Long live Thursday!

Given the rather ramshackle condition of India's aviation infrastructure, I believe that by flying to Calcutta tomorrow I am putting my life in the hands of the Saville Row suited and booted Mr PeePee. PeePee whose single agenda was to improve the lot of India's private airlines (or rather Jet Airways) at the cost of Indian Airlines and Air India has kinda ruined the joy of flying for me. But, I bitch about PeePee too much. Now lets talk about that 'Old Witch' Mrs G (original). I liked today's HT graphic where Nixon and Kissinger bitch out Mrs G (original) and call Indians 'Slippery, treacherous people'. Thank god the cold war is over, and anyway as good desi's remember that Nixon was impeached (though that will never happen to ANY politician in India despite crimes far worse) and Kissinger has the blood of thousands of dead American troops in Vietnam on him, and anyway the President is dead and Kissinger is irrelevant. So much so, that yesterday, the good bumbling Bong in the cabinet met Kissinger's newest heir, Ms Condawondalezza Rice and signed some sort of deal with her by which we say "USA, USA, USA" like bumbling idiots in a WWE wrestling game.
Not that you heard anyone in the BJP saying how evil the Americans were. No, even the suave Arun Jaitley would agree with the contention that Mrs G (original) was a bitch. After all she locked up the man for 19 months. Anyway, you'ld be hard pressed to find a BJP man who will say that Mrs G (Italian copy) is NOT a witch. After all, given the rather relentless pursuit of BJP acolytes by the current government (all the hallmarks of a witch-hunt, sorry I did study Macbeth thats why the obsession with witches) Mrs G (Italian copy) is a witch and more. Worse she is Italian, and you'll hear hushed voices saying that "she eats pasta", then adding "without ketchup." Oh my god!
But, the way that Mrs G (Italian copy) has started to attack Hitler-copy Narendra Modi about the gas find is quite peculiar. The same journalists who were tom-tomming the rather dubious claims by Cairns and Reliance are now calling Modi a liar. Which I'm sure that Modi is, but surprisingly oily Aiyar is not attacking Modi directly rather using his fan-club to do it. Prominent members of the Mani Aiyar fan-club are ET and ToI, or rather their oil correspondents. All these oil and gas findings should be taken with a massive dose of salt. So massive in fact that you might die from salt poisoning.
On a personal note. I ate lunch at Nirula's Salad Bar in CP today. Quite sad whats happened to Nirula's. It seems that the coffee-bar revolution and more notably McDonalds and the Pizza jpoints have killed them off. Quite sad. The food is still decent though! So when in CP check out the lunch buffet at PotPourri. Rs 190+taxes well spent. More later in the day!

Bitchin' and Links

What the hell?
"Till modern airports are constructed, the latest aviation boom will remain a balloon that can be punctured anytime when reality dawns."
I mean, this is one of the few rational articles in the entire magazine and it ends like this. If you want to funnier gaffes, please read on at this website. But given that IRS data reveals that three-quarters of the readers of Indian business publications have monthly household incomes of under Rs 20,000, the ponytailed meister of spin via adverts might have hit some sort of a Jackpot. But no, the magazine even claims to be intellectual dropping names like some social butterfly. To give you some more classic examples, which make members of the desk in HT (at least when I worked there) seem unbelievably normal.
"The vast Indian hinterland will no longer remain devoid of the information explosion via the Internet."
I mean, can you really claim that "90% of your writers are MBA's" if they all did their MBA's in some unrecognised institute?
What the hell, I must be really, really bored to be writing all this stuff. Brilliantly lovely Wednesday isn't it. Given that I have to now go to the gym, its just going to get more brilliant. Plus, I was informed that I have ride a cycle to office. More about that later.
Anyway, if you are a really big Maria Sharapova fan, you can now download a grunt of hers as a ringtone.
This is creepy!
I think the Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes hook-up is really really creepy. But then again, virtually the entire blogosphere has written about that. Anyway, recently on NBC's Today show Cruise who is a priest of some sort in the Scientology religion (which is very weird) called psychiatry 'evil'. Well, here is the rebuttal.
Poor Paki's, no porn for them. Now how will the bearded one communicate with his followers?
$12million with a stroke. Ouch!
....

Desi Superman

Very short post, but great post-lunch humour!
I never knew this movie existed!

And before you give me that crap about Westerners not knowing anything about popular desi culture and any firang reviewer doing a Bollywood movie would be like Thomas Friedman's patronising articles in NYT, read this. Its worth it. I should really watch this movie, I hope someone somewhere has a VCD of it. I'm pretty sure a DVD won't exist.
Anyway, just as a teaser, an excerpt...
" Next up comes a completely unrelated scene in which a rich couple decides to give a gift of expensive food to an orphanage. But unbeknownst to the couple, the cruel heads of the institution take the food away and give the children their usual ration of bread. Superman shows up for no reason and, upon discovering the orphans' plight, he uses his telekinetic powers (what!?) to make the good food march out of the basket where it as being kept, dance around a little, then line up in front of the orphans. The stop-motion animation used to achieve the effect of the marching food looks a lot like the animated bits on Sesame Street in the 1970s, but with less technical proficiency. Come to think of it, the orphans probably could have animated this scene more expertly, because they might have actually cared about what they were doing."
More later.
EDIT : There is even a clip online of the hijacking scene. The movie is really really bad!

Governmental issues

I met a leading light of the opposition the other day. And he whined and cribed about the Italian and her acolytes. Yet he is in the opposition. An opposition which over the past two months has been desperately trying to unravel itself. This is despite the fact that the Italian's government is screwing up in virtually everything possible. So we are left with Prakash Karat being the opposition. But you gotta hand it to the commies, in India they are in the unique situation of being both in the ruling coalition as well as the opposition. So will they withdraw support? Nobody thinks so, at least right now. But come December 2006 when the Bongs and Mallu's (or whatever is left of them) go to the polls, many expect the ruling alliance to unravel.
Which will be a good thing. You see, what has this government done? Lets look at the more photogenic ministers - Mani Aiyar - he loves talking. All the gas in the KG basin must be from his mouth. Then there is P Chidambaram, aka Chiddu Chodu who has been banging a lot of blondes but doing almost nothing else when it comes to policy (but I have to admit that his demolition of Raghav Behl live on CNBC made for amazing TV). I mean just because the two brothers have told the world that they love each other all the cases against them get dropped? Wow! Just gotta love good governance. PM Sayeed, our power minister - to him I have one question and one question only, "Show me the power?" Dayanidhi Maran, idiot or jackass, make your choice. Like it or not the two men we have to thank for India's current telecom revolution are Sukh Ram and Pramod Mahajan. Yes and we know that they are both lovers of Gandhi (Gandhi's printed on reams of paper, that is).
PeePee and his master Sharadji. Well, their party has denizens like RR Patil who go around banning dance-bars, but while Sharad Pawar has done nothing really damaging, PeePee has ensured that a hitherto two-hour Delhi-Mumbai (or vice-versa) flight takes three hours now by allowing everyone and their uncle to start an airline. And virtually nothing has been done on the airport privatisation front. Nothing, zilch, because the loony left thinks it will take away jobs. Someone buy Prakash Karat a new economics book, please!
Then of course, the Bihari's - Raghuvansh Yadav has supposedly done a good job. After all this is the 'Rural Development' government. But that good work is more than ruined by Lalu and Paswan. Need I say more. Long live Bihar!
The Home Ministry has allowed the Naxal's and Maoists to get an upper hand in Bihar and AP, and further the cause of the loony left. We are going to be beholden to even more loony left very soon. And now the entire North East wants to secede. Someone described Natwar Singh as Sonia Gandhi's steno. Well, that is pretty much on the ball.
The problem here is that the opposition might crib and shout, might they have no alternatives. You see the opposition in India still talks about Veer Savarkar and MA Jinnah. People who have no relevance in my life, and for that matter the life of anyone born after 1975. The Emergency was a bad thing, yes, and will this Mrs Gandhi also decalre an emergency is what many in the BJP think. Yes, we shouldn't forget the Emergency, where the Press was censored and men had their, well, manhood corrected. But Rahul Gandhi is not Sanjay Gandhi (he's too sweet) and who'll play Jagmohan this time round?
Anyway, thats the morning rant on India's politics. More later in the day.

Transcribing blues

Big times bloosey day today, and I'm not even a big fan of the blues. In fact I've been hearing too much of The Strokes of late, which I must've mentioned before.

Anyway, I'm posting the lyrics from their song Reptilia here.
----

He seemed impressed by the way you came in.
"Tell us a story
I know you're not boring"

I was afraid that you would not insist.
"You sound so sleepy
just take this, now leave me"

I said please don't slow me down
If I'm going too fast
You're in a strange part of our town...

Yeah, the night's not over
You're not trying hard enough,
Our lives are changing lanes
You ran me off the road,
The wait is over
I'm now taking over,
You're no longer laughing
I'm not drowning fast enough.

Now every time that I look at myself
"I thought I told you
this world is not for you"

The room is on fire as she's fixing her hair
"you sound so angry
just calm down, you found me"

I said please don't slow me down
If I'm going too fast
You're in a strange part of our town...

Yeah, the night's not over
You're not trying hard enough,
Our lives are changing lanes
You ran me off the road,
The wait is over
I'm now taking over,
You're no longer laughing
I'm not drowning fast enough.
----

Anyway, so now I have to finish transcribing an interview. Transcribing interviews have to be the worst thing around. Awful is an understatement. You know what you need to recover from something like this? What I need is to watch a lot of Carmella DeCesare, who was Playboy's Playmate of the Year last year. Smokin'

Anyway, I did one better and I got a site where some very kindly soul has scanned pictures of every playmate centrefold from the 60's.
You know which Indian mogul has a collection of every single Playboy issue (at least when I saw it last) ever printed from the mid-50's. Well, its not fatty Mallaya, who has to make do with penis-enhancing Ferrari's that he can't fit into. But Arup Sarkar, better known as Aveek Sarkar's brother. In Calcutta too. So thats where ABP group profits go.
Sometimes the Indian media befuddles me, for example why didn't HT print the 'Sleeping Mulayam' on its cover. And why must we be subjected to the same inane Delhi University admission stories year after year after year. Come July 16, and Indian Express, that bastion of Courage, will send their reporters to tail some idiotic faccha and talk about the horrors of ragging. You want to do a story on the horrors of ragging, send an undercover reporter inside Ramjas or Kirori Mal. But noooooo... HT will then say that some fresher was made to mate with a bitch. As in a bitch bitch. I mean copulate with a dog. Um, other than the fact that such sickos don't really exist in Indian colleges, the correspondent involved who filed the story couldn't see past her hand and thought 'Wow!' Not that ToI is any better. And then six months later India Today will do a cover feature on this. Brillianto!
You want to see ragging, go inside a hostel. So my ragging involved being hit in the balls, twice and being made to carry luggage and having toothpaste put on my balls (which hurts like fucking hell) and then finally be appointed 'roller' to the resident dopehead, I still got off lucky. At least I wasn't sodomised by a beer bottle (Ramjas) or a 12" candle (Kirori Mal). Guess why? Because I was told that Stephen's is too classy for all this. Anyway I ragged juniors by getting them smashed drunk, which failed in third year because I found the two alcoholics in my junior batch who, well outdrank me. Well, cheers to them.
Anyway, they've found Jesus
A collection of Last Supper's (What's the code behind them?)
Someone spent a lot of time making this slideshow, and you must go see it. It's called A Mothers Tale, and its done using dolls. Great shit. Don't the horse bit though!
Bono wants to save the world
Chalo, back to transcribing.

Edit meeting blues

Sometimes I just want to rip out whatever little hair I have left on my rapidly balding head and scream, "Why me?" End of the day, I know I need to have more rigour in my stories, much more rigour. But, I'm an intrinsically lazy SOB. If you had to attribute one of the deadly sins with me, I'ld take over the role of 'Sloth'. Yup, Sloth is me.
Its raining outside, the weather in Delhi is finally bearable and here I am sitting in a climate controlled office pondering why's and wherefore's. Damn. I sometimes hanker back to the 18th century when I could have a rich landlord, screwing the peasant girls and smoking up while watching mujra's. That said, I don't know whether my family line ever had such characters.
Talking about family, I have to visit Calcutta this weekend. This is a 'have to' visit sort of trip to the city of my birth. No matter what people tell me about how lovely Cal is, my memories of Cal are, well, put it this way, rather unromantic and usually involve too much food. Way too much food. And the part about meeting relatives. I know my parents have 'fond' memories of growing up and doing all sorts of stuff when they were teenagers in Cal, but I grew up in Delhi and while Delhi, particularly South Delhi lifestyle and enjoyment usually involves how well you can throw money around, it is the only sort of 'growing up in a city' experience I've had. But this weekend its Cal. So lets see how it goes.
Now back to rigourous work.

Porn and the Indian male

Sometimes I get flabbergasted at the requests that I get from people I interact with. Today afternoon, for example, I got TWO phone calls from 'friends' requesting that I zap across the Riya Sen-Ashmit Patel video. Its a grainy video (and yet you can make out that the wannabe actress has ugly tits and hairy nether regions and she generally kept up her family name) and totally NOT porn, but the demand for the video surprised me a lot. I remember when the DPS porn clip came out that I must've gotten about a gadzillion requests for that video as well. And I just realised that if I had charged even Rs 50 a clip, I would've been able to pay my ghar ka broadband access for a few months.
Now this also means that I have a very 'dubious' reputation in the market out here, but it also shows how fucking sex-straved the country is. You know why I feel sorry for Anara Gupta? (and for fuck's sake, IT IS her in that video) I feel sorry because she made no money from her 'performance' (and this despite having ugly tits and a hairy you know what - Indian girls give Japanese chicks a run for their money when it comes to genital hair upkeep).
There is a crying need for good Indian porn, both in India and in the West. I mean, look at Sunny Leone. Here is a good Kanadian Punjabi-kudi making good money by showing the world her tits and pussy.

Nice tits too, but trust me, I've seen better looking chicks in Delhi. And I know better looking chicks in Delhi who'll drop their clothes for money (Just look at the daily classifieds under the 'massage centres' section in HT). Now pay them a bit more, legalise the fucking soft-porn business and let everybody make money no? Everyday, all sort of requests come to MasalaTalk, where you discover the dirty fetishes of this nation. Strangely enough, its not just the guys who are perverted bastards, but many of the girls as well. I know too many women who want to bed two men at the same time. No, but instead of getting hi-class porn, I get 'Girls of Taj Mahal#3' instead. Ugh! And try searching both DC++ or the popular Adult BitTorrent networks for Indian stuff and you get zilcho! Damn depressing.
But anyway, if you want to see a nice HOT chick, not desi, but HOT anyway, check out Barbara Stoyanoff here.

Survey and Linx

I usually hate all kinds of surveys, and I love to give wrong answers to surveyors. And this from someone who works in an organisation where a ritual sacrifice of an issue is made to the altar of the god of surveys on average once a month. Why don't I trust surveys? Because, a new survey I believe says that if you stay fat, you'll live longer.
And of course, there are those brilliant surveys conducted by organisations with a sample size of ten. Then there are Indian electoral opinion polls, which can never get anything right. Anyway, before I take off on some obscene Monday morning rant, there is a survey being conducted by MIT's Cameron Marlow, the guy who created the Blogdex service. The survey is a survey about Bloggers and the why's and how's of blogging. Take some time out and take part, a bit seriously.
Anyway, its a nice Monday morning and looking outside I can see not only the fact that the Metro construction has meant that the local station has a roof - aquamarine, but then again and its raining. Wonderful. Anyway, remember school, and all the stupid crass jokes you used to scrawl on the bogs. Well, here are some bog interesting scrawls from 18th century London.
When you know that the Japanese start taking 'Hello Kitty' a bit toooooo seriously.

Saddam has written a novel - Get out, Damned one.
And this is a gadzmo (in the true sense of the word I just concocted) that makes ice-cream
Gentlemen, a proven(?) way of extending your ding-dong
If you guys are looking to listen to something interesting for a change from the usual Boobney Spears sort of stuff, get the new album of The White Stripes. It's called Get behind me Satan, and I'ld dub it as interesting. Quite listenable.
Talking about Boobney Spears....
Outfits fer yer ding-dong!
Anyway, I must go now and ponder why the Supreme Court has taken away the right of Delhi-ites not to have billboards. Such a pity! Of course, if we did have billboards we could be awash in Purple and Red like Mumbai.

Sunday Morning

Very very lazy day, love it. After a week of running around in Bombay, I felt great today morning. I don't know if you have heard Faith No More's rendition of 'Sunday Morning', which is a wonderful song, and should go down as a great break-up song. Not that I am breaking up just yet.

Know it sounds funny
But I just can't stand the pain
Girl I'm leaving you tomorrow
Seems to me girl
You know I've done all I can
You see I begged, stole
And I borrowed
Ooh, that's why I'm easy
I'm easy like Sunday morning
That's why I'm easy
I'm easy like Sunday morning
Why in the world
Would anybody put charms on me?
I've paid my dues to make it
Everybody wants me to be
What they want me to be
I'm not happy when I try to fake it!
No!
Ooh,that's why I'm easy
I'm easy like Sunday morning
That's why I'm easy
I'm easy like Sunday morning
I wanna be high, so high
I wanna be free to know
The things I do are right
I wanna be free
Just me, babe!
That's why I'm easy
I'm easy like Sunday morning
That's why I'm easy
I'm easy like Sunday morning
Because I'm easy
Easy like Sunday morning
Because I'm easy
Easy like Sunday morning

I was just going through some stuff online after I woke up, and it wasn't trying to source new porn, which I now think I have too much of. But I found this site with some really funny videoes.
Liebography
It suddenly struck me that with my reading habit back on strong I haven't seen a weird foreign movie for a long time. Given that I slept all afternoon and evening, I guess I'll pick out a Kurosawa or something and start off tonight. I am currently however watching Mexico give Argentina a bloody good fight in the Confed Cup, no goals with ten minutes to go, and I really think that the Mexicans might actually pull one off on the Argentines like they did on the Ronaldo-less Brazilians. One month to go before I move off, so lets start to tie-up the loose ends. That also involves going to Calcutta to meet the grandparents.

Planes, planes everywhere, but nothing takes off.

I was talking to this character (and that is the right word) Rahul Bhatia who just 100 planes the other day and he said that by 2015 he believes that the Indian commercial civil fleet (not the private corporate jets that are used by Italian leaders of this nation) will increase to over 700. That stat today stands at around 200, and trust me Mumbai and Delhi airports cannot cope with this much. Sixty per cent of the nation's air traffic either originates or terminates at one of these two airports, almost a third of this is travel between these two cities (judging by the crowd on 9W 311 last night, there is still massive demand for mad Delhi drivers to get stuck at Worli and for Mumbaikars to be subjected to the inane violence of Delhi). Anyway, at the airport yesterday, there were at times two, maybe three announcements happening together, it went like "Jet Sahara announces the departval of its flight Deccjet 123456789 to Bangadelkata." Or at least it sounded like that. Anyway, unless the airports at both these cities improve dramatically, and the Italian obviously doesn't want to evict illegal Bangladeshi's from the slums around Mumbai airport even though Vilasrao Deshmukh, a Congress CM incidentally, sensibly wants to (unlike his unsensible Deputy CM, RR Patil who wants to ban those Whore, sorry Dance Bars - the man is a certified member of the Abhimani Ramdoss school of Public Policy) that airport is doomed. So now, PeePee, our dear Civil Aviation (sorry, Naresh Goyal affairs) Minister wants to build a brand spanking new airport somewhere in Navi Mumbai, complete with Hong-Kong style airport train (and HK's airport train is super-fucking-erb). Hah! say I. Actually, if we were to get a Shanghai style MagLev airport train in Mumbai that would be funnier.
So after a one and half hour delay, the plane finally took off. And I finished reading Mario Vargas Llosa's abso-fucking-brilliant book, Feast of the Goat. However, I disagree with the TLS assertion that this book 'has replaced 100 Years of Solitude as LatAm's literary masterpiece. Definately this book is far more contemporary, events in 1961 and 1986 seem closer than events in 1890, but I actually prefered Llosa's The War at the end of the World, which is such a killer book, I've read it twice. And my pick for the finest piece of LatAm literature isMarquez' Love in the time of Cholera, which is, in my most humble opinion the most beautiful love story ever weaved. I actually wanted to learn Spanish to read the original, but of course I then read Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Neruda, which is the best book of poetry ever. And I don't like poetry. Anyway, I have rediscovered reading and that is a good thing. So now I have four weeks to sort out my affairs, love life et al., and move off to Mumbai. Chalo, I'm off for the wekend.

Linx...

Spent an hour with the person I was supposed to meeet. Have gotten the comp in office up and running, Microsoft Exchange allows me to view my official email, well, until I move here once and for all that is. And I missed the interweb, my dear old interweb and all things wild and wonderful that the interweb shows me. Instead in Bombay I find myself in a sexually delinquent city where half the city is screwing the other half. Its bad. I still can't work out what a 'mental affair' is, and if 'mental' affairs stand for platonic brouhaha, then I've had several of those. But I still prefer the affairs where bodily fluids are exchanged. Anyway, I am still a Delhi boy at heart and even though many of my friends are from Delhi here they've all become Mumbaiya's, including Shekhar. Shekhar's paper, Mumbai Mirror, for all the crap cutting they do, did something very interesting lately, they sent out two of their young correspondents to canoodle on the streets. And then write a story on the weird Mumbai cops. Anyway, too much commentary, I have a story to write.
But for now, I will give you all some linx.. Yay! Now get up, strip your clothes off and dance!
Showered in Light, literally.
I want one, no it ain't a Playmate, its a new toy!
I have a bad feeling about this and thousands of Hero Honda's
I have a bad feeling about this and Bossman
more later...

Futility

I tried to be kanjoos and ended up seeing a crappy little place in Lokhandwala. Will have to up the offering a bit because there are some places in Juhu I saw as well. Even though it is far from the station, the place I saw had a big loo. Big clean loo is more important to me than big bedroom. Am delaying Delhi by a day, might leave tomorrow, no make that will leave tomorrow, because I must try and avoid getting sucked into the weekend here. Also dumped that stupid Haier phone which looked like a bad remote and was more useless than one. I also saw the latest entrant to the business magazine space, with a picture of Darth Vader on the cover? Compelling, eh? Everything in the magazine is compelling according to the ponytailed wunderguru, but I'm just compelled to tear it up. Brilliant examples of quoting corporate communicators (what the heck is that?) and some shady user in a Nokia story, getting the name of India's GM boss wrong and calling Toyota a relative unknown. "90% of our writers are MBA's" they scream, unfortunately all are from the ponytailed man's institute and if their business analysis is like this, man be scared very scared. I give it six more months. No wonder they had to deal with all thev rejection from journalists, tghis thing is more hare-brained than 'Let there be light', which incidentally is the school motto is Vir's old school - Mayo College Ajmer. Who was telling me their ad was innovative? OK, I love Prasoon Pandey's work, but the message, the message...
Have tons of meetings now, so gotta go off.

Rain soaked

OK, I am having serious second thoughts about Mumbai, firstly absolute idiots are getting paid twice what I do, plus this city is big river at times. Anyway, hopefully I will be able to find a decent place, and the office computers are not from the stone-age, in fact they are positively modern. Chalo, I'm blogging from a friends office in Juhu, I have to go meet some relatives now. And try and not get wet.

New phone yet again

The plus side about my job is that I am the resident reviewer. That is also the negative side of my job. At times you get landed with some of the weirdest products man has ever made. Like this Chinese contraption that I am told is a phone.

This is the Haier P7. Haier for those of you who don't know is a Chinese appliances company which is the world's largest manufacturer of refridgerators or something like that. Apparent, like a million other Chinese companies they also make phones. And when their phones don't sell in markets other than their own village (in Shanghai you just gotta have a Nokia) they come to journo's and ask what they are doing wrong. You see, they did all the MR correctly (yeah, right!) and phones like this are what users demanded. Huh?
I won't call this Fugly, that term is reserved for Indian porno actors, this phone is plain weird. And they call it the 'pen' phone, but it isn't a pen, and even it were it would be a very ugly (though 'bright') pen. Talking about Indian porno actors, why can't we have good looking women? Huh? Vivid Video needs to hire some Indian women pronto. And if you are a well hung guy who wants to break to the porno industry. Read these tips.
Just to prove I am not a sexist, misogynist pig, tips for those who have big titties too.
I was reading an article in The Pioneer today and they tried to say that the image that Mallika Sherawat has created of studying in a rural Haryana school is all bunkum and that she went to a big South Delhi school. But they didn't name the school. Well folks, Mallika Sherawat went to Delhi Public School, Mathura Road. And according to those who I know who went there (the twins among others - I went to Sant Kolombus as Z-14 spelt it) she was quite the fast chick. Not strange. And her house in Delhi is somewhere near Civil Lines. I think it is in Civil Lines. And by the way, her real name is Reema Lamba and her dad is actually a very nice guy. Sometimes the trivial gossip I manage to acquire is awesome!
Nice advert.
Nicer advert!
Anyway, I head off for the weekend, which involves me getting my little Alto serviced for the third time tomorrow and getting its windshield replaced. Me having to spend money, lots of it because of the screw up last weekend. And hoping that Kimi can pull off another win at Indy. It should be good, because next week looks frightening.

TV Today getting f***ed!

The Punjabi who owns TV Today - and thus the wonderfully sharp and fast channels Aaj Tak and Headlines Today, must be a very worried man. You see while NDTV goes from strength to strength, at least on the profits front, TV Today's abysmal results are mind-boggling. The Punjabi is more scared now then he was when faced with India Today's rapidly declining readership. According to the numbers donated to us by the Stock Bourses - TVTN's net profits are down from Rs 32 crore to Rs 16 crore, and net incomes rose only one crore to Rs 140 crore. The TV news ad-pie increased by some Rs 200 crore to Rs 500 crore this year, yet TVTN - 'Sabse Tez' was totally wrong-footed by the half-Bong and the other (limping) Punjabi. NDTV and TV18 have increased revenues substantially. And yet, even after these results, even more news channels want to come into the fray, with even more dubious ownership.
The first, and biggest in this case - is Jain and Jain Comapny Limited's venture into TV. We've seen how Zoom TV promotes half-witted celebs and models with 38C cups who can't speak either Hindi or English into the limelight - sort of. Now, we will see half-witted wannabe journos who might not know English (for proof read any day's ET) who will give you the news. After TVTN's results I'ld be worried, because I honestly believe that there is only TV media organisation worth its salt in this country - that of the half-Bong's. OK, so Prannoy has handed over all his shares to his daughter Tara, but still after losing Rajdeep they have held their flock very well, and Rajdeep is (according to the grapevine) pissed that none of his NDTV chela's (other than his driver apparently) left with him. I've never seen Vishnu and P Siddy happier, I believe they are getting great salary increases.
Talking of salary increases - where the fuck is mine?
No wonder the Punjabi is losing his best anchors and ad-sales people, because he don't pay them (and according to friends there has even cut down the late night drop-off's due to cost cutting). The loss of editorial people has also begun, and the riff-raff is staying behind. The riff-raff mind you are the types who would consider a dog getting run over in the parking-lot to be a huge story (no offense to dog lovers) but these guys recently slept through the first hour of the Advani melodrama, which like it or not was newsy. Even Chautala's Total TV had it on before them, I was just surfing, I don't watch TV News usually. Any Channel. They are all as bad.
I noticed the latest Tehelka, which, incidentally has launched a scathing attack on Sudheendra Kulkarni. Hmmm, Kulkarni is being made into a Rasputin (Advani as Czar Nicolas II?) over here, but the truth is that he really had nothing to do with this. According to a top-BJP functionary and a man close to Advani, the reason given for Advani's Pakistani misadventure and subsequent melodrama - Senility. This person is, well, fairly close to me and I have no reason to doubt him. And it fits into my BJP going senile theory.
Now back to the exciting dynamics of the Indian Washing Machine market! Yea!
PS : On a personal note, things are back to normal, somewhat, and I am feeling good because I heard some decent news. But today is chill with Mommy day!

I should have been in Paris

Some company called Indigo, a company promoted by a guy called Rahul Bhatia, who was once a Gurgaon based travel agent, but is also the Indian rep of Accor Hotels and Galileo and by Rakesh Gangwal, a former US-Airways boss has ordered 100 planes from Airbus. 100 planes, OK they are A320's unlike 'Ring'-o Fatty Mallaya's plan to run the Whalejet A380 in India, but 100 fucking planes. In Indian airspace. Even if they come at 10/year for the next years, this order itself will mean that the Indian civil fleet will increase a gadzillion times by the time I retire. In the last four days, Indian companies have ordered over 200 planes from Airbus and Boeing, plus options priced at over $5.5-6 billion at list prices. The size of the Indian civil fleet today - 185 planes. And #2, freshly Mumbai returned believes that the mess that the airports are right now will just gets worse and proclaimed that he wants to emigrate. The fares might be great compared to the airlines, but at the rate we are going, Indian airports might soon start looking like Indian railway stations - complete with the obligatory pieces of turds on tarmac. I don't know why, but I believe at least one or two of these airlines will fail. This is a complete re-run of the 1991-92 air privatisation drama. I mean just like media salaries are going through the cycle of 91-92 when Observer entered the market (I was too young to mastrubate then, so these are all single and double daddy tales), the aviation industry is doing the same, and just like media salaries are going to come down hard one day, so will aviation. 100 planes is unreal. Unless Airbus is giving planes away virtually for free, which many suspect they do, this is also ridiculous. PLus, what is this habit of Indian airline companies hiring people (Indians) who have driven big US airlines to the ground. First Ronojoy Dutta in Air Sahara formerly of United and now Gangwal whose former employer US Airways is virtually dead (and merging with America West). I shouldn't be so cynical, but the current insanity is mind-boggling, I just hope avaition correspondents can cut through the mess, oh that's my job too. Fuck, have to work.

Happy Days are here again...

If you guys haven't heard The Strokes album Room on Fire, do so. It is a great album. The papers are getting stupidly predicatble, only ToI carried a piece asking what the hell Mrs Gandhi was doing on an Ambani aircraft, interestingly, Anil's plane. Maybe now that the brothers are reported to be patching up (yet again - note - whenever some major birthday, anniversary or say the day Anil first dipped his wick in a women, all special occasions there are stories of them kissing and making up) Mrs G has promised that she won't let that idiot Maran be on Reliance Infocomm's case all the time.
Anyway, I'll post more later.

Serendipity

You just hafta lurve the interweb for throwing wild and whacky things. Anyway, small sampling of where the wild world of surfing has led me to today. I mean the funny and interesting stuff that is.
In case you didn't know this is how pregnancy happend - nice flash!
A stop-motion short film made using Lego's
Nice! Run your mouse over the image
Just this for now, must work!

Of Wertti and other demons...

Wertti returned from Nippon and got himself, among other things, a iPod and a Digicam. More importantly he got me Manga comix. What a friend! Manga defines Nippon's weirdity. I have a huge collection of Manga Anime cartoons - and these are not the sweet Pichaku or Pokemon type comix, these are seriously disturbing animated movies. Deisturbing because the Jap's notion of sexuality of sexual perverseness takes on a whole new dimension when you watch this sort of stuff. Anyway, so Wertti and I got like really stoned last night and we talked about Japan, and there are things he said that are well, unfit to print. And he made me listen to silly romantic J-Rock, what was the album called again Sad Sad Planet or something. Don't know why but it is still playing back in my head. The guy also got me some new lamp, will make nice addition to my soon to be new place.
Wanted to watch Mr and Mrs Smith but the PVR had no tickets. Sad. Anyway, today I have to gym and work out logistics about next weeks travel. I want to see if I can do both Bombay and Bhuj, I doubt it so the big city it will be then. I haven't been to Bombay in around four-five months, so a recce there would be good fun, but I doubt I'll have too much spare time because work will be a killer.
Anyway, life otherwise is rather sad sad life. But, what to do, can't back down because pride and morals won't let me do that so lets see what happens. I've semi given up though! No point flogging a dead horse.

Whacko gets away with it

No lewd acts on kids, no intention to commit lewd acts, no intention to serve alcohol to kids, Jacko gets away on all ten counts. Man!

Deleted

I deleted one post, it was getting overly dramatic and I guess I was acting like an idiot as usual, and it was getting too... well frantic. Watching the Jackson Trial verdict on BBC right now, must-watch TV. Will blog on verdict. Have heard that TV reporters covering the case have bodyguards to protect themselves against overzealous fans.

Ek naya Week is here.

I'm unusually bubbly this Monday, maybe its because I saw a great F1 race last night at the Canadian High Commission. I didn't have too many beers to make seem interesting as I had to do last year, but still, yesterdays Canadian GP was really good, and thats not because Kimi won and the Renault's both had luck run out (finally). It was a genuinely good race with loads of incidents and drivers screwing up - Button, Alonso, Sato and poor Narain (why does he pronounce it like - Naren?) having bad luck continue. I had also had a 830am meeting, and that is possibly the worst way to start a Monday, but I just don't know why I'm feeling nice today. OK, so I saw the weighing scale in the morning. Two months in the gym are beginning to show some small results and the accelerate the process I soon (after Thursday) plan to leave the booze for some time, and anyway plan to smoke less. I am actually looking forward to this week and that is despite having to work on a story I am already beginning to loathe.
Anyway, here are some links to brighten up anyone's boring day.
The Dictionary of Obscure Sexual Terms
The Menthol
The act of getting head from a woman who just moments earlier ate a numerous amounts of cough drops, thus insuring a pleasurable, tingly feeling on your cock. (et al.)
A complete history of drinks
The world's best restuarant
Jeremy Clarkson's latest review
"They say a Dutch bargee can swear for two minutes without repetition or hesitation. But in the new M5 I beat that easily. Why, I wailed to myself, can there not just be one big red button in the middle of the steering wheel which turns all this crap off? Why do I have to live in some German geek’s wet dream? And then to improve my mood still further, I came up behind a Rover that was being driven by someone who was a hundred and seventy twelve. In a temper I put my foot down to get past and couldn’t believe what happened."
(Buy 'Born to be Riled' if you haven't until now")
Unusual Cards
A collection of video game adverts from the 80's till present
2400 adverts, WOW! Damn this stupid Celeron machine in office.
Sex Advice from Men's magazine editors
"What are three ways to satisfy my woman every time?
Let's see. Don't piss her off, first of all. Don't talk too much. Hm, I'm trying to think of my most recent excursion and what I did right. I think I said I was sorry when I said something completely stupid. So apologize. And don't be too quick on the trigger; be prepared to be long-suffering in the sack to make sure she gets her cookie."
Anyway, I have to meet single daddy today in the evning, which might be a bummer. However, I am dying to see his new rainbow wardrobe. My dad's colour sense would make a gay man proud. Prof. Tellis where are you?

Chilling

I've calmed down a fair bit since the morning, did a few weights and am thinking that I was taking things too seriously, as usual. No need to blow my head over such things. I don't smoke up enough nowadays. I miss the old K, the college student of five years ago, who wouldn't give a flying eff about stuff like this. Work is making me grow weird and I suddenly realise just how much pot usded to numb me to the real world. Anyway, I am heading to the Canadian Embassy to watch the race, I hope Schumi or Kimi can make sure that Fernando Alonso doesn't run away with the title.
And this is a blog, and editing statements out is well, unfair. It kinda conveys my weird schizo-ness. Am much better, and it took no smoking up, but I could do with one though!

The future of bullsalad...

Is this the tragic future of Indian journalism?
2200 journalists, I mean that even beats the number of people covering the Advani vs VHP vs Joshi vs Togadia vs public sanity melodrama.
Now, for a moot point. How seriously do you take your job and how loyal are you to your office? Well, unless you have ESOPS you probably shouldn't give a damn. After all, you are a mercenary. Unfortunately, nowadays we have a horde of journos who are defenders of the faith. "My publication or TV channel strongest. You suck." These people also don't have any semblance of a life beyond office. Really. This is because such people, and one of whom whom I know really well, start to believe the bull salad that their editors feed them. "You are bad because... XYZ" Arre baba, if I hate what I am doing right now I'll quit. I know I'm good enough to get a job in several other places. But to start believing your editors (pardons to mine) about everything is a dangerous path to trace. Yes, eds are very smart people, but they have vested motives in telling other people that other places are bad, because they don't want their people to quit.
Secondly, any TV Channel, magazine or newspaper is only as good as its advertising revenue. Why do I say this? Because, it is a fucking business, get that in your head. Charity work is not the philosophy of any media house. How aggressive do you get when you do a story? As little as possible. Yes, tell the truth, but a balanced truth. Say Hyundai Motors are screwing up, but also talk about why they are screwing up and what their exit strategy from the screw up is. They may not be happy, but sachh kehte hai hum, na? I don't think Hyundai is as beserk as GM and starts to withdraw ads because of a few bad stories, nor is Subbu a Lou Gerstner. Now, true while advertisers must be kept happy, don't overdo it like the auto magazines - have you EVER read a negative review in a auto magazine, I mean you can't say that the WagonR and Santro look like pieces of turds with wheels because there goes your bread and butter. And then there is the peculiar case of India's #2 biz magazine, who puts a Nokia story (their cover story written by their 'media' editor) just after a two-page Nokia advert. Wow! (I'll skip the bitching about them putting Bob the Builder on the cover right now)
How much do I ever trust what I read in the media? Nothing, unless I had something to do with that story. There was this one time I did a story on cocaine use in Delhi, it was complimented by everyone, simply because I knew what the fuck I was talking about. How good will my biscuit manufacturers story be? It'll prolly suck to high fucking heaven. But, then again I don't suffer from byline loosies anymore, big deal, a byline is a byline is a byline. Who cares? I do my work as diligently as I can, meet as many people as I can and try and understand what the heck I am doing. For example, I now understand the plight of biscuit makers, something I will forget in an hours time when I am lifting weights in the gym.
I have no clue why there is so much angst in my system right now. It maybe because certain people have no fucking clue what they talk about. Not that I do have too much of a clue either.

Melodrama ends. Media speculation continues.

You have to love the news channels, Barkha Dutt, yesterday said the following words signing off from her show, "We leave you with the following thong." Thong? I mean Barkha's educational background is impeccable, unlike say the people at TV Today or CNBC. When she said 'thong' I doubt it was a pronunciation error, but rather a Freudian slip. Hmm.. Thongs. talking of TV Today, does anyone in the planet understand Jhujjhar Singh? Anyone? What fucking accent is that?
Anyway, when the Advani melodrama ended sometime yesterday I had a good laugh. This was predicted to last at least a week before Praveen Froth-adia went on bended knee to Advani and said 'Forgive me, I will now suck your willy', or something like that. News Channel trucks parked outside BJP Headquarters on Ashoka Road bloody created a traffic jam, and must have also created a frequency problem also. I mean why were we subjected to impure and disgusting Jinnah-love and then what followed. At first, I though Advani was like Hamlet, confused, unsure at first but carrying his principles to the end. But, even Shakespeare could not have foreseen Indian politics, where grovelling is an advanced art form. Just look at the Congress with Mrs G. But, will the the now seventeen hundred TV news channels have any of it? Nope. In the heat of summer, their correspondents go down to Ashoka Road and report that some senile BJP supporter from Rampur in UP has walked all the way from his village to implore Advani not to resign. Kinda like that joker who threatened to commit suicide when Mrs G didn't become PM, but there were only twelve hundred TV news channels then.
Loved todays ToI P1 cartoon, and if anyone saw the Dubyaman inside, that was cute also. The Ambani brothers spat (what is it with people whose names end in -ani.. Sindhi and Kutchhi fightercocks) is also getting boring. Tony Jesudasan, Anil Ambani's main man in Delhi (he the short, dark balding man tailing Anil A if you ever see/meet him in Delhi) is planting stories all across the media of an un-spat happening soon. But frankly, I'm bored of the Ambani spat, what I am interested in, however, is the future of Reliance. After P Chat bought Basell who also bought a lot of proprietary technology and a great R&D network, something that Reliance doesn't have. The petrochemicals fight in this country might be interesting soon.
Plus, I was hearing Red FM yesterday, and noticed something very strange. Some song which had the words, "Get your ASS on the floor" had the capitalised word censored. With a bleep no less. When did 'Ass' get offensive? I mean, socially progressive country that we are, for reasons I have elucidated in previous posts, has started censoring 'ass', or has Papa Poorie suddenly discovered morality? Either which way, this along with the closing of the pick-up joints, sorry I meant 'Nachh bars' in Mumbai are signs of a weird sense of morality entering our country. We must not start emulating the Christian Right of America. Long live our perverted nation.
Now I have to talk to the President of the Federation of Biscuit Manufacturers of India, yes, there is one. And yes, I always get the short straw on the weird story draw.

I do not have AIDS too!

It has been quite some time since I got a test done, which was way back soon after college. But, you see I am not big enough for ToI to put that in big bold letters on its flyer, because his Royal Saharaness (the new slim trim version). But I did love the headline, I kinda proved that the ugly man had been fucking around, fucking his khas whatever that womans name is and a multitude of air-hostesses.
Anyway, he doesn't have AIDS and Abheek and Diwakar were shown one large, big certificate saying that the man is 'HIV-negative', could be a fake test, but manunprotected sex even with Russian Tennis starlets is not a good idea. And he has lost shitloads of weight. So is the ToI right? Well, we'll have to wait and see. And I wonder why he said he has never laundered money and ignore the Sonia Gandhi wanting to kick his ass bit.
Heck, this was far more interesting than reading more about the Advasni melodrama in HT, which has made the entire thing an Advani vs Joshi thing. Murli Manohar Joshi, BJP boss, whatever votes they had from the young middle-classes of urban India can be kissed bye-bye. Make Arun Jaitley party president, or for that matter maybe even Pramod, but Joshi? That would make the BJP as unprofessional and unethical an organisation as Friengirl's office and despite increased readership her magazine still, well, for lack of a nicer word, sucks. (quite appropriate given that they do suck Murdoch's willy for a living)
Anyway, if you are a mediaperson in Delhi, please head to the Chinese and Thai Cafe in Gurgaon on the 16th. Bacardi is sponsoring an event there, free booze if you carry your media card people. Yummy!

Jaggery Village adventures

I have spent the better part of the last twenty-four hours either sleeping or in Jaggery Village, i.e Gurgaon. The village, which is seeing mall building at a frantic pace is setting itself up to become India's worst example of urban decay, worse than what was experienced in some of Bengal's industrial towns. Last night I was with Papamali and his wife (would that make her Mamamali?) he pointed out that all these fancy buildings with glass fronted facades that are coming up might well become just that - hollow facades in a very short period of time. Just looking at Ambience Island, an obnoxiously expensive property just after the border will give you an indication of that, a grotesque mall just outside a house that sold for one crore, which I think is one crore too much. I mean why would you want a mall right outside your house. As it was pointed out to me, the lack of zoning laws in India will come back to haunt this country someday.
And never ever travel in a non-AC cab in 45 (maybe more) degrees. I'm totally pooped. I could do with a nice refreshing swim. Must join some swimming pool or another. And I need a beer. By the way, His Royal Saharaness will be back with a bang tomorrow. On TV, in papers all over the place.
The ponytailed idiot, Arindam Chaudhuri is coming out with a business magazine. Seeing its delightful design, I give it six months, which is more than you could have said for his crappy movie, I mean even the 'paid' reviews were tepid at best. The ad in HT was funny though.
Meanwhile, the Advani melodrama continues.... To be or not to be.... Advani as Hamlet. Hamming away!

His Royal Saharaness lives. Confusion ensues!

Outlook in a remarkable piece of Outlook journalism, which involves putting rumours to paper (Their absolutely stunning rumour mill story on Reliance as an example), came out with a remarkable cover last week, "Have you seen this man?" it cried. The 'Man' in question being the Royal Saharness - Shri Shri (I made that up) Subrata Roy. (Now if you work for Sahara which means that you've either touched the mans feet or sucked his pecker you need to add any one of the following titles to his name - Exellency, Exalted, Divine, Godlike, or preferably all of them together plus some.)
Today, that other brilliant rumour platform - appropriately called Today (but at least it comes in Tabloid format) says - Noooooooo - HE IS ALIVE. So, in a brilliant piece of Frankenstein sci-fi doctors have made His Royal Saharaness recover from whatever ailment was afflicting him (which depending on who you believed ranged from AIDS to BP with Blood Cancer thrown in for good measure). Now a few weeks ago, ET, which seems to have recovered from its mad super-colourful phase of a year ago (must be because one of the suits at Jain and Jain Company Limited noticed the printing bills they were running up - which I believe is not too far off the mark actually) wrote that His Royal Saharaness had a succession plan in place for his loser sons. Whose weddings (no actually only the younger one) I went to (and I remember little amidst the Blue Label). One gets this and the other that - neither seems to get the Para-Banking part which makes His Royal Saharaness all his money (plus the bit where the Dawood sucking Samajwadi Party types also park their money with him).
Anyway, the big story remains the 'konfusion' within the BhaJaPa, who replaces Advani? What now? Who can make Praveen (I have Rabies) Togadia froth at the mouth? (Vir Sanghvi, Shekhar Gupta maybe? They have before.) Anyway, ToI did a whole page on Advani, short of an obit, they carried everything. In fact, when Advani dies they can reproduce this page more or less ditto. Anyway, the surpring thing has been the disappearance of Arun Jaitley and Pramod Mahajan. Both are in London or New York supposedly and are coming back today. CNBC actually had an interesting programme yesterday with Rajdeep, Swapan and CS moderated by Karan Thapar and people who watched it believe that it was the best show of the lot last night. Surprising, considering you had Swapan and Rajdeep around the same table.
Abhi kya hoga? I dunno, but I still believe that Lalu Yadav should not be aloowed to take advantage of this and come back to power in Bihar. That state is dysfunctional and needs better leaders.
I saw Bunty aur Babli last night. I still can't understand the plot, and Rani Mukherjee despite losing a lot weight is still flabby to be showing too much skin. But all said and done, the movie is a old fashioned musical. Its decent timepass, I guess. But I really want to watch D, its all about Dawood. No Mandakini under a waterfall though! Shucks!
I just thought this is a funny link.

Advani quits, media frenzy ensues

Right now, TV news channels (all the fifteen hundred of them) and websites (the ten of them that remain from the fifteen hundred of 2001) are stumbling over themselves to get exclusives about why Advani resigned. Some say it is because of the treacherous Venkiah Naidu, others say because it was loudmouth Praveen (I’ll never win elected office) Togadia called him gaddar (traitor). This is fun, and these are the times I miss political journalism. I’m sure Rajdeep hates not being on air right now. Surprisingly, Advani’s political epitaph appeared in today’s Economic Times of all places while the Congress mouthpieces Indian Express and Hindustan Times decided to call Advani a great man.
Anyway, a sort of unbiased version of events goes like this – Pakistan invites Advani to come and see ancestral home, Advani accepts, goes along with motley-crew of journos who want to eat beef. Advani gives speech to Paki legislators (who have no influence anyway) and says Jinnah’s 1947 speech marked him as a ‘secular’ man (only that speech, he clarified after the butter had become opaque). Sangh Parivar loudmouths Sudarshan and Togadia go mad and start frothing at the mouth, which they do periodically anyway and call Advani a f***ing ***hole (or something like that). Media in India laps it all up and starts speculating on future of BJP. Advani supporters like Arun Jaitley run off abroad, Venkiah Naidu sees opportunity to take back party presidentship (after years of nothingness) and starts plotting along with Barbie-doll fetish-vali Uma Bharti. More media frenzy ensues, unfortunately Advani fan and top-dog (or top-god if you please) journo Prabhu Chawla (known to all those who love or hate him as PC) is in Stanford giving boring speeches to desi students there (while India Today’s Mumbai office leaves in droves – reminds you of Nero).
(I don’t know why, but I suddenly want to watch Caligula again. This arbit movie fascination thing is scary. Too many connections.)
Anyway, on TV right now, we have talking heads on every channel talking about why Advani quit. I managed to talk to one journo close to the man and he said, “What happened had to happen and it is good that it happened.” Huh? This kismat thing is too weird for me. Anyway, I think it might be my kismat today to watch Bunty aur Babli with Friendgirl. Argh! What I really want to watch are the banging scenes between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in Mr and Mrs Smith, I believe that they are rather ‘intense’. Or so I read on various blogs, where I also found out that the Gladiator with a Beautiful Mind, Russel Crowe tried to fix his phone by smashing it against a Manhattan hotel employee. Wow, Christian Slater feels up women (Grope-anator style) and Russel Crowe goes around smashing things into peoples faces. I think NYPD Blue could do with a rewrite.
By the way, I believe Jet has delayed their US flights, and the daily Mumbai-Brussels-Newark service won’t start on June 23. Hmmm, I smell fishy fishy.

Its Mangalvaar people!

I was talking to the new kid in office yesterday, he has joined us from Asian College of Journalism in Chennai where he must have been given a heavy dose of developmental (ie: socialist) teachings by the man with the bump on his head. No, I never went to ACJ, and I have no, zero, nil formal training in journalism. But, given that I have spent the greater part of my life (since I was five years old) surrounded by journalists, I think I know the profession rather well. After all, I doubt too many people can claim that both their single and double daddies are senior journos.
Anyway, the kid was telling me about how he wanted to be a journalist ever since his tenth exams, and I realised something. I never wanted to be a journalist. I sort of accidentally walked into journalism, and have done a fairly decent job ever since. Somehow, journalism seems to become me.
It shouldn’t have been this way, I always wanted to join the Air Force and fly MiG’s, yet my eyesight ruled that out and regrettably I did not want to join the civilian air corps, if I did I would have very rich by now. After college, I gave the standard MBA exams, like many people do and got two calls the first time round and three the next. I blew all five interviews. And then sort of wandered into HT, as a sort of stop-gap, before I went abroad for studying an MBA or something. And since the paper sent me on quite a few junkets, I liked the job. It paid jackshit, but I travelled more, worked less and ate better food than my peers from school or college. The food took its toll on my waistline, something I desperately trying to correct and the travel has dried up while the workload has increased in my new (well two year old now) job. But, I still love it. I still love the access I have to corporates, government and for that matter politicos. So, the foreign education plan got a bit screwed up, not that I regret it today, I know I might later in life, but not today. And life is all about Carpe Diem, baby, so now is now and tomorrow is tomorrow. I know this makes no sense whatsoever, but its fun.
Anyway, I was a bit surprised that former employers carried a picture of dead people on the front page. I always thought that dead people, rather pictures of people killed in a violent incident is a no-no for a major daily, but the News Editor, must have made the call. Not as bad as the Indian Express carrying a picture of charred bodies when a mental asylum burned to the ground in Nad land, but a tad tasteless.
The papers were quite boring today morning, going on and on about Advani’s statement that Jinnah was a secular man. I’m no Hindutva activist, but how can you call the man who espoused the two-nation theory secular? I mean Jinnah wasn’t a model Mozzie by any stretch, the man liked his scotch, but god, even thr Congress thinks Advani has gone a tad batty here. I think all old BJP leaders go batty after a certain point of time. Of course, the RSS Chief Sudarshan is battier and then we have our (bad) poet former PM who looks stoned all the time, in fact some people close to him say that is he IS stoned all the time. If true, along with the man with mane’s affliction for liking young (Pahari) boys, this is mindboggling. Wow, for some time in 2003-04 we had an otherwise-inclined President and a stoner PM. This country never ceases to amaze me, how can even think of leaving it!

GK-2's waterway

It took me twenty minutes from Savitri flyover to get to GK-2, because the rains had made the road into a raging river. Plus, the cops blocked the right turn under Moolchand flyover. I would love to strangle Delhi's road planner. Then again one visit to Bangalore, Mumbai or Kolkata and maybe any Indian city would make me change my mind. However, I still find it surprising that a thunderstorm casn bring the capital of the world's largest democracy to its needs. Instead of building Venetian waterways the government should look at improving drainage systems.
I notice Captain Gopinath, the chatterbox is using the media once again to promote his Rs 1 fares. Don't get me wrong, I think that Gopinath has done a great job, its only that he talks waaaaaay too much when you call him for something. I remember the first time I met him, he talked to me for two hours. Anyway, it is summer and load factors are down, Mani has cut ATF prices (not petrol and at $55 a barrel its unlikely) these Rs 1 fares are unlikely to survive into the holiday season. And anyway at Rs 20 for a bottle of water, he has a decent revenue stream. Lets see how the papers report it and lets see what people say about the case that Jet has against it in the US, it might be interesting. Alleging that Jet is connected to Dawood and company, something that Arun Shourie has been trying to say for years. I wonder how Praful will play this game. A quick phone call to Norman Mineta maybe?
Wertti is off to the land of the rising Sun tonight, lucky bastard and he is travelling Business Class too. I also wanna go Nippon the land of gadgets and Manga. Damn!
Chalo, it is getting late I'll post tomorrow.

Effing Monday.

If you are one who believes in the Bible, you know the part when Gawd chucked Adam and Eve out of paradise because they ate an apple he created Monday to punish them. Well, I made that up, but because its on my blog - It must be true. But as Mondays go, today hasn't been too bad, so far, only 11 or so more hours to go before I'll be blissfully welcoming Tuesday and a story deadline. It could have been worse, but it is not 434 degrees outside and I got parking and didn't have to find an abandoned piece of pavement to hoist my car onto.
Pakisatn seems to be the flavour of the month for politicos and journos. Advani and Mani both took their leagues of stormtroopers to Pakistan. I mean what does Pakistan actually have to offer other than good beef and cheap AK-47's. Not much. OK, so I won't mind going down to see Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro but why would I want to go to Pakistan other than for the food, maybe for the good Afghan hash, but Manala is better than Mazar - stoning wise. And even then, Karims is a lot closer. The funny thing is that a lot of the rum produced in India ends up in Pakistan, and if the governments were legalise the rum trade, it would be quite beneficial to both sides. For example, the Paki's could send us their molassess, we'll hoist it over to Mohan Meakins in Solan and send them the rum. Win-win for everyone. I mean, I think Pakistan is so tight-assed because they don't get enough booze into their system.
Read in the Express today that the Delhi government wants to make the Panchsheel-GK-Defcol-Nizamuddin nala into a Venetian waterway. As a old resident of Panchsheel Enclave, who has seen the little nala become a raging river during the monsoons, this is quite an idea. If they pull it off, I'll be surprised, but pleasantly so. Anyway, a colleague just told me that I have to go on a new thread altogether for the story I'm working on. Damn!

Sunday lazy sunday.

Slept till late, watched The Empire Strikes Back for no apparent reason, am watched a lot of History Channel got bored with Diana Hayden trying to teach me history. It might have been better if she was wearing fewer clothes, but to the boffins at Star, trying to sell History Channel with Miss Haydan is a bad idea. Because the programming is sometimes so incredibly dumb, show me more World War II stuff, you know like the battles at Gudalcanal and Iwo Jima. Am watching MotoGP right now while drinking some new Columbian coffee mother brought from her last trip, beats the hell out of the crap you get at any coffee joint (icluding mocha) now all I need is a hookah and life would be perfect. Have to attend a silly dinner later tonight, which will involve fishing out white shirt and (more importantly) having a bath, maybe even some dental and personal hygiene. Trying to figure out why Yamaha, who have Valentino Rossi on their rolls can't sell any decent numbers in India. John Abraham might have sped up moto drag racing with Dhoom but having the world champion on your rolls and winning races one after another should help Yamaha sell more bikes. Anyway, I must get back to horizontal; position.

Creativity.

I don't know who, I think it was single-daddy who told me once that"Every Journalist has a novel in him." Sadly despite shitloads of ideas for a book and after years of panic driven reading, thanks to the fcat that I did, after all, study Literature at what has today been dubbed India's #6 college for arts by India Today (to which I say, fuck me and at the end of the day the rather intangible element will always leave only one or two arts colleges of any note in this country and believe you me, it will never be LSR). That said, Stephens had the worst possible educators, don't even get me started.
Anyway, this tangential habit of mine is one reason I can't write a novel. And so is the fact that it is nearly impossible for me to write fiction. I mean I know my reportage can qualify as lazy at times, but I have never invented people and quotes for stories. Quite unlike many other journalists I know. Fiction just isn't me. I love reading fiction, but can't quite get myself to write it. Or maybe its because after all the childhood trauma I had (yeah, right!) of coming from a broken family, and the stories of lost loves, sex in the balcony and all that jazz, I have enough masala to write a semi-autobiographical novel that could qualify as an airport bestseller.
Bossman made me listen to some really strange music right now. I mean strange because it was by bands I had never ever even heard of. And because I managed to shoot myself in the foot by introducing boss to Gaurav Sorel, Sunday Night at the Chinese and Thai Cafe will be fun. But I have a dinner to attend before that. Thank God, no wait he reads this blog, I should say - "I guess it'll be fun, I'll skip the dinner." Decisions, decisions.
Anyway, It has been a year since I went on my American sojourn to Atlanta, New York and Boston with P Siddy followed by our Parisian adventures with Arun the French Mallu and in Italy by Vishnu the Babalog anchor. Man, I wish I could travel abroad again, my passport is lying forlornly in my drawer with no new visas. I miss the US, a bit. Actually, I just miss the bloody 'ponic Hep made me smoke in Boston. I miss Hep's guitar. Hep is a student at the Berkley School of Music. Berkley is located across several campuses in downtown Boston and Hep had this really sweet pad. Anyway, one year on, I'm stuck sitting behind an ancient computer typing away non-fictional bullcrap and P Siddy is interviewing prostitutes in the red-light districts of Meerut. There are still good reasons to avoid going into TV journalism.
Anyway, I have to meet some guy now in Nehru Place and after that I have to haul my flabby self to the gym. Fuck, its late.

We are all happy and gay.

India is a very progressive country. For homosexuals that is.
I mean how many other countries in the world can boast of a head of state who likes little boys. You know not the grandfather sort of liking, but... And before you get all jumpy on me and accuse me of defiling the name of the man with the mane who reverse engineered old Soviet missiles and nuclear bombs, can anyone conclusively prove to me that he is straight. You can't, because he does like little boys.
There was a school of thought in the NDA when they were nominating 'the mane' that getting him elected might be troublesome, because the itty-bitty secret of him liking little boys might spread out into the open. But, you see the media over here really doesn't (yet) care where Indian politicians dip their sticks, other than India TV that is. For gods sake we had a PM who lived in with a woman who was married to someone else and his 'foster' daughter is a spitting image of that PM. Then of course, there was Sanjay Gandhi whose pecker went into anything that walked. And the NDA couldn't exactly be hipocritical. I mean not only the leader, but also one of their constituent members have an 'otherwise inclined'. This man who leads possibly the potentially next 'big' state in India is famously otherwise.
And it gets better. At a party once, I was told by a guy I was trying to run away from (I value my virginal bum) that Baba G is also otherwise, well, actually Baba G is a swinger. This was told in the 'I should know' manner. I started thinking, hmmm, he looks it. Who would have thought it, the future PM of this country is bisexual. Wow!
I value my heterosexuality, but despite the fact that 'unnatural' sex is still outlawed according to the Indian Penal Code (food for thought, if you have ever given or accepted a blow job, you've broken the law, don't even start on anal sex) homosexuality survives at the very top in India. And of course, then there are PR types, fashion designers and air stewards. Proportionally more of these people tend to be prone to gaydom than well average joes. But, (and I don't want to be seen doubting every handholding incident here) more Indians tend to be gay than most. And this must have something to do with history.
For me however, it will have to continue to be women. Scarlett Johanssen won't be bad.

Gaming.

I spent the better part of the morning at a Microsoft presser where they finally launched Windows 'Starter' edition. In simple language, that is basically Windows XP PC with Hindi language support. Microsoft aims to sell this to a lot of people in India, which means that even more people will come under the vile grip of Billy G aka Beelzebub Part II.
Actually not. Y'see despite everything, there are actually few options to having Windows, Apple products kick ass, but are mundo expensivo, and the Apple dealer in Delhi, a chap called Arun Nath, works out a shadyy little place behind Uphaar Cinema Hall. The glizy Apple stores are nowhere to be seen, not even in Jaggery Village. Well, actually there is only ONE Apple Store which deserves that title and that is in the Forum Mall in Bangalore, and that isn't even a patch on the one near Times Square. A good iMac costs upwards of a lakh, and even a stripped down 12" Apple iBook costs over Rs 60k, if you import one in. I can get a pretty killer laptop for that kind of money and for a lakh, I can configure the ultimate gaming machine.
And then there is Linux. Very easy to use, if you understand code. All problems are easy to repair, if you understand code. Though there are versions of Linux which are very easy to use, load off a CD, the 'Live CD' boot concept will be big in the future, unless people can make Linux more compatible with lots of rather common formats and software, I'ld still prefer Windows.
And then there is the very fact that 75% of all the computer games made in the world work only on Windows. And like it or not, geeks might hate Bill Gates, call him a copier, a usurper of ideas, but the man is the greatest philantrophist the world has ever known and like it or not, (thanks to IBM's stupidity) he has made the PC easy for everyone to use. And this Hindi version of Windows will be a big hit, Rs 399 a month for four years looks like a good deal and this machine is a lot better than that Laptop joke being promoted by Kapil Sibal.
Anyway, the other good thing that came out of todays presser was that I caught Ranjiv of Microsoft and told him that Microsoft should look at launching the XBox 360 in India, despite the problems of piracy (Rs 100 games in Palika). Despite the XBox 360 being trounced by the PS3 in spec terms, Sony's half brained sales team in India will never launch the PS3 here. Not before 2010 that is. And because the PS3 will be Blu-Ray disc based, piracy problems will initially be rather low. Anyway, I must catch a Sony executive soon. With Ranjiv, I sat him down and told him gaming is BIG in this country. Like it or not, Gaming and Pornography will drive PC and Broadband penetration in India, not MS-Office or Adobe Photoshop. You saw what happened to GPRS and MMS penetartion when the DPS blowjob clip went ballistic. Similar things will happen in PC's and game consoles.
So anyway, net-net, I didn't get an assurance from MS on a XBox360 launch, but I will badger them constantly about this, and hold your horses, I'm trying to get these guys to set up a Halo/Halo 2/Age of Empires, online game hub in India. Something like the XBox Live concept. Do it over the PC, and make sure that only legal versions work, but do it nonetheless. Gaming will take off in India, and the plane is already lining up.
Edit: Added more, because I didn't want to make a third post today
I know I am a bit late on this entire Paris Hilton thing, but to be she is a coca bitch who'll do anyone who gives a g of columbian. Anyway, the blonde became famous for appearing in a bad home-made porn flick. Anara Gupta (I think its her) would have been a household name if Indians were as depraved as Americans. No wait, we are. And the girl in that video (Anara Gupta maybe video) is butt-fucking ugly, plump, and hairy, as is the woman in question. I mean her nether regions look like a badly overgrown tropical jungle. Why can't we have high-quality Indian porn, I'm sick and tired of seeing ugly porn. Because as a society, no matter what the BJP/Shiv Sena types think, we are fucking debauch.
Sorry for being sexist over here, but y'see reading the Vagina Monologues was beyond me, I am however looking for a decent copy of the Penis Dialogues. Am willing to exchange my Archie comics collection and a few CD's worth of grade-A Japanese pRon (and by grade-A, I mean grade-A), because unlike Bossman I can't afford to do the monthly $50 postage and handling from Amazon business. Anyway, I don't know how many people have seen the new Paris Hilton advert, you know the one where she is eating a burger while washing a Bentley. Anyway, you'll find the spoof here.
And here you'll find all sorts of odds for her marriage, you know that Paris is marrying Paris. How lame.
Guitar Wolf Jeans (WTF?? This brand is weirder than Raper jeans in K-Nags market)
The new Virgin Mobile ads - Breasts Head Ears

Daftness.

I don't know if it is the heat that starts to get to people, but this appears to be silly season. We have a mad Health Minister who wants to ban smoking everywhere, then we have HT take out a ad in ToI and then sign a 'no-poaching' agreement with each other (as well as rope in ABP). Now as someone (not directly) impacted by this 'no-poaching' agreement I would like to question its legal validity. Now what if I was still with former employers and wanted to move over to Jain and Jain Company Limited? Would they say, "You see, we are an equal oppurtunity employer but you come from Madam Bhartiya's pay therefore we can't hire you." The way I see it, no poaching agreements are a load of bull. And anyway, Jain and Jain Company Limited signed this non-legally binding piece of paper (and I have a funny feeling they know that it is not legally binding) AFTER they had hired half of HT's desk and a lot of people from BusinessWorld. You have to admit those suits over at Times House are really clever. And anyway the common enemy is after all - DNA. I don't know why, but even though I know that DNA has hired a lot of 'ethically unsound' journalists and people who don't know their ass from their mouth, I really hope they manage to do something in the media market. They have the money, they have the marketing knowhow, if they only had the editorial resources.
Anyway, the papers are rather boring today morning, and I have quit watching the evening news on TV as I find it excruciatingly boring. The only thing that caught my eye was a story about night drag racing on Nelson Mandela Marg in HT. Now this story was not written by an insider, because no insider (until he had a major attack of guilt pangs brought on by safety concerns) would want such a thing publicised. Expect the cops to shut this racing down rather quickly.
I got a new phone to try out - the O2 XDAIIi, now O2 is actually a virtual phone service provider and the main sponsor of my favourite EPL team - Arsenal. What O2 does is sell high-end PDA's with their own branding along with a high-end data service. Now in India, Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO's) are not around, as yet. So O2, which gets their devices put together by Flextronics sells these devices as high-end mobile PDA's in India. The problem is the cost of the service. I subscribe to GPRS on my regular Nokia 3200 handset, but for a PDA you need something called 'Hutch Access' which costs Rs 199 a month and here is the killer - 50p for every 10kb of data downloaded. Gigantic rip-off or what?
Anyway, the XDAIIi runs of Windows Pocket PC2005 and surprisingly it hasn't crashed as yet. But then again nor has my PC with Windows XP SP2. At office on the other hand, since they give us a seven year old operating system, a ten year old PC, but the loss making stuff on the other floors get newer machines. No fair. Every other major PRINT media organisation get fancy machines - at Jain and Jain they get P4's and even Madam Bhartiya doles out AMD Athlon systems. The saying I believe used in first grade is 'Kanjoos Makhichoos'.
Back to the XDAIIi, so far so good. I like the screen, I like the camera and because it is Windows, it is easier to sync with my PC.
Anyway I have to leave for work now. Or should I wait for the presser to start, with petrol prices going where they are I ain't driving back and forth.

Pissing off...

There should be a rule against three wheelers driving in the fast lane. Why one noisy montrosity should be allowed to overtake another one of those noisy things when they are both going at 20kmph. And not just the passenger three wheelers, but the worst of the lot are those goods three wheelers. I saw one from Piaggio the other day, which was as large as a mini-truck. Make them buy Omni's, they're safer.
And the new rule which is being promolugated by the health ministry will be a dramatic failure. Stopping smoking on screen. Hmmm, lets take a bet, nothing will be blurred out and a small font size one message will scroll across screen. Tell these guys that India might be in the throes of a HIV/AIDS epidemic on the other hand. I have now come to the conclusion that all Tamil Ministers are mad. No insult to Nad's, heck one good (meat eating, drinking and smoking) Tam Bram is my exec ed, but Tamilians shouldn't be put in charge of running things. OK, you might argue that Mani Aiyar is doing a great job - I'ld say huh? Mani has kept petrol prices down at the cost of petrol marketing companies, but he is essentially 'oil'ing his way to the external affairs ministry using 'oil' diplomacy as an excuse. Ramdoss and Maran are publicity hungry idiots who have done little work. OK, so Maran has ensured that his brother gets a DTH license, thats about it.
Now, there is that other clown, the son of the defeated Paki General, whose revenge on India for Pakistan's stunning defeat in 1965 will be played out 40 years later. Because the idiots at HT couldn't really see through the ruse that some old has-been politician and son of a DEFEATED general wants to promote a book. Guys, we fucked the crap out of Pakistan in 1965, its over, move on. Oh, and Sonia has finally made sure the Bofors case is lifted. Can't anyone see that this government is the most self-serving one... since, well, ever. We make the Bush administration look good in the self-interest department.

I watched a movie called Live Flesh or rather Carne Tremula in Spanish, directed by Pedro Almodovar. Big time skull fuck movie, everybody is connected to everybody else, everybody is screwing everybody else and some great acting and cinematography. If you have the time watch it and try and find a copy where the last two scenes don't suddenly start missing their subtitles, unless you understand Spanish that is. Wertti, Nag's and Sharma's brains got nicely toasted. Mine was scrabled. Maybe it was because of the second boomer snake j we did. Must remember to make a note of the fact that a drug scene in a movie isn't an excuse to smoke a j.
Friendgirl is depressed again and she thinks half the world hates her. I must spend some time with her, she needs a good talking to.