LOVE REIGN O'ER ME !!! Song of the moment !

Only love
Can make it rain
The way the beach
Is kissed by the sea
Only love
Can make it rain
Like the sweat of lovers
Layin' in the fields
Love
Reign o'er me
Love
Reign o'er me
Rain on me
Rain on me
Only love
Can bring the rain
That makes you yearn
To the sky
Only love
Can bring the rain
That falls like tears
From all high
Love
Reign o'er me
Rain on me
Rain on me
Love
Reign o'er me
Rain on me
Rain on me
On the dry and dusty road
The nights we spent apart alone
I need to get back home
To cool cool rain
I can't sleep and I lay and I think
The night is hot and black as ink
Woo Oh God I need a drink
Of cool cool rain
Love
Reign o'er me
Rain over me
Over me
Over me
Love
Reign o'er me
On me
Love...

The Invitation...

Rainey n Sweet Morphine or Sweet Morphine n Rainey cordially invite all the cybercookies to be part of their ritualistic journey of mehs and sighs from Alpha to Omega...

Venue : http://almehtysighs.blogspot.com/
Time : now n forever...or till we get a better idea...:P

RSVP

Right here waiting....

Life is getting funnier...and Morphine is getting diluted each moment ...It's like I am deliberately ignoring commonsense like plague....
I am taking chances now for all the times I held back and regretted later... But not because I want to do this ....

This is just not me...I don't know if I can ever be what I am out there...
It's so frickin frustrating ... Every moment holding back what I really want to say...holding back what I really want to do...playing to the tunes of some dumb girl I don't know and never want to know...Who am I turning into???

If I am doing this to be happy then why do I regret it so much??? Why is the sense of well-being so momentary that it slips from my hands the moment I try to bring it a little closer?

I am living so many lives together that I no longer have a clue to where I am headed ?

Hilarious !!!!!!

Why Did the Iraqi Chicken Cross the Road?

By Bruce Sterling March 03, 2008 | 6:45:45 AM

"Some of the references might require a bit of explaining if you weren't in Iraq about then (2005) or part of the transportation reconstruction sector. But you shoud get the gist."

Mike

Why Did the Iraqi Chicken Cross the Road?

Coalition Provisional Authority: The fact that the Iraqi chicken crossed the road affirmatively demonstrates that decision-making authority has been transferred to the chicken well in advance of the scheduled June 30th transition of power. From now on the chicken is responsible for its own decisions. 



Halliburton: We were asked to help the chicken cross the road. Given the inherent risk of road crossing and the rarity of chickens, this operation will only cost the US government $326,004. 



Muqtada al-Sadr: The chicken was a tool of the evil Coalition and will be killed. 



US Army Military Police: We were directed to prepare the chicken to cross the road. As part of these preparations, individual soldiers ran over the chicken repeatedly and then plucked the chicken. We deeply regret the occurrence of any chicken rights violations.

Lyndie Edwards: The chicken was lead across the road on a leash by me, after we made it and all the other chickens form a naked pyramid. I only did this because all the other soldiers wanted me to and I'm a moron. It's really not my fault. Besides, I'm pregnant.



Peshmerga: The chicken crossed the road, and will continue to cross the road, to show its independence and to transport the weapons it needs to defend itself. However, in future, to avoid problems, the chicken will be called a duck, and will wear a plastic bill. 



1st Cav: The chicken was not authorized to cross the road without displaying two forms of picture identification. Thus, the chicken was appropriately detained and searched in accordance with current SOP's. We apologize for any embarrassment to the chicken. As a result of this unfortunate incident, the command has instituted a gender sensitivity training program and all future chicken searches will be conducted by female soldiers. 



Al Jazeera: The chicken was forced to cross the road multiple times at gunpoint by a large group of occupation soldiers, according to eye-witnesses. The chicken was then fired upon intentionally, in yet another example of the abuse of innocent Iraqi chickens. 



Blackwater: We cannot confirm any involvement in the chicken-road-crossing incident. 



Translators: Chicken he cross street because bad she tangle regulation. Future chicken table against my request. 



U.S. Marine Corps: The chicken is dead.

CAOA Joint Venture (a reconstruction contractor): We would be willing to allow the chicken to cross the road, as long as we are allowed to evaluate the relevant transportation infrastructure and get 3 competent and graded bids. Given the overhead rate of 23% and forward depreciation…

Donald Rumsfeld: There are known chickens and unknown chickens. Did the chicken intend to cross the road? Heavens, yes! Was it her intention to cross it in the manner that she did cross it? Perhaps not. 



Scott McLellan: As I said before, what the president said earlier about the chicken incident is still operative. If I receive further information I will of course be glad to share it with you. 



John Ashcroft: The chicken was possessed by Satan and deserved everything that happened to him. National security prohibits me from saying more. 



Condoleezza Rice: No one could have possibly foreseen that chicken would try to cross that road to get to that side. 



John Kerry: While I cannot say that I do not fully support the president's actions in the chicken-road incident, it is certainly not my intention to state that, in conjunction with our long-time friends and allies, I would not have done it better. Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it!

Dick Cheney: The press is using the chicken incident to divert attention from the fact that Saddam had nuclear weapons and was going to use them on us. AAAAGH, my heart!!! Lay off or I'll shoot you in the face.



Colin Powell: These satellite photos conclusively show that there was, indeed, a road there. That the chicken had the intention of crossing this road is made clear from this recording made the night before in the chicken coop... Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.

PRESIDENT BUSH: We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.



HANS BLIX: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.



RALPH NADER: The chicken's habitat on the other side of the road had been polluted by unchecked industrial greed. The chicken did not reach the unspoiled habitat on the other side of the road because it was crushed by the wheels of a gas-guzzling SUV.



BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What is your definition of chicken? Does the chicken have any distinguishing characteristics?



PAT BUCHANAN: To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.



ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain. Alone.

RUSH LIMBAUGH: I don't know why the chicken crossed the road, but I'll bet it was getting a government grant to cross the road, and I'll bet that somebody out there is already forming a support group to help chickens with crossing-the-road syndrome. Can you believe this?!? How much more of this can real Americans take? Chickens crossing the road paid for by their tax dollars. And when I say tax dollars, I'm talking about your money, money the government took from you to build a road for chickens to cross. Where is my OxyContin? I'll bet Michael J. Fox is swaying and exaggerating the entire thing just to get some sympathy.



GRANDPA: In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.



OPRAH WINFREY & Sally Jesse Raphael: Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heartwarming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its life long dream of crossing the road.



JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together-in peace.



ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.



KARL MARX: It was an historic inevitability.



CAPTAIN KIRK: To boldly go where no chicken has ever gone before.



SIGMUND FREUD: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken
crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.



BILL GATES: I have just rolled out eChicken2003, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook. Internet explorer is an integral part of eChicken.



ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?



THE BIBLE: And God came down from heaven, and he said unto the chicken THOU SHALT CROSS THE ROAD. And the chicken didst cross the road, and there was much rejoicing.



SANDERS: Did I miss one?

Navy: The chicken upon crossing the road was painted and lashed to the curb.
 


Baghdad Bob (the Iraqi Information Minister under Saddam): The chicken never crossed the road! He is safe in Baghdad, miles from the marauding vehicles of the infidel! THERE IS NO ROAD!


USAF: "As you can see here in the target video, the bomb was locked onto the chicken...and there it goes...the chicken is still moving...still moving...and unfortunately passed out of the parameters of the guidance system so that the bomb completely missed it and hit the weasel instead. Gotta admit though, it's impressive footage..."

MOHAMMED ALDOURI (Iraqi ambassador) 
The chicken did not cross the road. This is a complete fabrication. We don't even have a chicken.

SADDAM HUSSEIN
This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

RONALD REAGAN
What chicken?

FOX MULDER 
You saw it cross the road with your own eyes! How many more chickens have to cross before you believe it?

AL GORE 
I invented the chicken. I invented the road. Therefore, the chicken crossing the road represented the application of these two different functions of government in a new, reinvented way designed to bring greater services to the American people.

MARTHA STEWART 
No one called to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the farmer's market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

JERRY FALWELL 
Because the chicken was gay! Isn't it obvious? Can't you people see the plain truth in front of your face? The chicken was going to the "other side." That's what they call it -- the other side. Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And, if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like "the other side."

DR. SEUSS 
Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road; but why it crossed, I've not been told!

JACQUES CHIRAC 
We will veto any resolution regarding non-compliance of the chicken whether is has or has not crossed the road!

AEGIS PSD (a security contractor): The chicken attempted to cross the road we were using. And after the chicken ignored numerous warning shots, we shot the chicken's car up and set the video record of the incident to an Elvis tune. That's what is now on the internet…

NSA: Of course we monitored the Chicken's conversations on the XXXXXX with XXXX, XXXXX and XXXXXX, using our national technical assets XXXXXXX and XXXXXX in XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, XXXXX, and XXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX despite the laws forbidding such spying without a warrant. President Bush said XXXXXXX and that's good enough for us! (redacted, for reasons of National Security)

Colonel Stevens (BAF commander): Denied, denied, denied. The chicken may not cross the road. Because I said so and that is that.

Diligence Middle East (another security contractor) You fooking C#nt! Get your feathered arse across the road or I'll choke the life out of you.

Controlled Risks (yet another security contractor) Chicken? Is this another way to refer to our esteemed Filipina housemaids?

Average Iraqi security guy. Chicken on the road? Let me get my flip flops…

FOX NEWS (Fair and Balanced): And Fox News' exclusive reporting has determined that the Islamofascist liberal terrorist chickens in Iraq have crossed the road. Loyal and patriotic Americans (Republicans All) have been "staying the course" to allow the president (God bless him) to announce MISSION ACCOMPLISHED at will. In other news, cut and run "pro death" antichristian Democrats have introduced a new death tax bill to steal money from hard working deceased Americans.

Average Afghan: They have chickens? Truly they have all the blessings of Allah…

No Purple Prose

The stillness numbs
yet stirs a fire
inextinguishable by mundane distractions
A fire that seeks
a breathe of hope...

Abid jan, I miss you...

I can't believe it ...I just can't ... Abid, one of the few who really inspired me and became a very good friend. An amazing guy , a bundle of energy, spontaneous, fun, always making others around him smile ... I can't believe that he was kidnapped and murdered in Parwan, Afghanistan.

Abid was a true Afghan, a true pathan who believed in a merciful God and who believed in his people and so he worked to bring peace and safety back to his beloved land.

My heart goes out to Ghazal and baby Iman. Iman looks just like her father. Ghazal is a strong woman and I hope both Ghazal and Iman get the strength to carry on.

I have Abid's number but I dont have the courage to call knowing that he won't be there on the other end to receive my call ... He has touched our lives in such beautiful ways...its hard to hold back tears now ...when I was in Delhi there was a part of me which was very sad ...and it was Abid who removed that part ...He gave me hope and taught me to look at life from a whole new point of view...I truly respect and love him for being such a good friend...

But I know we have to gain strength from his life and stand up against all who took him away from us... and let's promise each other never to stop fighting against those evil elements.

love and peace...

( the photo posted above is a edited version of the pic taken on-board Shatabdi Express on the way to Jaipur way back in 2005 when we were attending the Summer University together . I was sitting next to Abid. We had a small pretend fight after this beautiful journey( long story) ... I was so happy with him...I miss him ...)

It's confirmed now ...

I saw this on the net...

Murder of Abid Akmal/Afghanistan
Dear colleagues, I am deeply sadened by a message I just received from a contact in Kabul. Abid Akmal was a very courageous man working for AISA, the Afghan Investment Agency. Like so many other young Afghan men and women he yearned for nothing more than a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan and he did everything he personally could to work towards that goal. His love for learning and his generous spirit touched the lives of many, both in his home country and abroad. How do those of you who visit Afghanistan frequently feel about the current security situation? Since I visited in May, it seems like the situation has deteriorated quite a bit. I am to go back later in the year, but right now, I am just worried for all the bright young kids who are working so hard towards a better future.
Rest in peace my friend!
Here is the message I received:
Media Alert!
Abid Akmal, Deputy Director of Investment Support Department at Afghanistan Investment Support Agency has been disappeared since 6:00 am, 13 Aug 2008 from his apartment building of 3rd Macroyan-Kabul.At 3:30 pm his car was found crashed in Sorubi district near Khaki Tunnel where his ID card was found too. There was no sign of blood and human causality in the car. Abid Akmal is 25 years old and married to Ms. Ghazal Akmal BBC journalist for Pashto Service they have a daughter 14th months old named Eimaan “faith”His family and friends searched all the hospitals in Jalalabad, Laghman, Sorubi and Kabul provinces so far he is not among the injuries and deaths.AISA official has sent the missing report attached with his photo to all security related ministries and agencies strongly requested to investigate the situation at the earliest possible time.His family is also accused one of Abid Akmal’s friend who owns a mechanical shop and used to repair his car and was supposed to sell his car named Majeed. Mr. Majeed took him that morning from his apartment building. Mr. Majeed was arrested one day after the incident. He denied to be in Kabul but he was recognized by the eye witnessed early that morning. Mr. Majeed was kept for one week at Kabul Police Department and there was no development of the case. Later he was transferred to National Security Directorate where he is still kept but there has been no development in order to find Dr. Abid Akmal. All his family, friends and colleagues were pleading to all security agencies to launch a massive search in order find him safe and sound.BUT with deep sadness I must inform you that Abid Akmal a good member of AISA and my best friend who was kidnapped, has been killed. Dr. Abid Akmal’s dead body was found in Bagram district. He was buried on last Thursday 4th Sep 2008 in Karte Now Kabul. He was an innocent, highly educated, an intellectual, a medical doctor, writer and journalist and finally a great person to talk with and to know. He is not among us anymore. It in fact, is a tragic loss and has shocked all his friends. I personally got trauma and I am shocked by the tragic loss of my closest and dearest friend with whom I had a lot in common and can not even maintain my normal life.We are all wondering who will justify this loss to his fourteen month old daughter Eiman “Faith”.

I got mail ! Forwards again ! :)

Who criticizes all she sees?
Yes, e'en would analyse a sneeze!
Who hugs and loves her own disease?
Yes, Virgo

Who puts you off with promise gay,
and keeps you waiting half the day?
Who compromises all the way?
Sweet Libra

Who keeps an arrow in his bow,
And if you prod him,
lets it go?
A fervent friend, a subtle foe
–— Scorpio

Who loves the dim, religious light?
Who always keeps a star in sight?
An optimist, both gay and bright
–—Sagittarius

Who climbs and schemes for wealth and place?
And mourns his brothers
fall from grace–
But takes what's due, in any case
—Safe Capricorn

Who gives to all a helping hand,
But bows his head to no command
–And higher laws doth understand?
Inventor, genius, superman
—Aquarius

Who prays and serves,
and prays some more?
And feeds the beggar at the door
–And weeps o'er loves lost long before?
—Poor Pisces

Who works from morn to set of Sun,
And never likes to be outdone?
Whose walk is almost like a run?
Who, Aries

Who smiles through life –
except when crossed?
Who knows, or thinks he knows the most?
Who loves good things: baked,boiled or roast?
Oh, Taurus

Who is fond of life and jest and pleasure?
Who vacillates and changes ever?
Who loves attention without measure?
—Why Gemini

Who changes like a changeful season?
Holds fast and let's go without reason?
Who is there that can give adhesion
To Cancer

Who praises all his kindred do?
Expects his friends to praise them too
—And cannot see their senseless view?
Ah, Leo

Domabaem

Little boy : "Singing in the field of reeds
you sad little cuckoo bird
u sad little bird
my pure, strawberry love"
Father : "You are doing it wrong...sing it like this ...My pure...strawberry love..."
Little Boy : "Dad , what is pure love?"
Father : "hmm it's a love which is pure"
Little boy : "what does that mean?
Father : "It's when you love one person for the rest of your life.
Little boy : "Why is that like strawberry love?"
Father : "Ahhh...just sing the darn song !
( Eng subtitles from a South Korean Movie "Domabaem" )

Tirukaka Kurukuru Kantapia Saurus , name of a pet lizard from the same movie :)

flick ! flick !

More movies watched, including many Korean ones ;

• Holiday
• A Good Year
• Becoming Jane
• 200 Pounds Beauty ( Korean) Rating - 11 tissues
• Who Slept with Her ( Korean )
• 100 days with Mr Arrogant ( Korean )
• Scent of Love ( Korean) - A beautiful movie...
• White Valentine ( Korean ) - SSSSAAAADDDD not at all recommended !
• He was cool ( Korean )
• Seducing Mr.Perfect ( Korean) - a romantic comedy and a good time-pass and no tissues ...yeeeaaaah !
• A Millionaire's First Love ( Korean )
• Wuthering Heights
• Innocent Steps ( Korean)
• Romance of their Own ( Korean )
• Innocent Steps ( Korean)
• Love so divine ( Korean)
• The Art of Seduction ( Korean , and it's not as corny as it sounds...its comedy )
• Everybody has Secrets ( Korean)
• Love me, Love my Money ( Korean )
• Untold Scandal ( Korean ) based on Les Liaisons dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons or Dangerous Acquaintances) is a French epistolary novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, first published in 1782
• Perfect Couple ( Korean )
• My Tutor Friend ( Korean )
• My Tutor Friend 2 ( Korean)
• Love Phobia ( Korean )
• My Boyfriend is Type B ( Korean )
• Love me if you Dare ( French )
• Queens ( Spanish)
• A Knight's Tale
• Love in Magic ( Korean)
  
• Monster in law
• A Room with a View
• Four Weddings & A funeral
  

Here's a quote from , Scent of Love ,which I liked ;
"People always say love is this love is that but this is what I think - Love should include a will to responsibility for your actions. Being overwhelmed with passion like a sudden fever is not to my taste"
Mun Hie-jae from the Korean film Scent of Love (or Scent of Chrysanthemums)

Many of the Korean movies definitely have three things in common , the longing for the first snow ( which is nice , I totally agree with that...I too love the first snow ! ) .... the second thing , the case of one of the lead having a terminal illness ...why do they have so many tragic stories ? I am running out of tissues now ! And this one beats all logic out of me...how can every single one of them have this sequence ??? that is , the female lead getting drunk and the guy carrying her ( piggyback )all the way to her place even if he has a Lexus 460 or a really cook bike !

Badaboom Badabing Beijing !

That was one spectacular opening ceremony ! And that was also some show of strength by the Dragon !

The Elephant seems to have such a long way to catch up !

Sporadic n seriously not so serious ramblings !

My friend says he feels that "something's wrong" !
I feel somewhere something is always wrong ..if its not wrong for one, it would be wrong for the other !

It's 08-08-08 today ...
India's Population hit 1,111,111,111 before 08-08-08... thats WRONG enough I guess...
And according to the International Programs Center, U.S. Census Bureau, the total population of the World, projected to 08/08/08 at 17:06 GMT (EST+5) is
6,715,451,502 ( arent we getting heavier each day ...we should all go on a diet ! Poor Atlas !)

It's thundering and lightning here and thats kinda scary for me ... I have always been scared of thunders.My Prof had to cancel the extra lecture half-way because I cdnt stop screaming everytime I heard the thunder ! ( well every one is allowed one or two quirks and idiosyncrasies! :P )

Of Slangs & Jargons

British

1. AC/DC- Bisexual
2. Adam and Eve- Believe , I don't Adam and Eve it !
3. Apples and pears- stairs ( remember the song "To My Valentine"... If apples were pears and peaches were plums and the rose had a different name...if tigers were bears and fingers were thumbs ...I'd love you just the same ...oh! those teenage years :P)
4. brass monkey- very cold (weather or the air temperature)

American

1. Steel monkeys- This is where not being a sissy comes in. Steel monkeys as they are affectionately called, have to walk the steel girders in order to put the steel beams in place. They walk the beams a hundred feet in the air. One false step and it’s like trying to fly with one wing.
2. MP3Jingn. the live mixing or playing of recorded music in a dance club or other public space using a portable digital audio device such as an Apple iPod

Jargons

1. ambimouseterous- Able to use a mouse with either hand.
2. airplane rule: n. “Complexity increases the possibility of failure; a twin-engine airplane has twice as many engine problems as a single-engine airplane.” By analogy, in both software and electronics, the rule that simplicity increases robustness. It is correspondingly argued that the right way to build reliable systems is to put all your eggs in one basket, after making sure that you've built a really good basket
3. alpha geek: n.
   [from animal ethologists' alpha male] The most technically accomplished or skillful person in some implied context. “Ask Larry, he's the alpha geek here.”
4. address harvester: n.
   A robot that searches web pages and/or filters netnews traffic looking for valid email addresses. Some address harvesters are benign, used only for compiling address directories. Most, unfortunately, are run by miscreants compiling address lists to spam. Address harvesters can be foiled by a teergrube.
5. Bad and Wrong: adj.
   [Durham, UK] Said of something that is both badly designed and wrongly executed
6. Blue Screen of Death: n.
   [common] This term is closely related to the older Black Screen of Death but much more common (many non-hackers have picked it up). Due to the extreme fragility and bugginess of Microsoft Windows, misbehaving applications can readily crash the OS (and the OS sometimes crashes itself spontaneously). The Blue Screen of Death, sometimes decorated with hex error codes, is what you get when this happens. (Commonly abbreviated BSOD.) The following entry from the Salon Haiku Contest, seems to have predated popular use of the term:
   ????????Windows?NT?crashed.????????I?am?the?Blue?Screen?of?Death????????No?one?hears?your?screams.

Zippity Doo Dah!

Spent the day reading 23 documents on Indo-EU pact and European Foreign Policy ! phew !
I am sweating Clean Development Mechanism and WTO legislations at the moment !

As far as the movie count goes , I chewed upon some cool movies too ... Dan in Real Life , A Few Good Men, 21, Young People *Bleep*ing, Stranger Than Fiction , Good Luck Chuck, American Gangster etc ...
The dialogues in the last movie reminded me of the play I acted in, for the Black History Month , at the American Information Resource Centre. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, it was surely one of the best plays I did ( Perhaps, second to the adaptation of the French Absurdist play Amédée which we did for the University Arts Festival ).

I played the part of Levee , naturally the coolest character with the funniest & punchiest of lines ;)
Here's the plot summary from wikipedia....
In a Chicago based recording studio, Ma Rainey's band players, Cutler (trombone), Toledo (piano), Slow Drag (double-bass) and Levee (trumpet) turn up to record a new album of her songs. As they wait for her to arrive they banter, tell stories, joke, philosophise and argue. As the play unfolds it becomes clear that the tension is between the young hot-headed trumpeter Levee who has dreams of having his own band and veteran players Cutler and Toledo.
By the time Ma Rainey does turn up in full regalia and entourage in tow the recording schedule is badly behind, throwing the white producers Sturdyvant and Irvin into more and more irate disarray. Ma's insistence that her stuttering nephew Sylvester should do the voice intro to the title song causes more havoc. As the band waits for various technical problems to be resolved the conflict between Levee and Cutler reaches boiling point and violence ensues. Finally, when Levee is simultaneously fired from the band by Ma for his insubordination and then rejected by Sturdyvant who had offered to record his songs his anger becomes too much and he stabs Toledo, killing him, thus destroying any possibility of a future for himself.

Some of Levee's lines from the play....
"I might be a different kind of fool, but I ain't gonna be the same fool twice."

" Ain't nothing gonna happen to Levee. Levee ain't gonna let nothing happen to him. Now, I'm gonna say it again. I asked the gal her name. That's all I done. And if that's being a fool, then you looking at the biggest fool in the world...'cause I sure as hell asked her."

" I don't need nobody to tell me nothing"

" Life ain't shit. You can put it in a papery bag and carry it around with you. it ain't got no balls. Now, death ... death got some style! Death will kick your ass and make you wish you never been born! Thats how bad death is ! But you can rule over life. Life ain't nothing."

"Nigger talking about life is fair. And ain't got a pot to piss in"

Niggers got a right to be dissatisfied. Is you gonna be satisfied with a bone somebody done throwed you when you see them eating the whole hog?"

"I'm Levee. Just me. I ain't no imitation nothing !

"Levee got to be Levee! And he don't need nobody messing with him about the while man - cause you don't know nothig about me. You don't know Levee. You don't know nothing about what kind of blood I got ! What kind of heart I got beating here . I was eight years old when I watched a gang of while mens come to my daddy's house and have to do with my mama any way they wanted."

On board INS Mumbai :)))))))

Truly ..a once in a lifetime experience. (A very civilized event too, taking into account the Navy Bash which turned into a complete loolapalooza !)

Went hundred miles into the Arabian Sea. We witnessed an airshow with helicopters, chetaks, and fighters ( Sea Harrier, a transonic jet) displaying vertical take offs and landings from INS Viraat ( which is going to be replaced by INS Vikramaditya in 2010)

And then some amazing team exercises with INS Mysore.

Also saw some porpoises but they disappeared before I could click :(

This is all I could upload. Rest were censored by Lt Cdr R, my childhood buddy :P ( This clip is taken on board INS Mumbai and that's INS Viraat at a distance just before the Air Show).

Illuminated Butterflies

Butterfly Release -

Papago Tribe

If anyone desires a wish to come true they must first capture a butterfly and whisper that wish to it. Since a butterfly can make no sound, the butterfly can not reveal the wish to anyone but the Great Spirit who hears and sees all. In gratitude for giving the beautiful butterfly its freedom, the Great Spirit always grants the wish. So, according to legend, by making a wish and giving the butterfly its freedom, the wish will be taken to the heavens and be granted

Impressionist

Freiburg, Germany. October-November 2007

Potsdamer Platz

schnelle Bewegung

Interesting somethings to put on one's t-shirt

( Source IT Crowd )
I see dumb people
meh
RTFM
42

Say what you need to say !

Saw two of the most amazing movies ....Shawshank Redemption & The Bucket List
Shawshank Redemption , a story of the power of hope , one of the five things I can't live without !

Here is a John Mayer song from The Bucket List
Take all of your wasted honor.
Every little past frustration.
Take all of your so called problems,
Better put 'em in quotations.
Say what you need to say (x8)
Walkin' like a one man army,
Fightin' with the shadows in your head.
Livin' up the same old moment
Knowin' you'd be better off instead
If you could only...
Say what you need to say (x8)
Have no fear for givin' in.
Have no fear for giving over.
[ Say What You Need To Say
lyrics found on http://www.completealbumlyrics.com ]
You better know that in the end
It's better to say too much,
than never to say
what you need to say again.
Even if your hands are shaking,
And your faith is broken.
Even as the eyes are closin',
Do it with a heart wide open.(Wide Heart)
Say what you need to say (x7)
Say what you need to,
Say what you need to...
Say what you need to say.

P.S. My fingers are feeling kinda funny now... I guess it's the after effects of dry ice burns
How the hell did that happen ????
Easy peasy japanesey.
Dry ice burns like fire
And I didn't know that !
:P

The Experiment that proves nothing !

I was going through this article which was arguing that the less you know the less confused you are while making decisions and that an overexposure to choice is what hinders decision making.
Some excerpts....
The less you know, the more wisely you seem to choose. HELEN JOYCE rummages through the mental toolbox you use when the facts are scarce
We also have rules of thumb for taking decisions, and Gigerenzer's paradox is that knowing a bit is sometimes better than knowing a lot. He describes an experiment in which American and German students had to pick the larger of pairs of American cities: San Diego or San Antonio? Detroit or Milwaukee? Many Americans got the answers wrong, but almost none of the Germans did. They correctly named the first of each pair, even though many of them had never even heard of Milwaukee or San Antonio. That ignorance was informative: the city they had heard of was probably the bigger one

I don't think this experiment proves anything !!!
It is a well known fact that there is nothing average/good about an average American Geography IQ. Even a Martian would score better at the test !

Study: Geography Greek to young Americans
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After more than three years of combat and nearly 2,400 U.S. military deaths in Iraq, nearly two-thirds of Americans aged 18 to 24 still cannot find Iraq on a map, a study released Tuesday showed.
The study found that less than six months after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, 33 percent could not point out Louisiana on a U.S. map.

Astrology Forwards !

Well, I keep getting things related to astrology in my mail ...I usually ignore them for the want of a belief in the concept, yet sometimes the stuff is short and to the point and hence demanding my attention (especially when it says something interesting and positive about my sun sign).

So here goes a forward which meets the specifications...

Aries - past life as a soldier, warrior or surgeon - death by fire, blade, war or accident

Taurus - past life working the land or collecting money - death by hanging or connected with the neck
( I knew it ! All Taureans are savers...take for example , my sis, who somehow always had more money in her purse than me till the day I got a job ! :)) And also H, who manages to sponsor his trips around the world from God knows which purse of his !)

Gemini - past life as a journalist, speaker or a pickpocket - death by suffocation, consumption/lung problems or as a child

Cancer - past life as the head of a big family, a mother of many children or a sailor - death by drowning or in childbirth

Leo - past life as royalty, an actor or someone famous - death through heart or back problems
Virgo - past life as a nurse, caring for others or as a nun - death by starvation, famine or illness

Libra - past life as a diplomat, judge or courtesan - death through the legal system, due to overindulgence or alcohol

Scorpio - past life as a dark healer (witch), working using secret means or sex - death through crime, vengeance or violence

Sagittarius - past life as a teacher, philosopher or traveller - death for speaking the truth, in foreign lands, or for a cause

Capricorn - past life working to gain self-made riches, as a monk or a cripple - death by over work, a hard life, or old age
( This goes for you Cappie !Stop going to the office and following orders even on sundays and..... RELAX ....your seniors can do without you for a day !)

Aquarius - past life as a scientist, revolutionary or working for the good of humanity - death in a group, by electricity or explosion
( Yeaaaahhhh this is definitely my life this time also ...Thanks for the applause !Ohh you guys are too much :P )

Pisces - past life as an artist, psychic, healer or dedicated to religion - death for beliefs, through an overdose, or alcohol


ANOTHER Forward ...
Horoscope Compatibility
Some of it seems amazingly true ! I had a great time reading this with my friends :)
Enjoy !

abundans cautela non nocet

24 more bombs diffused !
Breaking news flashing ...
Every moment the number of diffused bombs keep on rising!
India on High Alert !

A nearly neat-freak that I am, I do inspect the public spaces before deciding on a place to occupy, but now I have to scan the area for possible security threats too !
I have lived through three bomb scares on the Mumbai Local apart from the innumerable bomb scares and evacuations I lived through in Kashmir.
The first one being the fateful evening of 11 July 2006, where the train I was in, left the Khar Road station in the direction of Churchgate minutes before the train travelling in the opposite direction met with the disaster.
I was totally oblivious to what happened, until I reached home and my mother hugged me refusing to let go off me !
Next day, I was on Sahara News for being one of the few souls leaving for work from Churchgate Station. The reporter asked me if I wasn't scared to take the train that day. I replied in negative.
The second time, it was a false alarm when our compartment was emptied to take out a suspicious looking polythene bag with no claimants.

The third time , I was partially dozing off with the help of an I Pod, when I was jolted out of my reverie with a weird dream where everyone in my compartment was screaming and running out. I woke up and looked around to find the situation normal and went back to snooze and then woke up again to find everyone ACTUALLY running out screaming "BOMB ! BOMB ! BOMB !"
I turned around to where everyone was pointing at and found an elderly lady staring at a bag paralyzed with fear and her daughter trying to pull her away.
I tried to have a look at the bag but the crowd pushed me out of the compartment !
Again the police came and well...it was another false alarm... Thanks Lady Luck !

Seriously times are changing, Earlier we used to smile lovingly at our mothers who used to caution us incessantly regarding the dangers we could possibly NOT come across unless Fortuna Redux decided to pull one on us !

Now people are actually paying attention to their mother's warnings!
Even a long lost friend of mine ( I lost him for a very good reason. He lived by the motto, Bibo ergo sum "I drink, therefore I am") decided to mend his ways and be more careful.

The Movie Marathon continues

Watched The Great Debaters, Brokeback Mountain, A Lot Like Love ,and Be Kind Rewind yesterday (thanks to The Rainman who brought a 500 GB external HDD loaded with movies, software, sitcoms, and songs ).
The Great Debaters , surely counts in one of the most inspirational movies ever churned out in Hollywood. Well, Denzel Washington does spell "good cinema" !

My favourite quotes from the movie.....

James Farmer Jr.: In Texas they lynch Negroes. My teammates and I saw a man strung up by his neck and set on fire. We drove through a lynch mob, pressed our faces against the floorboard. I looked at my teammates. I saw the fear in their eyes and, worse, the shame. What was this Negro's crime that he should be hung without trial in a dark forest filled with fog. Was he a thief? Was he a killer? Or just a Negro? Was he a sharecropper? A preacher? Were his children waiting up for him? And who are we to just lie there and do nothing. No matter what he did, the mob was the criminal. But the law did nothing. Just left us wondering, "Why?" My opponent says nothing that erodes the rule of law can be moral. But there is no rule of law in the Jim Crow south. Not when Negroes are denied housing. Turned away from schools, hospitals. And not when we are lynched. St Augustine said, "An unjust law in no law at all.' Which means I have a right, even a duty to resist. With violence or civil disobedience. You should pray I choose the latter.

Samantha: ... the time for justice, the time for freedom, and the time for equality is always, is always right now!

P.S. My previous venture to watch Brokeback Mountain had to be aborted at the INOX Ticket Counter because of a totally freaked out neighbour and childhood buddy ( a captain in the army )who after having read the description of the movie nudged me out of the area and then screamed his lung out saying " OHHH NOOOO !!! Under no circumstances am I going in there with you girls( me and my sis ) to watch THIS movie "...and then later, as a reaction to the wide grin on my face, added , " Neither am I going to watch this movie with my male friends or alone "
LOL
so we watched something else !

If all goes well ..I go here !

Gulmarg this August http://www.gulmarg.org/
A highly doubtful excursion in the light of recent security scares and the resulting restricted-movement orders ...
Yet , the yearning's too strong and hence I shall push my case every single day :)
and
Then the chocolate capital of the world - Belgium this fall ....
Highly probable one since the dates are out already !!!
Sooooooo excited !!!

Playlist II

When you are a little annoyed with the fast-paced city life...and having trouble going to sleep ...
here's something to slow the tempo down !

• Ben Harper - Forever
• Ben Harper - I love her
• Ben Harper - waiting for you
• Our Lady Peace - 4 am
• Enya - Silent Night (in Irish) My favourite Christmas song :)

gnite... :)

Crooner updates

Julia Nunes - August
nice song ! enjoy !

Sweet night and our chemistry
Make my rapid heart
beat naturally
And our organic minds,
while the others climb we contemplate,
What is time
The night is dark and the lights are low but the laughter rises,
and continues so
Time flies by
Sweet night and our chemistry
Make my rapid heart beat naturally
And our organic minds,
while the others climb we contemplate,
What is time
Time flies by
lie on the porch with my head in your lap,
this is a simple combination that makes me so happy.
and these could be the happiest days of my life.
YEAH, lie on the porch with my head in your lap,
this is a simple combination that makes me so happy.
yeah.
these could be the happiest days of my life. ((The night is dark and the lights are low but the laughter rises, and continues so Time flies by))
Sweet night and our chemistry
Make my rapid heart beat naturally
And our organic minds,
while the others climb we contemplate,
What is time Time flies by ((time flies by)) Sweet night

Walking wonders

So I walked almost all over south Mumbai again :)...yes for the umpteenth time..
Well I LOVE walking !!!!
One of my recurring nightmares is about spending the rest of my life with a person who doesn't like walking and swears by all other means of transport :(
( well I don't mind a cool bike or a Bugatti Veyron..Huh! I wouldn't say no to them ! :PP)

I know Mumbai is not exactly the kind of place walking enthusiasts would recommend. But it was eleven in the night and I and my friends were coming back after watching Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na ( cute movie btw ...absofunkinglutely recommend it if you need some cheering or otherwise ).
It was cool and windy. Footpaths were not hawker-jammed and so we walked all the way from Sterling to the US Club and then slumped down to catch the warm sea breeze . :)
(NOTE: To best experience the moonlit sea walk check out the mile long section of highway NH 17 near Kundapuram, next to Maravanthe Beach to be precise . Breathtaking, out of this world experience!!!! )

As for some more walking wonders of the world , check out WILLIAM MACKESY pick ten of his favourite treks

1. Mount Kailash, Tibet
2. Torajaland, Sulawesi, Indonesia
3. Jomolhari Trek, Bhutan
4. Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan, China
5. Umfolozi Walking Safari, South Africa
6. Federal Pass, Blue Mountains, Australia
7. Lochnagar, Scotland
8. The Lofoten Islands, Norway
9. Route of the Volcanoes, La Palma, Canary Islands
10. Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, America

Fully Faltoo Updates -Mush Factor Puff

Watching Beverly Hills 90210 and The Big Bang Theory simultaneously on Youtube to keep the mush factor in control ... and what do you know !
Sheldon throws in the Schrödinger's Cat and Leonard goes and kisses Penny !
Meh !

Best of Bookers

Excerpts from my speech at the event "Your Favourite British Author", The British Council Library.
Mumbai 2005

I was born in the city of Bombay…once upon a time. No, that won't do, there's no getting away from the date: I was born in Doctor Narlikar's Nursing Home on August 15th, 1947. And the time? The time matters, too. Well then: at night. No, it's important to be more… On the stroke of midnight, as a matter of fact. Clock-hands joined palms in respectful greeting as I came. Oh, spell it out, spell it out: at the precise instant of India's arrival at independence, I tumbled forth into the world…. For the next three decades, there was to be no escape. Soothsayers had prophesied me, newspapers celebrated my arrival, politicos ratified my authenticity. I was left entirely without a say in the matter. I, Saleem Sinai, later variously called Snotnose, Stainface, Baldy, Sniffer, Buddha and even Piece-of-the-Moon, had become heavily embroiled in Fate - at the best of times a dangerous sort of involvement. And I couldn't even wipe my own nose at the time.”


This was just a sneak-peek or to be more precise the beginning of a monumental novel by a prodigious novelist called Salman Rushdie. A name, which hardly needs any introduction, the recipient of the Booker Prize and now the Best of the Bookers for his brilliant second novel Midnights Children, Rushdie, stepped into the literary world with his first published novel Grimus, which Mel Tilden recognized as “one of the those novels too good to be science fiction, even though it contains other universes, dimensional doorways, alien creatures and more than one madman”.

The novel was assessed as “an ambitious, strikingly confident first novel”. But the novel that shot him to instant and everlasting fame and handed him the key to the hearts and minds of millions of readers across the world was Midnight’s Children(MC). The success of the novel can be measured by the fact that it alone assured Rushdie, a permanent place among the favourite British authors.

In MC, Rushdie construes the history of the nation (India) from his childhood memories and intertwines it with the history of his narrator and protagonist Saleem Sinai. As “time and migration placed a double filter” between the writer and his subject, when he tries to narrate the past he ends up creating a ‘story’, a piece of fiction, or a version of India for he connects his broken memories with a cache of colourful stories and fantasy.

Rushdie’s universal appeal ( except in US perhaps) lies in his sensibility as a writer to confront reality of exposing shams and more importantly by making the readers think about and not just take his words for granted. He flips back and forth from past to present ,from ‘real’ to ‘unreal’, from ‘fact’ to ‘fiction’ at such a lightning speed that the reader is completely boggled trying to make head or tail of the entire situation. Then slowly the purpose of the whole exercise dawns upon us. The dominant discourse of history has been hammered into us through the popular media in such a way that we have started believing it to be the “truth”. Anything else makes no sense, sounds gibberish, absurd and an insult to our “historical correctness”.

A postmodern text like Rushdie’s makes the reader recognize the stories as stories - history as his story. He champions the cause of counterrealism through his character Vasco in The Moors Last Sigh who says “Forget those damnful realists! The real is always hidden – isn’t it? – inside a miraculously burning bush! Life is fantastic! Paint that”. Rushdie refuses to separate the individual (Saleem) from the context. As Saleem Sinai in MC declares “I am a swallower of lives; and to know me, just the one of me, you will have to swallow the lot as well”.

The narration is at times highly cinematic but when a movie lasts for just some hours, Rushdie’s narration stays with us well beyond the last page of his novel. It keeps us tuned into the things happening around us. There is no “happily ever after”. His fairytale has no ending, no victory, no peace “because it is the privilege and curse of midnight’s children to be both masters and victims of their own times, to forsake privacy and to be sucked into the annihilating whirlpool of the multitudes and to be unable to live or die in peace” Bleak and apocalyptic as it sounds , it is a call for awakening , a yearning for the multitudes to confront the reality that they live in, on ‘real” terms, not to dream in a myth called ‘India’ but to live in a reality that is India. He represents the voice that Anita Desai describes as the “voice that everyone present recognized instantly as being the voice of the new age; strong, original, and demanding of attention”.

It is because of this subjectivity and the proximity of his subject to our subcontinent that Rushdie stands apart from great writers like Marquez, Milan Kundera & Gunter Grass. His hybrid sensibility best brought forward in the song sung by Gibreel Farishta as he tumbles from the heaven at the beginning of his earlier creation The Satanic Verses,

“Oh, my shoes are Japanese
These trousers English, if you please
On my head, red Russian hat –
My heart’s Indian for all that.”

Another striking aspect of his writing is that we should not expect a ‘story’ from him. It is not the ‘story’ which keeps the readers glued to the novel’s progression, but the style in which they are written. The narrative technique he uses is similar to that of the “traditional clown –narrator ‘Vidhushka’ in the ancient Indian performance art of Kuttiyatam” (The Empire Writes Back). The oral narrative maintains the illusion of story-telling and takes us forward but the language, wordplay and other linguistics and stylistic calisthenics offers a deeper insight into things being said and implied.

Salman Rushdie is definitely not a novelist to be taken at the face value, his writings are meant to be chewed upon, something to be dissected, inviting the readers to an extravaganza of facts, fictions, histories, stories, fantasies, movie stars, snake charmers, soothsayers, sadhus, pop-singers, magicians, millionaire playboys, war heroes with knocking knees, silver spittoons, and a narrator with a “huge cucumber of a nose”.

Anu

Playlist for the Day

Enjoy ...

1. Times Like These-Foo Fighters
2. Viva La Vida-Coldplay
3. Traveller- Talvin Singh
4. We Are-Ann Johnsson
5. Hold on-Jet
6. Like a stone- Audioslave
7. Run-Snow Patrol

TYPO THREAT !

I know I type fast and occasionally make lot of typos...
But today I made such WILD meaning-intention distorting typos that TYPO refused to let the errants be grouped under his category and threatened to commit suicide if I didn't stop the onslaught immediately ... :(

Well everybody has an off-day someday ... :P

Urban Caving

It happened on a busy sunday evening [:) ... Busy as in people here and there and everywhere choking the streets of Mumbai running from pillar to post in search of all kinds of sales / discounts and metrosexual, retrosexual men and the toxic bachelors cramming the restricted-entry public space ( Barrista, CCD, etc ) along with crackberry or laptop lifestreamers in the hope of a miracle! ( custom-made)] .

While walking in Mumbai, I have developed a rather annoying(to myself) habit of looking down and walking in perpetual fear of encountering some miscellaneous crap on the street :/ ...
On this particular monsoon soaked day, I got out of the H & N store and was moving towards Flora Fountain when I had scanned the road ahead as safe to step on ....and splash !!!
How on earth did that happen? How did I managed to step into a puddle???
The puddle had camouflaged itself so well that I couldn't distinguish it from the concrete !

It wasn't exactly a puddle .... a section of the road had just caved in ...maybe due to one of the inexplicable urban caving expeditions of the Mumbai Metropolitan Road Diggers Association(MMRDA)....:P

Anyway I disappeared from the area without pondering over the size and shape of the puddle and the damage to my shoes in the hope of losing all the strangers who could have witnessed the splash...

HUG ME ?????

PLEASE LEAVE A MESSAGE WITH MY TROUSERS

CuteCircuit, an "interaction design" company, offers T-shirts that can massage you by telephone, and a skirt that knows when you're excited. A report from Evgeny Morozov at the MobileCamp technology conference in London ...

Now for CuteCircuit’s product of the moment: the "Hug Shirt", which transmits and receives hugs. When you give your Hug Shirt a hug, sensors embedded in the cloth measure the strength of your touch, your skin temperature, your heartbeat rate and the duration of the squeeze. They send this data to your phone via Bluetooth; your phone sends this data to your friend’s mobile phone; it travels via Bluetooth to his or her shirt, and your friend feels a hug based on your “inputs”. You can even send a hug if your friend has a Hug Shirt but you don’t, using “Hug-me” software.
The shirt is washable and rechargeable. If somebody sends you a hug when you aren't wearing it. you get a message: “You’ve got one hug waiting. do you want to feel it?”
Francesca talks about some interesting uses for Hug Shirt: during rock concerts, or for kids to cheat in class by using a special “hug language”. Plus, the feeling you get after being “hugged” is so relaxing as to feel almost like a massage.

Palookaville

And the Sign Said, "long haired freaky people need not apply"

From Fatboy Slim's album Palookaville.
This one goes as a warning to all the racists/bigots/MCPs/ out there !

The music video is done as a black and white public service announcement. It starts off with the title 'A film by Neighborhood Watch (The End is Near)' then it switches to a white man named Don, and it states that Don likes to fish and Don is a racist. Throughout the video, it shows Don living a day in his life showing hatred, disdain and distrust of non-whites. A figure in black, thought to be the figure on the 'This is a Neighborhood Watch Community' sign, is seen stalking Don in the background during the scenes in the parking lot, water fountain and Mexican restaurant scenes. After shooing some dark-skinned kids off of his boat, he furiously marches across the street and gets hit by a car, dropping his prized fishing trophy. As an Asian man sees him and calls 911. It can also be argued that the Asian man hangs up when he realizes it is Don, as there is no subtitles of the Asian man talking to the 911 services, white lettering states Look both ways before crossing the street, And don't be a racist and or else

Pabulum or the lack of it !

Food for thought or food for survival? ... though the creation of thought is definitely dependent and influenced by the presence /absence / quantity or quality of food .

The first half of my day was spent casually going about my reading and other mundane chores and anticipating the culinary delights that I might be savouring in the evening.
So much was the anticipation that I and my friend practically starved ourselves thinking about the treat..."we better prepare ourselves ...adjust the space in our tummies... make way for the excess calories that were going to be added in the evening"...

Ah ...well the wait for the food stretched so much that sitting in the restaurant we could think of nothing but food....food that was travelling from the kitchen to the tables with eagerly awaiting palates, ready to gobbled, munched or chewed carefully( depending upon on the time-lapse between their previous bite).

For a moment we looked at each other, sparks flying????
...ummm no ...
we just couldn't take our mind off food...we just smiled .... " Ohh I wish the order comes or I swear I am going to snatch that next plate that passes by me! " screamed my "on-the-verge-of-a-major-social-breakdown" friend.

We tried to shift our gaze to a particular loud table where a few drunkorexic two-pot screamer kids were practising the art of "Yo/hey-man-ing" [screaming the words "Yo/hey-man" accompanied by the hip-hop hand gesture ( it is the arm bent at around a 90 degree angle out from the body and being moved up and down :)) or as a 'disillusioned-with-rap' guy describes "making a pouty-kinda face and waving their arm in the air like they're swatting flies").....

no it doesn't work!!!!....
the aroma of freshly baked cakes with pinguedinous layers just filled my senses immediately reminding me that our order had still not arrived...
I looked at my companion who had turned atrabilious for the lack of food and summoned up the greatest gravitas that I could accomodate on my face in that situation and enquired about our order to which I got a polite but firm reply that "'it's almost ready ma'am".

respice adspice prospice

"For Yesterday is but a Dream, And To-morrow is only a Vision; But To-day well lived makes Every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness, And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope. Look well therefore to this Day! Such is the Salutation of the Dawn!”
Kalidasa

"Hen oida hoti ouden oida "
"I know one thing, that I know nothing"
(Socrates, paraphrased from Plato's Apology)

My favourite Essays .Part II

-William Hazlitt " The Fight"
-Jonathan Swift
The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers
"A vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq; against what is objected to him by Mr. Partridge in his almanack for the present year 1709."
-

Sono al settimo cielo !!!

Pearls and swine
bereft of me
Long and weary
my road has been
I was lost in the cities
Alone in the hills
No sorrow or pity for leaving
I feel (chorus)
I am not your rolling wheels
I am the highway
I am not your carpet ride
I am the sky
Friends and liars
don't wait for me
I'll get on all by myself
I put millions of miles
Under my heels
And still too close to you
I feel (chorus)
I am not your rolling wheels
I am the highway
I am not your carpet ride
I am the sky
I am not your blowing wind
I am the lightning I am not your autumn moon
I am the night

I am the Highway -Audioslave

One of my favourites :) ...for good times as well as times when all is not well ...

UNTIE TIED AID

I was part of an international conference in Milan where [b]Tied Aid[/b] was one of the issues on the table.
Tied aid is foreign aid that must be spent in the country providing the aid (the donor country) or in a group of selected countries. A developed country will provide a bilateral loan or grant to a developing country, but mandate that the money be spent on goods or services produced in the selected country. ( Source -Wikipedia)

According to the UN report with the exception of four countries namely Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom most of the major donors offer tied aid as developmental assistance with binding conditions which seriously limit the recipient country’s market access thereby jeopardizing their economic independence.

Instead of offering Tied Aid and exploiting the less advantged nations , the donors should make an effort as much as possible to provide Untied Aid. I know its not possible for all the donor nations yet countries like UK have made it look quite possible. ( Tied aid is now illegal in the UK by virtue of the International Development Act, which came into force on 17 June 2002, replacing the Overseas Development and Co-operation Act (1980). wikipedia)

However, untying aid should go hand in hand with the promotion of local enterprises on the basis of targeted procurement instead of reinforcing dependency on the donor nations. I think UN agencies ; international and local NGOs can provide assitance in this regard.

Check out this article on the issue of tied aid.
"Stingy Samaritans-
Why Recent Increases in Development Aid Fail to Help the Poor"
By Pekka Hirvonen
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/develop/oda/2005/08stingysamaritans.htm

In recent years, aid amounts have been on a constant rise. In 2004, official development assistance to poor countries reached its highest level ever. The United States alone provided almost $19 billion in aid – more than ever before.(3)
But the recent increases do not tell the whole truth about rich countries’ generosity, or the lack of it. Measured as a proportion of gross national income (GNI), aid lags far behind the 0.7 percent target the United Nations set 35 years ago. Moreover, development assistance is often of dubious quality. In many cases, aid is primarily designed to serve the strategic and economic interests of the donor countries or to benefit powerful domestic interest groups. Aid systems based on the interests of donors instead of the needs of recipients’ make development assistance inefficient. Too little aid reaches countries that most desperately need it, and, all too often, aid is wasted on overpriced goods and services from donor countries.
This paper presents an overview on the volumes, targeting and geographical allocation of development assistance over the past five years. It analyzes various features in rich countries’ development assistance policies that make aid both insufficient and inefficient – despite the recent increases in nominal aid amounts that make rich nations seem generous.

One of my Favourite Novels- White Teeth , Zadie Smith

Excerpts from my thesis on the text.

White Teeth is full echoes of other texts, authors and dramatists like Shakespeare, Kurt Vonnegut, Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston, Salman Rushdie, Euripides, Rabindranath Tagore, E M.Forster, Robert Burns, J.D.Salinger, James Baldwin, Sophocles, etc, and singers like Bob Marley, Freddie Mercury, and Herman Hupfled, philosophers like Sartre, Nietzsche, films like Taxi Driver, Godfather, Rambo and biblical texts like Quran, Bible etc. It is characterized by ‘eclecticism’ which postmodern critic Jean-Francis Lyotard identifies as “the degree zero of contemporary general culture: one listens to reggae, watches a western, eats McDonald’s food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and ‘retro’ clothes in Hong Kong”(Ex.1,L.103 )Her characters are not only ‘always already’ embedded in their ‘unique’ contexts but are also sites of evolving new subjectivities similar to what structuralist critic Claude Levi-Strauss characterizes “as the place where something is going on”(qtd in Chandler,Ex.1.L.72). In mapping such emerging identities, Zadie Smith, a London based Anglo-Jamaican writer, falls direct in line of succession of postcolonial immigrant writers like Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, Monika Ali, Caryl Phillips, etc. especially in using ‘extradiegetic’ references.................

‘Multiculturalism’ as a concept is comparatively a new approach in defining the coexistence of various ‘ethnic’ communities. As Dohra Ahmed has pointed out in her review of White Teeth, the concept has been much exploited in the Liberal politics of the new ‘Cool Britannia’ slogan of the 1990s and the capitalists venture to turn “the new ‘hybrid’ nation into a product for global consumption”(Ex. ,L .6). At the same time the term seems to be a paradox in itself for it assumes a fixed preconceived notion of the existence of ‘pure’ and homogenized cultures. The capitalists venture has inadvertently overlooked the ‘difference’ within the notion of ‘ethnicity’. Zadie Smith in this novel has tried to bring out precisely the very conflict of identities that exists ‘in-between’ the domains of difference. Her work reflects the “new politics of difference and diversity” that Stuart Hall explains in his essay ‘New Ethnicities’ (259). It brings out a new version of Dickens’s London by extending the boundaries of ‘Englishness’ to include the emerging new ‘Hyphenated selves’. It reiterates what Homi Bhabha asserts in the introduction to his major book Location of Culture, “The western metro pole must confront its postcolonial history, told by its influx of post war migrants and refugees, as an indigenous or native narrative internal to its national identity”( 6). In White Teeth, Smith has tried to give voice to conflict between the first and subsequent generations of immigrants in trying to find a middle path between the urge to be recognized and the desire to ‘merge’ with others....

©

Interesting novel...give it a try!!!

A Bra-Burning Chappal throwing feminist !

Role of a lifetime...
The English department of the Mumbai University was hosting an international seminar on ‘Resistance literature’. And for the cultural events on the fourth day we decided to do a poetic drama titled CRACKED IMAGES, FROZEN FRAMES (first read at Prithivi Theatre –Mumbai on 6th March 2000) by one of our own professor Dr.Sridhar Rajeswaran. I was asked to choose a role and out of the three characters- doctor, patient and companion –I opted for the companion. And then we started to read out the lines for the very first time.
Here goes some of my lines ;)

“Do something!
Open your f***ing eyes
I cannot cope with your being like this
I left you all right
But did you not deserve it?
You drove me to it.
You and your racing
Your car hurtling downhill as though to break the sound barrier…..”
..............................
…..“You and your flashes of brilliance.
Epileptic discharge of mutilated cells
Self-titillating intellectual
Masturbating passionate living
With angels in the void of a library
At least they are all dead.”
......................................
…..“You know well why I stopped
The sexual and the political are so commingled
By the fact of our very existence
Bodily time is species time
The sexual and the political
Are they not part of body processes?
Is not private and public spaces intertwined?
Break your old icons
Of virgin mother and nurturing whores.”
.......................
We started discussing whether we still need a kind of 'radical feminism’ in the world today. Two opposing views emerged. One side arguing that ‘radical feminism’ was the need of the hour at the first stage of the feminist movement to get quick attention and today we no longer require it. The other side pointing out that history is not monolithic and there are multiple histories and today at many places we still require some kind of active radical feminism to change things.

"The Chilled-Monkey Brains" A la carte Hollywood

Today, I, unfortunately, had to subject myself to the ignominy of watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
If ever there is a serious doubt on the geographical IQ of the Hollywoodians , one should just go through the above mentioned movie to clear all possible misconceptions.
After crash-landing somewhere in the Himalayas , Indiana Jones ,his sidekick and a soigné caucasian female (who follows the hero like a stereotypical Xanthippe ), how in the hell did they reach a village full of starving people who bore not even a slight semblance to the people of Leh-Ladakh, Kashmir or anybody living in the foothills of Himalayas??????

And then closer to the subject of this Blog , the Pankot Palace, which sounded more like Buncombe/Bunkum Palace to me , shocked me to utter disgust with their a la carte dishes. The nightmarish smorgasbord featured live snakes ( which were ravenously gulped down by the obsequious guests/aids) , steroid-boosted bugs, and the height of mythomania- the Chilled-Monkey Brains for dessert !!!!

Zero points to Hollywood for coughing up this daub creation !

Not being able to put on the Adult"hood"

"Another belief of mine; that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.”
Margaret Atwood

Everytime one feels positive of better times ahead, there are thousands around ( supposedly mature and wise people) to pull you back to the bottom of the pit .... Dreams are squeezed out of your system and you remain but a shadow of yourself ...

The best part of being at the bottom of the pit is that it can't get any worse and that better times are still ahead :)

One life...

so many unspoken words
.....................................................................................the weight unbearable
.......................so many broken threads
.......................................................................thoughts unspeakable

.............................paths galore
........................................................................................crossroads, junctions, bylanes

and one life to make it there....

Seriousness and life

"It is not so important to be serious as it is to be serious about the important things. The monkey wears an expression of seriousness which would do credit to any college student, but the monkey is serious because he itches.”
Robert M. Hutchins

"True, we love life, not because we are used to living, but because we are used to loving. There is always some madness in love, but there is also always some reason in madness "
Friedrich Nietzsche

How do societies collapse?

I read a book called Collapse by Jared Diamond, thanks to the thoughtfulness of my friend who decided to gift it to me.

Diamond is talking about how societies commit ‘ecocide’ and about external factors that contribute to its collapse…and I thought it would be interesting to discuss the possible ways societies we live in can collapse if we don’t give attention to certain changes happening around us and the possible ways we can counter the ill effects.

For example in Mumbai, the rapid urbanization is more or less done without keeping in mind the ecological balance. Aren’t we literally digging our own graves by being negligent of the fragile environment we live in?Basic things like separating the waste into recyclables and the disposables are not being enforced into practice.

What about the human aspect? When I read Goldsmith’s 'National Prejudics some six years back ,I thought we might all be moving towards the idea of a global citizenship. But the more we move ‘ahead’ we are falling for claustrophobic ideas of nationality, regionalism, and religious fundamentalism.

Still , I want to be optimistic. I like to count the good things ….and yes there are a lot of positive things happening in this world. But don’t know why…I think the bitterness is more newsworthy and hence our news channels exclusively focus on it…so watching news gives me a headache most of the time…A communal riot is one thing which never fails to shock me. The same people we grow up , one day, try to harm us. What is it that drives such madness? The reasons may be economic, psychological, political or combination of it in brainwashing. But are the people who engage in such crimes even aware of what they are doing? Do they repent later?

Highway to hell !

Best ride ever ! cruising down the Mumbai-Pune highway at the speed of light! ( ok a little bit of exaggeration doesn't hurt anyone)
I never enjoyed high speed rides ...i used to prefer a safe ride anytime but this time I cared a little less ! I don't know why this kamikazi feeling hit me :?

Well here's a tribute to ACDC :)
Living easy, living free
Season ticket on a one-way ride
Asking nothing,
leave me be
Taking everything in my stride
Dont need reason,
dont need rhyme
Aint nothing
I would rather do
Going down, party time
My friends are gonna be there too
Im on the highway to hell
No stop signs, speed limit
Nobodys gonna slow me down
Like a wheel, gonna spin it
Nobodys gonna mess me round
...................And Im going down, all the way down
Im on the highway to hell

Ipsedixitism

Another one of interesting links to chew upon while drifting across the continents.....
http://www.drbilllong.com/2007Words/Fun.html

Some Fun, But Obscure, Words
Bill Long 3/1/07
Isms and Nowhere
After taking lots of time to slog through all the words from the 2005 Bee, I thought it would be good, before plowing into other Bees, to write an essay on some of the more interesting-sounding words I have come across in the past few months. In short, these words are a lot of fun, whether or not you might easily be able to use them. They include words for "nowhere," such as nullibicity and erewhon (nowhere spelled backwards); words for difficult situations, illth and dystopia; words for "thisness" or "thatness," haecceity and quiddity; and then, finally, various isms, such as itacism, etacism, iotacism and betacism. To this we should add illeism, ipsedixitism and spheterize. I would propose a new word spheterism, to fit into the "ism" category. When all is said and done in this weird essay I am sure you agree with me that we also ought to define oddment.
Nowheresville
Let's begin with nullibicity. It can be defined as "the state or condition of existing nowhere." Though this term was first used in 1822, it was preceded by 150 years by nullibist, a term coined by the Cambridge Platonist Henry More (1614-1687) in one of his works. What was of concern to 17th century philosophers was the question of whether extension was a necessity for a body, and whether the mind itself had extension. Hobbes, Descartes, More and other significant names weighed in on this momentous question. More argued three points: (1) lacking extension entailed lacking location; (2) lacking location entailed lacking existence; (3) nothing exists that is nonextended [See the helpful online essay by Robert Pasnau on "Mind and Extension (Descartes, Hobbes, More)]. Then, in his work Enchiridion Metaphysicum, More coined the term nullibist to describe his opponents who seemingly believed that whatever is extended must be material and that, therefore, since God is immaterial, extension is not necessary for existence. God is, in fact, "no-where." Well, I am really truncating the argument, but by the time that nullibicity was coined in the 1820s, the rich and impenetrable 17th century philosophical context had been lost. One author could write (1822): They have succeeded so far as to render her [sc. Liberty] in a state of nullibicity." The word has subseqently been only sparingly used, but I think that nullibicity ought to have a revival in our day--to mean the confusion that we all feel at times when we are completely lost. We would be in a state of nullibicity.

Banned Boondocks ? But Why???

Huey:: Mr. Jones, it's Huey. You ready?
James Earl Jones::Young man, I told you last time this isn't funny. You're going to get us both in trouble.
Huey:: Last time, I promise. Hold on. [Opens a three-way call]
George W. Bush:: [Answers the phone] This is Bush.
Huey:: Mr. President, please hold for Darth Vader.
James Earl Jones:: [In full Vader voice] President Bush, this is Darth Vader... I wanted to thank you for helping spread Evil throughout the galaxy!
George W. Bush:: Uh... Thank you, Lord Vader!
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Boondocks_(comic_strip)

Now why would they object to Boondocks in the land of the Free ? :P