Monday, July 31, 2006

My dog Ceaser

My dog passed away this morning. A Dobermman, he was loyal to the family and a friend to the end. He developed complications of the liver. What a cruel way to lose someone you love. Ceaser died peacefuly in his sleep.

An Ode to Ceaser.

You came into our lives 7 years ago,
Small, innocent and a bundle of joy,
You touched out hearts with your playful antics,
And became a member of the family

I remember the days when you anticipated my arrival
Barking at the sound of my scooter
How you did that I do not know
But I always wished to come home and be with you

Your puppy eyes would make me forget my troubles
Your short tail never stopped wagging
You enjoyed playing with my shoes and clothes
Sometimes eating them too :)

I will miss you my dear friend
Your barks, your personality
I will miss the days I fed you
And the times I have spent with you

You were a child till the end.

Rest In Peace.
Ceaser 1999-2006.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

You Think English is Easy ???

A forward i got in my mail. Makes for interesting reading.

 
Read to the end...a new twist to an oldie

 Can you read these right the first time?

 

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present .

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row .

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Ads by AdGenta.com

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.

 

There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, or meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all That is why, when the stars are out, they are visib Le, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

PS. - Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"

You lovers of the English language might enjoy this

There is a two-letter word that perhaps

Has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is "UP."

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report ?

We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP . We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP , you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP .

When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.

When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP .

One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP , for now my time is UP, so........... Time to shut UP.....!

 

Friday, July 21, 2006

My opinion about the Madras international airport

This is my 100th post..yipee.

What a way to start....

I certainly have a gripe against the folks who run airports in India.

I went with my folks to drop my grandma at the Madras intl airport yesterday night. She was leaving for the U.S to visit her son, as in the norm for a lot of old parents who have their progeny in different parts of the United States. We got to the airport and the sequence of events that followed had me mighty pissed for the rest of the night.

1. No room for the car to park so that you can unload luggage. There's this police patrol car that keeps blaring - 'eay Santro, munadi po..eay Ambassador, luggage erraki vechutaena kelambu...' And this tow truck that keep repeating the same instruction but did not bother to tow a vehicle away inspite of a lot of them blocking access..the road being a no parking zone.
2. If you are looking for a luggage trolley, you have to use all your strength to pull one that is stuck to a line of trolleys. And a stupid braking mechanism to boot.
3. The crowd was chaotic, the place where you made phone calls, near the information board stinks of dried up piss.
4. The crowd was reminicent of the queue that is seen at the Mambalam railway ticket booking counter.
5. The cops would not let us in to escort my grandma (she's 73 years old and flying solo)because of security reasons - entry of visitors is banned, barked one cop. We had to beg folks to take care of my granny. Few of them promised to do that. Dunno what happened after she went inside.

The word ban has no meaning now-a-days. Ban the word 'ban.'!!

There used to be a system where you could buy an entry ticket for 50 bucks and go inside. Not anymore. The rest of the area around the airport- don't get me started.

Madras is an important hub for trade but one look at the airport will make you think twice. The reasons?

1. Poor infrastructure - I did not set foot inside the airport due to security reasons but travellers who have been inside will have 'nice' things to say about the place.
2. Poor traffic management. The road that touches the terminals is clogged with vehicles unloading baggage.
3. Poor customer service- rude personnel who don't give a shit about you.

I could go on and on...

Who do we have to blame for this?

I hope things get better after they finish the contruction that's going on at the airport.

Dare i hope?

Can't access your blog?

Are you having difficulty accessing your blog? Go to this link to do that.
 
 
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Reply to the letter that I sent to the EFF

Oops, i made some bloopers in the mail I sent to the Electronic Frontier Foundation!

Anyway, Rebecca of the EFF has replied back.

"Thanks for sending this on. It's something we are looking into.
________________________
Rebecca Jeschke
Media Relations Coordinator
Electronic Frontier Foundation
415-436-9333 ext. 125
rebecca@eff.org"

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Letter that was sent to the Electronic Frontier Foundation to cover Indian blog story

This is the letter i sent to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF.org) requesting them to cover the Indian blog controversy. Let's see what reply they give.
 
Email subject: Request to cover the events that transpired after the Indian government banned blogs
 
Hi Rebecca,
 
        I would to bring to your attention  the fact that the Indian government has been banning blogs under the pretext of protecting national security post the Mumbai bomb blasts on 7/11/2006. The chain of events started in the beginning of this week after a journalist-blogger had difficulty accessing her blog hosted by blogger.com. As word started to spread about this, some of the bloggers called up their local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to confirm their worst fears. It turns out that the cyber security dept of the Indian government intercepted some blogs that contained anti-government messages. The Department of telecom in India issued a directive to leading ISPs in India asking them to block certain blogs, this led to the ISPs blocking complete access to blogs hosted by blogger.com, Wordpress, Typepad and some links hosted by Geocities. This hasty action on the part of the Indian government has created chaos and resentment throughout the Indian blogosphere and the mainstream media in India is giving publicity to it. Prominent U.S. based blogging sites like Boing Boing have covered the event.
 
Will it be possible for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organisation that believes in anti-censorship of information over the internet and is against strong-arm tactics to supress information to cover this event?
 
Thanks
***** - (a concerned blogger)
 
PS: I have masked my name.
 

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Will the government ban 'illegal' voice calls?

You think? What next? Censor all thoughts that float around in everyone's heads?

 

 

Instilling fear of cancer in Indian smokers..

 
 

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Italians break World Cup

Pity...

Think Marco Materazzi did not deserve that head butt from Zidane?

Check this out..

Desipundit is back

The site was back on the 15th. Looks like they had some problems with their host provider. Everything seems to be all right.

Friday, July 14, 2006

What happened to Desipundit?

I can't access Desipundit. Every time i type in the url, I get diverted to the home page a US based web hosting site, Lunar Pages. Has Desipundit switched domains? Some one please tell me what's going on. I miss Desipundit.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Adidas World Cup ad - wanna see the full version?

Remember the Adidas ad that was telecast during the 2006 FIFA World Cup which showed two kids fantasising about their dream football team and playing with them. And that ESPN showed only a portion of the ad? Well, if you were fretting and fuming and cursing ESPN, worry not my brethren. Someone kind soul posted the entire video on YouTube.



Jardiniere
has a translation of the conversation that goes on between the two kids.

This page has behind the scene videos taken during the filming of the commercial. Check it out.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Carnage in Bombay - bloggers to the rescue

Mumbai Help, a help blog has an update on the blasts that shook Bombay. They aslo have a help section where you enter the phone number of your dear ones in Bombay and the blog volunteers  will try reaching them.
 
From the post
 
" If you're looking for info, please leave a comment in this post. We'll try and get info for you. Please leave contact info. We'll monitor this post for that purpose.

Also, if you see a query you can answer, please do so, and let us know via a comment.

If you're trying to get through to someone, leave
1.their name and phone number, and
2. your name and phone number.

One of us will try and get through and get back to you."
 
 
There is also a help wiki called http://mumbaihelp.jot.com/WikiHome where you can view the list the ones injured or dead (Rest In Peace), list of hospitals where the injured have been admitted and 3 more categories.
 
I tried to reach my uncle yesterday but the mobile lines were jammed. I used http://mumbaihelp.jot.com/PhoneNumbersToBeContacted to post my uncle's number. I hope him and his family are fine.
 
Godspeed denizens of Bombay.
 

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Conspiracy theory

Another interesting attachment I got from my friend. It's long but worth a read..Mu hah hah hah…..

 

Welcome back to < http://thelka.com/ > thelka.com (not Tehelka for copyright reasons, but Pronounced Tehelka) We continue the commentary  from last week's shocking revelations about the long term plans of Bangalore based IT giant, Infosys Technologies Ltd. The truth is slowly beginning to dawn on Indian business gurus and international military strategists alike. Why did Infosys recruit talent from all sectors of Engineering when most other IT firms preferred people
from Electronics or Comp Science background? Infosys has people from Civil
Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Naval Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Metallurgy, Chemical Engineering, Architecture, Bio Medical Engineering? Mining? This year Infosys also posted recruitment ads for experts in Thermo Dynamics, Ballistics, Advanced chip set computing and
neural Networks. What have these engineers got to do with maintaining and
upgrading application and business software in sectors like Finance, Insurance, Food Processing, Supermarket accounting and Warehouse management? - Nothing! What is the common thread between all these different professionals - apparently nothing! Then why are they all together in this sprawling billion dollar campus in Bangalore? Is there a deeper secretive operation happening behind the shaded glass domes of Infosys' campuses? Why are operations in different divisions within Infosys such a secret? Sometimes Infocions themselves do not know what happens in the "distant" Nortel OSDC, or in the Mysterious "Internet Business Group". < http://thelka.com/ > thelka.com interviewed several former

 

Infoscions who left the company under suspicious circumstances and often without termination benefits. We couldn't get a single person to give any facts about the inside activities of Infosys. In some cases the person was visibly shaken at the mention of the Infosys Bangalore campus. Is this a well planned conspiracy to threaten panicky Infocions who know too much? What does this campus hold that is so scary to mention? What are these crazy Infocions upto? Are they building a super secret military base right in the heart of Bangalore? Military experts agree that Bangalore is the ideal place for planning a Military strategy. Water is a key component in Chemical, Biological and nuclear research. Is this one of the reasons the Infosys campus is so near the Neeladri Water
Park
? With the talent pool available in Infosys, some experts predict it is
possible to build an entire Naval Fleet complete with Battle cruisers capable of torpedoes equipped with Nuclear Warheads, Surface to Air ballistic missiles and self guiding ICBMs based on GPS systems. Why does Infosys have a mega bandwidth communication setup? It is believed that Infosys has accumulated enough computing power by not discarding its old used computers and assembling all of them in the underground parallel computing superlab at Infosys City. This parallel processing environment is said to be capable of 365 Teraflops which is much much higher than all the FBIs supercomputers pooled together. This kind of computing power it is said should be able to simulate Thermo nuclear Fusion and Fission in Hours instead of Months. Speculators go as far as to say, Infosys controls its stock prices in the market with an advanced modeling system capable of predicting stock prices upto the Next Century! The recruitment in Infosys is purely on merit unlike government organizations like the ISRO, NDA and DRDO who are plagued and crippled by the governments own reservation policies. Creating a mediocre talent pool with no real visionary skills.

 

The recent nth attempt to get the GSLV rocket off the ground in one piece is evidence enough. Government departments are notorious for bribes and sabotage. The Recent < http://tehelka.com/ > tehelka.com expose of corrupt defense officials all the way to the Defense Minister is shameful evidence of the atrocious state of affairs. Research and development for Defense needs in critical locations like Siachen has been severely compromised by ill performing government Scientists

 

The necessity for brilliant Minds coupled with the increasing demand for tech workers from third world countries provided a unique setup for Defense Research which could sustain itself through activities like production support, maintenance and enhance 500 companies. This revenue
could be internally piped to the other group of Engineers who are full time
into Defense Research projects. It is believed that, presently there are more than 30 different projects being worked on by Infosys Engineers in the Bangalore Campus and elsewhere.


Why did Infosys donate Tata Sumo vehicles to the Local police Department?
All this hectic activity does not come without a price. The massive teraflop super computing power needs huge amounts of power and state of the art refrigeration. Infosys decided to start its own Nuclear Reactor in 1993 to evade the constant power cuts from the KEB. More cooling water was
required. The Nearby Neeladri water park was secretly purchased by Infosys.
Presently this water park is operated by a group of Infocions who are on Bench. Good Roads were required for transportation of Nuclear reactor Core elements, moderators and fuel in and out of Electronics City. Infosys poured in tons of money to the PWD and the KEB to get the entire Hosur Road
from Tamilnadu to Kormangala restored. The Nuclear Reactor work took off in
1998 under the Guise of "Infosys Park". Building 3 was the designated Reactor installation. This also doubles as a fully functional Diesel generator which acts as a front to visitors and Employees. The Nuclear
Reactor and the Diesel Generators are being run by Infosys employees on
Bench.

The Public Works Dept (PWD), the Karnataka Electricity Board(KEB), the KWSSB (Karnataka Water Supply and Sanitation Board), The BCC (Bangalore City Corporation) were bought off with huge sums of cash or blackmail operations. Sanctions, Land endowments, permissions, pollution control approvals were all gathered and filed within months. To keep all illegal and unauthorized
activities under warps, Infosys started getting friendly with the Bangalore
City Police. It started by donating hundreds of Tata Sumo vehicles. Every Tata sumo is equipped with a GPS system that can locate the vehicle within a few meters anywhere in Bangalore. All data is statistically analyzed at the parallel computing Superlab in Infosys City. The Vehicles were also equipped with radio signal controlled camera and Microphones. Of course all this gadgetry was cleverly welded into the frame by Infosys engineers at the time of the manufacture. In June 1996 Eighty
Infocions quit jobs and joined TCS in the Tata Sumo operating division in
Gurgaon, Haryana. Mysteriously all of them joined back Infosys in Mid 1998.


What was the master plan executed in the Tata sumo factories? How many more
of such doctored Sumos exist ? And for what ulterior reasons? The data gathered is used to maintain a huge database of Information about local gangsters, middle men and politicians and detailed documentation of all corruption deals amongst the gangsters, police force and top politicians.
Using this information Infosys controls the Entire Bangalore State Police,
the underworld and the politicians. In addition using the Information against Central Government politicians.
Infosys controlled the Entire country's Police Force, Political outfit,
Media outlet and TV journalism. No wonder the Indian Media seems to be perpetually happy with Infosys. Control of the Media also gives Infosys an edge in the stock Market. The artificially created media hype is done using Cash and Blackmail of top officials in leading publications like Economic
Times, Indian Express, Business Week share prices back home. It can also
Influence the world Media, thus pushing its NASDAQ listing by entire points in a day. It was also seen that Infosys shares dropped more than 60 percent during mid February last year. Experts speculate that this was done by mass selling of company owned stocks by hundreds of Infocions on bench in the Cybercafe.


This was done to gain a lower share price for distributions amongst its
employees in the now meaningless ESOP. Infosys plays a lead role in ushering in the new Internet. The wireless
Internet. Why does Infosys have strategic Partnerships and Alliances with
networking and wireless giants like I2, JASDIC, Microsoft, SAP, CICSO,CIDRA, Evolving Systems, Jetstream Communications, Last Mile Soultions, Lucent Technologies, Nightfire Software, Nortel Networks, Paradyne Corporation, Quintessent(tm) Communications, Riverstone Networks, YadaYada?
Observers theorize, that this will give Infosys unprecedented access to the
terabytes of data that zig zag the globe including all espionage operations by the United States, Israel, Great Britain, Japan, Germany and China. The value of such information runs into billions of Dollars. Infosys
is also working with Microsoft on the <
http://microsoft.net/ > Microsoft.net project. This will virtually put protected information of every Internet user in the world at the finger tips of Top Infosys officials. Medical records, criminal records, government tax records, internet browsing habits, e-mails sent and received everything. This means a smear campaign can be
organized on anybody in minutes. The Value of such information in the open
market, especially from buyers like political rivals, business rivals, military strategists are enormous. Infosys is uniquely positioned to control the Information networks of the world right from the parallel processing superlab, buried underground somewhere in Infosys City, Hosur Road. Why is there an increase in number of "Accidents" and sickness to key Infocions all around the world? motor accident in Kaulalumpur, food poisoning in Japan, fire in Milwaukee, fever an headaches in Mangalore,
sustained delirious coma in Bangalore (read our previous article titled
"Infoscions are Delirious" which talks about hallucinating Infocions dreaming of 60% pay hikes! Ha!). Tornado and floods in Bubaneshwar last year, Earthquake in Gujarath (whose effects were felt in the Pune DC. The geological survey of India apart from Richter scale recordings also recorded increased radiation levels in the Arabian Sea. The Russian - Ri=DFkoh=C8 Navigator ship recorded faint
readings of an undersea thermo Nuclear detonation in the region) Are these
really accidents or is there a darker shadow behind these happenings? Are these Infocions receiving threatening letters? No body will tell. We are all puppets. But who are the Puppet> masters? The high officials of Infosys? The Government? The inter party alliance of Defence Activists? A raving Lunatic within Infosys? The FBI? The CIA? Who? Who stands to benefit from all these psychopathic plans? Join us next week, when more reports pour in about the unbelievable plans of this once small time South Indian company to take over the rest of the world!


- reporting Live for <
http://theleka.com/ > Theleka.com

On the English topic

I got this attachment about the mangling of the English language by our desi brethren from a friend of mine a long time back. Happy reading. 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 I almost turned away from the complex where I have now lived for the last ten years. It was the Diwali of 1994, and a holiday at the company I had recently joined in Delhi. Since my arrival from Mumbai I had been living in the company's guesthouse, and taking advantage of the holiday went hunting for a flat. Living in the company's guesthouse was a constant source of tension since company bigwigs used to haunt it.

On entering the gate of the housing complex, I saw the board 'Trespassers executed'; it was this board that almost turned me away. I had a pretty dim view of residents who seemed to execute people who strayed into the complex. Luckily for me I realized that this was Dinglish.

The British brought with them English, rather the Queen's English, which our patriotic people would not adopt in toto. They modified it, twisted it, turned it, and garnished it, as they have done to Chinese food, and made a new language of it. This Indianized Rani's English is now available in a variety of flavours, specific to different regions.

Every city in our country has its own variety of English. All very innovative and entertaining. After spending most of my adult life in Bombay I had started confusing Binglish for English. In Bombay one speaks the language with a Marathi flavour, and raining is known as 'pausing' (paus meaning 'rain' in Marathi). This language had become my own and I was rather proud of my Binglish (I believe it should be now called Minglish since Bal Thackarey changed the name of Bombay to Mumbai).

Dinglish is very much like Hindi or Punjabi or whatever mixture they speak here. It is a very simple language and one can adapt to it easily. What one needs to do is to sprinkle your conversation with a few 'jis' and a Delhiite will accept you with open arms.

 

Haaji, you speak very good English ji. Just like my neighbourer Jaspal ji.” Out-of-Delhi people should note that in Delhi, a chap staying nearby is a neighbourer and not a neighbour.

Don't get me wrong; Delhiites just do not corrupt English with Hindi and Punjabi. They also corrupt Hindi and Punjabi with English. When you are introduced to someone, he or she is apt to ask you in chaste Hindi:

Aap kahaa se belong karte hai?” The word 'belong' put in the middle of Hindi words gives you a feeling of comfort, especially if you are poor in Hindi.

Mai to Lucknow se belong karti hu,” or if it is Patiala in place of Lucknow,

Assi Patiale nu belong karta si.”

For a non-Delhiite it is important to remember that speaking a pure language (whichever) is just not done here. After all, this city is a pot pourri of cultures; any pure language stands out like a sore thumb here.

I was once shocked when a colleague Pradeep Wadhwa advised me to take my car to a carpenter.

“Carpenter?” I asked. My car had been badly scratched and I wanted the paint touched up.

Haaji, aur kithe le jaoge?” He was nonplussed. “You wanted to get your car painted, no? Then go to a carpenter.”

“Yes I will,” I told him and slowly walked away. Later I heard that he had cast aspersions on my capabilities as a Medical Advisor, especially since I didn't know where to go to get my car painted.

As days passed, I became immune to Dinglish, but still it retains its capacity to really shock me at times. Different professions in Delhi speak slightly different dialects of Dinglish. Bus conductors, motor mechanics and vegetable vendors have a birthright to commit literary murders; I began to take them in my stride.

“Tire Penchur,” I gradually learnt was a sign for a repair shop for punctured tyres. While 'Denting and Penting' meant that dents from the car could be repaired and repainted. Probably the spelling of 'Painting' had been changed by a poetic mechanic who wanted it to rhyme with denting.

Mechanics freely talk about things like pechkus, which would make most wonder what sort of implement this was. After a few interactions with this breed of fellows I learnt that a pechkus was a screwdriver.

“This is pech,” said Gurpreet holding a screw in hand, “and kus is tightening.”

We will ignore the supercilious comment he subsequently made: “In English this is called a pechkus.”

If I have missed out mentioning restaurant owners in the list of persons who have a birthright to murder English, they should forgive me. For they are the original butcherers (that is the correct word in Dinglish) of the language. Many a time I have entertained myself proofreading menu cards in restaurants, and for this I thank them. A hint to those of you who may have similar interests, check the spelling of 'omelet'; 90% of the time it will be wrong.

As I said some professions are bound to murder the language and one ignores it, but what do you do when school principals do the same?

A colleague had joined my department and he wanted admission in a prestigious school for his twelve-year-old. I accompanied the duo, more for moral support rather than anything else. For the first few minutes the principal tried to tell us that he had no place for the child, but after dropping a few names, he rallied around and pointed out that his school was the best for the child. Among the various plus points of his academy he added:

“We have a rule – no capital punishment for our students,” my colleague and I looked relieved but puzzled, till he clarified…

“Discipline is very good in our school, but we believe in preventing bad behaviour, rather than awarding capital punishment.” Probably someone forgot to teach him the difference between capital and corporal punishment.

Delhi is a strange mixture of many cultures, but the Sikhs and Punjabis believe that they are the only ones who have contributed to this mess in this city. Punjabis are boisterous characters who believe that they are the 'Loins of Punjab'. If you were to correct them
“Lions, not Loins,” they would tell you, “Same thing, ji. Tiger, Tiger.” Now missing the species too.

However, Sikhs do not boast thus. Their names clarify that they are the true 'Loins of Punjab'. Every Sikh is known as Singh, while some are Kaurs, which denotes the female of the species.

Sikhs have their own peculiarities, so far as language is concerned; one is their dislike for joint consonants. They don't appreciate any one joining 's' and 'p' as in the word 'sport'. For the sake of clarity they call it 'sapport'. But it isn't that they cannot pronounce the word 'sport', when they speak of say India's support to Nepal they call it 'sport'.

In Bombay the language is much cleaner. Secretaries speak a prim and proper language, which could be called Queen's English if they stopped using the word 'man' so often.

“What man, Tom Cruise looks so handsome, no man?” Sandwiching Tom Cruise between two 'men' must make him as uncomfortable as it makes me.

Once I heard an airhostess tell her colleague, “The flight is all full, man.”

I casually asked her where she lived in Bombay.

“Bandra,” she said “But how do you know I am from Bombay?” I gave her a mysterious smile.

Secretaries in Delhi would never say 'man'. Neither do they talk about Tom Cruise. Not that they don't know much about films, but they prefer to talk of Jennifer Lopez instead, since most of them happen to be men. But we decided to get a girl in our company. Firstly we had to hire a headhunter to find one for us, then we had to spend days interviewing them till we found one who could speak English as it is spoken.

The best candidate while telling us about her background, family and education, said she spoke good English.

“Queen's English?” I asked.

“No Sir, my own,” she said. “I had learnt it at St. Anne's Sakool, in Delhi.”

I asked her if she was Sikh. She was stunned and till today she tells all who care to listen, how I could guess that she was a Sikh in a few minutes. When I related this to my friend, Tarwinder Singh, he said it was not difficult to recognize a Sikh.

“They have beards!” he grandly declared.

“Sikh girls?”

“No!” he added hastily. “Not girls, usually.”

Neither of them realized it was the word 'sakool', that gave her away. Other Delhiites would have called it St. Anne's Iskool. As stated she was the best and we hired her.

Once I had to send a large parcel to Bombay so I called her and gave her the parcel and the address. She told me that the courier's boy had left and the parcel could go only the next day. I wanted the parcel safe in the meantime, so I told her to keep it safely.

“Don't worry, Sir, I will keep it in my drawers, I don't allow anyone to touch my drawers.”

I wanted to tell her that it was a good policy, but the parcel would not fit in her drawers. I desisted since she probably did not know that 'drawers' was not the plural for drawer.

 

 

 

 

Exercise - what a feeling....

 
Hitting the gym after you recover from an illness is really exciting. I had my first workout today almost a month after i had chicken pox.
 
But something else happened when i was sick. A few posts ago i had written on how good it feels when i did aerobics. The buggers at the Fitness One, Ascendas center terminated the aerobics program because of dismal ROI and very few people attending the sessions and did not have the courtesy to inform me what happened. Hell, i had to hear it from a a collegue of mine who works out at the gym. That's not what you would expect from a top class fitness chain.
 
Anyway, coming back to today's workout session, i did 20 minutes cardio and stretching, I still have some sore thigh muscles after a weekend football game but a session or two of stretching should take care of that.

Friday, July 07, 2006

Why Brazil lost to France

I got this attachment from a friend of mine.The pictures i have attached chronicle Zizous's corner kick and how the Brazilian defence did nothing to prevent it. I like the description on Roberto Carlos. Hilarious!

The images are in the .bmp format so y'all may have to view the images in a separate browser window for better clarity.









BlogCamp 2006

Hooray!! The folks who help organise BarCamp Chennai are in overdrive more to organise BlogCamp 2006, which the organisers promise is going to be bigger and better than BarCamp. Well, BarCamp Chennai had it's shortcomings in the form of poor infrastructure(i do not like the idea of being cooped in a small hall with little legroom and the possiblity of fighting for room to get to the door in case you wanted to go to the loo. Sigh, if only i could swing like Spiderman., Broadband connections that were playing truant - folks who wanted to do photo blogging were asked to stop at one time because of less bandwidth, and the enthusiasm level was not that high. After the initial euphoria that is. Maybe the guys handling the topics put the rest of the audience to sleep :). One other disappointment was the absence of Dina Mehta, who couldn't make it.



BlogCamp Chennai 2006 will be held in September on the 9th and 10th and there are chances some of India's best bloggers will attend the meet. Preparations for the event have already begun and methinks a lot of surprises are in store. This is also the kind of event that gets popular through blogs- talk about the power of the internet and word of mouth.

The BlogCamp wiki is up. So what are you waiting for? Register yourself and spread word about BlogCamp 2006....

Keep visiting the wiki to get more updates on BlogCamp 2006.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Italy's World Cup 2006 campaign - does this bear an eerie resemblance to the 1982 tournament?

Italy's World Cup 2006 campaign- does this bear an eerie resemblance to the 1982 tournament?

I couldn't watch the semi-final match between Italy and Germany yesterday but I am glad Italy won.

Prior to the start of the 2006 World Cup, the Italian football fraternity was rocked by match fixing and corruption scandals  in the country's famous Seria A football league. Some of the people convited own some of the best clubs in Italian and world football. These clubs are in danger of relegation which is the worst humiliation a club can suffer. Rewind back to 1982 when the same scandal hit Italy and they were playing the World Cup under Paolo Rossi who was banned for 2 years prior to the World Cup on match fixing allegations. Italy went on the lift the cup that year and Rossi became a hero from a pariah. Will history repeat itself this time? We will have to wait for the final on the 9th for answers.

With respect to today's semi between France and Portugal, my favorite is Portugal. Come on folks, Italy and France have already won the World Cup. We need a new winner. Let's hope Portugal prevails.

Sonjay Dutt and The Great Khali


Gaurav and Dhoomk2's  article on Indian WWE wrestler The Great Khali generated a lot of buzz on the giant and in the Indian blogosphere. There is another Indian wrestler who is not as popular as Turly(the Great Khali's character from the Whole 9 Yards) becuase he wrestles for the TNA - the overly hyped up WWE's lesser known cousin. Wikipedia has a profile of Sonjay Dutt here. Sonjay has a MySpace profile here. Here's another link on Sonjay's career. I don't watch wrestling as i used to when i was a kid because i think it's crap so I can't really comment on Sonjay's wrestling career the way Dhoomk2 and Gaurav did. Methinks it's worth profiling Indians who are making headway in American entertainment especially in wrestling. It's sad there are no professional Indian born bodybuilders in the United States but who knows?
 
 

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Man heckling a reporter (in the US of course)

Found this funny clip on Buzz Humour about a lady getting heckled by a stranger. Has anything like this ever happened to Indian reporters who can get very nosy and annoying at times?