,     no?

   3)  We will complain that all politicians are corrupt. Armchair experts, who don’t even have 1 hr of their time, once in 5 yrs, to vote.

   4)   We will complain against reservations and for merit. Oh yes, by the way, only from the sidelines, on blogs and twitter. Yes, even during coffee conversations in Coffee Day/Barista.

Yes, we will not vote. We are like that only. ‘Jaago Re’ or ‘Sleepo Re’ – it wouldn’t have made a effing difference.

II) Gaurav of Vote Report India, talking of online engagement and other initiatives like Jaago Re says ‘These initiatives may not have resulted in a significant voter turnout but they have laid the foundation for engaging India’s urban middle class in serious civic issues.‘

Gaurav, frankly, c’monn. I understand optimism, but ‘engaging urban middle class’? You might as well search for the long lost California gold mines – you might actually find one. People tune out the moment they are given any responsibility (like the right/responsibility to vote) outside their family. 60 yrs of disillusionment with reservations, casteism makes ‘engaging urban middle class’ that much harder. The rich have an interest in politics to save their money (tax sops, favored political parties, whatever). The poor have an interest because of agricultural sops. Middle class? What have the politicians got? Neither proper education nor proper infrastructure nor proper security – the three most important things for the middle class to be engaged in politik. ‘Engaging middle class’ will not happen because politicians (being the smart people they are) know that this ‘middle class’ wouldn’t come out to vote in large numbers – thereby not a large vote bank. Why would they even waste an iota of a paise to ‘engage middle class’?

No way. Or maybe I am saying all these doomsday utterances because of terrible disillusionment at the extremely poor poll numbers. This was Urban India’s chance and they blew it. Circa 2014, technology might have changed dramatically, but would people’s attitude change? The answer is anybody’s guess.

But then, you got to give it to Urban India. (Hearty applause please)! With hardly any difference in the percentages of voter turnouts between 2004 and 2008 inspite of all the brilliant campaigns like Jaago Re – Urban India has well and truly shown the middle finger to all political parties, nay to the tireless Jaago Re and other campaign workers. Thank you Urban India, you have done us proud.

Quite.

I salute both of them. Firstly, I thought terrorists create terror only in deserted lands and on the Moon. Secondly, Lashkar, Pakistan and the ISI would be frantically discussing among themselves as to how to deal with this strong condemnation, leading to eternal damnation.

2. Our beloved PM, Sri Sri Sri Un+Man+mohan Singh declared in his rabble-rousing, deeply inspiring that would have put the terrorists inside the Taj to sleep “The well-planned and well-orchestrated attacks, probably with external linkages, were intended to create a sense of panic, by choosing high profile targets and indiscriminately killing foreigners”. That was very insightful, wasn’t it? I mean ‘high profile targets’ (who would care about the common folk), ‘indiscriminately killing foreigners’ (I think you should teach them the ‘Theory of Discrimination’ from your Economics 101).

3. And then, R R Patil comes in and says “small incidents like this do happen in big cities”. Well, firstly, Karan Johar should sue him for stealing his line (bade bade sheroh mein aisi choti choti baatein hoti rehti hai). Secondly, the NSG should have shot him and called it ‘terrorist fire’…no, wait. That would have resulted in Bharat Ratna for R R Patil. They should have just shot him and said ‘Oops!!’

4. I wonder where the Thackerays were in all this drama. I mean, this was their moment to sweep the polls. Hold a rally near the Taj and call the terrorists ‘Marathi Manoos’, which would have probably scared them away (calling the NSG commandos Marathi Manooses would have resulted in ‘Oops!!’ again). Raj, Udhav and the Big Bal (no pun intended) didn’t even come out with as much as a courageous statement as our ‘respected’ President like ‘strongly condemning the attacks’. I wonder why?!

5. The media was sharp, wasn’t it? I mean, 24×7 updates for 3 days. TRP ratings of all news channels would have gone through the roof. I think these guys would pay the terrorists to perform such activities once in a while – you know, just to push up TRP ratings and bring you ‘exclusive coverage’ from all 234 news channels. Then there was Barkha Dutt - flailing her arms more than a circus clown telling the whole world about her fantastic investigation skills which included how many NSG commandos had come in, where were they taking their positions etc. The terrorists wouldn’t dare watch the television, right? And then, there was our man of the moment, Rajdeep Sardesai asking some of the rescued hostages questions like ‘did you in your wildest dreams think you would face a terrorist?’ and ‘will you ever forget this experience, how does it feel?’. Well, insightful questions demand deeply philosophical answers. The answer to both the questions is ‘eff you’ (and show him the middle finger of both hands please!, just for clarity purposes).

6. The worst of the lot were the NSG commandos and the police. I mean what were they doing – they were  doing their mundane job of rescuing hostages and killing those terrorists without any gas masks, nor night-vision goggles nor proper intelligence, which somehow, somehow in all the political melee and fund distribution, the politicians forgot to buy. Heard of a term called ‘shopping disaster’. Could you guys be more moronic?

Now, for some straight talk.

Politicians – You either deliver on some measures or don’t give us trash talk. Tell the citizens that you are not capable of doing it. We will try out another bunch of jokers who we think they can.

Media – Ethics and Morality are out of the window for you guys, for no fault of yours really. I mean, with numerous 24×7 channels, some time back, you sensationalized two monkeys getting married in a remote village of Bihar. This attack was ‘your moment’.  The only way, I think is for the Government to draft some policy to limit the coverage in case of such events. Please, for god’s sake, don’t then cry for ‘Freedom of Press’.

NSG and Police – The nation salutes you for your brave and fantastic efforts. We only heard of the brave deeds you guys do in Kashmir and other insurgent places. Last week, we watched them live. There is nothing we can give that would justify your supreme sacrifice. I hope you guys do get gas masks and night-vision goggles to kick ass – in a better fashion and without loss of lives on our side.

Terrorists – Get the eff out of my country and keep off my favorite city. We will not break come what may. You guys can go to hell where there are 72 aliens looking to rape you guys in the worst way possible.

My earlier post when similar terrorist activity occurred in Hyderabad and Jaipur – little more analytical.