im sending out an sos.

so this week's movie is 27 dresses. for a die hard fan of "chick flick" (romantic comedies), this would be the movie of the month. but sadly its far far from that. it could have been great. so the story is pretty simple, a girl who is so into marriages, has been a bridesmaid for 27 of her other friends. and she truly cant wait to get married.

so all the typical cliches are there, the girl who is a complete idealist. her best friend a cynic. the guy she falls for the "perfect" guy and her irritating and annoying sister who eventually ends up with the "perfect" guy. the guy who irritates you but who you secretly crush on and eventually end up marrying. and then in the end, the best friend falling for the best man.

watever.

the movie is not unique in any way, not even those little scenes in the middle of the movie that spring up and make u go aww. theres none of that. the lead pair have zero chemistry and all the while ure hoping its going to get funnier its going to get better. but the movie gets over, and your like damn we should have watched a movie where aliens capture new york. as my friend puts it, yet again.

weirdly enough, there were lot of guys watching this movie. and no they were not being forced to by their girlfriends or wives or friends.

but some things hold true. like when you get the morning paper, everyone has their favourite section. there are some pple, who dont feel like they have read a paper until they read the cover page, others the entertainment section first (ie me), then others the business pages, others the matrimonials section, then there are others who prefer the TV guide.

so desis dont really have that bridesmaid culture, but there is the married girl - sometimes a relative who you barely know - even if it someone you really know, who is supposed to accompany you on stage and be by your side and explain "things". (coz you are soooo comfortable listening about it from them or coz you cant just read about it by ureself). but a bridesmaid/best man in the western world, is quite different, its usually being dressedup and honored as being one of the best friends of the bride or even groom. secretly (not so much as a secret now since im blogging about it) i ve always wanted to be a bridesmaid or at least see one of these white gown weddings, but sadly lot of my friends are cynics and dont see the point to a grand wedding just a registered marriage thing is sufficient. which again i dont think is wrong since one shouldnt be sucked into doing exactly what this multi billion dollar wedding industry makes everyone think they should do. its just a whole lot of stress and a negative balance for a long long long time for a day that isnt even fun. i dont know a single person who have really enjoyed on their wedding day. im not saying they dont consider it important, or the most significant day of their life, but i dont know a single person who really was chilled out and thoroughly enjoyed the whole day and not the bits and pieces in between.

Read more...

chalti ka naam tata nano



ok, so obviously my post today is about tata's, newest car on the block. ie the tata nano. Im not particularly impressed with this moniker, its very ipodish. Ok, i know many pple will argue with this statement considering the word nano isnt really an ipod copyright.



So the good.



obviously the Rs 100,000 price. It makes me so happy that I can now afford a car. sadly only in India. but on the bright side yay, im moving up the accomplished ladder, next goal - a house. Ok honestly i think the Tata nano is on first glance a pretty compact, no frills car that does the job (ie transport you from point A to point B). It doesnt have airconditioning, it is atleast four doors (yay, probably the only requirement to be a car), its cute and has that wannabe celebrity thing going for it (celebrities occasionally like to drive cutesy cars, so im guessing the popularity of this car will hit the roof when it actually starts selling) . And I hear the construction is pretty top quality and is not something thats going to fall apart when you are driving. Then again, theres no real guarantee, I have driven supposedly "expensive brand" cars and they literally have fallen apart and no im not kidding.





The Bad



Congestion, congestion and congestion. Not to mention, pollution, pollution and pollution. Hopefully Tata would have thought of investing in ways to come up with solar energy or making this a hybrid kind of car.

I was watching a segment on NBC (i think thats what it was) about the nano. some pple called it a glorified rickshaw, others saw it as a cheap alternate to the motorbike (which is precisely what Tata says he was aiming for) and then there were others who landed with 100,000 rs hard cash and others went plastic. however, the cars actually hit the market a year later.

enough time for competition to catch up?

Read more...

udnei ko tu azaad hai - you are free to fly.

so last year was quite an eye opener for me, it was quite monumental so to say with my graduation and finally getting a job. which im thankful to God for. Thank you so much for listening to my hopes and making them come true.

This year I plan to live life to the fullest, I plan to do things which I have never done. Many a times you decide, in your head you will do so and so but you dont coz u arent motivated enough or coz you just dont have the time or the money. I decided this year i will do something creative so i have enrolled myself to a guitar school. this year i will do something healthy, so i enrolled myself to a health club. this year i will do something less selfish, so i signed up for volunteering at schools and hospitals. this year i will influence others for good things, so i convinced my mom to sign up for yoga classes. this year i will do the one thing i regret not doing as a kid, riding a bicycle. i will not only ride a bicycle but enter a bicycle tour around the city. this year i will try to do something intellectual, i will try to publish something. this year i will continue to believe in kistmet . most importantly, this year i will try to do something good in life. for myself and for others. and to give thanks be grateful for everything.

Thank you God.

Read more...

We belong to Him and to Him is our return.

last weeks breaking news about benazir bhuttos assasination dumbfounded a lot of us. i was going with my mom to the clinic when a relative called up to tell us this breaking news. when we reached the clinic, a pakistani patient sat there shell shocked exasperately trying to get the tv to work in the waiting room. we flipped over couple of channels and finally saw that was not just a mere rumor but a fact. benazir bhutto was dead. i cant say that i know much about politics, let a lone politics in pakistan. and i cant comment about it. and i dont know too many things about her. there are lot of pple who applaud her for her courage. there are those that berate her for her corrupt ways. maybe she was corrupt, maybe she was a patriot. it doesnt matter at the end of the day. its a horrible way to die. and no matter what the reason the person had to do this it doesnt make it correct. two wrongs have never made a right.i feel really sad for her kids. its horrible to watch your mom die like that. i seriously dont know why the bhuttos continue in politics.


my dad used to be the doctor at the school where the kids studied and he told us about it on how shy the kids were and well behaved and didnt behave as kids of someone famous.
when i landed at jfk airport, while standing in immigration i read the breaking news that bilalwal will now succeed Benazir Bhutto, I was really disappointed. sometimes the ridiculousness of pple appall me, why would your pressurize (im assuming its pressure) a teenager to contest elections. with all due respect, why do you think he has the mental ability and the emotional capacity to do so. hes still a kid! hes barely finishing undergrad, why do you think he would know how to handle a party or if he was voted in, what would he know about economic affairs. despite coming from a doctors family that doesnt make me ready to conduct a bypass surgery tommorow.
its the same thing i believe.

and i dont understand why the world is so gung ho about this whole nepotism thing. keeping it in the family. this is the case everywhere. in india, the whole obsession with the gandhi clan. and in pakistan the bhuttos. in the US the clintons or the bushes. i cant understand why. my weak answer to this is we are comfortable with the known and it may or may not be good for you. but since we know it, we keep going back to it.

Read more...

Read more...

much ado about absolutely nothing.

so this year i decided (well, my friends decided) that i would witness my first new years eve party ever. barring one year ive always been at home in dubai. and besides that ive always spent it with my family at home. when we were little, we were never allowed to go out with friends on new years eve, we would always spend it at home and even if we were out for dinner we would make sure we were back by 12. and would swtich to channel33 and wait for the clock to tick 12 and then we would wish each other. and read out our resolutions. most of which our parents had written for us. which we made and broke instantly.

so this year we decided to go to a new year eve party, it was a totally desi party, so i was quite prepared for the wannabees. so we reach there and the line is really long, which is considered an ok sign since it shows the club is popular or something like that. so we are waiting in line when a guy comes up to us and is like do you have an eticket coz if you do we arent letting you into the club. at this point i have a super shocked expression about to faint, coz it was just a process getting there and forcing everyone to come and it would be really disapointing not having witnessed it. well then the guy goes look at your face im just messing with you and then proceeds to ask for the ticket. im quite hesitant now to give it to him, since it might just be someone who wants a free ticket and he didnt even have a badge to show that he works for the event managment company.

well anyway, so he turns around tears up the ticket, thrashes it and walks away and starts talking to his friends. at this point we are shocked and giving him super angry looks. my brother in law yells out to him and they start having an argument. and then he tells us he went to get our hard copy tickets. why didnt he tell us before tearing up our ticket? so they start arguing and then he tells the bouncer to not let us in. at this point im fretting coz its super embarassing. and im having visuals on how they show in movies where they "dakhei maar" kei remove you. and there lot of pple behind us that can witness that. so the guy above apologizes, but my brother in law is still pissed and finally my sister intervenes and explains the situation and everything is alrite. however that guy keeps coming back to us and trying to instigate a fight and ask us "why we got so angry". hmm, lets see why.

anyway its so not what i imagined it to be. from the flyers, i imagined it would be in a loft on the top of a high rise building where the skyline is visible and since its a masquerade party pple would be wearing fancy masks. and there would be lot of places to sit and hang out. once we enter its like an underground dump or a factory that is going to be demolished soon. you cant see anything, its smoky and pple are dancing inthe crowd, there is an upper level with pple on top overlooking the dance floor. there is an uncle aunty gang wearing salwar suits and dancing bindass. which is funny and weird at the same time. absolutely no place to sit and lot of shady people. and music was pretty crappy too. and having been told there would be screens which show the ball drop, it was a big disappointment no screen and no ball drop. so after a lot of head bobbing and moving sideways to and fro we decided we had enough and left and went home. and then went to our neighbourhood diner for a late night meal. needless to say the highlight of the day was our lunch and dinner. lunch (afghani kebabs) and dinner (chicken strips and mozarella sticks).

everything in life (alrite most things) should be experienced at least once in life. this is not one of those things.

happy new year everyone. May your year ahead be filled with lot of joy, happiness and good memories.

Read more...

duniya saji tere liye, khud ko zara pehchaan tu.

i dont understand sometimes this indefinite need for pple to define you. when you are in school you are asked when will you finish school, when you are in college when will you finish college, when you finish college, when will you get married, when you get married - when will you have kids. only after this, have you have done what you are supposed to do in this word called life.

it doesnt end there, the cycle repeats for your kids.

and god forbid if you didnt finish high school, if you flunked out of college, or if you got divorced, or if you had a miscarriage.

its like these goals are the law and if you dont achieve or like above break these goals, they will pester you until u succumb or if you never achieve them you will be pitied no matter how miserable one ownself may be after having achieved all of the goals. and if you do achieve them , everyone will release a huge sigh of relief like it was the biggest bhoj that THEY were under. and finally, this burden has been lifted of their shoulders. it should be noted they dont even know you. and if you were to suddenly disappear, they would not even realize.

its like sometimes you cannot and are not supposed to have any personal goals then the above. so wat if you didnt go to university? so what if you arent married ? so what if your well into your 7th year of marriage and dont have a kid? nobody wants to know what you do at work, nobody cares. nobody wants to really know how your lifes been, nobody wants to know whether youve joined a musical band, or are travelling three months in a year and seeing more than the world youve seen in your life, or youve become a licesenced diver. or your child said their first words yesterday. or youve published your first paper. or you made your first pilgrimage. no one gives a shit.

im not trivializing the "golden" goals, but each individual is different and noone has the right to say which goal is important than the other and no one should be forced to live life other than the way he/she deems it.

Read more...

phook de

so ive been watching a movie a day and december with eid holidays (hope everyone had a good eid!) and tommorow being christmas (merry christmas!). so more holidays, theres nothing much to do but watch movies. well anyway the movie today is no smoking directed by anurag kashyap. The main actors in the film are ohn abraham, ayesha takia, paresh rawal and ranvir shorey.

its basically about a man (john) who is a chain smoker and after his wife (ayesha) threatens to leave him he joins a sort of rehabilitation center. but its not really a rehabilitation center, its more an almagamation of a tantric/underground mafia/burkha clad call center operation/i dont know what. its run by this baba (paresh rawal) who will help john get rid of this smoking addiction whether he likes it or not.

the direction and treatment of the film is different. the actors are ok. i dont know why lot of pple say john is wooden, there are a lot of "wooden" like pple like john in this world. its very normal. all of us dont exactly cry at a drop of a hat or to put it bluntly show our emotions. so it ok if some actors do that. they are just behaving like other normal pple. ayesha takia is just ok her, i really liked her in dor and socha na tha. but she hasnt been doing too many good films lately. paresh rawal is good but one dimensional which i believe is the intent of the character.

so i have to say i didnt really understand this movie and i guess the movie is open to its own interpretation and from reading anurag's analysis (post watching) some of it is intelligent, but perhaps too intelligent for the average knowledged cinegoer. those who havent read many of kafkas works or read stephen king novels or even know much about history or know much about the references both musical and cinematic. from what i understand at least thats my interpretation that loss of freedom of speech, freedom of knowledge, freedom to do what you want to do is basically eroding your own soul and your own conscience. succumbing to society norms sometimes might not be the best thing for you. i got the gist of the movie i think but there were so many things i just didnt understand

what was the significance of the bathtub/closet/wherever the souls came from. what do these areas signify?

what was the whole thing with siberia?

what did the one rupee signify? in the end when paresh rawal urges him to give him one rupee, what would have happened if john had given it to him?

what was the deal with one of hte souls asking him whether he had a rupee to make a call? call to who?

what was the whole annie/anjali thing?

in the end the last scene where johns soul is burning, its reminds you of dante's inferno but would everyone burn in the same level of hell?

was the baba actually the devil? i say this because there were many a scenes, like the friend of Abraham who returns from Cuba and his thugs force John into smoking. Is this just a ploy then this "rehab" and invariably a means to capture ones soul?

i wish the director would have explained his point of view. but then again i get this feeling that he wouldnt like to explain his view and would prefer the viewer had his own opinion and not be dictated into accepting the logic given.

not exactly a light movie for a holiday, i would say watch it on dvd coz you can rewind and discuss or when someone is asking you why why and you really dont know why.

Read more...

dil khush jahan, teri toh manzil hai wahi- (where the heart lies, is your destination)

so the movie of the week is taare zameen par. story about a dyslexic child, essayed by darsheel sarfary, and how he overcomes the challenges that he faces. aamir khan plays the role of his art teacher, who faced dyslexia as a child too, he understands the child's problems and encourages him and helps him overcome it.

this is a great movie. it is really honest and its narrated in a very simple manner and does it without being preachy or melodramatic. its something that could happen to any of us or any of our kids.

there are many other themes in this movie, other than dyslexia which the movie touches upon. which many of us would identify with at some point in our life. some of the incidents reminded me of my childhood too.

ishaan's capturing fish in his bottle, we used to catch toads that used to be abundant in our garden during the monsoon season and we would put them into a "dalda" bottle overnight and feed them and then release them in the morning.

the art competition scene where all children woudl be given in a theme, and you would sit in a row and paint. i remember i had gone for one of these competitions and we would be seated in rows and there were so many kids. more than my painting i remember this kids painting who was sitting next to me, it was a painting of a sunset and it was a shadow of a girl watching from a balcony.

ishaan asking his elder brother to write him an absent note when he skipped class. the many times ive written a note for my friends and even for my sister to skip gym class. the times my sisters faked my parents signature when they received a bad grade.

parents finding an exam paper with low grades and yelling at you. like really yelling with eyes popping and calling you useless. =) at the same time really worrying about you, putting you into schools that are still pricey so you can get the best education.

parents not always being able to articulate their feelings and show how much they really love you.

threatening us to send us to boarding school in panchgini. they never did, though.

my favourite scenes in the movie are definetly when ishaan goes to boarding school and his parents and brother are leaving, the song Maa is so touching and it just makes you cry. its just so sad, the scenes where the mom cries throughout the whole trip back home and the scenes where ishaan cries in the bathroom. and then later on when he is numb and super depressed and cant cry anymore. the other scene which i really really loved was when he shows his painting to aamir khan and slowly he edges towards aamir khans painting to see what his guru has done, and then sees his own portrait. its just soooo awesome that scene. both actors are wonderful. the scene where after ishaan has a fight with some boy in the neighbourhood, his dad is packing his bag for a business trip and goes hes leaving coz he had a fight, ishaan takes him seriously and cries and then his mom goes to the dad why are u troubling him for nothing. it just so real. as a kid and even now your constant fear is your loved ones will disappear one day.

superb performances by all the actors, especially darsheel sarfary.

definetly, a must watch.

Read more...

arbi khuranon sei poonkh poonkh rakhna hai qadam.

so once upon a time in a small village of india, a chota chota larka (ok itna bhi chota nahin, but i need to add that for dramatic effects) had these barei barei sapnei. sapnei of going to dubai and opening his own typing center. yei typing center bhi kamaal ki cheez hai. it is a business that can perhaps only survive in the gulf countries and in the subcontinent i suppose. basically the typing center is the medium by which you can tadi par the red tape of the government. typically owned by some desi, grew up in india, came to dubai worked as an errand boy, now speaks arabic as his second language much more than hindi and in his typing center he provides and fills out visa application forms/birth certificate etc all in fluent arabic. he knows how to get a visa, how to get a trade license. he knows exactly what paperwork one needs, what one doesnt need. he knows the loopholes and he knows how to circumvent them.

so anyway, this larka comes to dubai decides to open his own typing center. but he requires a local sponsor, as does any business in a non free zone area in the UAE, a contract is prepared the sponsor is chosen and for an annual fee of 8,000 AED (1 USD - 3.67 AED) the local agrees to give his "name" to the business. the local does not participate in the running of the business, provides no capital, it serves as a kind of yearly tax, regardless of how much loss or profit the larka makes, the local does not profit from it or does not bail him out in times of loss. and he pockets his fee regardless.

khair, accepting that this is how one does business here, the larka opens a typing center. it starts of slow and then gradually business picks up and he locks in 20,000 AED a month. everything is going well, he is able to send home money, at home he becomes the son of pride. busines has few hiccups. only the occasional negotiations with the local sponsor to increase the annual fee from 8 - 10K. one fine day, the father of the nation, HRH beloved Shaikh Zayed dies, the city goes into mourning for 21 days. at this time, larka decides chalo business is slow, government offices are closed might as well go back to india for a holiday. he informs the sponsor, and leaves.

after a long happy vacation he returns to the city (ie dubai) , hands over the passport to immigration officer for the visa stamp. the immigration officer scans his passport and becomes irritated/befuddled when he reads the description on the screen, he calls over his senior, the police is informed and the larka is jailed for a month. while the larka was on leave, the local took over the business and sold all the printers and photocopying machines, which were bought by loans. the local then cancelled the larkas visa and put a 6 month ban from the UAE on his visa. with no one to listen to his woes, the larka spends a month in jail and is deported back to india. he returns to his village penniless.

Read more...

jaaniyei....jaaniyei...jaan..nahi..yei...jaan..hi..naye..hai

so ive been doing nothing but sleeping, eating and watching movies back home. when someone said, that a week of holiday would bore me out, i smirked and said yea rite, i cant wait to vegetate. but now i so know what they were talking about. im bored out of my mind and i cant wait to go back to work. im soooo weird like that.

we did however end up going to jebel hafeed (mountain) in al ain, which i have to say was a complete dud. becoz of the curvy roads pple got sick and puky. once we were up, it turned out to be a vast empty space with one rundown cafeteria/seedy restaurant. there was one guy serving us (that too, ali baba kei zamanei ki chai) and otherwise barring two tourists it was all empty. it reminded me of the book shining, (i know a gross exaggeration) but it really did. and im sure gets really spooky at nite. and i cant imagine how someone can be up on a mountain alone. anyway, its like a great idea gone bad or not utilized well enough. the government could have done a lot, set up souvenir shops/allow other stalls to come up and set up base here/have some gol gappa/papri chaat stalls .but no.. they mindlessly build and now maintain a road in a deserted mountain. seriously, not exploiting it to the max, is just plain dumb.

other news, i watched aaja nachle. i recommend it to madhuri dixit fans. its not exactly a ground breaking movie, and on a scale of going out and getting it as soon as the dvd comes out versus getting the dvd on a rainy day, it veers more towards the getting the dvd on a rainy day. the story is pretty simple, its story about a town and a girl who has fallen from the towns graces and her pursuit in reviving the towns love for theatre and the arts. the movie's heart is in the right place, but sadly one needs more than heart for a movie to work.

i ended up seeing om shanti om again, twice and slept through most of the movie. the true "litmus" test of a movie is if you can see it twice without nodding off. and as much as i really liked it first time round, its only watchable once. then again, i differ in my opinion and my sister was as excited to watch it as she was watching it the first time ever.

in further other news, i got my h-1b visa. from lining up at 5:30 am in the morning, to waiting for the doors to open and for bossy paperchecker security guide at the consulate to give you the green signal to enter (which is truly when you can heave a slight sigh of relief). anyway, so once i was in, one of the assistants checked my papers and asked me general questions and then asked for my resume (which i didnt have). So, i said that and he asked me to go drink coffee and come back at 10:30. as soon as i got away, i called up home and made everyone frantic to search for extra papers that prove taht im far from a fraud. it really is teh case of guilty until proven innoncent. at 10:30, i was called again, the guy asked me basic questions of what i do, why they hired me, then a rapid round of short questios (ala Koffee with Karan) which i HAD to answer. no technical question, no why why why corner me questions. nothing out of the ordinary. but still i manage to make a fool of myself. the best part (read worst) is i forgot the answer to the most pertinet question. what is your monthly salary. i hesitated, i hummed and my voice faltered. i took the best guess possible and fortunetly enough it was alrite. i think i would win the dumbness personified award.

Read more...

chalo, dubayy, chalo!

so again, i complete my yearly/half yearly yatra to dubai. my favouritest city in the whole wide world no matter how expensive, how much i complain, how racist, how unfair, how laughable it gets. i will always love dubai. but i do ahve to say (part of the "complaining" love), emirates airline is getting worse day by day. the spaces are getting crampier (or maybe we are just getting fatter, watever lets just blame it on the aeroplane), food isnt exactly excellent, the toilets are becoming rundown (that again is a passenger issue and not so much a plane issue, but watever) and the air hostesses with the mostesses are becoming more snobbier and the wait time for a glass of water has extended from 5 mins to half an hour to now, just before one lands on a 12 hour flight.

anyway as my kismet would have it, there were 7 kids sitting in my vicinity. 7. and i was feeling really good about myself for having chosen my aisle seat online well in advance. (it could have been worse, i could have been in the middle). well anyway, these kids start crying and i can understand the less than 2 year olds, the teeny kids - i get it, their ears hurt or theyre scared or they are hungry and they cant but cry to communicate their exasperation. but i dont understand/get 6 year olds yelling that their food hasnt come or that they cant sit near the window or just simply yelling. i just dont get that. I was soo sooo sooo mad. and i didnt know whether to laugh or cry at their helpless mom who was calmly patting him "beta, shaant hojao", which kinda egged him on to yell even more loudly. everyone in that area was so weary and hardly got any sleep. i had half a mind to have a time out situation with one of the kids. but then u never know if the kid has a fit and starts hitting me. from being the heroine who saves the day, I would be the wannabee heroine who got beaten up by a kid. so i stayed put and endured it.

the pple near me didnt talk one bit to me or to each other even. im always quite shocked on how easily one can sit in a plane or even in the subway for ages on and not have a single conversation with someone they sit a few cm away from. and i dont mean that you ahve to continously talk throughout the whole flight and ruin the appreciated silence for passengers near you. but this way it seems like no one else exists on the plane, but you and the pilot, i suppose. it seems so mechanical. i am tempted to always introduce myself - at least to the person i sit next to, but then when i see their terse responses to a. the weather, b. the stalling time in the plane c. the noise level in the plane, i then shutup.

anyway glad to be back to my beloved city dubai, and even more glad to be away from work, stress, and the cold cold weather in nyc.

have a great week everyone!

Read more...

mein bechara awara...samjahao kis kis ko..dil me merai hai dard e disco..dard e disco.

so this week has been a super eventful. i went back to my university to be a part of the panel presenting the bank. AndI was initially quite nervous, especially since I was late and there was hardly anyone from my group and two that were there barely talked to me. And I was also scared of overenthusiastic, wanting to impress undergrads and grads asking me tough questions like what is happening in the market of which I really have no clue. And I really do like my job (mostly) and my group a lot, so nothing I said was ratofied or fake even and just for the sake of saying it. So I do believe I did a good job in representing the bank with lots of enthusiasm.

during these breakout sessions, some students came up to me to talk to me about themselves and it becomes really hard to say no. so a lot of places ask that pple apply through the website, however it does definetly expedite process when you know someone within the group who can get you the crucial interview. And becoz I have been there before, and God knows Im terrible at small talk and networking and I would have to literally push myself out of the house to attend these mindless events.

so when i get these emails requesting me to meet up with them and asking for advice I do oblige. and i refrain from giving the "jhoota dilasa" that I will help them when I really cant. Yesterday while on the train with a colleague, I asked him what I should do when pple who email me asking me to forward their resume within groups where I dont even know anyone. and he gave me some good advice as to be straight forward and say you cant do anything about it, and if see the person really is trying hard and you think they are smart then you can ask pple for a favor. But dont take favours easily that when it comes a time for you to ask for one for yourself personally it becomes too much. I think thats great advice and its quite the reality.

andddddddddd in other news im also done with my exam, so im soo soo relieved. crossed fingers until i pass. inshallah.

Read more...

taking it one day at a time.

oh, how i wish that my brain would magically absorb and understand everything at the first time.

Read more...

the glove compartment isnt correctly named

i keep having this recurring dream of driving. this goes back to the time when i had just graduated from university and had returned to dubai in hopes of finding the greatest job ever written for me since i was now foren educated. sadly that didnt happen immediately, much to my shock, i thought everyone would be tripping over themselves to hire me. hahaha. but like one of my favourite dialogues from this pakistani drama tanhaiyaan which ive quoted before, zindagi tabti dhoop ka naam hai. drama, drama haha. so i ended up doing some gigs which i always wanted to do. like become a professor. so i interviewed and they accepted me. it wasnt a great university, im not going to name it but at least it had a campus of some sorts, which is a big deal since there are so many "universities" that consist of a mere two room apt in dubai.

anyway, so ill write about that teaching experience later on of which there were a few. but in a nutshell, mallus are a very very close knit community and if you are the only non mallu, you stand out like a sore thumb. and no matter how much you try, you cant break into their inner"circle of trust" - i quote from the movie, meet the parents. i was always the outsider. and of course, im extremely exaggerating. but that was my overall feeling at that time. and also i was the youngest professor, so that "rohb jamana" type thng never worked out for me. and the mba class that i was teaching initially took me for a joke, when i entered the classroom for the first time. they thought i was the assistant or something. and being very university americanized, i wrote my email address on the blackboard, office hours and my telephone number too in case anyone had questions they had to ask. how dumb was i?. and i prevented pple from calling me maam and just refer to me by the first name and to stop standing up when i came into the classroom or when asking me a question. and just when students started warming up to me and my fast paced note writing lectures were becoming not as fast paced and when handing out candy before tests was getting appreciated, i got fired.

ok well not fired, fired. just an ultimatum to become a professor full time or leave. and coz my mom would kill me if i gave up my day job (which i finally got after giving a stupid iq test andtwo interviews) so i gave up the proffesor giri. well there were other factors, but ill leave that to another day of reminiscing.

so anyway i think ive gone beyond the words in a nutshell. so this post is mainly about the driving, it used to take me at least half an hour to drive back home from knowledge village back to old dubai. and i used to really really look forward to that. mainly coz the traffic in dubai is so bad and its horrible to drive there now but after 10 at nite (when my classes used to finish) its a dream to drive between umm-suqueim and jumeirah. empty roads and u can go at a stretch with no signals. aaaah bliss..of course i dont know the situation now, this was four years ago. and after salik, which im yet to see, the dream may have become a nightmare. anyway so i know exactly where the cameras are on the road, so it was great. i really have a problem with speeding. I think with speeding you yourself dotn know what speed you are in, coz you are in control you think you arent speeding. so neway i remember i was speeding along on the road trying to beat my time to get home and suddenly all of a sudden the radio stops working, the lights on the dashboard start dimming and my car just stops. and thank god i had some sense to move it to the side.

so now im stranded in the middle of nowhere, (ie umm-suqueim) and i notice my cellphone battery is almost dieing. so i make that last phone call home and then it dies. there is a small grocery shop type place and of course lot of villas around. someone comes out of the shop wearing a lungi and just stares at me. so i get back in the car and now i have no clue if my family even knows where i am or if they understood what iw as saying. in the end, yes this has a happy ending, like movies, i was found, no knight in shining armor or anything close to that (sadly a movie but not a hindi movie). so anyway the car is jump started and everythig is hunky dory.

but in my dream i am never found and i always wake up disoriented. and it seems all so real. not when you sometimes are dreaming and you know its a dream. i dont believe dreams are indications of the future, but i do think they are somethings you have been thinking of subconsciously and they project that. despite that, i cant wait to drive when i go back home.

Read more...

"bachpan sei hi na...mujhei shaadi karnei ka bahot craze hei, by God" - Jab we met

movie of the week and more jab we met. i think its this year's best hindi movie. and after watching this movie i think kareena kapoor is quite talented and is simply a natural, when she wants to be. shahid kapoor has played his role really well. but the screenplay and the direction is the real star of this movie. the story is the typical boy meets girl, but the scenes are quite unique. which is basically how reality is. everyone has their own story to tell. even though it probably has the same path. a definete must watch. i loved imtiaz alis socha na tha as well and this is much better. definetly a director to watch for.

heres one of my favourite scenese. courtesy a youtuber. the songs arent that great though. so fastforward the first 1.5 mins

Read more...

venting 101

so on cnn there was an article about a rape of an 18 year old girl in saudi arabia. The case is that the girl while meeting with a male friend was attacked by 7 men, kidnapped and both were raped. The 7 men were jailed and given sentences ranging from 2 - 9 years. The major shock factor is that the victims were also given sentences of 90 lashes. And after the girl appealed, the court raised the sentence to 200 lashes because she had spoken to the media about the case. Sach bolna bhi ghuna hai! Her lawyer has been banned from the case and his license has been confiscated.

Heres what understanding-islam.org says about punishment of rape as per Shariah

"The Shari`ah has actually prescribed the punishment for four major crimes. It has prescribed the punishment for murder and other bodily harm, theft, fornication and qazaf (to accuse someone of zinaa - fornication - without adequate evidence). Besides these crimes, if a crime is committed against the community rather than an individual or if the crime is of the nature of religious persecution or if the motive of the crime is to spread a wave of terror through the whole community or if the crime is committed against the state, the Qur'an calls it "Fasaad fi al-ardh"[1]. In case of Fasaad fi al-ardh, the Qur'an has given four options for the person administering the punishment. Thus, the punishment may be severe or comparatively soft depending upon the nature of the crime committed and on the various conditions surrounding the accused. The punishments mentioned in the Qur'an , from among which one of the punishments shall be administered are:

Taqteel: Taqteel in the Arabic language means to kill in a very painful manner. One of the methods of taqteel, as adopted in the times of the Prophet (pbuh) was rajam, i.e. stoning to death. Other methods might include killing through the Electric chair etc.

Tasleeb: Tasleeb means to crucify. Crucifixion is the other option given by the Qur'an . Both taqteel and tasleeb are different methods that may be adopted to punish a criminal that in the eyes of the judge deserves no mercy and should not be allowed to live in the society.

Amputation of a hand and a foot: The third option is to cut off a hand and a foot of the criminal. This option shall be administered if the judge feels that the criminal has committed such a heinous crime that even if he is allowed to live, he should be made an example for the other members of the society and should not be allowed to live a normal life.

Banishment: The fourth option given to the judge for punishing such criminals is to banish them from their hometown. This option shall be used for such criminals who, in the eyes of the judge have the potential of correction and who, only due to their bad company in their own land had committed a grave crime.

Punishments for crimes other than those mentioned above shall be determined by the collectivity of the Muslims, through their legislative body. The basic guideline provided by the Qur'an for the determination of the punishments for other crimes is that no crime other than that, which falls under the category of murder or "Fasaad fi al-ardh" can be punished by death. Death sentence can only be administered in these two cases.

In view of the above explanation, it is quite clear that the Shari`ah does not determine the punishment for rape. There may be certain cases of rape, which fall under the category of Fasaad fi al-ardh. In such cases, any of the punishments provided for crimes that fall under this category may be administered, keeping in view the nature of the crime committed, the psyche and various other conditions of the criminal. For cases of rape, that do not fall under the category of Fasaad fi al-ardh, the legislative may, under the stated guideline provided by the Qur'an , decide about the punishment to be administered. This punishment may or may not be the same as stipulated for fornication in the Qur'an . "

Sometimes I am so appalled by the lack of logic, compassion, and understanding of these stupid judges in the Saudi court. I dont understand what kind of kick they get by showing they are so powerful and opressing the weak.

Their defense is that the girl was with a non-mahram and that she brought this onto herself. This kind of bullshit mentality just irks me. First of all, she was in a public place and the law says that you arent supposed to be with a non mahram in private. Secondly even even if it were something not permissible, there is something called compassion, something called humanity.

Isnt your kindness, your religion? Isnt your understanding, your religion? Isnt your actions, your religion?

how can you give such a sentence after all that this girl has gone through! How would they feel if it were there own child has to go through this? When will these people understand? I just dont get it. And why is this sentence so lenient for the 7 rapists. and since when did the judicial court in Saudi decide they can play God. The whole thing just irritates me.

I had an uncle when asked what is the city you would love to live in. He always said Saudi Arabia, since its considered by muslims as the most holy place. This is the opinion of many pple. They have this rosy image. But when things like this happen, the image gets distorted.

Its the worst for women. The restrictions are ridiculous. You cant drive. What if you have no family , what if you are a single women and have no one to depend on and have to work. and may have to drive to work, but you cant coz you arent allowed. Even for Haj which is your right, you need a mahram to accompany you. The law as I would like to blieve was written in terms that there is someone to take care of you and so you are protected.But things have gone a long long way. What if there isnt anyone, how can they prevent you from doing Haj!

SO SO Ridiculous

And you know what is going to happen now ,rather than seeing this as how screwed up the judicial system is in Saudi Arabia, this is going to be blown out in the media here and add to the alread y negative image of Islam. and alllllll because of these idiots.

I do think there is a desperate need to revisit these laws, there is a need to stop taking things as either black or white. My favourite hadith that I believe explains this concept beautifully is the story of the prostitute and the dog. A prostitute while passing by saw a thirsty dog which noone had bothered with. She filled her shoe with water and gave it to the dog. And it is said that God forgave her for all her sins, for that one act of kindness.

If it were upto these idiotic judges they would have probably beaten the prostitute and the dog for accepting water from her.

Read more...

sapnon mei jo roz kaha hai, woh phir sei kahoon..ya nahi

so today at work, i started working on a follow up to a project, although i really wasnt into it. And i really couldnt understand why the follow up was needed, coz everything was all encompassing and obvious. and to top it off, u know when you have one of those days where you really dont want to use your brain, where you hope everything will magically fall into place, where you dont even feel like going for 15 minute coffee breaks with your friends, coz you are feeling so out of it. where the office crush even passing by (thrice) has no effect on you. where your boss being out for the day holds no appeal to surfing online. (a great big of a deal since i sit right next to my boss). or listening to your ipod bindass. (i recently found out its considered unprofessional, and ive tried to kick this bad habit) but ive decided, to hell with it, i cant do without my ipod after 3, its like caffiene to others, so im just buying black headphones and wearing my scarf around my neck so its hidden and my hair covers my ears neway. yay. i promise however to stop humming and day dreaming on "aaj ki raat" from don)

i particularly lvoe that song, i dont know why. its like the perfect song to day dream about someone you really hate and how you are bumping them off. hahahahaahah. i have all the scenarios imagined in my head for this song, that i beleive i can choreograph it, in a heartbeat.

ok im digressing.

so, basically its been just a really dull dull day. and then suddenly IT happens. just like that.

pm: i figured it out, you dont need to do anything. im sorry you had to waste your time to figure it out.

me: * so so so so so elated* Thats ok.

i was so happy that i dont even care that i wasted whole morning working on it.

Sometimes God does listen to me, Thank you =)

Read more...

things what one will do to (not) study

1. get up early really early in the morning
2. get dressed and kick oneself out of the door to venture out into unfamiliar territory (i.e local neighbourhood library)
3. make pit stop at bagel place all set to skip lunch since major studying will be going on but before that will have the hearty breakfast, the so called most impt meal of the day.
4. decide to smuggle in breakfast in library (saving more time)
5. find out library is only three floors, of which one floor is the size of my studio. (mild exaggeration, only mild though)
6. see big big sign of no eating, no drinking no nothing in library. figured that earlier, coz you know i have been in uni before, but decided its ok will do what i did in uni, eat in the library. oh the forbidden fruit hath taste not tastier (ok im sure thats not hte line)
7. decide what the hell am here to study not eat, will eat later so spread all my books and keep my ipod handy as well in case i decide to doze of with the silence.
8. and then.. on the third floor a kid starts crying, not regular crying but screeching.
9. this goes on for half an hour
10. decide wat the hell, i want to eat my sandwich and go home.
11. come home, make myself comfortable, make tea (yep tea) for myself just myself as opposed to for others, and then decide nows the time to blog.

god, i hate studying. times like these, i wish were vicky of small wonder, (yes the old old old tv show).

Read more...

201th post.

Suddenly I see, Suddenly I see

This is what I wanna be

Suddenly I see, Suddenly I see

Why the hell it means so much to me

-KT Tunstall

Read more...

meri umar kei naujawanon..

ok my post really has nothing to do with the above song. just heard it for the first time while watching om shanti om and i really like it. i think i should have been born in the 70s. or rather should have been in my 20s in the 70s. my mom thinks im quite a hippy. well neway so in rather unhippy fashion, i attended one of these networking events at work where a Director was giving the lowdown on what it is to be a Director, and what it was to have left a firm, that most pple would give an arm a leg to work at, coz it is all so mighty and powerful. But she left, coz she felt our workplace provides a better balance of work and family (yea rite) but she also honestly said that it was becoz she was passed over for a promotion. Soooooooo as all of us (ok maybe just me) hung on whatever she said, some asked a lot of questions varying from what is the male female ratio like. did you tell the current firm you wanted to strike a balance between work and family when you were interviewing etc.

Whats the big deal? I dont find any difference between working for either men and women. I think pple should really stop with this, people are people and thats just the way they should be seen. There are stuck up pple in both the gender. Get over it.

Anyway in other news Im going to be going back to school to attend a recruiting event. This is the time where Im going to be on the other side and Im not looking forward to being cornered by graduates. I know I was pretty stupid when I was in university, and would ask the panelists all sort of random questions. And now that I know we are so focused on our own work that we do, its impossible to know the answers to all these random questions. Im not really looking forward to going back to university, its a whole plane ride away and then awkward conversations with other pple on the panelists. But then everyone thinks this is a great opportunity for me tot get to know pple from other groups, but more importantly to stop being such an antisocial geek.

lets see how that goes.

Read more...

"Artificial intelligence is a wonderful thing. I told my computer that today is my birthday, and it said that I needed an upgrade" - Unknown

so today my sister sent me flowers at work. and i really didnt expect it. but the assistant who sits next to me was far more eager than me to a. find out what its in the box and b. to know who its from. while i was opening that, i got another call saying i have flowers for me. I told the guy that i think i already received it, after which hes like no its front of me. This time from a friend. But what really gave me a kick on how many pple are soooo into gossip and masala at work. Everyone wants to know who the flowers are from, and in particular who the roses are from and they go as far as to tease ohhhhhh your friend is sending you flowers, waiting for me to disclose more. hahah. but since im a smart cookie, i dont. hahaha. and then they ask so you must be pretty special to your sister for her to send you flowers. lol. thank you. but, i still think the most embarassing question is for pple to ask how old are you, and then for them to go but you dont look like 26. which makes me think do i not act my age. and then further think what does acting ones age entail. its all in the mind. neway i think its quite nice to get flowers at work, pple you hardly talk to come and talk to you and wish you and just get to know you. i distributed some of the roses i got and it made quite a few of them happy. all in all a day that started out very blahish and ended up quite well. =)

Read more...

Dialogue of the year : "chutki bhaar sindhoor aurat ka taj hoti hai" - Om shanti om (or something on those lines)

*read ahead only if you have watched om shanti om or one of those who read the end of the book first.

ok so the movie of the week is om shanti om. and i have to say that im not much of a fan of SRK, nor do I find his "Rahul, naam tau yaad rahega" type movies fun. and I didnt think Main hoon na was great either. However, I do think he is a good actor when he is subdued. So neway the choice was between this movie and Saawariya, which by default gets eliminated coz I really dont like Bhansalis movies barring Black. yes, im one of those pple who dont need drama in everything.

Ok so, despite all that (im just tying to point out oh how so objective i am = ))I have to say that Om shanti Om is fun fun and fun from the word go! You cant help but crack up at some scenes. There were pple behind me who were cracking up like anything. It just goes to show pple would rather go watch a fun movie than a rhona dhona, no matter how mindless it is. You can never go wrong with making pple laugh. Its basically a spoof on itself, its funny and there are so many movie references, actor references and one has to see it twice to get more of the "inside" jokes so to speak.

So, storyline - the movie is basically based on this junior artiste SRK who is in love with the superstar of the time, Deepika Padukone. (I dont remmeber their character names so im going to call them by their real names) who is really pretty and has done a great job for a first movie. But she is married to Arjun Rampal, who is the producer of the movie. Arjun Rampal, I dont know why is so underrated. I think he has great diction, super good looking and when he does the english dialogues it doesnt sound fake like SRK or god forbid Salman Khan. Anyway so Arjun Rampal, bumps of his wife when she threatens to tell eveyrone and tells him about her pregnancy (yep yei filmy chakkar hai) neway so in some terrible fire which Rampal puts, Deepika dies and SRK dies trying to save her. All the above is happening in the 70s so the whole atmosphere is very 70ish. So fast forward 30 years, They are both reincarnated and once SRK realizes who he is, they gang up and try to take revenge on Rampal.

Giving whole lot of immense support is Kiran Kher, who is so superb. I think she is one of the major reasons to watch the film. When you see her in the scene, where she is supposed to be the quintessential "old mad woman" who warns Rampal from going in the house, which is supposedly haunted with the bhoot of Deepika Padukone. She is soo funny! and then her lines in the background make you laugh like anything. Then there is SRK's sidekick Shreyas Talpade, who has done his role really earnestly and comes across as endearing. I liked SRK in the first half a lot, but in the second half he is not as good. He hams quite a bit in his scenes with Rampal. But with SRK, you can see that he is so passionate about his scene that even when he hams you cant help but liking him. Not everyone has this quality.

The 31 star song which I thought would be no big deal is actually quite fun and really nice to watch. Other scenes I found funny were the filmfare awards with Akshay Kumar and Abhishek. Akshay Kumar is really good at comedy and I think there havent been many movies that have extracted that from him.

And other than the super sidey dialogues, which ironically are the USP of the film, Farah Khan's direction is great. Some dialogues were a bit repetitive, and they should have been removed but other than that I liked the ending song too, where everyone who contributed to the film are shown and its just nice for all the pple in the behind the scenes to be appreciated. Hmm so wat else?

Cant think of anything else, just simple advice to everyone to definetly go see the movie. Its fun, super entertaining, unpretentious and just mad. =)

Read more...

of the pardesis

once upon a time, in a land far far away, in the midst of the desert, there used to be a lone tall building. in the lone tall building, there resided the US Consulate. Earlier, a trip to the US Consulate had to be booked a day or two max in advance. As the world became smaller and the lone tall building became even smaller, it now takes a whole month and half in advance to get an appointment. and this time, its a whole different ball game when you are applying for work visa.

so thats the bad news.

the good news is that im going to go home for vacation. yayy. and between studying for exam, working and trying to shop for family members, this month is going to be a whirlwind. there has to be a highly negatively correlated inverse relationship with work and time approaching for your vacation.

Read more...

covering your eyes requires two palms and more

so i know a little late in the news, but i was reading up about the sanjeev nanda case. case in short, a wharton undergraduate, whose grandfather was head of indian navy and father owns some major corporation that deals with arms. so this guy and his friends run over 7 pple, of which three are cops. the only survivor, the only witness ath the point, goes hostile and says a truck ran over him. the parents of sanjeev nanda, post a humungous amount of bail money so that he can go abroad and study at INSEAD, in France. considered one of the worlds top business schools. fast forward 7 years, the case is still wide open. the prosecution and the defence are all "milawa"( in other words on the same side). the media is the only saving grace, not so much coz they care, but more coz pple want masala, but at least they are doing something. and thats a lot, considering the judicial system in india has gone to the dogs.

and i know this may be a long shot to say but i do think more pple go into corporate law than criminal law coz of less obvious thugs.

but wat also shocks me, is that how well reputed business schools can accept pple like this. is there no background check at all? does it alll come down to money and your connections. on some more googling, i read this interview by the above on some hotel website, now he manages a high end hotel group in India. Not anywhere in this interview was it mentioned about this incident. If you think about it, its a lot of crap, that they teach you in school. Nearly every MBA course has an ethics segment to it, most financial firms have yearly ethics lectures that you ahve to attend. It makes you think, if this guy didnt get into his own family hotel business, he might have ended up working for some financial firm. It makes you think if this guy is so untrustworthy that he cant accept responsibility when he does the ultimate thing of murdering someone, would he be so trustworthy in smaller matters of when things go wrong in the financial world. i think not. what does this say about the education system?is all this so called ethics that we have to follow just a farce? or the fact that one thinks that education is key for yes progress, knowledge, wealth but also for the progression of humanity. it just seems like rubbish now.

i read another article by varsha bhosle, written a while ago, where she correctly states that these kids if they were in the US and had done something like this. That would be it for them. End of career and definetly a long sentence. And so they know it and abide by the rules, coz they know their parents cannot bail them out. But in India, where the sab kuch chalta hai attitude is so prevalent, its a different story altogether. Personally, I do think there is some law and order in the States, even people with a lot of power cant cover all their tracks and end up having to do time. not all i know, but at least there are far more examples of justice here than in India. or even the Gulf. I wouldnt say arab countries are better either.

wat further bothers me is the survivors family and witnesses who go hostile. when i told this story to my sister, her rationale was that if the survivors family is ok with taking the money then perhaps its alrite. coz in all effect its a huge amount for them and can actually make their life better and sadly it may be that they would never be able to make so much. i still think that they should be punished and the survivors family should get compensated too. but then this isnt an ideal world. and that rarely happens.

perhaps sanjeev nanda isnt a goon, perhaps he was just a drunken kid who didnt care and things went horribly wrong and his parents did what all parents do, protect their child. not saying they are doing the right thing. no one is doodh mei dulawa.

but in every situation we are given choices, and sometimes we dont know what the resulting effect the choice has but we do know when we are doing somethign wrong. our conscience guides us.there is no excuse really , one is solely and only responsible for the choice one made/makes. sanjeev nanda should accept responsibility for what he did and face the consequences of his choice. there are no two ways about it.

Read more...

zamanei ko bida kar dei...[loosely translated in context i think..to hell with the world]

so i was listening to this song from madhuri dixit's comeback movie, aaja nachle (come dance), show me your jalwa while waiting for the train at the station. and sometimes its really quiet, while you are waiting and the song can be heard through your headphones.

so this very prim proper, elderly gora businessman, you know those kinds who wear pin stripe suits and have a hankerchief in their left/right pocket. so he was standing next to me, also wiating for the train, and then suddenly he starts tapping his feet and swaying. and yes i know, i was thinking the same thing maybe its not my music, so i lowered the volume and he stopped and then i increased the volume again and he started swaying again. hahahaah. i did it a couple of times.

its true, music transcends language, race, religion and culture. may we always have a lot of music in our lives. =)

Read more...

kitni baatein..


Kitni Baatein Yaad Aati Hain
Tasverein Si Ban Jaati Hain
Main Kaise Inhein Bhoolon, Dil Ko Kya Samjhaon
Kitni Baatein Kahane Ki Hain
Hothon Par Jo Sahmi Si Hain
Ek Roz Inhein Sun Lo, Kyun Aise Gumsum Ho
Kyun Poori Ho Na Paayee Daastan
Kaise Aayee Hain Aisi Dooriyan

Donon Ke Dilon Mein Sawaal Hain, Phir Bhi Hai Khamoshi
To Kaun Hai Kiska Doshi, Koi Kya Kahe
Kaisi Uljhanon Ke Ye Jaal Hain, Jin Mein Uljhe Hain Dil
Ab Hona Hai Kya Haasil, Koi Kya Kahe
Dil Ki Hai Kaisi Majbooriyan
Khoye The Kaise Raahon Ke Nishaan
Kaise Aayee Hain Aisi Dooriyan
Kitni Baatein ...Kyun Aise Gumsum Ho
Kitni Baatein...Dil Ko Kya Samjhaon

- lakshya (javed akhtar)

Read more...

"Sapne zaroor dekho. Bas unke poore hone ki ummeed mat rakho" - DDLJ

so at a dinner with friends, we started discussing if it we were without any stress, any responsibility, without parental pressure, basically without worrying where the next pay check comes from, what we would do. and its interesting to see a lot of pple (or maybe its just my friends) are into some form of "creativity". i say creativity in quotations coz there is creativity in everything, even if you own a small bakery/patisserie of some sorts and find a unique way to make your pastries, that is creativity. or if you are a programmer and discovered a new way to structure your code, or created new programs to simplify your work. that again is creativity.

but in the regular sense of what is considered creativity, is the arts. journalism, writing, entertainment, and sometimes even entrepreneurship( i so know this is not hte correct spelling).

so anyway, my dream job which again has varied from since i was growing up. in my preteen to early teenage years i wanted to be a detective (the xfiles kind and not the karamchand jasoos fametypes ) and then a radio jockey and then a journalist but over the last 3 years its been, a movie director or writing a screenplay for hindi movies. (only problem is my hindi isn't good at all) and interestingly my friends want to do interior designing, be a travel documentarist kinds (im sure there is a real word for this), write a book, be a singer, have a business that sells movie star paraphenelia to dumb teenagers/kids (ive been there), have a desi restaurant in a red neck town, soap opera star, talk show host, professional pool player ( i dont really know if there is something like this in reality).

i guess there are very few pple who do their dream job, occassionaly one will hear of so and so who quit their very stable very desi very professional computer programming job to join film school. i think it takes guts. it takes even more guts to realize that when you actually find yourself doing your dream job you a. are not even that good it as you imagined you would be and that you would fit very nicely and everything you do would strike gold and then it doesnt b. that it actually wasn't really your dream and more of a whim.

Read more...

The 161 million punishment

so the major news to hit the financial market today is that merrill lynch's ceo stan o'neal "stepped" down admist the $8.40 billion write down, most coming from CDO investments. So as investors lose money, pple lose their jobs, the ceo will pocket 161 million as he "resigns", an office and an assistant all courtesy the Bank, (read shareholders) . this just proves not everything in life is fair. in the coming months, merrill lynch and other banks too will probably announce that they are cutting employees.

i dont get it, what kind of message is this giving. Thats its ok to take higher risks and aim for high profitability, just so you look good, but when things go rough, you can easily bail out whereas the taxpayers (yep thats rite, tax payers ) and investors face the brunt of your bad decisions. Logically speaking when a company does well, the guy who "owns" the company or rathe rthe head of the company gets the most profit, so shouldnt the same logic apply when the company does bad! The govt too seems to be joining onto the bandwagon and is supposedly doing the "right thing" by supporting those companies like countrywide finance who are making bad decisions and giving out bad loans. and when the company goes bust despite the brotherly gesture of the govt, who, other than tax payer, is going to bear the brunt?

I dont really know the politics invovled in merrill lynch, nor do I know who is right or wrong. But i dont think changing the CEO is going to fix things, if it were that simple, this action would have been done long ago. maybe its a classic case of having a sacrificial lamb. or maybe not. one can never know. but i do think the problem is deeper than having a captain that was steering the ship too fast that it hit an iceberg, the problem is much deeper than that. to continue the analogy it lies in the make of the ship, the risk management team should have been able to see it, should have hedged the risks it were taking, the pricing of these products should have been more transparent and more accurate. its not just a single thing. and something tells me, this isnt the end of it.

Read more...

sometimes its just better to shutup

K: you're worthless
H: no....im not worthwhile
-Harold and Kumar go to whitecastle.

Read more...

hum tau aise hai bhaiyaaa...

ok so the movie of the week is laaga chunari mein daag directed by pradeep sarkar of "parineeta" fame. who is unarguablely a good director and knows how to shoot a scene, but the script is poor and even though the acting is good, one can only do so much. the movie is based on the small, poor but obviously super happy family in benares, and then due to the money problems, the eldest (rani mukherji) becomes a high class escort and supports the family and theres a track where the younger daughter (konkona sen) who is first oblivious to her elder sister's profession, and then comes into the know. I am quite mixed on this movie, there are hardly any light moments in the movie, but its not even a fully blown emo drama as well. I think the promos give the movie away and we hardly see the eventual growth of rani mukherjis character. one day she cant speak english and the next day shes flying off to paris to attend some conference. its a bit strange. then it doesnt make sense why she continues in this profession when she has enough money to do something else. i couldnt really sympathize with the characters. and the ending scene is just ridiculous. i dont know, i guess we have already seen the fairytale ending (i.e Pretty Woman) and thought it was cute and romantic, but here it was absurd and forced.

my only reason to watch this movie is kunal kapoor, who is so naturally cute that you cant look at anyone else when hes there (again that may be only me who feels this way). but all the actors have done a good job, especially the bengali ladies jaya bachan,rani mukherji and konkona sen who are very natural.

all in all a movie that can be watched on dvd on a rainy day, not necessarily the line-up-at the-ticket-counter-four-hours-before-the-movie nor the buy-online-since-we-think-the-tickets-will-be-sold-out.

Read more...

of the yins and yangs

so after a whole 2 month of coming home after 9 at nite i finally got time to go get a haircut and do my eyebrows. i.e self grooming. and look like a human for a change. filmy dialogue translation "ab insaan ban gaye hoon". ive been getting the subtle hints at work, of course polite ones, "why dont you straighten your hair, it will look good on you". "your hair is finally looking nice". i know. im perpetually having a bad hair day. so much that im contemplating buying badges that they sell in central park that say "bad hair year".

anyway so i normally get all this done at my neighbourhood desi salon, coz of the extra added "pyar" (read scolding) that i get when i show up after months looking like a junglee. they always yell at me saying why dont you come every two weeks like we tell you too. what can i say, i appreciate the yelling it reminds me of home.

anyway so i ask for a haircut and the hairdresser turns out to be a gay guy. and yes i know this is totally absurd and shallow of me and hypocritical, coz the laundermat where i do the dry cleaning of my work clothes is done by a chinese man, but i still find it weird to get a hair cut by a guy. and obviously i couldnt refuse at that moment and be like no no its fine i dont want the haircut now. especially after the manager had fit me in.

so i ended up getting the haircut. and it wasnt the greatest haircut ever. but it wasnt that bad either. however that being said, there are somethigns that no matter how old you grow, things that go out of your own comfort zone and its nothing to do with religion or culture or anything really, its just the way it is. like talking about "the" relationship with the elders in the family, its something you arent super comf doing. like even going to a doctor, i wouldnt want my mom to do my checkup. i am just too embarassed in front of my mom. there are pple who being desis dont want desis do their medical checkup, they feel embarassed and prefer someone else.

i guess we all have some hangups which we sometimes dont realize, and sometimes do realize although we know they really are quite stupid to have.

Read more...

a thousand splendid moons

so im not really that knowledgeable on politics, but i really cant understand what is it about power that makes people do what they do. in other words why would benazir bhutto after being exiled, after having seen the nawaz sharif episode where he was sent back to saudi, after having received many death threats, after being in the middle of several controversies, after facing the possibility of being jailed etc, why would she decide to come back?
i really dont get it.
and i dont even understand why her party would spend millions on her "homecoming" when they can spend that same money on something more constructive. i mean isnt that enough reason not to vote for her party.
what is it about power that makes pple go a little mad. its not just the big power i talk about. even small things like attending recruiting events, where you are on the other side now and graduate students approach you and try to impress you by asking you some "insightful" questions. and no matter what you say,pple hang on to pretty much every word you say. and though you knew you really arent that powerful in terms of hiring them, you feel good that pple think you can.

sometimes power is more to do with what others perceive of you and not so much the power that you are "given".

Read more...

A croire qu'aujourd'hui s'arreter etait exclu

(To think that today, stopping was out of question)

theres always something fun about watching wedding videos. watching pple, who are sometimes unaware that they are being caught on camera, let go and dance their heart out. with all the bollywood steps and all. oblivious to the fact that they arent the best dancers that ever were. but the sheer joy on their faces is (to quote mastercards catchphrase) priceless. this also can have adverse affects when someone is caught on camera picking their nose (thats where editing comes in). but i think more than that it even to the pple who actually watch their own wedding in polaroid form, it feels like an out of body experience. its the same i think when you watch your home videos of days gone by. its like you are watching another person, someone who you were, someone you may have been but are now not, and that time has passed, that moment is gone, and though it is something you look back at with lot of good memories, its still not where you want to be again.

you are happy to be in your present.

PS this is more to do with your home videos of your bad haircut days and not so much wedding videos. lot of pple want to go back and repeat their wedding day again with a whole lot of changes.

le contexte est plus fort que le concepte - MC Solaar.s

Read more...

kuch kariye kuch kariye nuss nuss meri khaule…hoye kuch kariye - chak de, india

so the movie of the week is chak de. normally, in sports genre kind of movies, the worst team miraculously ends up winning in the end. this is far far from reality. the opponent is usually the bad guy, its never ourselves or anyone within our team. its usually depicted that a team is rock solid with no internal problems of their own. i think this movie tackles all these issues, in particular, that sometimes one becomes so focused at achieving ones own personal goals, that teamwork takes a back seat. and we all know, you can never win a battle on your own.

i think sharukh khan is subdued, powerful, inspiring all at the same time. and i normally think he is a little over dramatic. but here he is very very good, the heart and soul of the movie. there is no moment in the movie that i feel when is this going to stop. the girls in team india have done a great job, especially the actresses who play komal, preity, balbir(sp) and bindiya. i think the emotions are very real. after a lecture one doesnt really suddenly become" good", the realization doesnt suddenly dawn on them, like in most hindi movies. in reality, there is still undercurrents of tension and being irritated at one another. this is realistically captured in the standoff between the coach and the senior player, where the senior player has to deal with ego or love for the game. and sometimes its hard to change. and how one has to deal with these kind of personalities, it comes across. i.e when sharukh khan tells her shes the only one who can help them win this particular match.

not only is this movie about winning, its about religion as well. but subtle not being too preachy. how sometimes, in fact i think we are the only nation that mixes sport with religion. so ridiculous.
then the movie is also about how pple still view what women can do and cant. and itsnot just some remote villagers who think that, but pple who live in the city and are supposedly "progressive".

all in all a great movie, with some great performances.

Read more...

the battle of the overeducated versus the "adequately" educated

so this is the age old question of how important is education to be "successful". everyone agrees to the point that every child has a right to education and its impt they should be educated at least upto high school. but what happens after that, at what point does your education stop adding that extra marginal value to what you end up doing for the rest of your life.

forbes magazine listed 7 of the top 15 richest pple are college dropouts. they probably just didnt see the point of studying things they werent interested in. a colleague of mine, outrightly asked me whats the point of me giving these professional exams. and why phds were giving it too, since they were overtly qualified for it. and his advice was that i should spend my time working longer hours, doing extra work for my boss rather than studying for this exam.

maybe. hes right in his own way. he started from ground up and has a substantial amount of experience, which in a way is something that cannot be measured no matter how many degrees one rakes up.

however, i do believe there is value in education. and true there is only a small percentage of what you studied that you actually use at work. and once you climb higher up the corporate ladder or decide to open your business, the further away you move from "real work". you move into manging pple/the business. experience, people skills and being able to see the big picture is what is key realy. even then i think there is nothing like the experience in being in university, there is no other environment where you have the opportunity to learn what you like, to make mistakes without being fired. most importantly its where pple actually want you to learn and will help you whole heartedly.

Read more...

"Meredith Grey: At some point, you have to make a decision. Boundaries don't keep other people out. They fence you in. Life is messy. That's how we're made. So, you can waste your lives drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them....." - Grey's Anatomy

so today i went to a lecture of someone whose considered as one of the "celebrities" in the math world. and i was kind of looking forward to it, coz the trio who created this famous model, one of them was teaching at our university. and this guy was another one of the trio. anyway, so the only thing which was kind of deterring me from going was that the event was in the office of this firm i had interviewed with. and it was a full blown 6 hour interview. which i had bombed.

so i thought what are the odds of meeting one of the 6 interviewers. (yes, i know pretty high since it is their office, but still they have a gazillion employees) and then what are the odds of them recognizing me. given that im the part of the not so elite back benchers and strategically choose a seat where i can quickly sneak out once i get bored. but like everything in life, if you try to run away from it it will find you. and it always has to happen to me. whatever, or whoever i want to avoid, i simply cant.

so not only do i see the head interviewer as soon as i get out of the elevator. but i quick thinkingly duck behind my friends (close call) , so he doesnt see me. i think ive saved the day. the interviewer walks rite upto the front row and is seated there. me thinking, i can so survive this. 20 mins into the lecture, interviewer gets up and goes outside, comes back and lo behold sits at the back, right next to me.

so ive managed to look down and scribble frantically in my notebook when he initially went outside, so he doesnt notice. but there is no way i can hide when he is sitting rite next to me. from the corner of my eye, i can sense hes looking at me trying to place me. meanwhile im still scribbling in my notepad, and as soon as the lecture is over i rush out, without taking math world celebrities autograph.

im sure its going to hit him in the middle of the night, who i am. haha. too late.

Read more...

can you have it all?

so these two weeks have been gruelling and i was not sure if i would like the rush, the stress, the excitement of doing things on the fly, or rather 10 mins before a crucial meeting. im surprised that i do like it, its completely the antithesis of my personality. now if only i can think of bullshit answers to tricky questions on the fly and still come off as smart. (the last part is the catch)

anyway, i was wondering its not easy to ahve it all. you may be really smart and be a real team player but if you arent arrogant about it, its hard for pple to take you seriously. im really not kidding on this. intuitevely you would think no, thats not true. but its so easy to be taken for granted.

my biggest pet peeve at work is picking on someones error and ccing it to your boss. sicne when does niceness take a back seat, we are only human and coming and talking to the person might be a better approach. and goodwill does take you a long way. another annoying thing is making sure the whole wide world knows whne you did one really small thing for another person. a favor given is a favor in return. but not this way.

Read more...

Jeevan hai, jaan hai, ya parchaayee hai

so this weekend, me and a friend played cupid to another friend of ours. there seemed to be a lot of common stuff between both of them and i was quite excited that i have officially become a "rishtawali aunty" now. (haha - NOT). me and my friend both were there as the "body guards". anyway it wasnt a complete lost cause. coz both pple, who were being introduced, (not in an obvious way of course) are friendly and good pple. sadly, they hardly spoke to each other. and the guy was more interested in getting his hair cut then talking to us. and he kept looking at his watch too. not a great sign. but in the end, both parties when questioned, individually of course, agreed that they would rather just be friends.

sometimes first impressions are everything. sad, but true.

neway, ramadan has been going along fine. just miss home a lot. and i mean a lot. and it has nothing to do with the special food cooked during iftari. (ok maybe a little) .

but theres something missing. and i cant explain the feeling.

on the other hand, sometimes someone says something or does something and then it feels like home.

at a turkish restaurant few mins before iftari, waiting (im)patiently for my takeout.
waiter: sister, are you fasting.
me: yea
waiter(big smile) *goes and brings a bowl of dates*

=)

Read more...

ramadan kareem

"The gift of hearing and sight are each a trust from Allah." Similarly, the gift of speech is a trust, for if it were not so the Messenger of Allah, praise and peace be upon him, would not have said: "If anyone disputes with another and swears at him, let the latter say 'I am fasting, I am fasting."- Imam Al Ghazali

"O who believe, fasting is decreed for you as it was decreed for those before you; perchance you will guard yourselves. (2:183)-The Holy Quran

Read more...

waqt ki qaid mein, zindagi hai magar..chand ghadiyan yehi hain, jo aazad hain

Started reading Dante Alighieri again. one of my biggest regrets is selling my norton anthology of literature. but it was a time when i was a student and after having blown up my budget in the beginning of the month i was left with zilch for the last 10 days. hard lesson to learn. and a new copy is just not the same as my scribbled on, highlighted, note written on the side, tageared comfortable version. nevertheless, the matter doesnt change and here is some excellent wisdom from "Divine Comedy".

There is no greater pain than to remember, in our present grief, past happiness.

Be like a solid tower whose brave height remains unmoved by all the winds that blow; the man who lets his thoughts be turned aside by one thing or another, will lose sight of his true goal, his mind sapped of its strength.

Your earthly fame is but a gust of wind that blows about, shifting this way and that, and as it changes quarter, changes name.

Read more...

p for politically correct.

so the latest thing ive been hearing at work from fellow colleagues is the p word. p for politics. everything gets explained with that word. everything. and sometimes drafting an email, a simple email that explains how things are, (without having to step on anyones toes or to put it euphemistically and literally (both not) without pushing them out on the street (i.e without getting them into trouble) becomes a complicated process. simply put, how transfer of blame can occur without actually taking names, but invisible fingers point, coz everyone still knows who you are.

email can get quite tricky too, since something like "have a nice weekend" can become "heres a boatload of work you have to do, but hey have a nice weekend". pure sarcasm. but sugar coated. ive never really thought of it that way until recently when i was writing an email together with a colleague of mine. and it took us 20 mins to write 3 lines. and it was my first peek into the world of office politics.

and yes, im quite aware of my surrounding, i know this is prevalent everywhere, even though i prefer to live in my little bubble. but i firmly believe if you work hard and do your work correctly because it is YOUR work and because you have pride in it, you can happily live your life without the p word infilitrating your bubble.

Read more...

wish it were a sunday.

so this weekend we took a road trip to the land of beaches, casinos, and buffets. in other words, atlantic city. i have to say though, the beaches are not very clean. and the highly touted trump taj mahal is really gaudy. and i really sincerely hope pple who havent seen the real taj mahal dont mistake this for the real thing. it is far far from it. but its still good fun and there are lot of fairs and its like a night long mela. still, worth a visit.

the other weird thing we found was : in a small antique shop in atlantic city we saw a framed picture of divya bharti. the lady who owned the store was an american middle aged lady who had a poster of aishwarya rai in her backstore, and exclaimed to us that divya bharti was an actress in the 80s who apparently fell to her death from a high storey building, some say pushed by her husband. and when we acknowledged that aishwarya rai is a bollywood actress, the owner of the store exclaimed angrily no! she was in bollywood now shes in hollywood.

okayyy..if only the rest of america knew that too. (just kidding)

neway my overall feel about the place. despite the bright lights, i still feel a sense of sadness. especially when you see elderly pple gambling away at mindless slot machines. there is really no level of skill involved in slot machines. and the overall probability of losing is much much higher than winning. but we are all driven by hope, hope of winning even when we are losing, hope of getting better at work, hope of belonging, hope of hope. perhaps its not the addiction that causes downfall, perhaps its the hope that sometimes drives us to the extreme. hope can be a double edged sword.

so anyway we nearly got kicked out of the casino as we decided to stop and stare at some pple playing poker or roulette or something i dont even know what it was. we werent going to play we were just looking. we dont even know how to play. however the dealer wanted to be mean about our existence and asked for our IDs and then the "executive" of the casino shows up and asks us for our IDs too. and as luck would have it, im the only one who didnt have my ID. and so he kicked us out.

i wonder if i should be happy that he thinks we look under 21 or i should be sad that racial discrimination is still existent even in happy-g0-lucky-atlantic city.

Read more...