A Quote after Breakfast...

All good things begin with a question.
-Myself.

An Alcoholic Achievement

My years of dedication to alcohol have finally paid off. I now look like an alcoholic!

Few days ago I had gone for a wedding reception. As soon as I entered the area where the reception was taking place my eyes fell on waiter carrying scotch. I did not say or indicate anything to him yet he came up to me and directly asked me 'with Soda or Water'.

I don't know how he knew I will take scotch. Maybe I was giving off a scotch drinkers vibe or something? Or maybe something in my body language on seeing the glasses full of scotch on his tray?

:D

On a Valentine's Day..

For someone.... special....

You and I will always remain together,
wherever and with whoever we are.
Coz you are the first girl who I have loved,
from the depths of my heart.

- A. M.
13th February 2007

Thank you Arti!

Azahar: how cute u r

u have lost ur power of fighting

:D

if ur fire then im water

thande pad jaate ho aap in front of my logic ;)

hehehehe

Arti: there is no logic

coming from your end

its a simple fact..."you are crazy"

About PhD...

TK: i auditioned for a musical nite as a part of ***'s Research Scholar's Meet
Me: hahaha
TK: and got selected!!!
TK: why "hahaha"?
Me: phd and singing
Me: hahahah
Me: u might be singing for money at a railway station after phd
TK: very funny!!

Stress at School...

A few days ago I was sitting with an old friend from school.
As it often happens in such situations we started talking about the good old days especially the last two years of school (classes 11th and 12th).
We passed out about 9 years ago so it was fun going back to those final days at school.

Suddenly my friend remarked that while those days were amazing he would never want to repeat them.

Now I was thinking along the same lines as we had been talking about school. So I was naturally surprised to hear my friend giving voice to my thoughts.
Then he went on to say that he still gets nightmares sometimes that he has failed the Board exams in 12th and he wakes up in a panic. Once he is awake and realises that those days are behind him he manages to relax.

When I heard this I was even more surprised. I was surprised because I get similar nightmares sometimes. But my nightmares are about having missed many school days (I used to take quite a few holidays in 11th and 12th) and then having to rejoin.
I think what will teachers say, how much of the course I would have missed and what will my friends ask me? Sometimes I too wake up in a panic thinking that those days are back.

This got me thinking about the hidden stress at school. Schools are supposed to be places where a child can grow and develop, not where they develop subconscious stress.

A few questions came to my mind:

Is school supposed to give you nightmares 10 years down the line?

Is that perhaps a 'fringe benefit' of formal schooling?

Maybe we don't take enough time in preparing a child for education like a farmer prepares a field for crops to be planted. I wonder if this is a growing trend in children especially in today's highly competitive study environments where each half percent can mean the difference between success and failure. Where children are evaluated on the basis of exam results and not their true aptitude.

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'