SRK de-coded

This article was published in The Telegraph today, along with this rate card. Quite funny it is :)

From Durban dard to disco at wedding - SRK back home for vote and work

Mumbai, April 29: Shah Rukh Khan had vowed to “barge in (to)” Calcutta with the IPL trophy and show “some new dance moves”.

With the odds stacking up against his Knight Riders, he will make good a part of the promise and dance — not in Calcutta, but at a Mumbai wedding.

The actor flew back to Mumbai on liquor baron Vijay Mallya’s private jet today “to cast his vote” in tomorrow’s election. “I will go back only if the team does well,” the star said on arrival, hours before the Knight Riders lost yet another match, ironically to Mallya’s Royal Challengers in Durban.

“Vote or no vote, he would have returned on Wednesday because he has been hired to dance at a wedding in Mumbai on Thursday,” said an aide of the actor who himself could not be reached for comment.

Sources said Shah Rukh would be paid around Rs 2 crore for a 20-minute performance at the wedding of Mumbai builder Kanti Gowani’s nephew. The actor had reportedly charged Rs 1.5 crore for his number at the wedding of steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal’s daughter.

“Earlier, the plan was to perform at the Gowani wedding and then return to South Africa. But now with his team doing so poorly, he has decided to stay put in Mumbai. In fact, negotiations are on with a couple of other parties who are keen to hire him for such private performances,” said the SRK aide.

Shah Rukh had said last year that if his IPL venture hit red despite the advertising revenue, he would break even by dancing at a few more weddings. He had also requested Sourav Ganguly and John Buchanan to dance at the beginning of every game. The steps, obviously, didn’t match.

Sources said the actor has now sent out word that he would be available for weddings — not just to dance — but as a “full-time guest”. “He can be available, say for three days, for Rs 12 crore,” said a source in GS Entertainment, the event management company handling the Gowani wedding shows.

The Gowanis have already circulated an invitation card for the wedding that lists the names and photos of the stars along with the days and wedding events for which they would perform.
“There will be two pre-wedding shows — on April 30 and May 2. The first show will have Shah Rukh, Bipasha (Basu), Rani (Mukherjee) and Emraan Hashmi. Shiamak Davar will choreograph Shah Rukh’s show and television actress Rakshanda Khan will be the master for ceremonies,” said the source in GS Entertainment.

It Gets Even Better

KKR lost even to Royal Challengers!! They definitely deserve to end up at the bottom of the barrel now. Imagine losing to a team that loses to everyone else!!

As if it'll help make things better, SRK has come back to India and says he’ll go back to SA only when his team starts winning matches. Someone needs to tell him that his team’s performance has nothing to do with him being in SA or not. It’s all a result of Buchanan’s crappy “strategies” which he's endorsing, and till the time he continues to do that, his team will continue to lose – irrespective of whether he’s in SA or Mumbai or Mars or the moon!!

A more effective option might be to send Buchanan back to where he came from. That might help.

On the other hand there are rumors that SRK is planning to sell off his stake in KKR. Are things really beyond redemption? Maybe not, IF he gets himself to accept the root cause of his team's misery - the Coach. KKR has some really good players on board. Not like their talent evaporates when they're playing for KKR & returns when they have to play for their country! The problem lies beyond.

On the other hand, Preity Zinta’s team is playing quite well. They had a pretty modest score to defend against Mumbai last night (120) but they did it.

Much as I'd like to see Rajasthan in the semi-finals & even the finals, I don't think they'll make it. But they've still got my heart :)

My picks for the semi-final are – Hyderabad, Mohali, Delhi & Mumbai/Chennai. What’s your’s?

Letter from Kolkata

Dear Mr Khan,

Congratulations on another fabulous defeat! You really seem to be enjoying them it seems. Your team lives up to them consistently, with any deviations (wins) emanating solely due to bad weather.

This weather can play truant at the best of times, I tell you. Just when you were looking set to lose to Preity’s team, it started raining and you won! How disappointing! But chin up, there are many matches left to lose. Let not one accidental win dishearten you.

In fact, I have a very good suggestion for you. Why don’t you let Buchanan’s laptop bat next game onwards? Why send cricketers in to play at all? If anything, they are destructive to your dream of ending up at the bottom of the pile in IPL2. You see, they TRY to win you matches, which is no good if you want to end up No. 8 (of 8 teams)! They are conspiring against you, you see?

SO. Get smart. Be one up on them. Don se zyada hoshiyaar koi nahi ho sakta! The next time your team has a match, let the boys dress up, pad themselves us, warm up. Get them geared up to play, and then drop the bomb. Send in Buchanan’s laptop to bat & his lapdog (you) to bowl. There is no need to have any fielders b/c the ball will not go outside the pitch, so you can easily run & grab it.

Look at Warnie. Or Gilly for that matter. I’m sure they do not make use of their laptops. No wonder they are winning most of the matches they play. Don’t they get it, those fools? It’s cool to lose matches these days. That is what Don does, and Don jo karta hai, usey hi 'cool' kehte hain!

Send your cricketers back to India. Why are you unnecessarily bearing the expense of putting them up in South Africa? Think about the amount of money you will save! You can then spend all that money on pampering your entourage of batting coach, bowling coach, fielding coach, wicket-keeping coach, shoe-wearing coach, socks-wearing coach etc. And then watch how you lose all your matches!

Also, while you're at your efforts to make your team the laughing stock of IPL, please hype them up even more. Not everyone can become a 'Knight Rider'. It's a title every cricketer covets but only a few (read jerks from ANZ who think no one apart from them knows cricket) are lucky enough to have it bestowed upon them. The unlucky ones resort to blogging to vent their frustration.

You should give a byte to the media at every opportunity you get. In fact I suggest you talk even when Preity Zinta or Shilpa Shetty are asked to talk. Look at them...those utterly stupid women. They talk only when their team is delivering. You can hog their air time as well. The more you hype yourself, the more ecstatic you'll feel when you end up as the losers.

Hope you incorporate my suggestions into your game plan. They are a surefire way to end up as No. 8.

Yours Truly,
An ex-KKR supporter who is not a supporter anymore thanks to your idiocy

Unbutton for Freedom

The entire episode of a PIL being filed against Akshay Kumar for getting his wife to unbutton his jeans at the LFW is a joke. Someone who wanted his 15 seconds of fame filed an IPL against the actor, and our great courts are pursuing it so seriously that they arrested Twinkle Khanna & are apparently waiting for Akshay Kumar's return from South Africa (where he’s busy shooting for Season 2 of Khatron Ke Khiladi) so they can arrest them too! Why don't they show such zeal in cases where there are actual crimes like murders, rapes, kidnappings, terrorists acts etc. being committed is anybody's guess!

Do we really have such a lack of socio-political issues in this country that need to be dealt with urgently that we need to worry about who is unbuttoning whose jeans & where??

First of all, why sue Akshay Kumar? What has he done apart from doing what he was asked to do? I’m sure he was paid huge bucs to endorse the brand. Doubt how much of a say he has in what he should/should not do?

Secondly, I’m sure people who attended the show were mature enough to handle something like that. And so are we. So where’s the big deal? Is it because kids watching it on television were exposed to something that was “vulgar” and “contrary to Indian values”? Boss, if that is what your issue is then you have no idea what your kids are up to!

Kids these days are doing so many un-Indian things that are much bigger than watching someone get his jeans unbuttoned by his wife. They are watching p*rn, having s*x even before they reach their teens, indulging in other s*xual acts that are apparently criminalized as per the Indian Penal Code etc. I refuse to believe parents don't know what kids in general are up to. You can't live in denial yourself and go around chastising others!

Levi's on the other hand claims that unbuttoning one's jeans stands for 'freedom' and that is what they are trying to portray through their ‘Live Unbuttoned’ campaign. Well, how the hell does unbuttoning signify 'freedom' of all things? If anything, it signifies horniness & a desire for s*x!

So Mr Kumar, would suggest that before you accept mega bucs for endorsements in the future so you can buy your wife Hermes Birkin hand bags worth Rs 10 lacs, think it ten times over. Not in the interest of saving the country from moral corruption but in the interest of saving your own Levied arse.

For now, you can happily pay up for your lack of foresight. And no, being the highest tax payer in Bollywood does not guarantee one a free ride, just in case you were wondering.

Get A Life!

I might be prosecuted for this post by some people who read this post ;-) BUT I’m invoking my Freedom of Speech here, people!

I think Bengalis (of Calcutta) are one of the most self-obsessed people I’ve met. When I say self-obsessed, I mean obsessed with what they call “Bengaliyana”, i.e., Bengali culture, traditions, music, language etc. At times I feel they really need a broader world view but more importantly, they need a better sense of humor & and they need to learn to take themselves less seriously.

The best example of this is the Calcutta media which is O-B-S-E-S-S-E-D with Calcutta. They will subject every known or unknown person who visits Calcutta – be it an Indian or a foreigner – to questions on their Calcutta connect, things they love about Calcutta, what memories of the city they will take with them etc. etc. I’m sure if they ever spot a Martian roaming around in Calcutta accidentally, they will ask it for it’s Calcutta connection!! That is how ethnocentric the Calcutta media is.

Sleepless in South Africa

The Fake IPL Player has rattled the peace in the ANZ Knight Riders camp (thanks Knife for such an appropriate nomenclature) and is giving sleepless nights to the team owner & management, who are reportedly "gunning for his blood". There are rumors that the blog is a doing of the Knight Riders owner and his over-active PR company, which could very well be true except I’m not sure the megalomaniac that SRK is, he would let people refer to himself as ‘Badshah Dildo’.

The blog has been in existence merely a week & already has close to 2000 followers! Man, wouldn’t we die for such a following! ;)

My take on him? I don't think he is a real player from the IPL camp.Think about it – how can he have the time to write so many posts everyday when the team is busy with practice & matches (that they lose anyway)? Even if he is not in the playing 11, as he insists, he still is part of the squad...meaning he can’t possibly be chilling out in the Savannahs while the rest of his team mates are practicing. And even if he does have all the time in the world, wouldn’t people get suspicious when he’s hunched over his laptop all day, typing away? Especially when they know there's someone (who claims to be one of them) maligning them on the world wide web?

Secondly, no player will risk having his career ruined – which I think is precisely what SRK & his beloved Aussie coach would do if he gets found out!

Some of the characters & teams he refers to in his blogs are:

Kishen Kanaiyya - Ravi Shastri

Appam C*****a – Sreeshanth

Pedophile Priest – Adam Gilchrist

Kaan Moolo – Ajith Agarkar (b/c of his enormous ears)

Big Sister – Shilpa Shetty

Prince Charles of Patiala – Yuvraj Singh

Lordie – Sourav Ganguly

Babli – Preity Zinta

Calypso King – Chris Gayle

Dildo / Badshah Dildo – SRK

Hawaii Chappal – Greg Chapel

Junta Tormentor – Ajantha Mendis

Sandy Baddy Babe – Mandira Bedi

Little John – Ishant Sharma

Bangla Tiger – Mushrafe Murtaza

Sheikh of Tweak - Shane Warne

Meera Bhai - Harbhajan Singh

Mr.Batlivala - Vijay Mallya

Phoren Babas - Brendon McCullum & John Buchanan

Bevdaa Team - Bangalore Royal Challengers

Big Sister’s Team - Rajasthan Royals

Bubblie’s Team - Kings XI Punjab

Have to give it to the guy – he’s quite smart. He’s figured out the way to make his claim of being an actual Knight Rider believable. He writes about situations which are very real & incidents can actually happen...stuff like what gets discussed & who does what during team meetings, what goes on in the dressing room, what happens in the dug out etc. Anyone who reads his blogs will think he is who he claims to be. Except it is kind of silly to believe that. It makes the blogs less fun to read (than it would’ve been had he really been a Knight Rider dishing out dirt on the various players & management)...but it’s fun nonetheless!

Someone Please Tell This Man to Shut Up

He has positively & single-handedly ruined my love for the Kolkata Knight Riders through his under-the-belt actions.

Excerpts from SRK’s interview with rediff.com...It’s amazing how the man never learns. After the way his team fell on their faces last year, you’d hope he’d be sensible enough not to shoot his mouth off again this year. Well, looks like he’s going to disappoint…

On receiving mails for stripping Sourav Ganguly of KKR captaincy : “I get strange hate mails from people for taking decision for the team's sake. But that is okay, I'm saving them all so that I can go to each house and say 'Korbo, Lorbo, Jeetbo'”.....And then RUN FOR YOUR LIFE b/c Mr SRK, Kolkatans are after your blood!

To Kolkatans to stay by the side of KKR : "Along the way if we go wrong, please feel for us and send us positive energies".....Yes, you can positively go to hell.

"We are under a lot of pressure. We are a hyped team because the owners are from film industry and because we have the most passionate city backing us. For good and bad, the Kolkatans love us one night and one night they do get angry with our decisions. But I promise you guys that the dream I have is to come to Kolkata with the IPL trophy and dance. Will do some new steps for Korbo, Lorbo, Jeetbo," .....You are not the only owner from the film industry. So is Preity Zinta but her team made it to the finals last year. And you are not a hyped team b/c you belong to the film industry or b/c Kolkata is a passionate city. You are a hyped team b/c YOU have created a hype about yourself in the media!

On Sourav Ganguly : "I want him to be the Player of the Tournament this year. Whoever feels he is not given importance in the team, let me tell you that for me, he is the greatest Knight Riders player. He and (Chris) Gayle will compete for the 'Player of the Tournament' award" .... While Adam Gilchrist or Sachin Tendulkar or Yuvraj Singh or MSD walk away with it!!

"I understand that we are a team under pressure. With multiple captain, choice of captain and the way we played the first game, it all probably were signs of a team in disarray. But we know we will stick together. It's good we started coming together" ....You should really hope that happens if you don't want an encore!

I've decided on my team, people! It's either the Mumbai Indians (inspite of their lame name, b/c I love the city) or the Deccan Chargers (for Gilly!!).

They Should've Just Called It The 'Mad Cow Disease'

Yes, I’m talking of PMS. Damn patents, why couldn't they just have called it that??!! How else do you explain bawling for 3 hours because someone did not live up to the plan you had made involving the two of you, in your head!

The story goes like this – I asked A on Friday afternoon if we (all of us friends) had plans for the night. He said we didn’t. So I expected him to come up with a plan for the two of us. He didn’t. So I called him after work to see if he was up for something & he said he was out for dinner with a couple of colleagues. I said “No issues” & hung up. But of course, I had plenty of issues. I was feeling sad, dejected & let down. So I didn’t take his calls the rest of the evening, didn’t reply to his messages.

He knew he was in trouble. Any man with half a brain would know! So the next day he came over to my place as soon as he woke up and what followed was me crying (not sobbing, mind you) for 3 hours because he didn’t hang out with me the night before!

His reaction….”Was I supposed to?”

“Yes you were!”

“But we had no plans!”

“So?”

“But you didn’t even say you wanted to go out?”

“So what? Couldn’t you have come up with something?”

“But how am I supposed to know you want to go out unless you say so?”

“What’s there to know?? It was Friday night! It’s the weekend, remember?”

“You’re being unreasonable!”

“You’re being insensitive.”

“This is crazy!”

“So deal with it.”

“Okay fine. I’m sorry. Let’s go for brunch.”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“I’m not done yet.”

“Done with what?”

“Crying”

“You’ve got to be kidding me! How much longer are you planning to cry?”

“I don’t know. Till I feel like it.”

He waited patiently for 3 hours while I cried. By then it was time for restaurants to stop serving lunch.

And She Thought He Might Just Be Different From Other Men :)

Conversation during lunch yesterday between two of my friends:

She: You guys will not believe what a big pervert was seated right next to me in the metro on my way here!
Him: How big?
She: Big
Him: HOW big?
She: He kept staring at my chest…..
Him (interrupting): You don’t have a chest. You have breasts.
She: He kept staring at my chest till I got off!
Him: Breasts
She: Can you stop saying that?
Him: Why?
She: Because it’s embarrassing!
Him: Why’re you getting embarrassed? You have breasts just like the 3 billion other women in the world….assuming the world population is still stuck at 6 billion, that is. So what’s so embarrassing about it?
She: You’re a friend. I don’t want you thinking about….well, breasts.
Him: You mean YOUR breasts.
She (sighing): Well yeah…
Him: I don’t
She: You don’t what?
Him: I don't think about your breasts.
She: Good
Him: They’re barely there! Give me nice tits & I’ll think about them.

Almost Single

I’ve been going through a major chick lit phase that has lasted longer than I thought it would! Just finished reading ‘Almost Single’ by Advaita Kala. It’s a very witty book. You know the ‘smart’ funny kinds?

It’s a story about a 29 year old girl (or is she over 30? I forget) who works in the hospitality industry & her two other friends – a girl from Bhatinda who is desperate to find an NRI to marry & registers on matrimonial websites to increase her chances of getting picked up by some NRI, and another who is about to get divorced from her husband of 5 years. The book is about how the first two girls find love, while the third begins a new life - not with another man but with a brand new career!

Advaita Kala often gives amazing insight on some home truths of singledom & the dating world. Of course, there is the quintessential hot man in this book too like in all other books 'by a chick & for chicks', but this book is as much about issues faced by single working women living in cities away from their hometowns, tyrannical bosses, bitchy/psycophant colleagues, philandering husbands & the constant battle against weight by women who aren’t genetically blessed with wafer-thin bodies! Totally hits home :)

The book isn’t laugh-out funny, unlike, say ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’ or 'Bridget Jones' Diary', but there is this one scene that had me in splits. The protagonist, sick of being referred to as "a girl with a rather large frame" or "a girl of generous proportions", decides to take her life in her own hands & goes back to gym after a gap of 2-3 months. The instructor gives her a hard time for having missed gym (from personal experience, I can tell you that most gym instructors are evil). At the gym, she runs into the guy she has a crush on. She’s on the treadmill, and in order to prove to him that she too can run, she jacks up the speed. And just then the instructor yells “Stop pehelwan! If you run like this today, you won’t come to gym for the next 6 months!!” The guy she has a crush on is on the treadmill next to her!

Read the book if you want a light funny read. I promise you it doesn’t get mushy, emotional or overly romantic at any point of time :)

Indian Summer

It was 40 degrees in Calcutta today! Not to mention the oppressive humidity. It presses against your chest and makes each breath an effort. There's a reason why the phrase "Indian summer" finds repeated mention in English literature.

I didn't leave home till the evening. Went and had a strawberry-banana smoothie first. It was really nice...it had low-fat milk, yogurt & ice cream, apart from fresh strawberries & bananas. Then I went to Crossword and bought 2 books - 'Hungry Tide' by Amitava Ghosh (haven't read him before but have heard good things about the book. Besides, it's set in the Sunderbans & I'm just back from the place, so thought I'd check it out!) & 'The Devil Wears Prada'. Have seen the movie - and loved it (the clothes...Christ!!). The book should be fun too, I hope!

I usually like reading the book before I watch it's on-screen adaptation b/c they never really show the whole thing in the movies, but sometimes it can be fun the other way round too! You can imagine scenes from the movie while reading the book, so it becomes that much more visual.

Then went for dinner to this hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant called 'The Bistro'. I call it a 'hole-in-the-wall-place' b/c that's quite literally what it is. The owner has converted what seems like the garage of his house into a restaurant! Small though it might be, it has very classy wooden interiors and just a few tables. It has a very European ambience and good Italian food (any kind of good non-Indian cuisine is difficult to find in Calcutta).

Overall, it was a good day spent with people I like being around. Looking forward to tomorrow as well :)

********

The IPL isn't even half as fun to watch as it was last year, and it's mainly b/c of the change in location...for me at least. The pitches are flat...the ones last year were belters!! The matches might be sold out in South Africa but the crowd is tame. The crowds last year were roaring!

The other thing I don't like about IPL this year is SRK's underhanded antics. First the entire 4-captain controversy. Then he replaced Sourav Ganguly as the captain of KKR (inspite of repeated statements in the media that Ganguly will remain the captain). And now he's dropped 'Kolkata' from the name of the team! They're only 'Knight Riders' now. What nonsense! Last year I was supporting the KKR but I now need to find a new team to support. Suggestions, anyone? As long as you don't say Bangalore Royal Challengers I'm willing to consider. They are going to suck big time this year as well - inspite of Kevin Pietersen. One man not a winning team maketh. They were 50-4 when I switched off the TV!

Am off to bed now. Goodnight peeps, and have a fun Sunday :)

Lycra, The Cling Thing

Cleavage revealing outfits - No problem! (Women's lingerie has come a looooong way since the white cotton 'Lovely' bras which make your boobs look like pointed machine guns)

Short dresses - No problem! (In fact, the shorter the better! ;)

Lycra - F*&^%$!*&^%$@#$ - They cling to your abs like they'll never let go!!! How many of us have Bipasha Basu abs, inspite of all those excruciating hours spent training your abdominal muscles at the gym???

This is what Lycra has to say for itself: "LYCRA® fiber, from INVISTA, is made for clothes that love you back with your favorite fit and comfort, making you the perfect you" (taken from Lycra.com)

"Clothes that love you back".....Yeah right!!!!!

I be very sad :(:(:(

Thoda Hai Thode Ki Zaroorat Hai

Thoda aur paisa
Thoda aur pyaar
Thodi aur khushi
Thodi aur hasi
Thoda aur sukoon
Thoda aur junoon
Thodi aur sachchai
Thodi aur mithaas
Thodi aur unchayee
Thodi aur gehrayee
Thodi aur masti
Thodi aur dosti
De de na boss
Thoda hi toh aur maanga hai!!!

:P

PS: Please excuse my pathetic attempt at Hindi poetry. Wrote this in English first (obviously) but it just wasn't so much fun to read :)

Can We Have One New Year Pliss?

Today is the Bengali New Year. The number of New Years we have in this country is truly amusing. There are as many New Years as the number of communities!

Malayalis have their own new year - Vishu. Tamils have theirs - Puthandu. Andhraites have theirs too - Ugadi. Maharashtrians have Gudi Padwa, Punjus/Sikhs have Vaisakhi etc. Every community celebrates their new year on different dates. I wonder how they decided which date to celebrate it on!!

I grew up in Bihar. I don't think Biharis fall into any ethnic community per se. Neither do UPites. We consider ourselves to be part of the 'North Indian' species. The "cow people" if you will (no offence meant to anyone, UP & Bihar ARE known as the "cow belt" of India).

I also don't think we have any festivals intrinsic to our community, the Bihari community that is. Though I must admit that I don't count myself as part of the Bihari community for the simple reason that I belong to a very non-Bihari family, and my upbringing has been very different from that of kids in typical Bihari families.

So even if there are any festivals celebrated only among Biharis, I would've seen them being celebrated in other people's homes only. Don't know if that is a good or a bad thing. Honestly, I couldn't care less. My idea of Diwali is lighting candles around my house while in my parents' house a Lakshmi-Ganesh Puja is a must on Diwali. My Holis are spent locked inside my house & Durga Pujas are spent as far from my parents' house as possible, since their house becomes a 'vegetarians only' zone for the ten days of Durga Puja. Heck, they don't even use onions & garlic for those ten days!! To be fair to them, I must admit that they were not like this before. They have become this way due to certain incidents that have happened to them.

To me, all of this is pointless really. I don't believe following all these traditions...or visiting a temple on a particular day every week...or fasting on certain days of the week/month is going to improve the quality of our life in any way....or make us more successful or rich or healthier..or make us live longer. We'll only get those things in life that we have worked towards. Our success / failure is a result of the choices we make, the decisions we take in life. How long we end up living will be a result of our genetic make-up, the environment & our lifestyle choices. We will be healthy if we give importance to our physical, mental & emotional health and take care of ourselves. No miracles / short-cuts here!

Of course, there is such a thing as destiny. I believe in it too. But destiny always presents us with a situation where we have at least two choices, and the course of our life depends on which way we decide to go.

Anyway, coming back to the point...I feel deprived of my "ethnic" New Year! No traditional New Year = No money from elders! No one gives you money on 1st January :(

But thank God for the English calender. It makes life so much simpler to know when exactly it's time to celebrate!! :D

Ab Hamara Kya Hoga Kaaliya?

Narendra Modi called the Congress a ‘budhiya’ party due to it's 125 year existence, and claimed party is not suitable for a youthful nation such as ours. As if his communalistic, divisive, fanatical party is going to offer our country a brighter and more glorious future!

Following criticism from the Congress party he retaliated by saying that he will call them a ‘gudiya’ party if they object to being called ‘budhiya’.

This is what a much more mature & sensible Priyanka Gandhi had to say about Modi’s inane remarks: “I think it is ridiculous. I don't see why we are discussing 'budhiya' and 'gudiya' when we should be discussing development. We should be discussing the economy. We should discuss things that matter.”

On the other hand we have MSY (Mulayam Singh Yadav) who, egged on by Mr Amitabh Bachchan’s chaperone Amar Singh & the newly discovered chauvinist Saanjay Dutt, has vowed to ban English-medium education and computers! Regression seems to be his mantra.

If these are the kind of small minded, uneducated, imbecile people we have for leaders, we should be worried about our immediate future and about where we are headed as a nation.

It Was Hell Down Under

MTV Roadies is the only show on television right now that I'm following. It's one of the gazillion reality shows on TV but I like it because of the challenging tasks it throws at it's participants. 'Survival of the fittest' - physically and mentally - is what Roadies is all about.

Today was the semi-final episode with 3 contestants remaining. Can't believe Palak & Nauman have gone ahead to the finals while Paulomi had to come back home. With the wrapping of the semi-final episode, the Hell Down Under (Australia) segment of the show also got over.

Palak has balls but she is probably the most crass girl I have ever come across in my life. There is absolutely zero class in that girl. Was quite disappointed by Nauman today. Couldn't believe the guy could be so flaky! Knowing Palak & her turncoat tendencies, he still chose to believe her over his own common sense! So easily brain-washed he was. And to top it all, he even admitted that he didn't believe in the decision he was taking but Palak convinced him about it!

Out of all three, I thought Paulomi was the most sensible. She belonged to another planet no doubt...dressed in the tighest of clothes that she would pop out of any moment, with outrageous extensions in her hair and always worrying about her horrendous make-up getting smudged (rather than the task at hand, which in one episode was to pin down a crocodile in a mud pool to get chips off its tail!!)

Yet her decisions were sensible & most rational. She made it to the semi-finals without bitching, back-biting, manipulating or playing any games. She never pleaded with anyone not to vote against her. She was my candidate for Roadies 5.0 out of the three.

In my view, Sufi should ideally have been a Roadie this year. Even Natasha was quite deserving - she might have been a big manipulator but she did do all the tasks & did them well.

Can't wait to see what the finale episode has in store. I refuse to believe it will be straight-forward. I'm sure Palak & No-Man (to borrow the nickname from the Roadies gang) have no idea what they are up against. 19th April (Sunday) evening, 7pm will be fun to watch! Here's some eye candy to tide you over till then...

A Taste of Italy

Cooking is NOT fun! Even if it is for your most favorite people. It is tiring, exhausting and tests your patience to the limit. Painful it is. Kind of like preparing you for motherhood.

I called a couple of friends over for dinner last night. The menu was Italian, served with red wine ofcourse. How la-di-dah are we? ;)

Personally I would've preferred fresh lime water/soda with the food but red wine with Italian food sounds more classy & mature. So here's what I made....

Italian Sausages with Peppers (or Capsicum as known in India)

Ingredients: Sausages (cooked is better, else will need to cook them = that much more time spent cooking!), peppers of all colors - green, red, yellow, onions (thinly sliced), minced garlic, olive oil, salt & pepper to taste, Italian herbs - basil, oregano, thyme, parsley, can add a dried red chilly for effect

Cooking Time: God only knows!

Procedure: Shove onions, garlic, dried red chillies (broken into tiny bits) into the olive oil & cook till onions are golden brown. You can't burn them, which is why it takes patience :) Once brown, throw in the peppers along with the salt (reduces the cooking time for the peppers), put the lid on & cook till peppers are slightly tender but not mushy. Add sausages, salt, pepper, Italian herbs, put the lid on again & let cook till the sausages release their juices. Take off the flame, garnish with some fresh chopped parsley & serve.

Cooking Hater's Tip: Use cooked sausages, will save you atleast 20-25 mins of cooking time!

Pasta with Chicken & Mushrooms in Tomato Cream Sauce

Ingredients: Tomato Pasta Sauce (Ragu is your friend), pressed garlic, olive oil, salt & pepper to taste, Italian herbs - basil, oregano, thyme, parsley (dried), fresh cream, Parmesan cheese, cooked chicken (boiled & sauteed), mushrooms

Cooking Time: Long

Cooking Procedure: Boil & sautee chicken. Put aside. Boil pasta in salted water. Drain & put aside. In a frying pan, put olive oil. Add pressed garlic & cook till it turns brown. Put tomato pasta sauce, fresh cream, mushrooms, salt & pepper. Simmer on low heat for about 20 mins, till the mushrooms are cooked & the sauce thick & less tangy than before. Add pasta, sauteed chicken, herbs. Garnish with Parmesan cheese & serve.

Cooking Hater's Tip: Pasta can never be healthy, unless you make wheat pasta salad in olive oil (minus the mayonnaise), so just suck it up!

The results I must say weren't bad at all, except my pasta turned out to be slightly more dry than I would've liked it to. But hey, if you know how to lock the moisture in, more power to you! It took me two & a half hours to put the meal together. Maybe I was ovulating or there were some crazy secretions in my head that I had this mad urge to cook such painstaking dishes!!

The Battle Rages On

I’m obsessed with my weight. Probably because I’ve always had trouble with it, partly due to genetics and partly because of lifestyle choices. Like most of us, I largely lead a sedentary lifestyle. I live in a city where it’s too muggy to walk even short distances, my office is on the 10th floor (you don’t expect me to climb 10 flights of stairs everyday, do you??), my house is on the 1st and I have a job that requires me to sit infront of a computer for at least 8 hours a day.

The only form of exercise I get is when I go to the gym or am strong-willed enough to wake up early in the morning (6.30!!) & go for a walk. You can imagine how frequently THAT must be happening! There's a huge lake which is a 5 minute walk from my house & is apparently a magnet for morning walkers & joggers. Someday I'm determined to see what it looks like!

To make matters worse, I’m a foodie – as in I don’t eat a lot but I love non-vegetarian food, love chocolates, love bread / pizza / pasta, love Chinese food, and love to eat out in general. Thin people don’t love all these things - unless they’re genetically blessed that is. They love sprouts, salads, carrots, cucumbers etc.

I’ve tried various means of losing weight....going to the gym, swimming, aerobics, low carb diets & more recently, signing up with a dietician!!

Now, I’m convinced dieticians are one of the most ‘out-of-touch-with-reality’ people on this planet. The kind of diets they prescribe are unpractical & cumbersome. Sample this:

7.30am – Cereal (50gm) + Milk (250 ml)
8.30am – Tea + 2 Biscuits (non-cream sad plain biscuits)
10.30am – Fruits (Do's : Apples, Oranges, Papaya, Pears, Watermelon; Don’ts: Bananas, Mangoes – basically everything good)
12.30-1pm – 2 Rotis (100 gm) + Dal + Vegetable + Chicken/Fish (100gm)
3.30pm – Yogurt + Carrots / Cucumber / Sprouts
5.30pm – Tea + 2 Biscuits (non-cream sad plain biscuits again :(
7.30-8pm – 1 Roti + Chicken/Fish (100gm)

There are many practical problems with this diet (And to think I paid this woman shitloads of money to come up with this crap!!):

A) It involves cooking of dal, vegetables AND chicken/fish everyday, and assuming I need to carry them to work, all have to be cooked before 9.30 in the morning
B) I need to remember to eat every two hours & once work gets going, DO WE EVEN HAVE THE TIME TO PEE, forget taking out our cute little Tupperware & start eating?
C) Anyone will get bored eating the same food over & over again. Normal people need to eat out at least a couple of times a week, and eating out does NOT mean eating salads, soup & grilled chicken/fish. It means eating pizza or pasta or Chinese food or Butter Chicken or KFC or Subway (with Parmesan Oregano bread, mayo & their delicious sauces)
D) You can't measure cereal, flour, chicken & fish every time you have to cook them
E) What if I feel hungry after 8pm?

You see why I think dieticians have completely lost it in life?

I think a more practical way is to eat the way French women do! Do you know why French Women Don’t Get Fat? France is considered to be the gastronomic capital of the world, yet their women are thin! It’s because they eat everything but in small proportions & voila! You will be thin.

The things on my imminent weight-loss agenda – kickboxing, power yoga & aqua aerobics. Oh, how I love the water!!

P.S.: I am hydrophobic.

Update : Just read a column in the paper where a girl has written in to a fitness expert saying she's too thin and would like to gain some weight on her butt & thighs b/c irrespective of the size of jeans she buys, they're always lose on her! Oh well....guess as long as there will be women, they will have issues with their bodies :)

Update 2 : This is my 250th post on this blog alone!! Have a happy long weekend people! Happy Easter!!

Song In My Head

You don't know how you met me
You don't know why you can't turn around & say good bye
All you know is when I'm with you I make you free
And swim through your veins like a fish in the sea

I'm singin'
Follow me everything is alright
I'll be the one to tuck you in at night
And if you wanna leave I can guarantee
You won't find nobody else like me

Won't give you money I can't give you the sky
We're better off if you don't ask why
I'm not the reason that you go astray
We'll be alright if you don't ask me to stay

:)

C.R.A.S.H.

Life has become one frenetic race to completion with no breathing time. Suddenly, all the free time I used to have (whatever little of it I had) has dissipated as my team has expanded from two to four people!

Every positive thing has its pitfalls, I guess. While having more people reporting in to you at work is generally considered as a good sign (of you performing well, meeting expectations etc.etc.) it also brings with it an exponential increase in the workload. Recession, did you say?

WHERE?????

Anyone who has managed four people at a time knows how bloody difficult it is! The entire day goes in sitting with one person after another on various projects. All of them want your attention at the same time, and of course there is no work that is not urgent!

When your reportees includes one person who is so trained to be spoon-fed, they just have not developed the capability to apply their mind on basic things, leave alone thinking outside the box; another who is straight out of b-school (and therefore still in college mode…such as thinking work is a walk in the park, anything chalta-hai, not trained at professional communication etc.etc.); yet another who thinks they are know-it-all; and a fourth who is proactive alright but who thinks your entire time is for them & them alone, a gyan session in how to value your manager's time becomes imperative.

So these are the pointers that were shared:

1. Correct your own mistakes! I’m not here to check your grammar, spellings, calculation mistakes & typos. Check your work before coming to me.
2. Once I ask you to make changes to your proposal/presentation, I can only check it once again. Don’t expect me to go through the same document over & over again. I expect you to be capable enough to understand what is asked of you & make the changes in full.
3. Your manager’s time is valuable, value it. You are not the only person whose work I have to supervise, there are 3 more!!!
4. Deadlines are there to be met. Meet them.
5. Mediocrity is good for Dilbert’s boss. Not for your’s.
6. Use the telephone. Don't come to me unless I say it's OK to come over. I'm not sitting idle, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for you to come over!

The most frustrating thing is you can't appear irritated with your reportees. You have to be calm, collected, patient & all those crappy things managers are expected to be.

I can see some of you smiling already. I’ve been sailing on your boat for sometime but life was much easier earlier as I had only one or two people to manage. Now there are four!

Welcome me aboard!! :)

Is This Where We Are Headed?

The tentacles of the Taliban are expanding each day across Pakistan & approaching India. To put things into perspective, the Taliban are only 430km from the Wagah Border & approx. 470km from Amritsar.

The Pakistani government has more or less given in to the Taliban’s forward march. This video shows a teenaged girl being flogged by members of the Taliban in the Swat valley because she was seen with a man who was not her husband!!

Should we be scared? Or can we trust our government to fight back when the need arises?

Knots

Yet another friend of mine has succumbed to family/societal pressure and agreed for an arranged marriage. The wedding has been fixed a few months from now & she’s just getting to know the guy! Her family managed to convince her that if she doesn’t get married now (she’s 29 and single), she won’t be able to get married ever - which is one of the most ridiculous marriage-propagating arguments I keep hearing all around me. I know plenty of women who got married post-30 and are having the time of their lives.

This post isn’t going to be about arranged marriages vs. marriages of choice but about why women succumb to pressure from their families, relatives, neighbors & society as a whole and get married at a time they don’t wish to get married at or to someone they hardly know/care about.

I’ve known quite a few women - including highly educated, financially independent, successful career women - who have agreed to an arranged marriage, knowing fully well that that isn’t what they’d ideally want. Yet they have gone ahead and made a compromise – probably the biggest of their lives! I have also known women who have decided - in their early-mid 20s - to marry the person they might have been seeing at that point in time, even gone to the extent of getting engaged, only to call the wedding off later! A couple even called their wedding off one day before the wedding itself!!

All this makes me wonder…why this desperation to get married? Why make such a big compromise to settle for an arranged marriage when you know that’s not what you want? Why agree to get married to someone you’re seeing at that point in time just because you’re of “marriageable age”? Why this mad rush to get married??

I agree that marriage is a natural progression in life. Most of us want to get married for companionship and for the stability, security etc. that marriage is supposed to bring to our lives. Personally for me, the right time to get married is when you meet someone you want to spend each day of your life with and not when you’ve reached a particular age. Can you be truly happy if you got married just because you thought you should at a particular time? Compromises, broken engagements and bitter memories is what I think you get if you do.

Most women give in to the pressure to get married because they want to have kids by a particular age. The biological clock at work argument. Again, I personally don’t get the big deal about wanting to have children. If anything, it’s a painful experience. But even for those who believe that a woman is not complete until she becomes a mother and blah blah (which needless to say I think is a load of crap) do you want to make such a big compromise and risk being unhappy for as long as you live, just so you can have kids by 30??

It baffles me, this eagerness to get married. Funny thing is that marriages these days don’t even come with a guarantee of their basic promise - that you’ll get companionship, stability, security etc. for the rest of your life! Divorce rates are soaring. Couples are getting divorced within 2-3 years of getting married. Cheating & unfaithfulness are rampant. Honestly, I don’t think any of us can bet our lives on our spouse being faithful to us all our lives. Sure, go on and expect it...after all that is one of the USPs of marriage...pray with all your might that they are never unfaithful to you...but don’t count on it.

My sister got married to her boyfriend of five years when she was only 24, and right until the day of the wedding I was anxious for her. Will they make it to the wedding? Will they be able to sustain their marriage? After all, we don’t know jack s**t about what we want out of life in our early twenties, irrespective of how mature we might think we are. And even if we think we know what we want from life, there is a very high chance that that is likely to change a few years down the line.

So where do I see myself standing in this mad rush to get married? Well...I’m 29, unmarried and don't see any marital clouds looming on the horizon yet. I've been facing parental pressure since the last 3-4 years just like anyone else my age I know. But if I’ve made it without a compromise till this point, my guess is I’ll manage to pull through till I find someone I genuinely truly want to spend my life with. But that's just me and as they say, it takes all kinds :)