Middle of the week

Last night, and I have no clue why I did this, I caught up with three fellow hacks, well Double-T does not calssify as a hack any longer since he does no work, and Snake man is moving on to TV (Rajdeep's channel), so it was basically Sharma and me. Well, Double-T and Snake man were around, but they were talking about pundits and dates and Monopoly. Maybe it was the effects of the 'Super Strong' Zingaro beer we were drinking. Again, I have no clue why we had Zingaro, maybe because I was tired of drinking Fat Man's glycerine-y thing called 'Kingfisher'. But Fat Man got as mention in the face-value section of The Economist, what the hell has gone wrong with Simon Long? (Hey, that rhymes) Next thing you know, the India correspondent for that fabled right-of-centre capitalist tome will be living it up in one of Fatty's parties with semi-naked women and all, I'm jealous.
Kinda like the party-man Thomas Friedman, you know the NYT Foreign Affairs columnist, who came down for Nandan Nilekani's (Friedman's new best friend, now that Arafat is dead) birthday, where incidentally Nandan's wife Rohini Nilekani organised a band to play Simon and Garfunkel's songs for Nandan. I knew the man had bad taste in shoes, clothes and cars. But Simon and Garfunkel, ouch! I'm not saying that Nandan should shake his bootahay' to some 50 Cent or Eminem, but god, anyway to each his own. talking of music, I forgot my CD's at home yet again and discovered just how bad FM Radio is in Delhi - I had to hear Kajra Re some twenty times in the one hour it took me to commute, and now I would ordinarily go into my thesis about how crappy road traffic is in Delhi, but because I am moving to the 'Big Guava' as Livinghigh calls it, I will refrain.
Now, getting back into bitching mode, Bossman and Second-in-Command went to a dinner thrown by Nandan for editors recently. Now, I know that Number 2 is a very cynical man and hates stupidity, but my god if the things he said happened, I think Vinod Mehta should get his head checked. Given that he has been told to wait for an ambassadorship, because the Congress Government has enough mouthpieces already, it seems now he wants to promote the IT industry. Mr Mehta lamented the lack of a 'central cohesive body' to promote Indian IT and BPO's. Excuse me, isn't there something called NASSCOM?
Talking of editors, Single-Daddy (despite running a pro-BJP outfit) was one of the few papers to defend Manmohan's defence of the Raj. I quote, "It is an acknowledged fact of history that the British (sic!) were the best colonial rulers in the world." Hard to disagree, I mean they did loot and pillage India, but at least they left behind a cohesive state. Unlike say the French and Belgians who are responsible for the mess in Africa. The Belgians by far and away were the worst colonial rulers, if you ever get the time to read some classic literture once you finish HP 6, check out Joseph Konrad's Heart of Darkness. The movie Apocalypse Now, which is one of the best movies ever made about Vietnam was based around that great novel, which might even qualify as a short story. Try and get a copy of Coppola's Director's cut DVD which is rumored to be six hours long.
The papers today are rather boring, I talk papers, because I have given up watching News TV, I find that so incredibly vapid. Maybe thats what happens when you start working in a magazine. ToI did a story on Rahul Gandhi's speed fetish, I wonder if he also takes part in the NOX races that happen on the outskirts of Gurgaon? Well, so rest assured if Rahul Gandhi comes to power (which he will one day) not only will Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (do a Google and find out what I'm talking about) be lifted but at least decent roads will be built. And maybe Omni-man will be banned from the streets once and for all.
But I did find it peculiar that a bunch of VHP Sadhu's went to our President (aka Rocket Rani - really!) and told him that Muslim houses around the Ram Janmabhoomi/Babri Masjid area should be removed. Huh? The President is Muslim, boys. Smoke more pot, and if you want to build that temple, for gods sake redesign it. The current design looks like a pink montrosity. Imagine Hawa Mahal mixed in with Chattarpur temple. Ugh!
One of my friends recently told me that this blog isn't gossipy enough. By that she meant I didn't write on anyones personal lives. OK, everybody is screwing everybody. Literally! Imagine every single bloody permutation and combination of friends you can find and then you discover that they're having sex, some of them even in office. Which makes for very interesting coffee table conversation as you can imagine. And some of them don't use protection, which is stupid. But, thats not the point of this blog, that would have been the point of a blog I would have written ten years ago, when I was 16, no wait, that blog would have been about me getting action. I find peoples lives dreary sometimes, good to write a novel, not a blog.
That reminds me, I should write a novel, after all the wanna-be novelist Psycho-Somatic is bunking up at my place today and tomorrow. Which means I'll probaly go nuts. Thanks for reading!