Facebook Is Calling, Where Are You?

I wasn’t a big fan of Facebook earlier. Found it very user-unfriendly. Felt there was way too much going-on (the homepage when you log in is quite cluttered).

I also found it extremely annoying that whenever you want to accept any of the requests that one of your friend sends you, or take a quiz, or play a game on Facebook, you have to first navigate through numerous pop-ups, including having to add a list of friends whom the request/quiz/game would be forwarded to. I never had the patience for all of this. Even now I have, like, 100 requests pending. I used to barely manage to accept request from friends to add them to my Friends’ List.

Orkut, on the other hand, was much simpler to use! A friend leaves you a scrap, you scrap them back. It’s easy to get to newly uploaded pictures of friends. No annoying pop-ups to deal with!

Then I realized that all my friends from the US, who I had lost touch with after college (mainly b/c we were lazy to mail each other), were on Facebook! So I was forced to become friends with the social networking website, and the more I started using it, the more I started liking it.

For one, there are no creeps on Facebook who keep asking you to become friends or leave you unsolicited messages. Secondly, it made it very easy to stay in touch with college friends – scribbling on their wall is much faster than writing a mail! And people are quicker in scribbling back on your wall than replying to your mail.

I got to know the whereabouts of so many friends I’d kind of lost touch with. For instance, one of my friends who was perpetually confused about what she wanted to do in life is now studying to become a doctor! Now, medicine is a profession you need to be very sure you want to take up, due to the sheer amount of patience and dedication required to see yourself through med-school.

Another friend, a triple black belt in Taekwondo, has his own Taekwondo studio now where he teaches the martial art to kids. Another friend has gotten into Child Therapy, helping kids deal with trauma. Yet another friend went on to study Cultural Anthropology at Yale. She went to Tanzania for 3 months on a scholarship program which required her to do some primary research among people of a particular ethnicity in Dar-es-Salaam. And another friend – hold your breath, you travel lovers – went on to study Archeology at Stanford and is gallivanting all over Europe doing excavations! I remember her trying to break her head learning Greek & Latin in college, so she'd be able to do this. She now hovers at all the historical places in Italy & Greece that I’ve always dreamt of going to. I live vicariously through her pictures.

Moral of the Story? Some things in life take getting used to, for everything else... :)

I've Had Better Days

Woke up with:

• Eyes itchy, watery & swollen like round puffy buttons
• A congested nasal passage
• A sinus-type headache

My years in Bombay have left me with an upper respiratory allergy (nose-throat area), which gets aggravated during the winters thanks to lower levels of humidity...which leads to a larger number of dust particles & pollution-whatever-you-call-it suspended in the air.

I’ve been waking up with itchy, watery eyes & a clogged nasal passage most days this winter. Sometimes it is accompanied by congestion & irritation in the throat as well, depending on how cold it is & the amount of dust & pollution outside.

What follows is a ritual of steam inhalations, hot water gargles, nasal decongestants & eye drops, depending on the severity of the symptoms. Today is one of those severe symptom days. I’ve been told eucalyptus & camphor oils are also effective in clearing the nasal passage.

A drug I swear by is Allegra. It works like magic! But it's a strong drug, so I avoid taking it unless I'm in really bad shape.

It’s a pain, I tell you, living with this condition. It’s irritating to say the least. Sometimes I hate big city living.

The Eastside Story

Mumbai, the city we all LOVE, has an ugly underbelly and it's about time we accepted it.

'Slumdog Millionnaire' is a beautiful movie & it takes a very special person to make a movie like this.

The initial few scenes in the movie may be a bit overwhelming - the intense poverty, the sight of a boy covered in human excreta, all for an autograph of Amitabh Bachchan, shots of kids sleeping on a pile of rubble, the luring & decapitating/blinding of slum children by gangs intent on putting them on the streets to beg - these might be repulsive to some, may give goose pimples to others, may make yet others to cry. But these things happen in the world which we try to distance ourselves from as much as possible, and which we love to pretend does not exist - just so our own existence doesn't become uncomfortable for us. They have been beautifully captured by Danny Boyle on film. Within minutes into the movie you get so engrossed in the characters and the story, you forget about the grossness of it all.

Did I feel the movie is overhyped? No, not at all. The only actor who I thought was overhyped was Freida Pinto. Her character has less screen time than the other protagonists, and Freida Pinto herself did not have much to do in the film.

I did not like Anil Kapoor too much either as the game show host. I think SRK would've been a better choice. He did a splendid job of hosting KBC, and I think he would've brought the required amount of arrogance and meanness to the character. SRK talks with a flair, something Anil Kapoor was not able to do to the required degree inspite of putting on an accent. SRK would've done it naturally.

This is definitely a movie I would like to own. Come to think of it, it took a foreigner to come to our country and make such a touching movie on our people. We could never have made this movie because we wouldn't have found the concept to be saleable enough. And that is why we it's highly unlikely we'll make it to the Oscars anytime soon. We don't have a vision & we're not able to take risks in life.

From New Zealand

I was watching a show called 'Footloose' last night on Travel & Living. They were showcasing New Zealand, and guess who was taking the host & crew of the show around? None other than the Prime Minister of New Zealand herself!!

Can you beat that? She went rafting with them, mountain-climbing, bungee-jumping, camping, took them to meet the Maoris. She was with them for 5 days straight!

Yes, we're talking about the Prime F***ing Minister of New Zealand. She really must not have much work to do! After all, how difficult can it get managing a country where the sheep population outnumbers the human population 10:1?

Let's move to New Zealand!!

To Bollywood

Have you seen the new Airtel ad with Saif Ali Khan & Kareena Kapoor where he's engorssed in a video game and she wants to download a caller tune on her cellphone? It's a disaster! There is zero chemistry between them, besides the fact that the content of the ad itself is pretty silly. And it shows Kareena Kapoor in all her bimbette splendour! If I were her, I'd be kicking myself in the butt for appearing in such an ad.

I didn't like the Airtel ads with Madhavan & Vidya Balan either. Loved Madhavan, didn't like Vidya Balan at all. I generally don't like her. She's got something very prudish about her, and her character in the ad was so bossy! Especially the one where she's calling her husband from the cab and asking him to clean the house, set the table, make salad etc.

On the other hand is the Tata Sky ad with Aamir Khan & Gul Panag. I don't like their chemistry too much. She looks sort of a misfit with him but overall, the ad works.

Four ads have already been aired, I think - one where he's doing the dishes, the second where he's making tea for her, the third where he's speaking to his mother-in-law, and the fourth where he's lecturing his friend on how to keep one's wife happy! The ads are really witty without being over the top.

To The Gym

I love the idea of going to the gym.

Please note - I love the idea. The act, not so much. Of course, I love the results too - both short-term (the rush of endorphins right after you've finished working out, the feeling of having released all pent-up & negative energy, the satisfaction you get from a good rigorous workout) & long-term (the weighing machine becoming friendlier, dropping a size or two, dropping inches, a toned body). But the entire process of dragging myself to gym after work, changing into gym clothes and starting the work out is something I don't look forward to. Of course, once I start I'm in it completely.

I'm thinking of exploring Power Yoga & Kick Boxing but they'll have to be alongside gymming. I've paid for a year, afterall.

My favorite part of gymming is weight-training. That's something I really enjoy because I love a toned look. I don't like cardio - for the simple reason that I DON'T LIKE RUNNING LIKE A DOG AND GETTING NOWHERE! That's what you do on the treadmill. You run like a dog, and even after half an hour you're at the same spot! It's so pointless. If I'm running like my life depended on it, I'd at least like to GET SOMEWHERE. Maybe to an ice-cream parlor or a cake shop or a place I can get piping hot chocolate. Du-uh!!

I like the cross-trainer more. Atleast there's no illusion that I'm going somewhere! Plus, I tend to burn more calories on the cross-trainer than on the treadmill, and that definitely is more encouraging. Out with the treadmill, I say!

And Gym Parties

My gym is having a party. But first we have to take this fitness-endurance test where they will check how long you can run at a stretch, how much weight you can lift (on different machines) - basically checking strength, stamina & endurance levels. Which is OK. The more difficult thing is getting out of the party.

Now, I go to a branded gym. One of the two major branded gyms in India I would say. Accordingly, the crowd that comes there comprises mainly of two kinds of people - the swish wannabe-Calcutta-Times-Page-3 set & the rich fat aunties from business families who come there to socialize with other rich fat aunties, do timepass & go back home and eat puris/pakoras deep fried in ghee - neither of whom I identify with.

So I have no friends at the gym, and therefore going to the party (that too on a Saturday night when I could be doing more fun stuff with friends) does not make sense to me. We can even get other friends to come. The entry fee is Rs 500 per person, and if you get friends along, they get 3 days of workout free at the gym. Like it really makes a difference to people! Would you want to go to a party organized by your friend's gym (!!) paying 500 bucs just so you can get 3 days of free workout? I think not.

Now, b/c of the revenue that is being generated from the entry fee, every trainer has a target in terms of the number of people they must convince to attend from amongst their clients. My trainer has been chewing my brains to pay up for the past 1 week. Till now I was being non-committal but today I decided I'd had enough & I told him I was not going to come b/c I did not want to! He seemed upset but he'll just have to deal with it. You can't force people to attend parties they don't want to attend!

To The Big B

I read Amitabh Bachchan's blog on & off. Moonshine has a direct link to his blog on hers. He rambles on and on and on. The last post I read was about how the media twisted his 'Slumdog' comments out of context, then Anil Kapoor called from Slumdog's India premiere to talk to him and AB asked to speak to Danny Boyle, which AK promptly arranged for. Then AB spoke to DB and explained what he meant, on which DB had a hearty laugh and they promised to meet each other the next time DB is in India. Then back to media bashing on how they troubled him first on the Bofors issue, then during his son's marriage, and then during the 'farmer' issue etc etc. In short, he rambles about irrelevant stuff.

Ofcourse, he has the right to ramble endlessly (Freedom of Speech be evoked), and I have the choice not to read his blog. Which is all well-understood & well-taken. I'm not challenging his fundamental right to ramble at all.

All I'm saying is, he seems to be losing it. And it's painful to see! It's painful to see one of your favorite actors lose it & make a semi-mockery of himself. As my ex-roommate, who is a BIG BIG fan of Amitabh Bachchan, says: "The Bachchan family has lost all their equity which they had built up so laboriously over all these years, and has started acting in a demented fashion ever since Abhishek Bachchan decided to marry the dumbf**k he's married to!"

I'm going to go with that explanation :) Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is definitely the reason Amitabh Bachchan has started rambling. Afterall, isn't she spotted spending more time with him than with Abhishek Bachchan? Ah, it makes so much sense now!

Ramble on, Mr Bachchan. It's not your fault.

Finally Resting at a 4 Day Weekend

So how come I had the time to write so many posts today?

Simple! Because I have a 4 day weekend, that started last night! Yayyy!! :D

Today is Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose's Happy Birthday, who is to West Bengal what Chhatrapati Shivaji is to Maharashtra, so offices are shut. I have a nice four day weekend to chill, unwind, sleep, watch movies, blog, gym, read - not necessarily in that order though. And it's a very nice, calming feeling this - to know you have four days off with nothing to do.

So take care, you people. I'm sending you all a care bear :) Have a good weekend & keep the faith. In blogging, that is!

The Liberated Woman of the 21st Century

"He has to take the decision. I take permission from him even if I have to go for coffee or dinner with friends. My priority is my family. He will decide if it is right or not right for me."

- Manyata Dutt on being asked whether she would contest the elections on a SP ticket if Sanjay Dutt was not able to