Jun 03
These pothole formations are supposed to be the biggest in Asia. They can be seen near the village of Nighoj around 80 kms away from Pune. For more photos and information, visit my Pune blog.
May 13
For more photos and details, go over to my Pune blog.
Dec 10
To hell with the new state! I am really pissed off with the decision to form the new state. As a proud Tamilian, i am hurt by this decision of the congress government.
Until now, Tamil Nadu held the monopoly over “gaana pattu” and “dappan kuthu” songs. But that is threatened now with the formation of a new state – Telangana – whose revenue model has been conceived on the production of telugu gaana songs. Many, including the famed Burkha Dutt of NDTV, believe that there are political motivations behind the split of Andhra Pradesh. Little do they understand the sentiments of the common man and his needs.
There are multiple implications of this proposed split of Andhra Pradesh into Telangana and Andhra/2 Pradesh
- The telugu gaana industry will start making more money than the Andhra fake certificate industry. There are multiple implications of this
- The number of graduates/post-graduates/certificate holders from Andhra will drastically reduce and thus open up opportunities for Marathis, thus pleasing HIM , thus reducing riots in maharashtra, thus leading to a reduction in burnt vehicles, thus leading to a reduction in insurance claims, thus making more profits for the insurance cartel, which is not good!
- The number people with high percentage of marks in their graduation going to the US of A for higher studies will reduce, which will lead to a reduction of staff available for work in Andhra restaurants in California, thus leading to the closure of many such restaurants, thus leading to more people flocking to Punjabi restaurants, thus leading to more people eating Aloo Parathas, thus leading to more south indians startingto resemble the big punjabis (post marriage), which is not good.
- DJs in clubs will start belting out more telugu gaana hits than tamil folk songs and bhangra songs. Don’t ever have a doubt about the popularity of gaana songs. Even my daughter, Akshara, prefers gaana and kuthu songs over ghazals. She has even mastered the vijaykanth dance mode of sit/stand/put your hands on the head routine!
- YS Jagan Reddy, the son of late chief minister of Andhra pradesh, YS Rajsekhara Reddy, will stand to lose over 1500 crores. The logic is that YS jagan Reddy made 3000 crores allegedly by devious means. Now, if Telangana splits, the new politicians in telangana would obviously ask for a share of the loot as they would lose out on the kitty of 1500 crores that they can make.
Now, how do we patriotic tamilians address this serious issue?
- Pass a bill immediately in the Tamil Nadu assembly to get the word “gaana” patented such that only original tamil kuthu songs can be associated with the word “gaana”. At the same time, a memo should be sent to the centre and HIM in maharashtra clarifying that this word “gaana” has nothing to do with the Hindi word “gaana”. This has to be done before a press release is done about the patent lest Tamilians start getting beaten up by bollywood gangs.
- Arrange for a secret deal with Hyderabad and outsource the production of Biryanis to Chennai. This would infuriate the telangana politicians as one of their main reasons for asking Hyderabad was for its biryani. If the biryani were outsourced to Chennai, telanga would lose their interest in Hyderabad and thus it would reduce their access to studios capable of producing gaana songs in hyderabad.
if you can think of other ideas to help the tamil cause, do add them in the comments!
Sep 30
I was at the Chalkewadi wind farms over the weekend to see the huge windmills. We stopped on the way to take some photographs of the beautiful scenery around. There was no soul as far as the eyes could see (or so i thought). So, i stepped out of the car and was enjoying the nature when….
Moral of the story: Look before you pose!
Jun 17
It is just 7 am and a cricket match is on at the Margappata grounds. While many fielders are just ambling around still trying to wake up from their sleep, there is one soul shouting, clapping his hands and trying to motivate his team. He is one of the best fielders in his team and has been strategically posted at deep mid-on for stopping the quick singles as well as to take those sky-high catches when the batsmen slog towards long-on.
Suddenly, his ever alert eyes catch the ball rushing towards the boundary to his right. He runs towards the ball with a spring in his step, does a full-scale dive, catches the ball, does a perfect roll-over (He prides himself on having watched hundreds of cricket videos to learn the perfect dive-and-stop) and throws the ball at the non-striker’s end. It is a flat, hard throw and the aim was perfect. The ball hits the top of the leg stump, sending it into a cartwheel. He is delighted! He shouts in exhilaration and runs towards the pitch punching his fists in the air.But…..
But, no one else from his team is running towards him. He reaches the non-striker end, picks up the ball. Everyone else is looking towards the third-man and the batsmen are nonchalantly taking the second run! He then hears the dreaded words…
“BALL PLEASE”
Welcome to the world of cricket, in India! A world, where it is not enough if your fielding skills are good enough to stop the ball and throw them back, but good enough to stop the “correct” ball, the one your group is playing with!
Usually before a match, teams huddle together and discuss strategy. But, in matches in India, the teams huddle together and pray, because they need all the luck that they can have. Luck, that will ensure that the balls hit by their batsmen reach the boundary avoiding the dozens of other people standing in the ground and luck, that will ensure that ever-so-willing fielders from other games would stop the balls hit by their opponents!
It is not only for luck that they have to pray for. They also have to pray for their safety as they not only have to fear the fast bowlers in the opponent team but also the hard hitters in the match going on few feet away from them.Cricket, and not Hinduism, Islam or Christianity encourages so many prayers. No wonder cricket is considered the number one religion in India!
May 06
Having been out of India for almost 8 years, i have yearned for all the junk stuff that one could gorge on in the various food stalls in India. So, after returning to India, that is precisely what i have been doing. It has been alomst a month since i have been in Pune now and it has become a ritual for me to stop over at the local chaat shop every time i step out of the house. So, you can guess what is on my mind most of the time!
Today morning, when i opened the rediff.com website, the first headline read:
Chat: Best investment plans for 2009!
The moment i saw this, i started wondering: “What, is rediff advising people to invest in Chaat items!”. I am at work, but my thoughts are elsewhere!
Feb 26
First women were beaten up and chased out of the bars in the name of Hindu culture. Next, couples (even a brother-sister pair) were beaten up for being together on Valentine’s day, as we , the hindus, are supposed to celebrate only ram leela and not Valentine’s day. Now, Cow Protection Department of the RSS wants us to stop drinking “phoren” soft-drinks and drink something made from cow-urine!
The day is not far away when you walk into a Hindu-bar and the menu will look like this:
Drinks:
- Go-mata Sherbet
- Goratna soup
- Gaai-Bains-Peshab-MurgaPoonch (MurgaPoonch – Cocktail)
- Dhoodh-Peshab MurgaPoonch
- Shudh Peshab
- 98% unleaded Peshab
- 95% unleaded Peshab
Main Course:
- Frozen Peshab sticks
- Gobar Pie
- Gobar Pizza (with Peshab topping)
- Goratna kurma
- Paneer Gobar Masala
God help these guys. Actually, God help us from these guys!
Jan 12
Well, the story unfolds in Coimbatore airport, which is probably the same size as mine and my neighbor’s apartment put together (No, i don’t live in a bungalow, but a regular sized apartment!). I was returning to Chennai by a Jet airways flight from Coimbatore. We were waiting in the lobby after having passed through the security which incidentally was almost the same as the check done by the uniformed guard outside Saravana Bhavan.
There was only one TV kept at the corner of the lobby right next to a mobile coffee shop. So, while Vidhya, Akshara and Vidhya’s mom were seated in the front, i went to the corner to find a seat to watch TV. I had just settled down when i felt a sudden itching sensation on the top of my foot (I was wearing a slipper). It was like something had scratched my foot. I jumped up in surprise. The lady at the coffee shop said “Its ok sir. It was just a rat which ran over your foot. It has run away. Don’t worry”. Since i too saw something running away from me, i kind of calmed down.But, i felt an itch near the knee and on my thigh. So, i was there in the airport, jumping up and down and feeling the sides of my fearing that a rat had gone inside. But, i didn’t manage to find anything.
So, i went over to the place where Vidhya was sitting and started narrating this experience. Vidhya got worried and asked me to consult the airport doctor as a precautionary measure. But, i reassured her that it would be ok and started joking about the situation. A few minutes had passed and i felt an itch on my waist at the back and it seemed to “travel” to the left! I quietly excused myself to go to the rest room, just to ensure that all was ok.
Since it was an airport, i guess that the restroom was also designed like the ones inside an airplane, an extremely small box with not even enough room to stretch my hands in either direction. Once inside this box, i undid my pant’s buckle and to my utter shock, out jumped an itsy bitsy teenie weenie rattie (Just to make it rhyme!).
Well, it looked like one rat was chasing another and the one chasing took a wrong turn and went up my pants. This rat had just spent almost 5 minutes inside my pants and it was obvious that both of us (the rat and i) were relieved to be relieved of this imprisonment! The rat was delirious with joy and started running all over the place. Well, all over the place wasn’t much, as there wasn’t much space to run around. i guess that this rat, before entering my pants, was practising for the upcoming rat-race in coimbatore because it started running in circles along the wall of this small room. This rat didn’t look like a sprinter, but a marathon runner. So, it would be some time before this rat stopped his practice.
But, there was a problem. i was in the way with my pants down to the ankles. Taking the size of the room into consideration and doing a quick calculation using the formula time = distance/speed, i realised that there wasn’t enough time for me to bend down and pull up my pants until the rat reached me on the next round. So, there was i was , with my pants down and jumping up such that my jump exactly coincided with that point of time when the rat was near me. But, i wasn’t good at skipping and hadn’t played the game where two people on either side of you rotate the skipping rope and the person in the middle jumps up to avoid the skipping rope. So, i knew that it wasn’t going to be long before i misjudged my jump and landed right on top of the rat! The animal lover that i am, i wasn’t interested in harming this little guy. So, i had to do something and it better be fast.
One option was to just open the door and run out. But, this wasn’t the kind of restroom where you have a big room with wash basins and the WCs were inside this room. This was just a room WC. You open the door and walk out to the full view of the airport. I couldn’t do this because my pants weren’t where they were supposed to be. So, i took the drastic measure of jumping a little higher once and jumping on to the closet (hoping that it was not a low-quality one!). It survived and we (the rat and i) did too! Some more calculations later, i jumped on the floor and managed to run out of the room leaving the rat inside to finish off his marathon practice.
Once out of the room, i went to the airport security and asked to meet the airport doctor. He told me that a new doctor had been appointed the previous day and he was on leave that day! He wanted to know what had happened and i explained the situation briefly to him. He said” Sir, it must be the common rat, nothing to worry. Nothing will happen”!!! Common rat it may be, but there was nothing common about a rat in my pants!
it was time for my flight to leave, so i had to leave the airport after writing a complaint in the suggestion box. But, i guess it will be passed on as toilet paper in the restroom!
There was only one TV kept at the corner of the lobby right next to a mobile coffee shop. So, while Vidhya, Akshara and Vidhya’s mom were seated in the front, i went to the corner to find a seat to watch TV. I had just settled down when i felt a sudden itching sensation on the top of my foot (I was wearing a slipper). It was like something had scratched my foot. I jumped up in surprise. The lady at the coffee shop said “Its ok sir. It was just a rat which ran over your foot. It has run away. Don’t worry”. Since i too saw something running away from me, i kind of calmed down.But, i felt an itch near the knee and on my thigh. So, i was there in the airport, jumping up and down and feeling the sides of my fearing that a rat had gone inside. But, i didn’t manage to find anything.
So, i went over to the place where Vidhya was sitting and started narrating this experience. Vidhya got worried and asked me to consult the airport doctor as a precautionary measure. But, i reassured her that it would be ok and started joking about the situation. A few minutes had passed and i felt an itch on my waist at the back and it seemed to “travel” to the left! I quietly excused myself to go to the rest room, just to ensure that all was ok.
Since it was an airport, i guess that the restroom was also designed like the ones inside an airplane, an extremely small box with not even enough room to stretch my hands in either direction. Once inside this box, i undid my pant’s buckle and to my utter shock, out jumped an itsy bitsy teenie weenie rattie (Just to make it rhyme!).
Well, it looked like one rat was chasing another and the one chasing took a wrong turn and went up my pants. This rat had just spent almost 5 minutes inside my pants and it was obvious that both of us (the rat and i) were relieved to be relieved of this imprisonment! The rat was delirious with joy and started running all over the place. Well, all over the place wasn’t much, as there wasn’t much space to run around. i guess that this rat, before entering my pants, was practising for the upcoming rat-race in coimbatore because it started running in circles along the wall of this small room. This rat didn’t look like a sprinter, but a marathon runner. So, it would be some time before this rat stopped his practice.
But, there was a problem. i was in the way with my pants down to the ankles. Taking the size of the room into consideration and doing a quick calculation using the formula time = distance/speed, i realised that there wasn’t enough time for me to bend down and pull up my pants until the rat reached me on the next round. So, there was i was , with my pants down and jumping up such that my jump exactly coincided with that point of time when the rat was near me. But, i wasn’t good at skipping and hadn’t played the game where two people on either side of you rotate the skipping rope and the person in the middle jumps up to avoid the skipping rope. So, i knew that it wasn’t going to be long before i misjudged my jump and landed right on top of the rat! The animal lover that i am, i wasn’t interested in harming this little guy. So, i had to do something and it better be fast.
One option was to just open the door and run out. But, this wasn’t the kind of restroom where you have a big room with wash basins and the WCs were inside this room. This was just a room WC. You open the door and walk out to the full view of the airport. I couldn’t do this because my pants weren’t where they were supposed to be. So, i took the drastic measure of jumping a little higher once and jumping on to the closet (hoping that it was not a low-quality one!). It survived and we (the rat and i) did too! Some more calculations later, i jumped on the floor and managed to run out of the room leaving the rat inside to finish off his marathon practice.
Once out of the room, i went to the airport security and asked to meet the airport doctor. He told me that a new doctor had been appointed the previous day and he was on leave that day! He wanted to know what had happened and i explained the situation briefly to him. He said” Sir, it must be the common rat, nothing to worry. Nothing will happen”!!! Common rat it may be, but there was nothing common about a rat in my pants!
it was time for my flight to leave, so i had to leave the airport after writing a complaint in the suggestion box. But, i guess it will be passed on as toilet paper in the restroom!
Moral of the story: Never ever be stuck in the middle of a rat-race!
Aug 06
One of the most popular pages on my site is the one about Dumb Charades. I remember from back in school/college that dumbcharades was one of the most popular games played within a group, of course next to Antakshari. Another game very popular in India (and, as i found out, very popular in Cyprus too) is the game of Tambola. It is also known as Bingo or Housie.
When i was working/staying in bangalore, our apartment used to organise Bingo once a month with the tickets priced at 2 rupees each. We used to be 5 guys (fresh from college s/w engineers) staying together. While other bought 1 or 2 tickets each, we used to go and buy 10 to 15 tickets each , virtually dictating the way the event was conducted. Others didn’t complain, for we contributed to the big prize money in the pool. But, more often than not, we cornered most of the prizes due to the heavy probability in our favour.
I have been conducting Bingo sessions in our outdoor events at work for few years now. I do it a bit differently and as far as i know, it has been well received. Traditionally Bingos (or is it Bingoes) have cash prizes for the first five, the three rows and a full house, the cash prizes coming from the sale of the tickets. In the tambola events i organise, i do give out cash prizes, but also lot of other small gifts which can be souvenirs, fridge magnets, tshirts and pracically anything else which is not so expensive. If i do manage to get sponsors, then the big gifts come out. So, if you are organising a bingo, try to get a budget for it and then buy many small gifts and give them out apart from the cash prizes. if you don’t get a budget, make a guess as to the amount of money you will collect and then pre-buy gifts for that amount.
Now that you have so many gifts, how are you going to give them away if there are only 4 prizes (3 rows + 1 full house)? This is where you have to do things differently. i have given below the list (in random order) of all bingo “events” for which i have given away prizes. You can pick and choose from the list below based on the number of gifts you have, your interest level in organising the event, the time available for the event (more the prizes, more the time ) and the interest level of the players.
When i was working/staying in bangalore, our apartment used to organise Bingo once a month with the tickets priced at 2 rupees each. We used to be 5 guys (fresh from college s/w engineers) staying together. While other bought 1 or 2 tickets each, we used to go and buy 10 to 15 tickets each , virtually dictating the way the event was conducted. Others didn’t complain, for we contributed to the big prize money in the pool. But, more often than not, we cornered most of the prizes due to the heavy probability in our favour.
I have been conducting Bingo sessions in our outdoor events at work for few years now. I do it a bit differently and as far as i know, it has been well received. Traditionally Bingos (or is it Bingoes) have cash prizes for the first five, the three rows and a full house, the cash prizes coming from the sale of the tickets. In the tambola events i organise, i do give out cash prizes, but also lot of other small gifts which can be souvenirs, fridge magnets, tshirts and pracically anything else which is not so expensive. If i do manage to get sponsors, then the big gifts come out. So, if you are organising a bingo, try to get a budget for it and then buy many small gifts and give them out apart from the cash prizes. if you don’t get a budget, make a guess as to the amount of money you will collect and then pre-buy gifts for that amount.
Now that you have so many gifts, how are you going to give them away if there are only 4 prizes (3 rows + 1 full house)? This is where you have to do things differently. i have given below the list (in random order) of all bingo “events” for which i have given away prizes. You can pick and choose from the list below based on the number of gifts you have, your interest level in organising the event, the time available for the event (more the prizes, more the time ) and the interest level of the players.
- Anyone with the number 1 on their ticket. If all players have bought the full column, change it to – Anyone with number 1 on their topmost ticket – i usually start off with this one giving all the ppl 1 cent/1 rupee as a prize!
- Apart from the three rows, you can also give a prize for the first 4 columns i.e. the first and the last number on the first and the last row.
- If you are playing Bingo with a group of really enthusiastic people, you can also add prizes for the 5 columns on a ticket. Each column is not defined as the column appearing on the ticket, but as the respective numbers. Eg: 1st column would be the 1st number on each row irrespective of where the numbers actually are.
- It will be a morale-booster to also have a unlucky-one prize for the one who is the last to get a number on his ticket.
- If your group contains people of both sexes and of different ages, you can give prizes based on boys/girls or kids/parents/grand parents etc i.e a prize to the kid with the most/least number of numbers marked on a ticket.
- You can also play around with mathematics (if you have people buying an entire column) such a 1 number in 1 ticket, 2 numbers in another ticket and 3 numbers in another or any such combination.
- You can give prizes for combination of numbers in the rows i.e. 1 number on a row, 2 on another and 3 on the other.
- While selling tickets, give discounts to people buying the entire column ( 6 tickets). This will encourage people to buy the set which gives you more options to give prizes.
- Giving away absolutely junk prizes in the middle will keep the audience entertained. Eg: After giving away lot of prizes, the person to receive a prize will be looking forward to a goo prize. Then you can suddenly call for a combination which you expect many to have and call all of them to get a prize. You could then give each of them a chocolate or something equally silly!
- If you run out of allocated prizes for the first session on Bingo towards the end, but people are still interested, you can always give out free tickets for the next session as a prize.
Hope these tips help you in organising a good game of Bingo!
Btw, if you don’t have the cards to play, you can check this post for a link with which you can print Bingo cards for free.
Technorati Tags: bingo tambola housie party games bingo cards
Jul 03
Maho Arnaha Saraswati Pra Chetayati Ketuna Dhiyo Vishwa Vi Rajati.
Asmantsu Tatra Chodyendra Raye Rabhsthavaha TuVidyumna Yashsthavaha
Asmantsu Tatra Chodyendra Raye Rabhsthavaha TuVidyumna Yashsthavaha
What do the above lines mean to you?
If you are a follower of/believer in the vedas, you would recognise the above as lines from rig veda and would start on trying the understand the meaning conveyed by the lines. If you are a quizzer, you would look at these lines as a probable source of esoteric questions which you as the quiz master would only ever know. But, if you are an expecting parent, then these lines would be a treasure trove of possible unpronounceable names which you would carefully note down in your “Big book of names for my baby”!
This is where Confuso-Kiddo-Name-o-graphy, the art of getting confused by writing down too many baby names, comes into the picture. Recently, my friends had a kid and when we visited them in the hospital, i saw a fat book lying beside the bed. On picking it up and looking inside (i didn’t see the cover), i saw lot of strange words and their meanings. I was wondering as to why she was reading Rosenblum’s word-list for GRE. Then, on seeing the cover , i realised that it was not the rosenblum book, but a book on Hindu baby names written by “I-shall-unlock-all-the-cages-in-zoos” Menaka Gandhi.
The book was in fact, more confusing that a GRE word list. I guess what Menaka would have done is to copy over the english transliterations of all the holy writings of Hinduism into Excel, then sorted them and then added a random meaning to each one of them. Well, a normal person wouldn’t anyway know what a name such as “Caksusa” really meant. He would just go by what is written in the book. It must be the easiest book she must have ever written!
Sometimes, being born an Indian has many disadvantages – for the parents. They have the unfortunate task of naming the child according to zillions of naming conventions. Imagine if the child is Cypriot, they have just few names like Andreas, Christos, Nicos and the feminine forms of them. So, it is pretty easy to choose amongst them. Parents who are a bit religious and want to do things the traditional way would rely upon numerology, the baby’s horoscope, vaastu (the location where the baby was delivered and the direction the mom was facing when delivering the baby) , vedic mathematics and few other dozen rules. After doing all the above calculations, if they end up with a restriction that the name should start with the letter “Q” or “X”, they immediately turn modern and name the child Pinky, Rocky, Sweety etc.
Americans have it easier still. They can name their children bush, gate, forest or based on practically any word taken from a regular dictionary. Take the case of Tiger Woods. Earl and Kutilda, tiger woods’ parents were going for a walk in the remote forests of Vietnam. Kutilda was heavily pregnant at that time. When they went around a corner, Earl suddenly saw what he thought was a tiger and yelled out “There is a tiger in the woods”. Kutilda went into a shock and delivered a healthy baby. Considering it a good sign, they named the child “Tiger Woods”.
Back to our case – We Indians have to consider a lot of things other than the above mentioned factors in naming a child.
- In today’s global village, we have to even consider how americans would react to the name. What if the name was “Manish Bhatt”. Americans would be talking about Manish’s butt whenever they refer to him. We can’t even name our kids with our favourites like Raghunathan Ramakrishnan or Somasundaram Pattabbiraman, as americans find it difficult to pronounce anything more than 2 syllables.
- We also have to think about the possible nicknames that could arise from the name when your kid goes to college. If there are many possible nicknames, rest assured that the one with the most vulgar meaning will be the one with which your child is christened in college.
- You also have to attend french classes, german classes and classes of few other popular languages to check if the name you have thought of doesn’t have any unintended meanings in these languages.
After all this confusion, many parents give up and name their kid some shit, i mean Samchit!
Technorati Tags: baby names naming a child hindu names
