Long Island Iced Tea

The Long Island Iced Tea is my favourite cocktail.

The Recipe:

• 1.5 cl (one part) Vodka
• 1.5 cl (one part) Tequila
• 1.5 cl (one part) White Rum
• 1.5 cl (one part) Cointreau
• 1.5 cl (one part) Gin
• 2.5 cl (1½ part) Lemon juice
• 3.0 cl (two parts) Sugar Syrup
• Dash of Cola

Mix ingredients in glass over ice, stir, garnish with lemons and serve.

It is a deadly drink. As you can see from the recipe its got a wide variety of alcoholic ingredients in it!

LONG ISLAND ICED TEA

View Before consumption

View After consumption

Few Quotes...

Living without a conscience is the easiest way to live.
-Myself

Nothing great seems achievable at first.
-Myself

Life is about living, not about ifs and buts.
-Myself

Making the end justify the means is a sure sign of failure.
-Myself

Guru - A few lessons yet to be learnt!

Guru
My personal rating: Low Blood Pressure (5/10)

The main problem with the movie is that while it does manage to grab your attention now and then, it is not able to hold it.
The movie oscillates between emotional drama and the business side of things. Whenever something interesting seems to be happening on the business side some emotional drama is injected. There is no continuity in the movie. In one scene things look absolutely bleak for the hero, in the other everyone is dancing with joy.
The timeline of the movie itself is not very continuous either and one is not able to understand the temporal gap between events. When you are trying to tell a story of events happening over a period of 30-35 years especially against a dynamic background (in this case Post-Independence India) one needs to be very careful in establishing a clear timeline.

All this inspite of lifting parts of the story straight out of the life of Dhirubhai Ambani.

The end of the movie is one big emotional stretch which hindi movies are so famous for.
It also leaves various loose ends such as:

1. What happens to the conflict between Mithun/Madhavan and Abhishek Bachhan?
2. How does Abhishek manage to recover his personal and business lives after the hearing?
3. What happens to his wife's brother?

It seems to me that the director wanted to make a movie which showed off all aspects of the struggle of Abhishek Bachhan both on a personal front and on the business front. What comes out is a horribly mixed up story where instead of having seamless integration of the two story lines there is a cut-paste feel to it. Its like watching a Powerpoint slide of a movie.

I think Aishwarya Rai should not have been picked as the heroin. They should have picked someone a bit low-key and made the emotional side of the story a background for the business side. I don't think high-profile actresses like Aishwarya can ever be expected to play background roles successfully. Vidya Balan had absolutely no role in the movie except to be the weeping point for both the parties.

It reminds me of the movie Kalyug (directed by Shyam Benegal) which manages to achieve what Guru tries to.

A few positives about the movie:

Mithun's acting. Simply amazing, shows that he still has it in him! But his whole effort is wasted because the story never gets continuous enough.

Madhavan's acting. Role perfectly suited to him.

The instrumental soundtrack is quite nice and the titles are very well designed (flipping pages).

Aishwarya Rai dances well especially in the song 'Barso re megha..' she seems to have a very flexible body.

Insanity.. and Ph.D.

TK: waise how can an insane girl also be an obedient wife?? any theories??
Me: well its insane to be an obedient wife in todays day n age
Me: ;)
TK: u can call me an exception instead of insane
Me: whats the difference :D
Me: exceptions are always thought to be insane
TK: just sounds better
Me: ill just call u a phd student
Me: that pretty much covers it all.. ;)

On a Republic Day...

This year I was fortunate enough to be in India on our Republic Day (26th of January). Ever since I can remember, I used to enjoy watching the Republic Day parade. Republic Day for me, as a child, was always a sad day because I knew there would be no more holidays till after the final exams (in March). I also used to love watching the military hardware on display.

This year the parade was equally impressive, especially the military part with the smartly dressed marching regiments. I felt proud of being an Indian, I my heart felt heavy with emotion thinking about all the people who have sacrificed so many things so that we as a nation can exist.

We Indians are really not proud of our heritage, I think most are not even aware of it. When someone asks we yell at the top of our voice that we are proud to be Indians. But all this patriotism is gone when people accept bribes, scream and fight at the top of their voice over minor issues and build illegally over reserved forest land. No one gives a damn then for what will happen to the future of India.

Funny enough that India is famous for religion and spiritualism. Some of the greatest thinkers and philosophers of all time have had their roots here. All that wisdom is lost to us.

On an unrelated note:
This year the Chief Guest at the Parade was the Russian President Vladimir Putin. I wonder if he felt any kind of satisfaction seeing India proudly display its military hardware, most of which was bought from Russia?

Another unrelated note:
Had recently gone to the Domestic Airport in Delhi. Was really surprised to see the way it has been done up. It is looking really nice! It almost made me want to travel around India by plane. Then I saw the cabin crew for a few airlines entering the airport (I was standing there waiting for someone) and, well, lets just say I was feeling sorry that I was not going to board a flight!

Taxi No. 9211 (a.k.a. Taxi No. 420)

Just finished watching Taxi No. 9211.
I liked the movie. But there was something going on at the back of my mind while I was watching it. I knew this movie has to be a copy of some Hollywood flick. Mainstream Bollywood is just not that creative!

Yet I couldn't figure out which one. Initially when I had seen the trailers of the movie I thought (wrongly) that perhaps its a copy of Collateral.
As the plot unfolded, it suddenly struck me which Hollywood flick Taxi No.9211 was a copy of.
Taxi No. 9211 was copied from a movie called Changing Lanes (released 2002) starring Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Affleck.
The story is exactly the same except in case of Changing Lanes Samuel L. Jackson (played by Nana Paterkar in 9211) is not a taxi driver and Ben Affleck (played by John Abraham) is a lawyer. The circumstances are the same, Ben Affleck has to submit some papers in court involving a multi-million dollar trust suit.

The full story of Changing Lanes can be found here.

Too bad mainstream Bollywood can only copy stuff or dish out re-heated crap.

Desert of Love

When someone tells me how they just broke up with their gf/bf I say to them:

Time to move on to the next oasis in the desert of love.

I think finding love (true love) is the hardest thing to do in this life. People have become too conditional and practical.

In the old days when trading caravans used to cross huge desserts they used to cling to the support provided by various oases along the route. A dried oasis or a slight divergence from the route could result in a long drawn out life and death struggle which was more often than not won by the desert.

The same way in life if we wish to cross this great desert we need to find some comfort or love along the route. In the beginning we have our parents/siblings to provide us with that comfort.
As we move along into the deep desert (start making our own way in the world) we come across various pools of comfort and love.

But sometimes things go terribly wrong and we end up hating the word 'love'. It taints us for life but we have no choice except to move on. To keep searching for the next oasis hoping that we are not lost in the ever-shifting sands of despair. Because to stay still means giving up on 'love' and loosing all hope.

Snapshots of Life

Picture Title: 'Cheers with a B52'

Picture Title: 'Mother India'

Unconditional Love....

Was discussing 'unconditional love' with a friend of mine.

I think 'unconditional love' doesn't exist. You love someone because of who/what they are.

For example if you love X you love them because that person is X. That in itself is a condition for love. Would you show the same love to Y or Z?
While you may not be in love for materialistic reasons, you cannot call it unconditional.

My friend defines 'unconditional love' as:

TK: but if u love that one person irrespective of the way they are... like for better or for worse... then that is unconditional

Thus the condition becomes:

IF person = X THEN
love them irrespective of the way they are
ELSE
do not love them irrespective of the way they are
END IF

To give unconditional love you need to evolve beyond a human being.
I think only two people that I know off were ever capable of giving that:
1) Mahatma Gandhi
2) Mother Teresa

No wonder they were given the title of 'Mahatma' and 'Mother'

Snapshots of Life

Picture Title: 'The Proposal a.k.a. Lehmann Brothers'

Snapshots of Life

Picture Title: 'Happy New Year!'

Picture Title: 'Balveen Kaur'

Irony of Marriage...

Picture Title: 'Irony'Mental problems: specially marriage and family problems.
Amazing... didn't know marriage was seen as a mental problem!

Snapshots of Life

Picture Title: 'Modesty'

Snapshots of Life

Picture Title: 'Where is the whiskey'
Picture title: 'Love'

Why am I still single?

Well I ask myself this question all the time.

Why am I single?

Hahahahaha well, the problem is whenever women deal with me they end up looking like this...
Yes... This is an actual photo of a girl out on a lunch date with me.

Maintaining a relationship...

After having studied women from all over the world... I can say one thing with a great deal of confidence...

ALL WOMEN SEEK SECURITY IN A RELATIONSHIP

The key to maintaining a successful relationship lies in identifying what kind of security the woman is seeking and to not get into the relation if you feel that you cannot provide that kind of security.

The nature of security being sought changes from woman to woman. Some women may need security of finances where as some women may just be seeking security for their freedom.

If u think about it, love is nothing but a series of questions answered in the right way.

tumne kya diya iss ghar ko.. chaar chaar betiyan

"tumne kya diya iss ghar ko.. chaar chaar betiyan"
Translation: 'what have you given this house except four daughters'

This stunner of a statement is from a serial called 'Ghar ki lakshmi: Betiyan' (Translation: 'The Goddess of a Home: Its daughters').

I wonder do people still speak like that?
What kind of people still believe/think such things?
Do people really ENJOY watching such things? Or maybe they just enjoy watching the people who have such thoughts being defeated by the hero/heroines in the serial?

The triumph of good over evil?

Man, when will we have some intelligent programmes on TV... that's what people complain!
I am all for such serials 'desi saas bahu' serials. They require much less brain power to watch. Something you can relax with. ;)

Personal Quotes..

Yesterday I was going through my old diaries and I came across some things which I had written way back in 2002. I am quoting them here...

If you are wise and you know what you are searching for, you will find 'it'... eventually.
If you are not wise and do not understand what you are searching for, then 'it' will find you.
-30th October 2002

If you are not serious no one takes you seriously.
-4th November 2002

Too much death spoils your appetite for life
-20th November 2002

Being an intelligent man in a stupid world is the same as being a stupid man in an intelligent world, useless.
-23rd December 2002

Sometimes you need darkness to see the light, thus never be afraid of the dark.
-8th January 2003

14-6th under surveillance

Me with the police car in the background (taken outside our house!)


Police car in front of our house.. it stayed there all night long and is still there (Sunday 26th Nov. 10 AM).


Police car behind our house.. it stayed there all night long and is still there (Sunday 26th Nov. 10 AM). You can't see it clearly but you can just make out the fluorescent green paint and the tail light thru the fence.


Our house has been under surveillance by the Police since yesterday night.

Why? Well I am not at the liberty to say.

This is my fourth encounter with the police, in UK, since I moved into 14-6th. Each time I have been impressed at the efficiency and professionalism of the local police.
They will come to your house for anything that they might need (such as a statement or a fingerprint). They are well spoken and polite. All in all very impressive.

Back in India everything good and bad about the police is well known by the local people. The local people know the whole 'system' and how to make it work for them.

Here it is the opposite. Nothing is revealed and no one actually knows what's happening in the police system. I am sure they must be having similar problems here as well, especially related to corruption and rascism (which is quite well documented actually!). But somehow it doesn't translate into their dealings with common, honest people.

Unfortunately its not the same back home. Where the police I think takes more pleasure in troubling honest folk than catching criminals.