Sunday, March 20, 2005

Back... 2

Last night, all the boozers had a party on the terrace of the mess, liquor flowing all around. Today, it is a formal party organised by the cultural committee, complete with this 'DJ' and mock tattoos (mocktoos?). Picks some good songs (playing Hotel California right now), but spoils them by trying to sing along (shudder) with his glass powder voice. I am not putting him down, gotta appreciate his effort though.

Some things never change though, like the cleaning guy who 'demands' a 'gift' because I am going to work now and will start earning. I just smiled at the beggar's insolence. Idiot!

Earlier this afternoon, I overheard two 'managers' having a discussion over whether actor Shakthi Kapoor's entrapment was 'ethical' or not. They seemed to think the whole sting was 'unethical' and what he does behind closed doors should be protected by 'privacy laws'. This comes from the mouths of people who seem to think taking pictures of 'nubile' females without their knowledge with cellphone cameras is not invasion of privacy, and spend hours debating Kareena Kapoor kissing her amour not to mention spending hours to download spycam videos, or trawling matrimonial websites for wallpapers.

Saturday, March 19, 2005

Back...

The last four days have been real hectic for me. Starting with my first radio appearance on AIR FM, having my faithful pair of scissors being confiscated at the airport, my apartment search in Mumbai, my train journey back to my insti for convo, boy! I have managed to pick up not-so-good experiences all along :D

First, I was queued up behind a painfully slow talker on radio giving 'economic update'. Next, my beloved pair of scissors that has cut many a hair, hundreds of pieces of paper, not to mention many other things, was confiscated at the airport. Entirely my fault as I forgot I had kept it in my hand bag some three weeks back and forgot all about it. Third, I just found out that I haven't kept any clean change of dress here so I have to maintain a tight dress rotation cycle here. Finally, my search for a flat in India's apple is still unfruitful. None of my classmates are here yet as they will be enjoying their vacations and joining their jobs late. Ah!

Today I realised the extent of the heat in the subcontinent and summer has just started! I pity the British Overlords who had to spend their time here. Wish I was in Shimla, Darjeeling or Ooty now. No wonder they developed their 'hill stations' so much.

With nothing to do here, I finished one book - Jack Welch's Straight From the Gut in less than 8 hours of which 4 were spent in my favourite bed, curled up sleeping. Nothing is better than a 4 hour siesta! Brings in good memories spent at home when I was a kid where the biggest worry were home work assignments, getting up early and exams. Nowadays, kids as young as 15 are killing themselves over over-hyped exams. Not to mention the pressure from the glorified drill-sergeants a.k.a teachers. I still remember and hate to my guts some of the teachers back in school. I was horrified at the verdict of a court that acquitted the moron who pushed a 11th standard kid to hang himself. The school was velammal, where students are akin to prison inmates and the 'teachers' are nothing more than slave-drivers. In the name of 'competition' and 'future', the morons are pushing kids to achieve more than what they can. Getting even 90% in the final exam is seen as the sign of a 'weak student'. The idiots who 'correct' the papers are even more stupid. They just look for a few 'keywords' and reduce marks for each 'keyword' not seen! Just out of spite, in 12th standard, I filled one whole paper with just keywords and there wasn't a complete sentence in any answer. I got 93% in it!! Surprised? It happens only in India!

Exams for some papers here in the PHB insti can be considered a farce at their best. One guy who hasn't attended any class is one of the toppers, people who knew zero about information technology and information systems getting top marks in those subjects, blatant copying in certain papers, etc etc. There I go again, must be the air in this place!

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Conservative City

I did not understand why people called Chennai the most conservative city in India. After being on the road for a few days, I think I understand why. You can say the mindset of a place can be judged from the ads. First, the ad which has a male model being only in his bikini briefs with lipstick marks and the tagline 'prepare to get assaulted', which I saw even in cowbelt cities like Bhopal have been 'censored' everywhere here, only the male model covered with thick white canvas. I don't know what, maybe you will get 'assaulted', if you look like that model, or wear that brand of briefs or stuff it with stockings like that one :D Next, advertisements for anything and everything do well if they have a temple in the background or are set in a temple - water conservation, mobile phones, motorbikes/cars, name it. Thirdly, none of the ads have women showing more than their elbows (even ankles are not seen!). I am not complaining against anything. Also, there is a 6 feet tall chick sitting in the cubicle next to me. :)... Not complaining again.

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Dad's Advice

Hmm, less than 5 days to move out of this city into Aamchi Mumbai.

My dad doesn't like me wearing t-shirts with messagees on them. To be precise, he doesn't want me to wear t-shirts with radical messages like the ones which talk agains McDonald's, Enron, President of USA, Race-relations, religious messages, etc. If someone can have misogynistic, aryan supremacist, bullshit-apologetic, why can't I have something against it? What do you say of a verse that says women, shudras, buffalos (and something else) should be whipped to keep them in place - manusmriti. Too bad no-one recognises what is on my t-shirts anyway! I also can't have non-religionistic words on my t-shirt when others can write things like 'aum is the sound of the universe' (silence is), 'jesus calls'. Someone took offense when I wore a t-shirt with something closely resembling something else. Bah!

I have been struggling for over 3 months now with my blogrolling code, none of them is showing up... so those coolies ( cool people :D, no offense ) looking for backlinks and the linkwhores pestering me have to wait till I get someone knowledgable to sort it out for me. Why do they want my links for, anyway? Do I have that much traffic?

Thursday, March 10, 2005

sify

Looks like bad luck doesn't come alone. Sify says it is india's no.1 internet service, my brown arse! I spend about 1.5 hours a day for my work in a nearby sify browsing centre. Yesterday, I left my files saved on a computer here and when I come back, all files except for html files and pdfs are missing. The guy here says when a session is closed, all pictures and zip files stored here are deleted!!! WTF!#(*$#

This is because some needly morons download naughty pictures and save them here for later viewing, so this is a precaution. I have no other choice but to accept what these idiots have to say here.

Apart from that, just going through my movie collection, listening to music and playing with my cousin's 1 year old baby during free time. Nothing much to do otherwise. They graciously let me sleep till afternoon here.