Rattle Tattle Tales

Knots vs. the knot

2010-11-20T02:09:00.001+05:30

"Could you at least help me with this Windsor, or is it too much to fit in you busy schedule?"

It was their anniversary, and like most days, it dawned with an argument. But she smirked as she saw him putting on her favourite shirt and tie.

As she brought the wide end over and through the loop, he inched forward, shadowing her. Her smiling gaze met his, as she, nonchalantly, took it forward and looped on the right side.

As she wrapped the wide end in the front, he raised his arms around her on the table, caging her. She, determined not to get affected by his sensual morning freshness, took the end down through the front loop.

As she gently tugged the wide end to finish the knot, he lingered on, his lips teasing her. She smiled and wondered how one knot can unravel another...

Knots at Klash

Knots

2010-11-19T12:13:00.000+05:30

Dear Knots o’Hart,

Well, you have truly made my life hell. How you exist within our love, and outside our beliefs!!? One moment you’re binding us in front of the holy fire, another, the evil of you, is making me doubt the same bond. How could you exist in the good as our entwined fingers after making love, but malicious, as the Red Satin you on a gift for someone else?
Who is the true you?

Yours
Sceptic Romantic

--

Dear Hopeless Romantic,

I love to be a part of your life, but really, I couldn’t exist without you. I live because of your heart, your emotions. Probably, I’m just a figment of your knotty imagination!

Yours truly
Knots o’Hart

Knots at Klash

Grow Older, Go Stupid

2010-11-16T12:16:00.000+05:30

Watching Balika Vadhu now-a-days is nothing less than a torture. Earlier, the teenage Anandi was fun, quirky, intelligent, thoughtful, bubbly and had a individuality. She was definitely a cry baby, but she wasn't dumb. The Anandi of today, is downright dumb and an emotional wreck... The Romance in heart, truly overpowers her thinking and clouds her judgement like a level 9 Twister, no getting out of it... She has turned into this hubby-clinging, support-grabbing shadow of her former self, who was fearless, and wasn't afraid of new things. The older illiterate Anandi is a mere slice of the education-hungry child, who was once more capable and smart than her husband Jagdish.

Source

It's not really the actor's fault, but writer's. They have given a new horrible personality to a lovable kid, making her meek, scared, unsure of herself, clinging, dis-oriented, and what not.. Ugghhh.. Totally disappointing.

Bus Travails

2010-10-28T23:03:00.000+05:30

How exciting is going from Pune to Indore in an air-conditioned box on 4 wheels?

Believe me, there are no bounds, how far your fellow passengers will go for in-bus entertainment! My 2 fellow Hans Travels passengers selflessly chose to provide inanimate and not-so-subtle fun by whipping out a Mac and playing songs on it, along with loudly enquiring all their friends about the Great Party Scene at Pune that they missed! Awww, why didn't you stay back to fulfill your weekend and then travel!

Also, the so-out-of-tune karoke was just enough to jolt me out of my waking sleep.. By the way, what is this song, "tera mera rishta purana.." Do you mean if we don't have any rishta, you'll continue to torture me, and others?

Seriously, how expensive are those head-phones? Which you clearly are unable to buy! And mister, Freedom of Speech doesn't have to include me knowing all your travel plans! Now if any one had to kidnap you, all they have to do is intercept you on your way to Bhopal from Indore, from where you'll take your Shatabdi.. Easy as a pie!!

Clearly, I have no respect for such people, and even though I don't know you, you successfully managed to make me judge you!! With no rhyme or reason, all because you didn't have headphones!!

Wink

2010-10-25T10:32:00.000+05:30

Neither of them believed in arranged marriage. But she accepted it as a challenging research in human relationships; He as fate.

The wedding went like clockwork, heartless. But who could do away with the ritualistic post-wedding games? He had already won the "undoing the knots", proving himself to be the man of the moment!

Final task was finding a ring in a tub full of milk and Rose petals. Slender, manicured fingers met warm, sturdy hands. Between them was a cold ring. Their gaze met, absorbing the other touch, asking a million questions. Who would let go? Me? Rivalry or revelry?

In a moment, she gleamed with joy and triumph, and his wink was drowned in the in-laws’ big "AWWWW!!"

Wink at Klash

;-)

No Crying over Split Drama...

2010-10-19T12:58:00.000+05:30

I was so, so, so upset over not being able to participate in MasterChef India; Surely, Star Plus is not in my favourite channels list; I don't watch the behenji serials airing; And watching a cute Diego exploring Iraq, pleading not to tell his mom, is much much better than epic nonsense dramas.

Is it just possible to fathom the thought that people who don't watch Star Plus, could not participate! Good, passionate, talented cooks have to be glued to sob-operas, in order to temper their culinary skills.. Thoughts like this, kept clouding my mind, when I first saw the TV spot on Star World!

Lo and behold! I AM SO EFFING GLAD I'M NOT ON THAT! Seriously, the producers have messed up the people, "dishes", judges and the entire handling and presentation of the show... Contestants, cry more, cook less.. Everyone seems to be having a long-lost-forgotten relationship with beta Akshay, Akshay Bhai!!! The judges are so inarticulate, despite Akshay agreeing with a participant! The more sadder, less fortunate, less able your story, more likeable you are.

I am an ardent follower of MasterChef Australia, and yes, they also have a moment or 2 of their own. Sometimes, they edit out a contestant recipe presentation; Sometimes there are a few unexpected spur of emotions. But they have a limited dose of drama, just like salt in food. Use according to taste.

No made of honour

2010-10-04T10:20:00.000+05:30

Well, having a maid clean for you, is no laughing matter. You would be, ever so incorrectly assuming, that it would be all about lounging in your bean bag, sipping Green Mint tea, and reading the morning newspaper, fresh out of the press.

FALSE!! FALSE!! FALSE!!

Your day starts with frantic, but logical, carefully mapped out analysis of no. of clothes, you need to put for washing. Now it could be 5 T-shirts, or 2 Jeans and 1 T-shirt, or 1 double bedsheet, or 5 pilow covers and 2 towels!!! Obviously, if you have a washing machine, you can throw all these calculations out of the window! If not, you better be well-acquainted with volume/mass ratio of each type of clothing, soaking time, no. of brush strokes required to remove each type of stain...

NO, SERIOUSLY!! If the clothes are too much, she, like an ideal maid, would never complain, but just gently drop hints, about an aching back, or muscle sore the next day. If less, well, you are just setting yourself a low standard, above which anyone would just complain... So you need to find just the right amount of clothes to wash, to keep your maid and you happy!!!

Also, you are well-to-do; How dare you ask your maid, not to keep the tap open, and not to let the soap melt in water while she is washing? Of course she might be using 2 buckets of water and 1 bar of soap/month at her own home, clearly the same rules don't apply here. It's YOUR home, not HERS!

AND, obviously, washing UNDIES and SHOES are out of the question; You need some exercise too, woman, spending your day with Green Mint Teas! MOVE YOUR ASS, BITCH!

And since you have already scared me about dumping your last Master, over the petty issue of cleaning the toilets, I have certainly remembered to keep them out of the Terms & Conditions.

Like any good person, it's my duty to give you all the unwearable/unusable clothes and utensils. Yes, unwearable because of your very slight mistake of hanging the colour and white clothes to dry together, even though I soaked them in separate buckets. Unusable utensils, because, my repetitive pleas of cleaning the non-stick pans with sponge fell on deaf-ears. Since you believe in equal treatment for all, you use the same iron-mesh scrub to clean the tawa and the non-sticks pan/kadahi, gently and gradually removing any Teflon-coating the pan, would love to have!!!

Dusting is out and so are the corners in the house and visible cobwebs, which can be taken out by single sweep of hand!!!

Oh, and how can I forget about giving gifts on festivals, even though, asking you to help in moving the bed and clean under and behind the Master Bed(once an year), makes you cringe and sullen. Yes, I know, I should have given you a saree on my wedding day, but the fact that you were unable to come to work to a house full of guests, would just take me a bit longer to accept. Yes, I know, any sarees I gave you on Ganeshotsav and some Ekadashi don't count. It has to be a sari and I can't give you a fancy purse/bag just out of my liking.

Ah! and when you are AWOL, and I discuss this with my husband, the next day, and you scream, "दीदी, बडबड करू नका!!!", I should totally try to understand your lack of respect and responsibility! I totally understand, when you don't apologize or feel guilty! After all, you don't need me, I need you.

Damn!

2010-10-01T09:50:00.000+05:30

The State vs. the Devil

He considered himself an atheist, but he was soon going to be a believer; a believer in evil. God might not exist, but the Devil surely did. Of course he saw him!!!

He came, in the guise of a policeman, offering to plant evidence at the crime scene. "An old grudge..." the officer said, when questioned.

Those burning amber eyes, the knife wound across the left eye - had an uncanny resemblance to the defendant’s.

"DAMN YOU, THE DEVIL!!" He screamed inside his head, and soon realized the irony, or rather wry humour in the phrase.

He wouldn’t let the Devil win, at least for the World!!

The nameplate said, Detective Damn, Ed. He knocked.

Damn at Klash

An half-harted attempt

2010-09-07T13:21:00.000+05:30

Little joys of life,
Little moments of pain.
Barbie has a broken neck,
Bhaiya, innocent but quiet,
Remorse, you have it?
Didi took care of the D-Minus,
A little scribble here, a dot there,
fetched you joy and glee.
Too much salt, no trace of sugar,
In jijaji’s tea.
Artless merchant undercharged, profit
To return or for keeps?
That innocuous sms,
Oh! That innocent, flirty sms, sent
To one who shouldn’t be.
Friend’s broken heart,
Served with beer and banter,
On the April fool’s Day.
Little joys of life,
Little moments of pain,
The random shenanigans,
Innocent or devious
Make it worth to stay.

Shenanigans

Wet Wet Wet

2010-07-22T12:42:00.000+05:30

She had enough of the eternal love-hate relationship with the monsoon. The grey skies, gloomy weather, chilled air that made others cringe, were aphrodisiac for her. She, wrapped in the raincoat, aroused by the dampness around, just couldn't get enough of the waft passing her by everyday.. She tried to ignore it, fight it, may be it was in her head!!! The aroma, that teased her everyday had weird notes; Cut Grass, Cumin, Tobacco.. The succulent tingles of the notes were driving her crazy, even at the PMS... That's it! ENOUGH!! She decided to follow her nose, making her way amidst the numerous puddles of water, till she tiptoed behind him, held her breath, tapped on his shoulder, and said, "भैय्या, एक वडा पाव और एक चाय!!!"

Surreal, but nice!!!

2010-07-21T14:54:00.000+05:30

Truly, this Notting Hill phrase, is the first of the many adjectived phrases that come to my mind. Multifaceted environment, alternate realities, skewed perception, it's all there, but in a very comforting sense... The subject here is the silver screen wonder called INCEPTION; which literally mean The Beginning. It's surely a beginning for roller coaster of visual excellence, a maze of emotions, and a delicate balance of realities. For me, the movie had many surprises.. Unexpected performances, for once...

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the baby-faced love-struck Cameron of 10 Thing I Hate About You, was unexpected transformed into a suave, smooth Arthur. His "Killshot" was on TV the day before, and I hadn't recognized him till the end credits rolled by. He was just superb in the Zero-Gravity Fight, and lend his own boyish charm to Arthur..

Ellen Page was surprising subdued and I was expecting her to be more talkative, more hyper, more enthusiastic, she delivered, nonetheless..

Leonardo DiCaprio has proved him time n over again.. When I first saw him in "Whose Eating Gilbert Grape?", I had no clue, it would be the making of an intense actor.. He puts well, the dilemma and helplessness of Cobb, troubled with himself and Mal.

Tom Hardy is a good mix of amazing looks, accurate comic timing and some ease with the character.. I have his RocknRolla, and I am waiting to start that.. His banter with Joseph-Gordon Lewitt creates the epiphany of the delicate balance Christopher Nolan has tried to maintain amidst the chaos of dreams and realities.. The movie certainly demands your entire attention, with multiple layered dreams, crisp narrative and some mind-numbing situations.. Your mind races back to a point, gathering references, to apply in near future to understand what is happening on the screen.. I am still finding clues to Mal's inception on Cobb; How did she do it? and where are hidden clues to prove it was a dream... For all those who watched Memento multiple times, just to keep track of the narrative, this is much simpler but ever more engaging...

Just before the screen goes blank, did the totem fall?customer surveys

p.s. Cross you fingers for quiet, avid cinema-lover neighbours in the movie theatre; Otherwise, their distractions would surely spoil the fun for you...

Perplexed. Peturbed. Puzzled.

2010-07-02T12:28:00.000+05:30

Congratulations, on graduating from L to XL.. Did you think, you'll always be stuck on this dreaded alphabet, all your ever-changing, not-so-constant life? Well, the joke's on you, I guess.. Life can be a bit*h sometimes, if it's being not, then a disaster beckons... No clues when this berozgari will end, whether all my so-called-skills will find a channel of resurrection, a destination. Stuck in an unholy (pun unintended) mess of a city, deemed culture capital, but made up of nothing but disgrace, apathy and ignorance..Not that the city matters to me, but the people do, and it has.. With a cipher of intellectual wit, or rational outlook, all I hear around me is the inconsistent jabber of ideals, history, values with no grounds of modern reality... Eff it; back to me... What is the future for me; Creating delusional messages, selling a certain products or to dabble in the multiple realms of electronic art? Or should I be the voice of stardom, parading on the silver screen of glitterati??? Or should I turn back to my natural, instinctive talent, whipping up a wonderful chimera of culinary delights? To put a dash of pepper on my year-old-bruises, the age is definitely, not on my side, galloping away on that elusive stallion, and me on a poor, fat, aging pony can just tattle behind him... QUESTION: Is it a mere symptom of menopause, that you find everything just so irritating; Irregular bus timing, people not standing in a queue, littering, spitting, reverse sound of a car at 5 am, rowdy rickshaw drivers, shopkeepers overcharging, potholed roads, nosy neighbours, stupid soap operas who portray an India women at her worst.. Phew!!! It's really something loathsome about these serials; e.g. The character "Ichcha" is probably the epitome of mercy, kindheartedness, love, care, patience, Indian values and what not... Her so-stuffed-with-goodness soul can't even speak her stand when wrongly accused; SERIOUSLY, who is this woman??? Definitely not me, and I would surely slap her, if I ever meet such a person... This perpetual doormat-ed existence is why our society is like what a mess it is now... Another soap depicts the caste/subcaste/gotra non-sense, which I absolutely know is the prevalent TRUTH... I have no idea, whether my disgust and the irritation crops up from the reel life mimicking the real, or the reality giving birth to such reel drama, which is absolutely endorsed and loved in our households... I know life is never perfect, and really can't be... So why my patience has been sapped? Why acceptance eludes me? Why I seethe with anger when I should turn a blind eye? Okay, finishing this here as I feel myself getting furious at the mere thought of it... ANGER MANAGEMENT SUGGESTIONS, ANYONE???

Rin Tin Tin Tan Tun

2010-04-07T15:44:00.000+05:30

Sharing a house with 2 brothers wasn't easy at all.. Muted arguments took place everyday; Whose room she'll sleep in; Who will get into the bath with her?

After all, it was their father's fault, not to declare in his will that, who will keep the 7-year-old German Shepherd Dog!

55 Word Fiction..

You have sinned...

2010-04-06T14:52:00.000+05:30

Feel like slapping the guys, who even though of this... Are we living in a pre-historic era.. What are our values? Do we consider the medical expert who administers a lethal injection, a sinner? WTF?

April Fool's 55-Word-Fiction

2010-04-01T17:28:00.003+05:30

She was so excited; And why not, it was his birthday and she had planned it weeks ago. Every hidden card, every flower delivery, precised to seconds...

"Hello, I am speaking from Edward's Hospital..."
It was unbelievable; It had to be an April Fool's prank..

She reached there, and prank it was not..

(My very first attempt at 55 Word Fiction..)

The Great Indian Tragedy...

2010-04-01T09:48:00.006+05:30

Well, since I know, there will be a million criticisms of this post, questions of being whether I am being a patriot or not, polite suggestions that I leave this beloved country and go live somewhere more suitable.. Believe me; IT DOESN'T BOTHER ME A BIT!!!

There can nothing be a greater appalling thought like..
Sania Mirza will b marrying Shoaib Malik. WTF? if she was so desperate 2 get married,y didn't she participate in Rahul Mahajan's Swayamvar?? [Link]

It reaffirms, just how much respect one has for a fellow countryman; How much do you believe in keeping your nose out of other people's business... Answer is ZERO. And like always, nothing bad for men in the story; Why, he's the man, how can he do anything wrong? The burden of morality and righteousness lies in pious pallu of the Indian women. Obviously, when she would pray for Sachin's century in an Indo-Pak cricket match, would Mr. Aadeesh complain that she's not being an ideal Indian wife?!! I doubt...

First, M.F. Hussain and now Sania, more people getting lost to our so-called secularism and freedom of speech!!!

In other news, there was apparently a 'debate' over whether or not to serve beef to athletes and officials at upcoming Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. Apparently, many local, foreign and communal forces were at work to make this minor issue into a full-force national debate. Now, this is a classic case of horribly misplaced/forgotten priorities, where we should be concentrating more finishing the required infrastructures, stadium, sport villages etc.; Instead we are getting hassled into whether or not to beef it up!!! Grow up, people! My mother didn't even touch garlic-ginger till she got married to my poultry-loving father and she did adapt.. Now she can have eggs and prepares a fabulous chicken recipe; Wouldn't you call that an ideal Indian housewife?

I can't imagine a situation if any country would decline to grace the occasion when their staple diet is absent from the menu; What will we do then? Put national pride on the back burner and stew our culture into a messy broth? Or do we present forbidden items, hoping the visitors will forget/foresee the absence basic amenities? This is clearly a double-edged sword, which will always be hanging on our vulnerable necks!

Quite obviously, once a sparkle of our eye, our culture is slowly grinding us to a painless but eminent death; Can we see it?

&then (wall photos)

2010-02-10T17:32:00.007+05:30

&then Wall Art at Facebook

Humour me!!

2010-02-09T10:08:00.004+05:30

I wish there were more men of this "other" type...

"My mom has given my matrimonial ad," my coworker Anurag told me one day. "One of the respondents is an account manager with an ad agency in Mumbai. Drawing seven lahks per annum! That’s double my salary. So I told my mom, ‘I don’t think she’s my type.’"

Not your type..? I was dumbfounded. What could be a more perfect type than a wife who pulls in a boatload of cash?

So I argued with him. I tried to explain the benefits of that arrangement from the perspective of his future financial security, to say nothing of all the extra time he’d get to watch TV. But my arguments of real estate prices, private school tuition, and syndicated sitcoms didn’t make a dent. He wanted to be the breadwinner because, well, that’s what men were supposed to do. "What about my self-respect?"

"My friend," I said, "you can drive your self-respect around in a gold-plated BMW."

He laughed. And then: "You have absolutely no male ego. Are all American men like that?"

From self-respect at Our Delhi Struggle

Gone CucKoo Bananas!!!

2010-02-04T13:56:00.006+05:30

The human brain is a wonderful creation, like no other. It can perform a million tasks at one time, enabling us to multitask. Weighing about a kilo, it's the grey cells that differentiate between humans and apes..

But in some human beings, at times, the brain get short-circuited, jumbles up or just goes cuckoo bananas.. Now don't ask me the native of the world, I heard it in the movie "Wicker Park", where its used for the anti-heroine, who has just lost it and has created a mess of the hero's, heroine's and side-kick's life, which in turn has resulted in the amazing suspense drama, the movie is..

Well, getting back from the side-track; Something similar happened with me this week, which has totally ruined my day..

Starting from
I get an email from a design firm, asking me to appear for an interview, to which I replied as the weekend for the suitable time.. Obviously, after coming back from an extended leave, I didn't want to take an half-day, the same week... No reply to my mail, hence I dismissed it out of my beautiful mind...

Evening, I had no bag on me, so I decided I would buy vegetables tomorrow, pending the large quantity I had to buy.. Plastic bags are banned in my area..

Then onmorning, I get a call from them, asking me to come the same day evening, to which I said no, for the obvious reasons.. On my suggestion of tomorrow, the lady said the Director of the firm is going out of station, so tomorrow was not possible. Then she checked, and suggested Thursday morning, to which I gleefully agreed (Oblivious to fact, that my tiny little FAT grey cells, would play scrambble-scrambble, and leave me in a complete mess..)..

In the evening, I went to the vegetable shop, buying tonnes of veggies, costing me Rs. 82/-.. The Thursday morning interview schedule was still on my mind, so I bought carrots for the next day, and Baigan/Brinjal for the bharta on Thursday.. I was so very very thoughtful to conclude that since I would be leaving late on Thursday, so I would be having ample time to roast the baigan and make bharta.. Main aur mera dimaag aksaar aisi baatien bhi karte hai!!

Cometh and the morning greeted me with the Times Ascent, to which like always, I thoughtlessly concluded that today's Tuesday.. I don't know , why I have this thought that Times Ascent comes on Tuesday and I usually plan everything according to that silly thought.. Nothing in the entire day, not a single hint, not a tiny clue, that would bring me out of my beauty sleep and slap me with the ugly reality, that TODAY'S WEDNESDAY!! WAKE UP YOU FOOL!!

Evening, I come home, have dinner and soak chhole for the next day, totally forgetting that I have a lone Brinjal in the fridge, waiting to be roasted on Thursday, and probably that could have reminded me, that the next day is the interview. A complete jumble of the events, thought and chronology, like the bricks above..

Voila, it's and my royally disrupted mind wakes up to a Wednesday..

Just admire, thoughtlessly, the beautiful turn of events, What I should have been doing and What I actually did..

Getting my resume and portfolio in order; Peeling Ginger-Garlic-Onion..

Getting the bus routes and Company address; Grinding tomatoes and cooking Chhole..

Washing hair, scrubbing face and wearing a formal top and new jeans; Not washing hair(thinking I have to to it tomorrow, on Thursday, for the interview..), making a ponytail, and wearing the ugliest dress ever..

Now as I am climbing the stairs to my office, I get a call, unknown number, but I take it..

"Miss, Rashmi Gupta??"
"Yes, speaking.."
"Hello, I am calling from ***** *****(The firm where you were supposed to come to inetrview today, stupid!!). You have an interview scheduled, naa. I will tell the directions, Till where have you reached??"
"Errr.. Ahem.. Ahemm... Err.. ???"
"Hello??"
"Yes, I know about the interview, but the interview is on Thursday naa.."
"Yes Ma'm, today's Thursday!!"
"No, Aaj toh Wednesday hain... Hain naa??"
"No, TODAY'S THURSDAY!!"
"................................... (A meek shit!!)"

I tried telling her, what an ass I have been and pleaded her to reschedule the interview, which I have no hope, that it will happen.. Especially when she said,"Sir ne aapke interview ke wajah se hi koi meeting nahi rakhi, subah!!", I believe, even if when they would not have anyone, they still would not call me..

The Wonderous Kartoot of my Overwhelming Mind...

Source

Matinee Matinee II

2010-02-02T11:19:00.008+05:30

The next 6 movie reviews continue..

The Baker's Girl of Monceau
La boulangère de Monceau
Dir: Eric Rohmer
France/1963
Its a hurried but sweet presentation of emotions, love, comedy and the roving male eye, all bundled into this black&white matinee experience.. The entire routine of the guy following the seemingly sexy lady across the streets of Paris; Then his perfectly innocuous interaction with the Bakery girl; And the Parisian snacks on display look as tempting as it would right in front of you..

Bay of the Angels
La baie des anges
Dir: Jacques Demy
France/1963
The platinum blonde Jackie is the true hero of the film, who has the male lead wrapped around her little finger; Till the last scene, its impossible to guess where her heart lies; Gambling or Love!!

Antichrist
Dir: Lars Von Trier
Denmark-Germany-France-Sweden-Italy-Poland/2009

This movie drains out your stamina, quest for perfection and lust in a cinematic sense of view.. Don't get me wrong, but you should get a hint by the poster above. Without a doubt, the most unpleasant movie to watch, despite the fact that the cinematography is perfect and flawless.. It sparks the debate on the outer limit of artistic liberty and how gross is too much.. Sexual violence, is horrifically realistic and since you get to experience the pain, you wouldn't dare look up at times.. I can understand why some people would detest, ridicule and hate it, and that's okay. This is most definitely not for everyone... A must watch, at your own risk!!

Fresh Air
Friss levego
Dir: Ágnes Kocsis
Hungary/2006
Its a heart warming tale of a mother-daughter duo, with a diametrically polar personalities, except the fondness for the same video film.. One has a bottom-of-the-rung job as a bathroom attendant, another wants to soar high in the fashion world.. The story is told at the leisurely pace, with perfect details and accessories.. What happens, when the plans go awry??

Water Lilies
Naissance des pieuvres
Dir: Celine Sciamma
France/2007
Summer and swimming pools are the best places to let sexual tensions out and manage to capture some beautiful cinematography.. The water scenes are unbelievable, and would surely inspire to you to take up swimming.. I didn't understand the character pretty well, as being a teenager, not much stability is expected out of them.. There is a lot of sexual uncertainty, emotions, rebel, all gracefully depicting the teenages..

77 Doronship
Dir: Pablo Agüero
France/2009
Jose goes out to buy cigarettes and never comes back, leaving his 9-month pregnant girlfriend waiting for him.. In the meanwhile, enters Jose grandfather, a smoking, huffing, puffing, dreaming, sleeping Octogenarian/Nonagenarian.. Now things happen in the most weird manners, but at the end, you don't hope for Jose to return, because everything has been taken care of..

Matinee Matinee I

Matinee Matinee I

2010-01-19T16:09:00.011+05:30

I would never miss an opportunity to watch a good movie, no matter how stressed my weekend is, that is why, the film festivals are a perfect getaway to unwind, relax and enjoy cinema, which is unknown to you but inspire similar thoughts about us, human beings..

PIFF, organized in mid-January, gave me and thousand other fluttering souls, some respite from work and a welcome break from the routine masala fare..

Island Etude
Lian xi ku
Dir: Huai-en Chen
Taiwan/2007
My first movie of the festival was Island Etude, a film from Taiwan, about a hearing-disabled boy, cycling along the entire coastline of Taiwan, before graduating.. Well, I never did such sort of thing, as in cycling, though drawing circles is what made me graduate after all.. It was a pleasant watch, at a leisurely pace, taking in the mesmerizing beauty of Taiwan, its culture and society!!

Broken Embraces
Los abrazos rotos
Dir: Pedro Almodóvar
Spain/2009
I remember seeing this particular poster on some site and it was retained by sleeping cells.. Upon reading the PIFF schedule, it came running in front of my eyes and I decided to watch it, not matter how late the clients wake up deciding to run a ad the next day, So 5 pm I was out of the office!! :D

What is really beyond me, the fact the despite being openly gay, how Almodóvar can make look Penelope Cruz look absolutely ravishing and edible.. Not joking, the above poster features her, but I failed to recognize her that moment.. Not only she's looked wondrous in this movie, she's managed to effortlessly portray the dilemma in heart, the mutiny of thoughts of a mistress and a girlfriend, the zeal of an actress, everything!! If I were in her shoes, as in keeping being super-hot n all apart, her emotions would mirror mine, quiet easily!! A must watch, if laid hands upon!

Splinters
Drzazgi
Dir: Maciej Pieprzyca
Poland/2008
This narrative feature debut weaves together in the seemingly unrelated storylines of Robert, Marta, and Bartek, three young people living in Silesia, Poland who come from different backgrounds and have different aspirations... Each character suffers from flaws, pain, agony but slowly travels towards redemption.. Each storyline intersect somewhere and brings a smile aloud. Situations, you and me would face everyday, bring a familiarity to the narrative.. Certain opinions are broken with a sudden twist and predictability is destroyed..!!

Empty Nest
El Nido Vacio
Dir: Daniel Burman
Argentina-Spain-France-Italy/2008
What does a couple do after parenting is no more an issue..? Does the dead romance come back after the last of the children has left? Do the eyes still rove, glances exchanged after the house has gone quiet. And so Leonardo (Oscar Martinez) and Martha (Cecilia Roth), like many couples before them, are unexpectedly thrown back upon themselves, forced to question their identities and relationships after they have no children between them.. Leonardo, once a famous playwright starts flying a plane, day dreams about his cute dentist whereas Martha, a more successful human being, decides to go back to school, enriching both her intellectual and social lives. The movie is largely told through his jealous, insecure eyes, but the things we see at the margins — namely the activities of Martha — compel our sympathy and interest more.

The Candidate
Kandidaten
Dir: Kasper Barfoed
Denmark/2009
Jonas Bechmann, a defense attorney, is accused of murder. Taking matters into his own hands, he throws himself into the hunt for a group of blackmailers who threaten to expose him as the killer. But nothing is what it appears to be, and the blackmail links back to his father's death under mysterious circumstances a year and a half earlier.. Like a good thriller, story is tight, crisp and keeps you awake; A strict competition for these Hollywood dark beauties!!

Scratch
Rysa
Dir: Michal Rosa
Poland/2009
40 years of marriage, and one day it dawns upon you that your marriage was only a political plot, a sham; But what about when your accused falsely of the same? Can anyone fake a 40-year old marriage! Such dilemma is portrayed through a war zone at home by the director and performed superbly by the senior actors!!

Matinee Matinee II

Pune Fashion Week 2010

2010-01-07T10:39:00.004+05:30

The morning newspaper gave me an insightful news today.. Pune is now going have its own fashion week, this very month!!

Pune has everything going for it — a thriving education centre, a rapidly growing IT industry, a pulsing cultural hub and great climate. Of course, we have fashion sense too, but somehow with our proximity to Mumbai, it thrived in the underbelly of the city and then those who were ‘ready’, were exported to the runways of Mumbai and Delhi.

In an attempt to change this, which means to legitimise Pune as a ‘fashion capital’, a Pune Fashion Week is on the cards this month. N’igma Production House will launch the Pune Fashion Week 2010 on January 15 to put Pune on the fashion map. Officially. Read the entire article here.

Now I do have a fashion inclination, and I do like fashion, So I just wondered, how the show-stopper would be.. After much trend spotting, research and fashion forecast, I thought, this perfectly embraces the essence of Pune women and cultural strength of Pune..

The original ramp image with Geeta Basra taken from realbollywood.com
The headscarf image taken from Luria Unmani's Flickr

The years flew by...

2009-12-30T16:31:00.003+05:30

2000-2010 : Culture

2000-2010 : Design

2000-2010 : Environment

2000-2010 : Food

2000-2010 : Literature

2000-2010 : Web Videos

2000-2010 : Words

All images from GOOD

Thoughts of an Indian girl

2009-12-23T10:02:00.004+05:30

Not a good time to adopt a girl child, I have decided.. Okay, keep out time, worst country to adopt a girl child.. What will I provide for her? Education, food, clothes, discipline, manners, values, culture, religion, society.. Hmmm... What a society, do I introduce to her, where a female body is considered a free-for-all commodity.. What culture is this, where molestation/rape is a invited by a girl's behavior!!

I wonder if following Sharia law, Indian laws should also be modified to follow similar patterns.. Produce witnesses that saw the molestation/rape happening and then come to court.. Funnily, I was wondering, whether to have a plasma like substance all over the body, so any foreign touch, could be recorded along with the person's finger prints.. So the next time someone touches the skin, I could have a "valid proof" of the act.. After all, How can I be considered a morally correct individual, if I have a boyfriend/ or have many male friends with whom I have spent many nights (Studying, chatting, not-literally-sleeping-together)!!

The recent Ruchika case makes us think, what is the proof of molestation/rape? In the patriarchal society we live in, victim blaming is the easiest way out for any accused.. If you have money/power, you could/would definitely escape the law!! I remember seeing the smiling face of SPS Rathore, after the verdict and thought to myself, what sort of mindset would show no remorse or guilt but display the full pride and attitude he had of his connections/power... India is well on its way to being the rape capital of the world. With most offenders taking solace in the idea that they can get away with it, there seems no solution in sight to the problem at the moment.

Also beyond me is our consistent insistence on being a "cultured society", dating back the million years.. Why are we blind towards the present scenario of intolerance, rage, social discrimination and comfortably blame everything on westernization. "MTV generation brought it all on us." As if prior to development we all were saints and this country was paradise.. Recent reports of India, 3rd worst offender in rape cases & 2nd on Social Hostility Index,

Source

Out of the 10, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabic are Islamic Republic and India is the only "secular" democratic Republic in the top 10 list!! So what did we do so bad to feature at the 2nd place? Nothing much, develop a zero tolerance for any other religion, inculcate fake pride in yours, place religion over civic responsibility and humanity and just few communal riots killing lakhs and solving nothing but your satanic ego.. And when we run out of religious issues to fight over, we bring out the Casteism out of the closet!! Sometimes I wonder, if for once, one could forget about religion and caste and live like a normal human being, but then I realize, how would it fulfill our deflated egos and pride and how will we live up to the tag of a "cultured society"??

New year is round the corner, and again another JW Mariott Mob Molestation is waiting to happen.. Another Scarlett Keeling is in process. Another Goa-Russian girl Molestation will take place... You tell me, even if I do adopt a girl child, what will I be giving her?

Animadvert on cult:ure

2009-12-08T15:22:00.010+05:30

For a name, that literally means "Great Nation", how long does it take for the feeling "Greater than the Nation" to settle in.. I know, it being a long debate, a never ending one and this blog/post will do nothing to take it towards a constructive solution.. And it's not an isolated city or state, but since I am living here, my focus will be local ..

It seems to offend others, when someone talks about a rational, non-devious, liberal thought in politics; my office seems to be totally vaccinated from such 'immoral' ideas.. I hardly discuss politics in office, because I do feel isolated amongst the 'sons of the soil', who upon the bridge-naming-controversy where busy finding other local heroes; On the mike-snatching-incident, they were busy finding videos of provocation by a certain non-existent-foot-action and what not.. I don't blame them, lack of proper exposure, education and liberal peers will make you follow certain horse-eyed-vision.. Similarly, for the city, known for it's rich culture, that I, strangely, found stagnated to just temples, music & dance events, the civic discipline is totally absent from the scene..

The local edition of a national daily has initiated a pro-helmet campaign, which though has garnered a rave response, but till people invent the excuses like..

"I think more accidents take place when you wear a helmet. On Pune roads, vehicles overtake you from any side and it becomes difficult to track their movements. Also, your peripheral vision is obscured and you can’t see clearly. It is like a horse wearing blinders..
or
I have experienced and come to understand from many of my friends that we lose hair if we use helmet regularly.."

..it would not reach it's required sensation..
Now I wear a helmet, and it provides enough peripheral vision, for you to see around, even if you don't use your rear-view mirrors.. Well, people will continue to do whatever they wish like; But my favourite answer did not appear: "Oh, if I wear a helmet, how will I manage to touch my forehead with my folded hands, when I pass Dagadusheth or any minor temple.."

I just can't understand the obsession with a religious place, the rituals of standing directly in front of it or whatever.. Imagine a one-way street, with buses, pedestrians and every other vehicle jostling for space. And there, right after a traffic signal, standing in its full splendour is an iconic religious structure. What is beyond me is the the fact that why people make 10 rows of 5 people each that reach almost the center of the road, disrupting traffic and civic discipline?? Just to stand 'directly in front' deity, as if they are beyond the idol's peripheral vision, they will get 50% less blessing??

Near my residence, a man was killed recently during a Ganeshotsav festivities; reason - spat over stepped over on the foot.. OMG, by those standards, I would be serving multiple life sentences, as it happens everyday, during my PMPML sojourns..

Though it's a very far-fetched thought, but I seriously want to suggest some radical solutions for Traffic Travails of the Culture City..Source
BRTS Intruders : The BRTS, is like a private highway to every one, with or without wheels; pedestrians, cyclists, bikers, cars, cows, dogs, sheep etc etc. The limited strength of traffic police just stands helpless, as motorists, just show a middle finger to all traffic sense..I took this picture waiting for the bus; Evidently, the Sumo driver just inched backwards, making barely enough space for the bus to pass. Sumo driver: "After all I did a big favor, manoeuvring my big vehicle, in a place I am not supposed to be."

Damage Control : Radical measures for stubborn riders; All authorized buses and emergency vehicles can be fitted by a bar code underneath. for the sensors built in the roads. Weight of any unauthorized vehicle, will trigger the next road spike, puncturing the tyre. I also suggest, no insurance facilities for mishaps taking place due to burst tyres!!
AB CHALAO BRTS MEIN, BAAP KI ROAD HAI??
Source

If not enough, CCTV cameras installed should pick up offenders, and 3 offenses in a row should invoke a license suspension; And why to blame the 'innocent, religious, god-fearing people', our politicians are no-less. Protests are all legal, in our democratic county, but who will book the politicians who openly violate rules.Clearly, they are in a corridor meant for Buses, on a non-motor vehicle, blocking the path for a State Transport bus. Will the city police do something, to bring these politicians to book? I guess not!!

Sometimes ago, the Supreme Court banned all unauthorized new and future construction of places of worship on public land and sought strict compliance of its order from the union and state governments.. Clearly, no one ever pays heed to such orders, and do as they, err, God pleases.. This structure suddenly appeared as I returned to the city after Diwali vacations, obviously foundations were laid after the above order was passed.. I have no idea where to complain about the obstructing structure, as I know for sure, the Police will dismiss me, as the complain is about faith!!

Just because you are God-fearing, does it mean, you need not fear the Law? I have no clue, what sort of God will actually feel like blessing you, when you ungracefully sit on ladies seat and then fold hands to a passing temple; What sort of religious man are you, when you stop your vehicle on the road, hoping for a quick blessing; What sort of ritual is it, when you throw the waste of your pooja-samagri on road? Umm, is it about religion and rituals are meant for us, etiquettes/manners and culture is for foreigners?? And I am very sure, the certain warrior-king, you all idolize, did not preach disrespect for the law & order and following anger and fake pride..

"You keep them stupid and I’ll keep them poor."

Oh-so-perfect!!

2009-11-26T12:55:00.003+05:30

However, it never easy to find one, that is so readable, looks nice, clean and yet artistic.. And Do I have to live with this to see the beauty it is??

Say I Do...

2009-11-23T14:17:00.005+05:30

They say marriages are made in heaven, but I say, the ceremony is Hell Incorporated.. Why so? Here's why!! It all starts with the lovely thought of a boy and a girl getting hitched. Then the parents meet, first hating the bride/groom, then the family, then kindly accepting the fact that the other side is here to stay... I totally believe in the institution of marriage, but the concept of ceremonies is beyond me.. Especially here in India, I see, people are more bothered about the ceremonies rather than the thought of marriage.. Photographer, video-wala, marriage hall, reception, dinner, flowers, gifts, sweets and more sweets and the ever-present, ever-conspicuous D-O-W-R-Y!! I have been in a "baraat" that reached the venue (1 km away) at 1 am, when the time was 8pm!! I have seen Father/Uncle/Brother of the Bride, missing the ceremony, just because they were either drinking-away somewhere or just plain busy arranging the Gift-Money!! The most important part of once's life is just crushed or hidden between the complexities of a ceremony..

Well, I didn't intend to make this post such heavy at heart.. Since Diwali marks the beginning of the auspicious marriage season, here in India, unrelatingly, I saw a couple of wedding movies on TV this weekend.. First of them, "Betsy's Wedding" is an account of wedding woes of Betsy's family, whose Jewish-Italian heritage, is at not-so-silent conflict with groom's, rich White Anglo Saxon Protestant family. To show that he is nothing minor in ego, bank-balance and small-talk, the Father of the Bride, he makes an epic out of the family ceremony.. Yes, its funny in parts, when fashion-student bride make a runway piece out of the conventional wedding dress.. When father of the bride asks for help from his wife's Italian Mob relatives.. But in the end, when wedding tent becomes a drenched Pizza Picnic, you can't help but smile slightly..

Next movie, is a laugh-riot, named "My Big Fat Greek Wedding".. It's got the ingredients of total Indian humor... Girl getting old, worrying parents, secretly dating daughter, parents not approving of the boy, finally giving up, a million of loud-always-eating merry relatives and traditional meek in-laws.. I love Toula who says, "Nice Greek girls are supposed to do three things in life: marry Greek boys, make Greek babies, and feed everyone... until the day we die.." Substitute Greek with Indian, and no one can object... Anyways, its originally funny, with beautiful talented cast and amazing humor..

My point is, families, loud relatives, differences, meat v/s no-meat are there and will always exist.. And I also know, these are just movies, scripted, rehearsed, practised, shot well, but obviously, they are a product of someone's imagination; so why is it so hard to adopt it?? Why can't a boy and a girl, get married peacefully, devoid of everyone's objection...

EGGPLOSION!!

2009-11-18T12:58:00.003+05:30

Caution: Eggs can/will/always explode in the microwave. I have seen it. Yesterday. Now I will never use the eggs and/or the microwave improperly. Eggs & Microwave don't mix!

10 Million Dollars, Baby!!

2009-11-17T12:19:00.004+05:30

You'll get 10 million dollar, you only have to push a button, if you do, 1 person will die. You don't know that person and no one will ever know you pushed the button. Will you push it? Answer Yes or Not.

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My melancholic mind

2009-11-13T10:30:00.005+05:30

Suppose a genie appears and gives you two choices. The first option is that he will give you $10 million dollars, but everyone else you know will get $20 million apiece.

Choice two: You get $5 million, but no one else gets anything.

As a bonus, the genie offers to erase your memory of having made the choice, so guilt will never be a factor. You will simply wake up the next day in the new situation.

Which option do you choose to maximize your personal happiness?

This might seem like an easy choice. You take the $10 million and your friends will get $20 million each. Everyone wins. Unfortunately, I don't think humans are wired that way. Happiness is based on the direction your life is heading (better or worse), and what you have compared to what you think you should have.

Exactly my point!! While reading this post@Dilbert.com, my selfless doppelganger persisted for the "Make self happy, make others happier" wala funda, and that kept me satisfied for a couple of seconds.. But then, as time passed by; I started to realize, it might help satisfy my moral greed, but my personal happiness?? No ways!! How could I live with a Honda Accent, while my friend with $20 million is now a proud owner of a Volkswagen Beetle?? Me in a 2 BHK apartment and another friend in a resort row house?? Why me lesser and my friends more?? Why Why Why?? I guess, its all about being human.

Like Scott Adams puts it up, "If you take the genie's $10 million option, over time you will start feeling like the poorest person you know, since everyone else has $20 million apiece. You will wonder what you did in a past life to deserve this shabby treatment from the universe. The ugly truth about humans is that your happiness might be maximized by screwing everyone you know while screwing yourself half as much.

If you buy this premise, it has interesting implications for personal relationships. For example, it means that one way to cheer up an unhappy friend is to put yourself in a even worse situation, thus resetting the reference point. The splinter in your finger only makes you unhappy when you're not talking to someone who has a railroad spike through his head."

I ask, why it always have to be like, "Oh, God, make me 10% sad and others 100%?" Does it really help?? Or does it always hurt?? What do you say to a friend who just has lost a puppy!! "Oh, that's pretty aweful! I hope someone has given the poor dog a shelter, atleast!! You know what, I once lost my 20K cellphone, my laptop and some 50K in share market, in a single day!!" How does it feel to seek solace in sadness??

Click the screenshot..

2009-11-04T16:48:00.002+05:30

& then...

w o r d l e

2009-10-30T14:44:00.002+05:30

Zero tolerance & tonnes of fake pride...

2009-10-28T16:32:00.003+05:30

... is what we, Indians, are made up of..

"Alekh — Woh main Valmikiji ki kahani padh raha tha, Mamaji. Woh kya sach hai ki Valmikiji chor se sadhu ban gaye? Koi aadmi itna badal sakta hai kya?

Mamaji — Valmikiji ke paas himmat thi atmavishwas tha, beta. Jiske mann mein atmaa aur vishwas ho, use koi nahi rok sakta."

Can anyone tell me, where the hell, the dialogue disrespects Valmiki, the person in question? In fact, the praise for his confidence is clearly visible. But whatever, we Indians are so vella, that we come all the way from Punjab to arrest the actor who said these lines and the producer of the show; What about the scriptwriter?

Why we get offended, on mere the mention of the name, not thinking what the entire thought or dialogue implies in all?

Why don't we just ban using all the proper nouns, surnames, brands, god in the films?

I feel, I would just say the words "Marathis are..", and the Raj-Goons will jump out of no where, trying to make me apologize..

I dreamt, one day, I painted a Rorschach blot, but there, followers of Hinduisms interpreted it as a nude goddess..

Every time I would wear the green, Prophet-lovers would demand to disrobe me.

I want to SUE Aamir Khan, Nasser Hussain and Juhi Chawla for using MY HOLIER-THAN-HOLIEST-RIVER-IN-THE-WORLD name Rashmi in their movie, "Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak", some 20-odd years ago.. Any lawyer, interested??

We are intolerant towards everything, sex, pre-marital-sex, extra-marital sex, homo-sexuality, smoking, drinking, holding hands, using a surname, using a name, writing a god's name, using a goddess's image - no matter how nude she originally actually was, music videos, sach ka samna, big brother/boss, all of which I feel are a matter of personal discretion.

But we are very-very very, EXTREMELY TOLERANT of:

Loud music during religious festivities (Ah! its in god's name; how can you object?)

No traffic sense (As most readers of Pune Mirror say that Pune's bad traffic condition is due to poor administration, as if every one driving on the road is a saint.)

No queue (Me first.. rest later)

Red tapism, Laal-batti wali Ambassador.. Wow, I love red!!

Blind love towards fair skin..

Ardent desire of the boy child..

Boundless enthusiasm of killing you own child because he/she married outside the caste, or opposes dowry..

WE SO PROUDLY OPPOSE, IGNORE AND DON'T VALUE EACH AND EVERYTHING THAT PREVENTS US FROM BECOMING A CIVILIZED SOCIETY JUST BECAUSE WE HAVE THIS GLORIOUS SUITCASE OF INDIAN CULTURE WHICH EVERYONE HAS A PERSONAL INTERPRETATION OF AND WHICH WE VALUE MORE THAN HUMANITY, CIVILITY AND BASIC ETIQUETTES.. HOW CULTURED OF US!!

India's Missing Girls

2009-10-22T12:06:00.003+05:30

Next Showing: Saturday 24 October at 9am
Repeats: Saturday 24 October at 3pm
Sunday 25 October at 10am

Every year in India, thousands of baby girls are killed for one reason – because they are female. This World investigates why, and how it affects Indian society at large. Earlier this summer, a farmer in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh made a shocking discovery. Sticking out of the earth was a tiny human hand – and barely audible, the cries of a newborn baby. The farmer had found a two day old baby girl who had been buried alive. The baby was still conscious and was rushed to a local hospital to recover from her ordeal. Her grandfather meanwhile confessed to the girl’s attempted murder. With seven daughters already, he claimed he could not afford the burden and expense of looking after yet another girl. He admitted this crime would never have happened if the baby had been a boy.

Every year in India, tens of thousands of baby girls are killed – simply because of their gender. Most are aborted as soon as their sex is determined. Some are abandoned at birth, while others are killed, shortly after. It is all part of India’s centuries-old preference for boys, who will carry the family’s name and traditionally provide for parents in their old age. At an orphanage in the nearby town of Kadappa, its the first birthday party for Harshita - a baby girl who was abandoned at the gates of the orphanage when she was only two months old. Like at most Indian orphanages, the majority of the children are girls. Most have no idea of when their real birthdays are - since they arrived as babies or small children. Sandhya Reddy who runs the orphanage explains that girls are seen as a financial burden, who will join another family after the payment of an expensive dowry. So great is the burden that girls are seen to place on a family, that some believe it is better that they are never born. In the past, infanticide was seen as one solution. Now with advances in medical technology, many parents are resorting to ultra sound scans to determine the gender of the baby. If its a girl, they pay for an abortion.

In the state of Haryana – on the outskirts of India’s capital, boy preference is even more ingrained. With ultra sound testing routine in the state for the past two decades, the sex ratios are now some of the lowest in the country, falling to as low as 850 girls to 1000 men in some areas. Despite government efforts to end sex selection, its meant that there is now a marked shortage of brides.19 year old Rameer was forced to travel a thousand miles to find his wife. His mother used family contacts to find a bride in Jharkhand – a poor tribal state on east side of the country. His mother has three other sons to marry – and will do the same for them. His bride Ushama is a long way from her family and her traditions. Five months pregnant, Rameer claims he would welcome his baby whatever its sex. Is this a sign of progress at last – or simply another part of the cover-up of the killing of baby girls?

Greek to me

2009-10-12T14:51:00.005+05:30

but those that understood him smiled at one another and
shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me

(William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar (1599))

That's Greek to me or It's (all) Greek to me is an idiom/dead metaphor in English, claiming that an expression is incomprehensible, either due to complexity or imprecision. The expression may be used with respect to verbal expressions with excessive jargon of dialect, mathematics, or science. The metaphor makes reference to the Greek language and the Greek alphabet..

Now world is a big place and different origins, cultures play a part in the birth and development of languages.. But English, German, Spanish, we hear in daily life, songs, technical words etc etc.. But what about the other, not-so-popular ones?? When an English speaker doesn't understand a word, one says, "It's "Greek to me". When a Hebrew speaker encounters this difficulty, it "sounds like Chinese". I've been told the Korean equivalent is "sounds like Hebrew"... There’s a similar idiom in Greek, but they reference Arabic as the quintessentially incomprehensible tongue. And Arabic speakers say something incomprehensible "sounds like Hindi." Talk about cultural relativism. In the end, then, it's just a round world; One language to another, does sound like Greek!!

Now I wonder, being an Indian, how many languages, would be Greek to me??? My mom's side is Punjabi, so its not that Greekish.. And since, I have been living in Maharashtra since last 2 years, Marathi is also not than alien.. But what about the rest 27 out of the 29?? Oh!! its just too complicated..

Credits: It’s Heavenly Script to Me!

One more reason, why...

2009-10-09T11:28:00.009+05:30

..I will not vote for Mr. Raj; Because of my spoiled front door...

Notes of a Scarf-Hater

2009-09-11T13:57:00.003+05:30

I hate scarves, not all, but specifically, one like these worn by girls on the road. I could never understand the purpose of the same.. I mean, why the hell, you need that thing on your face? I know, it's your personal choice to wear that thing, but I honestly, do not see any logical reasoning behind it. It suffocates me, my skin wants more of the thing we breathe everyday!! Especially, in a hot climate like ours, if the sweat on my neck and face doesn't evaporate and keeps accumulating around my head, I would surely die of the combination of suffocation, infection, heat-stroke.. And honestly, just tell me, how many times a YEAR, do you wash that thing? Because, every single day, I see the same, dirty, grey things, with dirt on the ceases, accumulated with constant use, with no relief or no sense of cleanliness.. YUCKSS!!

And, for me it's the synonym of Indian Taliban, that too willingly.. Why don't you all migrate to Afganistan, that ways you can 'officially' wear a head scarf; Hiding your face from the bad elements...

What does that scarf help you do? Protect from pollution? Protect you from eve-teasers? Protect you from insecurity? Protect you from accidents while driving?

One for the road :

Now this is the most commonplace.. Imagine a scenario. A girl walking down the road. Scarf wrapped around on the head. Texting on phone. We, Indians, don't listen to a needless honking besides us, when we walk off the footpath, thanks to the stupid scarf, she would be more unreceptive to sounds.. Result, you guess..

Oh, it must be the Sun, but you don't wear the scarf inside you house, near a window? You would definitely get tanned there.. Or I guess you are just unaware of the latest international fashion where dark is good.. Don't be such a miser, buy a good sunscreen and enjoy the Sun. I travel 4 hours a day, in the same bus, the same road. My skin is just fine. Wash your face twice a day and use a moisturizer..

In the bus, you have mastered the art of identification. Just for sake of argument, if you were ever called by the police for an identification parade, you would pass with flying colors.. Why? Oh, it's a real skill to recognize your friend by just the permutation and combination of the no. of scarves, handbag and footwear she owns. Oh wait, or may be the shade of mascara.. For example, "Umm, checkered scarf with brown bag, Oh, its Asha. Or no, wait, she doesn't have the silver kohl(40% Black) mascara. Then she must be Aarti; Let me go and say hi!!"

In restaurants, do you really need that thing, when you would want to relax and rewind and have a good conversation, with food to soothe the aching taste buds? All you boyfriend would see is a pair of eyes, with no sensual lips or the expressive mouth lines while you are talking.. And he might start saying "hello, hello" in between, because you sound as if you are talking through a telephone(muffled voice)!! Aww, don't tell me, you ACTUALLY wear that thing, so that no one recognizes you having a boyfriend??
Not long from now, we could see "Diary of a Compulsive Womanizer" featuring Monday lunch: White-red Polka dot scarf
Monday night: Yellow rustic paisley scarf
Tuesday: Saffron Om-print scarf (Quite religious, don't you think so?)

That bring to me to the ethereal question: Do you wear the scarf while having sex? No, no, seriously? I guess you love it so much, you go to the bed wearing it; After all, dust is everywhere.. And since you must be saving a fortune from those eyebrows and upper lips session, I bet your bikini-line is wonderful..

One for the groping hand :

Why do you wear this scarf? So that an eve-teaser/molester does not see my face or know my identity.. Honestly, If I were the molester, all my erection would go for a toss, seeing that weird, in-the-closet persona.. And who says, you won't be touched in that scarf; The moment you come in the vicinity of a predator, his senses start arousing. The eyes start to scan you; despite the 2-meter cloth around you. It scissors out the material, exposing the nude female form, calculating his next move i.e. Positioning. His problem is not what you are wearing; His problem is the swiftest and least obstructed way of groping/touching your body. Standing next, behind, front, at 45 Degrees.. One sly of hand, underneath your scarf, on top you chest and DONE!!
And what do you do? Let out a muffled scream from your scarf and keep quiet.. No confronting the offender; Why? Wearing the scarf makes you coy or what?

Another one for the road :

Comparison of a head scarf and helmet while driving: Oh, I am not going to win this one. How could the helmet, possibly, beat the scarf.. If worn haphazardly, the long end of the scarf, would never get tangled in the wheels of a bike.. It would such a protection from rain, with no a drop tickling under. Eyes would get the maximum protection, from dust, hot air and what not.. And, in the case of a head injury, the soft fabric would take the maximum impact from the collision; What could a helmet do, haan??

ericparker on Flickr

One for yourself :

Now here comes forward my feminist side.. And she is angry, for girls hide themselves behind veils, making them secluded, untouchable, forgotten. You would not feel a thing, but I don't have much respect for humans, who degrade themselves. And you mys dear girls, are doing the same.. And if you are so worried about modesty, stop wearing skin fitting kurtas, black bras inside white blouses, sleeveless tops, low-rise-snug jeans and then wear this damned thing

that's how I roll.

2009-09-10T14:28:00.001+05:30

that's how I roll., originally uploaded by modesvn.

Well, legibility and correct punctuation goes a long way...

I learnt today,

2009-09-09T10:24:00.000+05:30

a new word, rather an idiom, courtesy TOI...

curry favour

to try to make someone like you or support you by doing things to please them..(usually + with )

$9 Million Noah's Ark

2009-09-03T12:09:00.002+05:30

Noah's Ark, oil on canvas painting by Edward Hicks, 1846 Philadelphia Museum of Art

I wonder how much did the actual one cost? Wood, nails, varnish, etc etc?? Did Noah pay for it or was it just produced out of thin air by the Almighty? Well, things have changed since the 1st Great flood, and many words like economy, Global warming and Climate changes have been coined.. Now the dangers are more, deeper and lethal; Therefore, we need something more strong, foolproof and concrete!!

Source : A Vault for Eternity PDF
Well, so here is The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the ultimate backup — or as Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which operates the Svalbard vault together with the Norwegian government and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center in Sweden, calls it, the "Noah's ark of seeds". The vault was built on the far northern Norwegian island of Longyearbyen, where the Arctic cold helps keeps the seeds viable, in case the electricity that powers the vault's cold storage should ever go. (Seeds can remain dormant but alive for centuries if they're kept cool and dry.) The location isn't an accident — should something truly horrific happen, from extreme climate change to nuclear war, remote Svalbard should remain protected, capable of rebooting global agriculture. "This is an insurance policy we know we need," says Fowler.

Source : TIME Photos
Svalbard is a repository for samples from national seed banks across the globe — almost every country in the world has one. Their purpose, of course, is to backup native plant varieties. If climate conditions change or a disease threatens crops currently in use, plant breeders can dip into seed banks to try to grow new crops. The seed diversity preserved in these banks can mean the difference between feast and famine. But the banks that contain our most diverse and important collections of seeds tend to be located in developing countries, where budgets are tight and conditions are less than stable. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault turned one on Feb. 26, an anniversary it celebrated by receiving 90,000 new samples, or four tons, of seeds. Those are in addition to the more than 400,000 unique seed samples (more than 200 million individual seeds) that have been transferred to Svalbard since the $9 million facility opened last year. Built by the Norwegian government and operated by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, the vault is designed to store 100 million seeds, from over 100 countries.

Source : TIME Photos
Seeds from these sorghum plants, part of a study of sustainable ecological farming in Hyderabad, India, are bound for the vault on Svalbard. The farm is maintained by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). Then, the ICRISAT scientists select the seeds for shipment. ICRISTAT has contributed 20,000 samples of five varieties of plants grown in India. Once chosen, the seeds are vacuum-sealed in special four-ply packets and heat-sealed to eliminate moisture. The Indian seeds are then shipped by air to the Scandinavian island to be taken to the vault.

Source : TIME Photos
After the long flight, the Coordinator of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, Ola T. Westengen, collects the seeds at the airport. The shipment is checked and taken for storing. The storage area lies nearly 400 feet inside a sandstone mountain. The northerly site was chosen for its lack of tectonic activity and its permafrost. Because the mountain sits 430 feet above sea level, the vault will remain dry even if the icecaps melt. At a temperature of -18 C, the vault could potentially preserve seeds from most food crops for hundreds of years.

Source : Svalbard Global Seed Vault Entrance

Source : Svalbard Vault Mountain Cutaway

Source : Seeding the Earth

Quarter of solace

2009-09-01T15:39:00.002+05:30

We are celebrating the news that India's capital, Delhi, recorded more female than male births during 2008, for the first time in many decades. Latest government data shows for every 1,000 males, 1,004 girls were born in Delhi in 2008.

Pity by William Blake

The part credit for it goes to the state's Ladli Scheme, under which the government deposits 10,000 rupees (£125) on the the birth of a baby girl and makes subsequent payments as she passes through school. The money is used for further education or to pay for a wedding and setting up home.

The objective of the scheme is to raise the status of the girl child in the family and in the society and to change the mindsets of the people for proper rearing of the girl children and providing them the right to birth and the right to survival. With the prevalence of sex determination tests and female foeticide, the sex ratio of females in the State has declined considerably, which is 861 females per 1000 males as per 2001 census. In order to combat the menace of female foeticide, improve the declining sex ratio of females and increase the number of girls in the families, a new sceme Ladli is being launched w.e.f. 20-8-2005 on the occasion of birth day of late Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi.

The real challenge, they say, is changing the attitude towards daughters given the preference for boys in Indian society.

Ladlee (Delhi Gov.) Guidelines PDF:

Ladlee (Haryana Gov.) Guidelines PDF:

Ladli Yojna : A government incentive offered to parents NOT TO kill their own children!! Even 007 can't solve this mess..

A day of vanilla yak

2009-09-01T11:02:00.000+05:30

"Damn, its 5:30am.. I am feeling so sleepy"
. . .
"Grr.. Okay, onions, tomatoes, oil, salt, turmeric, red chillies, green chillies.. Now don't use the same finger to rub your sleepy eyes.."
. . .
"What the hell is wrong with this pressure cooker? I wish I were a pressure cooker; Perform in 15psi-every single time.."
. . .
"Tea, coffee, milk, tea, coffee, milk, tea, coffee, milk, tea, coffee, milk, tea, coffee, milk.. Why can't men make up their mind??"
. . .
"Is life like a soft boiled egg? You would never know about the runny yolk, till you take a poke at it."
. . .
"Yellow, red, blue, silk, cotton, denims, fitted, comfort? Choices for life or for the moment??"
. . .
"Do I look fat in this? Even if I do, who's to see? But do we wear clothes to please ourselves or others?"
. . .
"Hot water, lukewarm, cold water; What's the best for taking bath? Anything that makes me look like to fresh fresh models in those soaps adverts!!"
. . .
"Fuck, I am late again.. and I know for sure, the bus that leaves at 7:55 am EVERY SINGLE DAY, today, definitely, it will leave at 7:50 am!!"
. . .
"Newspaper; Does it make me look old, well-read or geeky? Well, whatever, it's surely a million times better than a scarf with snakey-earphones, making me deaf!!"
. . .
"People will never change. Should I give up my seat for this lady? She seems old enough for this courtesy.. Arrgghhh!! Why the hell I am so selfish?"
. . .
"Is work fun? Is work working for me? What work do I like? Communication? Creation? Contemplation? Co-relation? Or just procrastination?"
. . .
"Some times, I feel like such an outsider, just a formal event, taking place amidst the woven lives of those who already inhibit here.. Is that my imagination? Just a rumor?"
. . .
"What it takes to break the ice? Or as a matter of fact; to induce a genuine smile? Or just honestly, care? Someone, who doesn't speak your language, is suitable for exclusion? Not share your jokes? Conveniently, forget about?"
. . .
"Why is your work not even to be discussed about and my work totally experimental? You might be knowing much more, but then mine is not total shit!"
. . .
"Umm.. Time to go home, and yes, where is my last minute assignment, making me miss my precious bus?"
. . .
"Oh, grr.. Capitalism sucks.. And why the hell, the price of eggs, keeps fluctuating.. Its not Sensex!!!"
. . .
"Okay, no rice and no chapati.. Dear curd and cucumber, please bless my waistline.."
. . .
"Does he think about someone else, while he makes love to me? Does he find me fat?"
. . .
"Sleep.. now!!"

vanilla skies original art

addicted|hate

2009-08-28T13:15:00.000+05:30

orange - the colour
temples
pav-bhaji
crowd
news-paper
loud music
water
Coca cola
clean
Comic sans
pottery
Ariel
oval nails
ear
Georgia
Electric Blue
Pink
flip-flops
tea
earring
coffee
magazines
nose rings
lies
pasta
Spykar
land-line
Twitter
Watermelon
coffee mugs
Facebook
Sepia
Mango
crockery
Orkut
summer dress
stilettos
trust
honey
Helvetica
click!
Churchgate
deceit
photography
truth
Copper
bohemian
nude
Anacondas
dictionary
Boots are made for walkin'
iPod
chappals
ecstasy
curls
order
people
Mumbai local

image

Rorschach & Me

2009-08-25T11:13:00.010+05:30

I saw the movie "The Watchmen" and the one with dynamic inkblots mask, took my breath away.. There is always one story leading to another... The character has probably nothing to with Hermann Rorschach, the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, who actually designed these tests.. The blots probably scare the shit out of the bad guys.. What about Mr. Hermann Rorschach whom, I can possibly imagine, waking up in the morning, collecting his inks and making a new blot each day for his patients.. So what is actually the Rorschach Inkblot Test??

There are 10 official inkblots, each printed on a separate white card, approximately 18x24 cm in size. 5 inkblots are of black ink, 2 are of black and red ink and 3 are multicolored. As the subject is examining the inkblots, the psychologist writes down everything the subject says or does, no matter how trivial.

The general goal of the test is to provide information about cognition and personality variables such as motivations, response tendencies, cognitive operations, affectivity, and personal/interpersonal perceptions. The underlying assumption is that an individual will class external stimuli based on person-specific perceptual sets, and including needs, base motives, conflicts, and that this clustering process is representative of the process used in real-life situations. Rorschach scoring systems have been described as a system of pegs on which to hang one's knowledge of personality.

I decided to take one in this post and spare myself the psychologist's fee.. LOL.. Okay!!
When seeing card I, subjects often inquire on how they should proceed, and questions on what they are allowed to do with the card (e.g. turning it) aren't very significant. Being the first card, it can provide clues about how subjects tackle a new and stressful task. It is not, however, a card that is usually difficult for the subject to handle, having readily available popular responses.
Hmm.. Frankly, it doesn't scare me at all, though it tried real hard.. Can you see those tiny 2 hands at the top, as if asking for help.. Had those 2 pairs of evil-eyes looking thing were not there, I would have thought it to be a butterfly.. Abstract, yes, but butterfly! Really, those 2 pairs are really distracting..

The red details of card II are often seen as blood, and are the most distinctive features. Responses to them can provide indications about how a subject is likely to manage feelings of anger or physical harm. This card is also notable for having a variety of common sexual responses..
Hmm.. None like a sexual response, but now they mention it, is that a woman reaching the climax? But first I thought it was an exploding light bulb in darkness.. You see that hanging lampshade!! Or is it, mirror image of the red-cap wearing frumpy guy.. Or in just one word : Curious!!

Card III is typically perceived as containing two humans involved in some interaction, and may provide information about how the subject relates with other people (specifically, response latency may reveal struggling social interactions).
For once, I was actually pleasantly surprised by the happy face of the card.. It doesn't annoy me, nor scares me, neither irritates me.. I could actually pass it off as a piece of art.. 2 twin sisters, 1940's, stilettos, picking up they Hermes suitcases in style and grace..

Card IV is notable for its dark color and its shading (posing difficulties for depressed subjects), and is generally perceived as a big and sometimes threatening figure; compounded with the common impression of the subject being in an inferior position ("looking up") to it, this serves to elicit a sense of authority. The human or animal content seen in the card is almost invariably classified as male rather than female, and the qualities expressed by the subject may indicate attitudes toward men and authority..
Yes totally agree, its ugly, scary, bossy, messy and all eeks..!!! Like a big giant bear on a barber chair, waiting for me to clip its toe nails.. Err, that's what it looks like from down here. The perspective is very prominent. Hmm, Me and authority do ring a bell to me..

Card V is an easily elaborated card that is not usually perceived as threatening, and typically instigates a "change of pace" in the test, after the previous more challenging cards. Containing few features that generate concerns or complicate the elaboration, it is the easiest blot to generate a good quality response about.
Yes, I agree, its pleasant and non-scary types.. Doesn't it look like the rear-view of a rabbit, cross-bred with a giant butterfly?? Easy going and ready to take off.. call signs whatever whatever!! The long ears do give away the rabbit.. This was easy!!

Texture is the dominant characteristic of card VI, which often elicits associaction related to interpersonal closeness; it is specifically a "sex card", its likely sexual percerpts being reported more frequently than in any other card, even though other cards have a greater variety of commonly seen sexual contents..
Its yucky and mysterious.. Something without form is expanding threatening to engulf me.. Grainy, sad and angry!!! Though if I tilt my head upside down, tiger rug would be appropriate, but that would be too much trouble.. Textures do come out, but that does not make it any pleasant..

Card VII can be associated with femininity (the human figures commonly seeing in it being described as women or children), and function as a "mother card", where difficulties in responding may be related to concerns with the female figures in the subject's life. The center detail is relatively often (though not popularly) identified as a vagina, which make this card also relate to feminine sexuality in particular...
On the contrary, I do find a human face with spectacular futuristic glasses with shiny aluminum finish, probably oxidised.. The gray color is quite feminine, may be that's why the prominent reply in the comment. The shape of the negative space, makes it open for perception..

People often express relief about card VIII, which lets them relax and respond effectively. Similar to card V, it represents a "change of pace"; however, the card introduces new elaboration difficulties, being complex and the first multi-colored card in the set. Therefore, people who find processing complex situations or emotional stimuli distressing or difficult may be uncomfortable with this card..
Finally, some colour.. All those dull colours were driving me mad.. And finally I see an action sequence, a story!! See, the girl on the top, kicking the 2 rats on her side, thrown up by the 2 bears wearing yellow jerseys, standing back to back.. LOL!! See, see, honestly, Don't you see that?? I love complexity..

Characteristic of card IX is indistinct form and diffuse, muted chromatic features, creating a general vagueness. There is only one popular response, and it is the least frequent of all cards. Having difficulty with processing this card may indicate trouble dealing with unstructured data, but aside from this there are few particular "pulls" typical of this card...
Okay, would you laugh, if I told you, I saw a threesome in it?? Why not.. It's all about sex, yes.. All those card, its just sex.. People facing each other, back-to-back, on top, below, 69 and what not!! Dirty minds!!

Card X is structurally similar to card VIII, but its uncertainty and complexity is reminiscent of card IX: people who find it difficult to deal with many concurrent stimuli may not particularly like this otherwise pleasant card. Being the last card, it may provide an opportunity for the subject to "sign out" by indicating what they feel their situation is like, or what they desire to know...
Liar!! This is my first painting which I did in class II.. And the boy sat next to me peed on it, soon after I finished it.. Damn you!! See, see the Blue crab with Green claws, 2 yellow-ellow birdies, the pink man, green grass.. Give my painting back..

Okay, so Dr. Rorschach, tell me, what's wrong with me??

Lovin' the Idiot (box)..

2009-08-24T11:03:00.016+05:30

Television is an anesthetic for the pain of the modern world. ~ Astrid Alauda

Wierd.. Yes, I know, it was, probably, the least offensive quote about television, in a pageful.. The rest spared no expense degrading, demoralizing and denouncing the idiot box.. Some of them follow...

I wish there were a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence. There's a knob called "brightness," but that doesn't work. ~ Author Unknown

How can you put on a meaningful drama when, every fifteen minutes, proceedings are interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits with toilet paper? ~ Rod Serling, quoted in Submitted for Your Approval, Public Broadcasting Station, 1995

Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other. ~ Ann Landers

I find television to be very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book. ~ Groucho Marx

Television has changed a child from an irresistible force to an immovable object. ~ Author Unknown

Yes, and I would have to say, they do hold a tonne of water, at least where I am concerned.. TV is a perfect medium of wasting time and very very addictive.. For hours, you could just watch movies, News, ads, documentaries which might not make any considerable difference on your life.. All you would do is just exercise and strain your eyes and waste valuable human-hours which could have been spend productively.. But then again, I would like to differ.. National Geographic for one does repeat a lot of content, but all their new series is very arresting and stimulating..

DON'T TELL MY MOTHER

For the past 10 years Diego Buñuel has been a foreign correspondent for French Television covering all kinds of countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, or the Congo. Every time he left for one of his stories, he would tell his production crew in the Paris office, "Don’t tell my mother I am in Colombia, it makes her really nervous." After a few years of traveling repeatedly, Diego realized that the international news coverage, of which he was part of, only focused on the worst headlines possible...

Diego Buñuel

So Diego embarked on a rather unusual effort; to talk about countries that make headlines, but instead on focusing on the same three basic stories, he extended the reach of his eye to look at a more subtle vision of these countries, full of culture, people, interests that rise high above the daily news reports...

The Pakistan episode, showed India's favourite enemy in a totally different light.. Glimpses of Gujarati and Punjabi spoken in abundance was making it none too different than India... Also, meeting the famous 'Ali', the cross-dressing talk show host, did get a chuckle out of me despite Pakistan's orthodox Islamic culture..

Image

I just can't wait to see the episodes "North Korea : Tuesday, 25th August at 9pm" and "Congo : Thursday, 27th August at 11pm"

Paul Merton in India

Now here is a series, by Fox History & Entertainment, which will really open your eyes to our own Bharat desh as seen by an ardent fan of silent comedy, Paul Merton.. Paul Merton (born Paul James Martin on 9 July 1957) is an English comedian, writer and actor, also known for his cutting wit, his style is characterised by describing extremely improbable scenarios with a straight, almost serious, face. He rapidly grabs hold of any chance to expand on a subject and stretch its credibility to snapping point. In a recent public poll featured in The Guardian, he was voted alongside the likes of Oscar Wilde, Spike Milligan, Noël Coward and Winston Churchill as one of the ten greatest wits of all time...

Last night's TV

Till now I never thought India would be such a humourous place, with people getting offended by silliest and minutest of parody or criticism, but Paul Merton, with his unique desire for humour, has probably brought the best out of us.. Whether it is smallest body builder of Punjab or the eunuchs of Ahmedabad, his curious amusement has not evoked anger or provoked revenge in us open-hearted Indians..

xwelhamite

Paul Merton in India [Link] is his 2nd travelumour, after Paul Merton in China.. But I am sure he would have much enjoyed filming in India, with no strings attached or the red tape [pun intended]!!

Watch out for "Paul Merton in India : Hyderabad & Bangalore - Thursday, 27th August at 9pm" and "Paul Merton in India : Chennai & Mumbai - Thursday, 3rd September at 9pm"

Neutiquam erro

2009-08-21T09:38:00.011+05:30

It's a long life and you might not even try and do things which you always wanted.. Then why such a long life? Why can't it be short and simple like happy times? Been there, done that. Life doesn't come with instructions, so how do we go about it? Live it, play it, discard it, disregard it or make it hell? And why exactly, the desire to live it makes it all the more hard.. I have often observed, the hard I try to live it perfectly, more the things go wrong, more others are unhappy, more it goes into that vicious spiral, which you hated in the first place..

Get your own 'Wheel of life'

Responsibilities, are like any other chore. If you cook for your family, making sure, that the food is healthy, and nutritious is your responsibility. If you are a boss, making sure extracting the best out of everyone who works for you is a responsibility, but not making them feel as if they are your servants.. If you are sister/brother, you surely can butt into with your expert advice but does that give you the right for controlling your unassuming sibling? If you are a neighbour, where does your limit stand? Sugar, coffee, Rs.500, Rs.1000, hammer, 3-legged table + 2 bricks, servicing the bike, car reverse alarm, Ganpati loudspeaker, putting your hand on your partner's shoulder while strolling? Where does a society stand? family, friends, house, lifestyle, clothes, phone ring-tones, caller-tunes, necklines, heel height, tattoos, tea, coffee, painting in your bedroom, push-up bra, nail color, living-ins, arranged, dowry, education, girl or boy, abortion: choice or obligation, self or saasu ma, hobby or hubby, service ya sagaai...

Questions are a million, solutions are hidden, and sometimes I believe, even looking for answers is a crime, but under which IPC? What am I guilty of, philandering, black marketeering, stealing, murder, rape, hypocrisy, atheism?? When can I love and criticize also? When disagreement is not disrespect and disloyalty? When touching is not molesting? When liking is not loving? When hansing is not phasing? What do I have to do, to prove patriotism? Standing up for the National Anthem or respecting by heart? Opening a door for others or doormat? Stopping for a pedestrian or Namard?

There are no answers now or till the time, I accept and agree that I am guilty. Guilty of treason, guilty of manipulation, guilty of annoyance to self, to you, to others, to society, to the world. Animals would be no better but us, where do we stand??

- Nihil ad rem

"All you see...

2009-08-20T10:33:00.005+05:30

...I owe to spaghetti." - Sophia Loren

Ahem.. Now you see know, what major effect food and cooking have on some people's mind.. So it had on me, some 10 years back, when I was in school.. You might be remembering a certain "Yan Can Cook" in I think Star TV.. Those were the golden days when I actually decided on my future, taking inspiration from Martin Yan. I was in blind love with his chops, cuts and stir-fry's.. He made chopping peppers look like an dedicated craft only to be practiced in the quiet, pious surroundings of your soulful kitchen.. My entire family used to watch it together but I have totally forgotten which channel or what time was it telecast(Star TV on Sunday??) He was a total darling with the studio audience, always playing with eggs, teasing and tossing hot veggies in the wok.. I think I first learnt the word 'wok' from him, only, I guess...

I remember a very distinct feature of his show was his very prominent accent and his wild sense of humor.. I mean, just imagine..
CHOPPING ONIONS at 1000 rpm, and then exclaiming..
"OH! Look at That!!"
FLATTENING GARLIC CLOVES with 500 psi of the Butcher's Knife, and then exclaiming..
"OH! Look at DAT!!"
it was truly hilarious..

I tried finding episode of 'Yan can cook' on YouTube but could not find them.. Just the cutting-chopping skills of the man was amazing..

Now-a-days. Discovery Travel and Living has some nice cookery shows, like Kylie Kwong, Rachel Allen: Bake! and my favourite Nigella Lawson.. Now why she is the favourite is depending on many things.. First of all good cooks just CAN NOT be size zero. I mean, if you cook so well, how is it you don't eat it yourself?? I love her sneaking at night in black satin robe and indulging in the leftover Caramel Croissant Pudding, which is my one of the favourites recipes by her..

Not only she is voluptuous, blessed with an ample bosom but her recipes are simple and not fussy, just like I would be making had I actually gone into being a chef.. This is her Wiki page and her own http://www.nigella.com/..

Over the internet, there are a couple of dedicated food blogs which I religiously follow in the hope of the day when my lazy ass would actually get down to making something myself.. So here are those hard working ones, who actually create delicacies and get down to document them and even publish them (And I struggle even with keeping this blog alive...Grr!!)

The first one aptly titled, "FOR THE LOVE OF COOKING".. I don't know much about the author, but I guess she is actually a master with home made, soul food.. And her Baked Penne with Meatballs is my favourite recipe..

The next one is actually quite an innovative one.. Fancy Fast Food - Like the name suggests, its extreme makeovers of actual fast food items purchased at popular fast food restaurants. No additional ingredients have been added except for an occasional simple garnish... I came across the blog and the Flickr set and was mesmerized.. The Fancy Burrito Supreme is my favourite and look below for why!! Its just so tempting..

Two wrongs don't make a right..

2009-08-19T18:26:00.005+05:30

..but they do, make a good excuse. And why not.. all our lives, we do give excuses and more excuses.. After all, like Jack the Ripper, we can get away by saying, "it was human nature."

So why not have a laugh on excuses by some famous people.. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go home..

and found these on http://everydaypeoplecartoons.com/

Rest is in Details...

2009-08-13T17:27:00.003+05:30

Fallen Art

Undo

The Cathedral

System

Trailer of the Kinematograf

Deszcz

Tomek Baginski or Tomasz Bagiński (born January 10, 1976, Białystok) is a BAFTA Award-winning Polish artist and animator, best known for his Oscar-nominated short movie, The Cathedral (2002) & For his newest short, Fallen Art (2004)

Tomek Baginski on Facebook

Bloom, Bloom, The Brothers

2009-07-20T13:00:00.008+05:30

Ditching the usual HP6, which I was least interested, I am glad we opted for this whimsical crime caper-cum-love story. The darling romance of "Darjeeling Limited" meeting "Matchstick Men", spurts out a visual delight of the panoramic escapades around Europe, with lavish-yet-genuine sets. The earnestness of the delight of being completely aloof of the mis-giving around the world.. The characters yearn for something throughout their life... Stephen, the eldest, wants to direct the perfect con, the one where "everyone gets what they want." Bloom, the younger, wants an written life... Penelope, the mark, looks out for borrowing hobbies and dangerous adventures. As for Bang Bang, the explosive expert, I feel just just wants to sing karaoke all her life.. LOL!!!

The movie opens with the deep-rustic voice over by Ricky Jay, which introduces the young Stephen, 13 and Bloom, 10 wandering from one foster home to another. Fighting cruel mentor, to embracing new parents, Molesting cats, Causing flooding, Selling Furniture and what nots.. We learn that Stephan has a penchant for writing cons, much like stories, with Bloom playing an elaborate part of his life in the con.. We also learn, that young Bloom, who has to first let go of his love, only to complete the con, might not give in when he grows up.. Drawn in little flow charts, we are cleverly hidden a detail, while Stephen and Bloom manage to con 15 playground buddies of $2 each.. later, we are revealed the actual con which involved a greater share from a certain dry-cleaner.. Amazing!!

"The Trailer"

Flash-forward 30 years and the brothers have established themselves as masterclass Con artiste, accompanied by a wacky Japanese explosive expert, Bang-Bang, on a mission earning their living "writing cons as Russians write novels."; Cons laced with romanticism, poetic justice, and dramatic irony. The secret it seems lies in shaping a con so personified that it seduces the victim to participate to the point where they achieve a level of satisfaction (all anybody ever wants apparently) and when the victim leaves, all satisfied, with the desired booty in place...
As both actor and onlooker to his brother’s artistry, Bloom get tired of the theatrics and the lying and yearns for what he calls "an unwritten life." Promising they will call it quits after the always-perilous "one last job," Stephen engineers a scheme to relieve beautiful but wealthy-eccentric-epileptic-photographer-heiress Penelope Stamp of her fortune; Amazingly, all Penelope does is borrowing hobbies i.e. learning hobbies of other people by reading books about the same.. And that includes play piano, violin, accordion, and break-dance, to juggle, do karate, play Ping-Pong, banjo, unicycle, and even skateboarding.. Phew!! All Bloom needs to do is string her along like a man in love without actually falling in love.

"The Mark"

Of course, in a quite Bollywoodish style, things would go wrong... But the ingenuity of the performances and the director's playful structuring of the con by chapters means one is constantly off balance as to what’s real and what’s part of the story. Adrian Brody cuts a wonderfully forlorn figure as the younger Bloom—a bumbling charmer of a man who exhibits great vulnerability. As elder brother Stephen, Mark Ruffalo skillfully manages to make what is in fact a severely underwritten role somehow seem enigmatic and brings balance to the dynamic. Rachel Weisz is the film’s heart and soul and as she begins to move beyond the brother’s influence, the script keeps you guessing as to which moments they are in control and which they are merely winging it. Rinko Kikuchi’s job as Bang Bang is to simply look effortlessly cool at all times and in that she succeeds spectacularly.

"The Card Trick"

As the last act rolls around the story does finally stumble somewhat with the director seemingly starting to buy into what the Brother’s are selling; he winds up too preoccupied with telling the perfect story instead of focusing on telling one that is simply interesting and entertaining. One reel too long and perhaps one twist too many, The Brothers Bloom is a film that’s less enjoyable the longer it goes on. While it does ultimately take some liberties with audience’s patience, it’s earned enough goodwill by that point to be forgiven for a little self-indulgence.
This is another complete and total flight of fancy from a kitten who clearly loves a good big ball of yarn. It’s a tall tale. How much of yourself you’re prepared to surrender to its smoky mystery replete with storied criminal masterminds named Diamond Dog and dodgy Belgians played by Robbie Coltrane will directly dictate your enjoyment.

v_ry sh_rt l_st

2009-07-12T12:23:00.005+05:30

Now despite the entire plethora of information VSL carries, the one thing that fascinates me about it, is the header graphics in each edition.. Varying from simple illustrations, to complex photoshop; it is a pure visual treat for the eye... Below is a collection of some of my favorite ones... CLICK ON INDIVIDUAL BANNER FOR THE ARTICLES

vir.us/

2009-07-11T12:11:00.010+05:30

Okay, there is a quite a hullabaloo on HIV and AIDS and how it affects 6,800 people daily and has managed to spread to 33 million till now... There are various mediums, through which awareness about HIV and AIDS is being spread amongst people... Standard Chartered's HIV Education Program is an innovative and unique 'viral' approach towards the same..

It is a website with informative videos and simple trivia which is no rocket science for people... Amazing graphics and none too disgusting viruses personified..!!!

Have a look.. Click on the images to know more...!!
Now the site also holds 5 videos, with Mr. HIV, who is bold, arrogant, over-confident and zealous out of his life to get into a human body and clone himself, throw out the host's WBC and wait for another infection to attack, so that the host develops AIDS.

Are You Qualified?
Mirror, MirrorMission Impossible
Sex DriveMeeting Lou LouDon't Treat Me Like A Sucker Fool

What are HIV & AIDS?How HIV is spread?PreventionMale Condom
Female Condom
Importance of TestingPositive Living

Product v/s Package

2009-07-10T10:19:00.006+05:30

have you ever wanted to keep the box, even after you are done with the products? Seriously, these amazing packaging designs from thedieline.com make the products value even more...

"salt + pepper"
A cool concept created by Antrepo Design, a D size battery S&P shaker. These are the last members of the "I'm not product series". Material used is stainless steel and glass, the power indicators on the sides correlate to the amount of spices left in the shakers, before refill time. The color options are Red & Turquoise or Black & white.

"Perfect Slice of Summer"
Los Angeles-based Illustrator Hiroko Sanders created the illustrations for the new Kleenex "Perfect Slice of Summer" tissue box series. Since the illustrations are the primary part of each carton, the challenge was to create artwork utilizing a style that embodies the spirit of summer, and that works uniquely with the carton design. The three boxes are images of different fruits rendered with a stylized realism that unifies the design of the package with the brand and product.

"Sliced Bread Notebook"
From Designer: Burak Kaynak and Cem Has (collaboration).
The sliced bread concept is obvious ... the pack includes 12 notebooks resembling a pack of sliced bread. Each slice/pad have numbers on them. (1 to 12) You can use each notebook for the related month.

"Quick Fruit"
Great concept sent in by Marcel Buerkle, a Johannesburg, South Africa based designer.

"The Kitchen"
Packaging for The Kitchen by Design Friendship, a UK based agency: To create a brand identity for a new culinary retail concept in the UK. The Kitchen’s vision is you experience, first hand, how to create great tasting food from only the finest ingredients with Michelin Star Chef Thierry Laborde and his team.

re.birth

2009-07-09T11:00:00.001+05:30

She wanted to run away.

Run away from these unsophisticated nuisances.

Hypocrite existences.

What could she belong to, if not herself?

Her lovely tresses,

Oiled by every other, washed by 3rd.

The locks yearned for a touch of her owns.

A frock she worn,

Always smelt of soap, never of someone so dear.

The morning French-toast,

Was perfect in salt and pepper,

Where was the love she needed ever?

Looking ahead of the motor window,

She wanted that secret clutch of fear,

Not wanting to let go, never far, always near.

She yearned to wave good-bye,

To a smiling face, none to a cold labor.

But she came, saw and stood still.

Amongst her so many, who felt like own.

She could fly here,

Dream and cry unbroken.

Little stupid girl,

So young, not enough to know what "rebirth" meant

Reborn.

5 days in Mongolia!

2009-07-08T09:22:00.006+05:30

National Film Archive of India (NFAI), Pune in collaboration with Honorary Consulate of Mongolia is organizing a 5-day Mongolian Film Festival. The festival will present feature films and documentaries that showcase life in Mongolia from novel perspectives. The inauguration of the festival will be attended by Mongolian ambassador V Enkhbold and Dilip Dandekar, vice-president of the honorary consulate of Mongolia. I really enjoyed the PIFF earlier this year!!! If I manage this one, I hope it would be an experience worthwhile!!

The Film Festival spans 5 days, starting from this Friday. The schedule is as follow!!

Venue: NFAI

July 11: Naadam 11.30 am followed by Hodoo

July 12: The Story of Weeping Camel 6.30 pm

July 13: I Love You 6.30 pm

July 14: Tsogt Taij 6.30 pm

July 15: Across the Homeland of Chinggis Khan, Old Capital Khar Khorin followed by The Art of Blue Sky 6.30 pm

The opening presentation Naadam, a 37-min documentary of the Mongolian national festival, held in the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar during the National Holiday from July 11th – 13th, in the National Sports Stadium. It begins with an elaborate introduction ceremony featuring dancers, athletes, horse riders, and musicians. After the ceremony, the competitions begin.

The festival is also locally termed "eriin gurvan naadam" meaning The 3 games of men. The games are Mongolian wrestling, horse racing and archery.

Mongolian Wrestling
512 or 1024 wrestlers meet in a single-elimination tournament that lasts nine or ten rounds. Mongolian traditional wrestling is an untimed competition in which wrestlers lose if they touch the ground. When picking pairs, the wrestler with the greatest fame has the privilege to choose his own opponent. Wrestlers wear two-piece costumes consisting of a tight shoulder vest (zodog) and shorts (shuudag). Only men are allowed to play.

Horse Racing
Mongolian horse racing as featured in Naadam is a cross-country event, with races 15-30 km long. The length of each race is determined by age class. For example, two-year-old horses race for 10 miles and seven-year-old for 17 miles. Up to 1000 horses from any part of Mongolia can be chosen to participate. Race horses are fed a special diet.

Children from 5 to 13 are chosen as jockeys who train in the months preceding the races. While jockeys are important component, the main purpose of races is to test the skill of the horses.
Archery
Mongolian archery is unique for having not only one target, but hundreds of beadrs or "surs" on a huge wall. In this competition both men and women participate; and it's played by ten-men/women teams whom are given 4 arrows each, the team has to hit 33 "surs". Men fire their arrows from 75 meters away while women fire theirs from 65 meters away. When the archer hits the target the judge says "uukhai" which means "bulls eye". The winners of the contest are granted the titles of "National marksman" and "National markswoman".

The Story of Weeping Camel
The Story of the Weeping Camel is an enchanting film that follows the adventures of a family of herders in Mongolia's Gobi region who face a crisis when the mother camel unexpectedly rejects her newborn calf after a particularly difficult birth. Uniquely composed of equal parts reality, drama, and magic, this film is a window into a different way of life and the universal terrain of the heart. Watch the trailer here..

Tsogt taij
Not much is known about this movie except, that its about a Mongolia hero's fight for nationalist vision. The film revolves around Tsogt Khun Taij 1581-1637, a Mongolian prince who waged a campaign against Tibetan forces. The film depicts a medieval hero fighting against foreign invaders, with a nationalist vision, in this case the vision of a 'united and sovereign' Mongolia. Both in theme and stylistically, it also shares some characteristics with Alexander Nevsky, but it has a distinctive feeling which sets it apart from these films.
One of the main points of the film seems to be its message against Tibetan Buddhism. This was one of the primary belief systems against which anti-religious propaganda was directed in the early decades of Mongolian socialism. The figure of Taij was undoubtedly chosen for the film because of his fight against the Tibetans. Here, the Tibetan Lamas are portrayed as a cynical invading force, in which supposed pacifistic beliefs of Buddhists are easily cast aside when the occasion demands it. More importantly, Tibetan Buddhism is painted as the diametrical opposite of Mongolian nationalism, because to be patriotic is to resist the Buddhist invasion. Read more of this review here...

I Love You released in 2008, is a modern-day comedy.

Across the Homeland of Chinggis Khan, Old Capital Khar Khorin, is about the vast and powerful empire of the Mongol empire during the 13th century. Could not find much about the movie but searching for Kharkhorin led me to some beautiful images..

The Art of Blue Skyis a 30-min ballet by contemporary Mongolian dancers... I have seen Tsam Mongolian dance masks.. They are amazingly pretty..

So if you are in Pune, go for it, Mongolia!!!

Death or Tax; Choice is yours...

2009-07-07T09:30:00.004+05:30

The budget'09 is a quite a talk about of the day and it was funny, how a simple saving of 1,083 can put a smile on the faces of individual tax payer... But government and kingdoms world over, since ancient times have been imposing weird and electric taxes on people... Here are a few gathered around the world...

Beard Tax...
Henry VIII, King of England, who in 1535 taxed beards. Henry VIII continued to wear his beard even though taxing everybody else for wearing them.

The tax was reintroduced by his daughter, Elizabeth I, who also decided that beards should be taxed. It’s not entirely clear whether Elizabeth I disliked beards, or merely saw it as a handy way of raising extra revenue. The tax imposed by Elizabeth I for beards varied according to the age and status of the man required to wear it.

Henry VIII, with the only untaxed beard in England at the time.

Tsar Peter I of Russia issued a decree in 1705 which prohibited the wearing of beards unless a tax was paid. Everybody except a member of the Orthodox clergy (who are obliged to wear beards) was ordered to pay a special tax in order to keep his beard. Those few men who continued to wear beards despite the tax were ordered to carry a sign with them which stated that beards were ridiculous.

Window Tax...
The Window Tax was a little favourite introduced by King William III in the "Act of Making Good the Deficiency of the Clipped Money 1696". It was introduced because there was massive controversy around the idea of income tax, many people feeling it was entirely none of the government’s business what their income was.

Letter to the Treasury, asking for Church of Scotland ministers to be excused from paying the window tax. The request was refused.

Every house had to pay two shillings a year, and you paid more tax if you had more windows. Extra rates kicked in above 10 and 20 windows, although these numbers were lowered in 1766 to 7 and raised again to 8 in 1825. The tax wasn’t wholly abolished until 1851.

A lot of people resented the tax, considering it to be a tax on sunshine and air. The tax affected buildings. It’s still common in England to see Georgian buildings with windows bricked up. Buildings either had existing windows bricked up in order to minimize the tax, or windows were built in new houses bricked up, ready for glass to be installed if the tax regime changed later on.

Hearth Tax...
In the Byzantine Empire a tax on hearths known as kapnikon was first explicitly mentioned for the reign of Nicephorus I (802–811) although its context implies that it was already then old and established and perhaps it should be taken back to the 7th century AD. Kapnikon was a tax raised on households without exceptions for the poor.

In England, a tax on hearths was introduced on 19 May 1662. Householders were required to pay a charge of two shillings per annum for each hearth, with half the payment due at Michaelmas and half at Lady Day. Exemptions to the tax were granted, to those in receipt of poor relief, those whose houses were worth less than 20 shillings a year and those who paid neither church nor poor rates. Also exempt were charitable institutions such as schools and almshouses, and industrial hearths with the exception of smiths' forges and bakers' ovens. The returns were lodged with the Clerk of the Peace between 1662 and 1688.

A revision of the Act in 1664 made the tax payable by all who had more than two chimneys. The tax was abolished by William III in 1689 and the last collection was for Lady Day of that year. It was abolished in Scotland in 1690.

Soul Tax...
In November 1718, Peter the Great introduced a soul tax on all males (except the clergy and nobility) with the Old Believers paying double. And if you didn’t believe that you had a soul because you were an atheist, you didn’t have to pay it. Instead you had to pay religious dissenter tax which amounted to exactly the same sum. If a male from a village took flight to avoid paying the tax, the village itself had to make up the loss. Therefore, neighbors had a very good reason to keep a close eye on the whereabouts of a male neighbour when the soul tax was due for collection. It became the army’s responsibility to compile a list of all males in Russia. This was such a vast task, that it was not completed until 1724.

Bachelor Tax...
A favorite strategy of governments to encourage population growth and raise money at the same time. Julius Caesar tried it in 18 B.C. The English imposed it in 1695. The Russians under Peter the Great used it in 1702, as did the Missouri legislature in 1820. The Spartans of ancient Greece didn’t care about the money—they preferred public humiliation. Bachelors in Sparta were required to march around the public market in wintertime stark naked, while singing a song making fun of their unmarried status.

Urine Tax...
The Emperor Nero in the 1st Century A.D. introduced a Urine Tax. Nero was insane. Whether as a result of this or not, he decided to tax urine. Wealthy Romans had their own sewage disposal systems, but everybody else used chamber pots and emptied them into cess pits.

The liquid was then collected from these latrines and used as the raw material for a number of industrial and service industries. Urine was used in tanning leather, a smelly and rather revolting process, and was also used to clean and whiten white clothes especially togas.

As a result of it being re-enacted by Nero’s successor, Vespasian, the word for a public toilet in France, Italy and Romania is still derived from the Emperor’s name. Something of a special historical legacy.

Breast Tax...
In erstwhile Travancore, women belonging to lower castes were not allowed to cover their breast. If any one cherished to do it, she should have to pay a high amount as tax. This tax was called "Mulakkaram" (Breast Tax). Those ladies who violated the rule were brutally harassed and penalties were imposed on them.

The Village Officer demanded tax from Nangeli, an Ezhava woman for covering her breast. During that time, the custom was to serve money as breast tax on a plantain leaf, which was put behind a lighted lamp. Nangeli had followed all rituals. She wanted some time to bring the money and entered her room. Within seconds she came back - she had cut breast and brought it on plantain leaf. The Village officer shivered with fear. Suddenly Nangeli became unconscious and died within a few seconds before the lamp. Blood flowed around her body. By evening her body was brought to the pyre for cremation. As fire began to swallow Nangeli, Kandappan, her husband rushed to the spot. He failed to suppress his sorrow. He gave his life by jumping into the pyre of his beloved Nangeli. The place where their house is situated is still known as "Mulachiparambu" in Cherthala town.

On the next day itself, the King of Travancore Sreemolam Thirunal issued a royal proclamation banning breast tax and allowed all lower caste women to cover their chest.

Scutage...
Also known as Escuage, was a tax applied to people who didn’t want to fight and die for the English King.

It started under Henry I, and people who didn’t fancy going off to do knight service in the King’s army could pay not to do it instead. The Crown had the right not to accept the payment instead of service, but Kings found it a rather useful way of raising money, with which they could then hire mercenaries.

Richard I came up with the cunning idea of refusing permission to pay instead of serve unless even greater sums were paid. It fell out of use as the feudal system declined, and Edward III was the last person to charge Scutage successfully. I guess in some countries, where military training is compulsory, Government does fine something people who do not wish to enroll into it...!!! Similar, ain't it??

Sex Tax...
Prostitution is legal and regulated in Germany, and many prostitutes pay federal income tax. However, some either refuse to register their profession or under-declare their earnings... Under the new regulations, each "sex worker" - male and female - will be required to make a monthly payment of €150, while massage parlours, swingers clubs and similar establishments must pay €2 per 10 square metres of floor space for each night they are open. The city expects the "Sex tax", as the new charge is widely known, to raise at least €700,000 a year.

To Appliance Or Not To Be…

2009-07-06T12:03:00.006+05:30

Technology is a boom, boon and goon, depending upon how one uses it... We have evolved a lot, from a singe cell organism to water-champions, from apes to A.I.; but one thing I can’t fathom is how technology can be such a gift when there are so many strings attached (pun intended)...

Like my phone, my first handset was a Nokia 2280... Probably the cheapest mobile ever… And no, it wasn’t just alarm and text-reader... It still works wonder albeit some keys and of course the batteries would be requiring a newer version; I bought that cell phone in my second semester of NIFT and that too for just Rs. 500/-. Who would have thought that it would be my companion for a good 6 years... Though today, it fells as if it weighs a ton, it was basic, no hang-ups, no issues, I could make a call, receive many, read, types and send SMSes, the alarm worked perfectly well, I did not miss many days at college and work... It had only 2 outlets or ‘ports’ as we know them today. One for charging and other was the huge-USB port with a device million-times bigger of what we have today. Of course, I never needed to transfer any data, and when I did want (to transfer my contacts to the new cell phone), I found, it had died a long time ago… I never checked though, but I am amazingly assured that the total call-timer would not have enough space to display the million hours, It was used to communicate and connect...After that, I used a couple of hand-me-downs from parents, sister, boyfriend, but none of them had that feeling of apnapan, that I had with that Nokia 2280...Then I got my new Nokia 5130 XpressMusic... Like all modern cell phones, it pretty equipped and more than its worth, in terms of cost... It is sleek entity, weighing practically nothing...

I have to pat my behind, every 3 minutes, to feel if the cell phone is there or not... Not that I blame people around for those strange stares they give me for this allegedly vulgar/obscene action... Then there are a million ports in the tiny little frames of my little cell phone... Besides the charging port, which has dramatically shrunk in comparison of it predecessors, there is a speaker jack, at which I can connect a speaker and enjoy even louder music, if I am not satisfied with the already-existing-double-loudspeakers in the handset... Then there these amazing Music Keys, which control the music player and the volume and operate the camera, depending upon the feature activated at a certain time... Then there is the normal USB port, which can be used for the Nokia PC Suite...
Now this is a real blessing; I can transfer contacts, edit contacts in my handset, working from the PC... I can send SMSes, make calls, access internet, what not, without even touching or being in the line of sight of the charismatic device... Now the only problem is USB cable... To remember it to carry it around is such a mess and since the charging port is modified, my gold’ol Nokia charger is of no use... Every time I need to charge and I have to ask around for the new, chhota wala Nokia charger!!! Why can’t there be only one post and one cable for everything; Life can be made so easy!!

Talking about more appliances, we recently acquired a new griller and food-processor-mixer-grinder-juicer... Many a times I have thought, are these appliances really a time-energy saver, or it’s just us, who get used to the different process than our usual one...

For example, talking about the griller, earlier one used the tawa, brown the bread and then fill the ingredients and then put the another bread and press down to compress the sandwich... In the electronic griller, the process in the same... Put bread, filling, top bread, and compress the top and done... This is the actual product I am talking about...And it makes panini's something like this... This picture probably show the most accurate grilling..But then, the real trouble is not the process, it’s the preparation... In the old-fashion approach, the tawa and the LPG are the only features; but in the technology-driven device, first clean the griller plates with a damp cloth, then put to heat, and then wait for it to reach the optimum temperature... Then after you are done, one must wait for it too cool down; clean again with a damp cloth to clear away the crumbs and fillings... You can read all the instructions in the product pdf... The tawa on the other hand, can be just put in the sink with other utensils for the bai to dispose it off... Leaving open the used griller with plug in the socket for my water-loving bai can be quite an invitation for disaster... And I am still waiting for Teflon to make Bai-resistant coatings for the pan, tawas and grillers like this, which could survive the love and torture the bai’s inflict upon the Teflon with the metal scrubs and detergents... No wonder, electricity is cheaper than LPG, its efficient and what not but getting used to the entire process of the taking out-cleaning-using-cleaning-again-putting back is, honestly speaking, quite cumbersome...

Now for the multi-functional food-processor-mixer-juicer-grinder... It is a product of Bajaj Food Factory... Hmmm... I am really not sure whether to love it or hate it… It has so many functions... Flour kneading, chopping, grinding, mixing…But then again, flour kneading, with 18000 rpm behind it seems glamorous, but the reality is, taking out the unit, plugging it in, putting the blades in, make sure the triangles match, lock, put flour in, put the lid back, make sure the lid locks in, start, pour water and VOILA!!! Kneaded!!! Its true, no aching muscles, no aching fingers, no messy platform from spilled atta, no water wastage, no juggling the jug with atta-laden hands... Phew!!! But then cleaning it, assembling it again and restoring it back to the original place, is that so much of the time, or really a fragment of my impossible imagination???Chopping tomatoes for gravy; seems easy... With the grinder its even faster... No chopping boards, no knives, no lapse of concentration, no bloody fingers and no mixing of reds... But again, for just 2 tomatoes, the 2 kilo unit has to be lifted, used and put back!!! Is the energy in my body cheaper and readily accessible than the 230 V in the socket??? Is it worth the effort and chore??? I really don’t know and I would hate to know... Till then it’s just me getting used to the new routine and the new intervention in my ordered life??

I love mine and these too...

2009-07-05T14:41:00.007+05:30

We all know Twitter is a revolution and besides that, it has managed to bring out a side of people which they might be unaware of yet... And that is Twitter Backgrounds... Yes, its that space behind your timeline which can be used more creatively and profitably...

Many Twitter users prefer now to have an informative Twitter background and make use of a sidebar... The sidebar is an area of Twitter background used to display additional information about the user, such as large profile image, bio and lists of websites and other social networks. For companies it would be a logo along with some promotion. Because there’s not much screen space on 1024×768 resolution monitors, profiles using the sidebar only usable starting from 1280×1024s, with anything less being hidden by the main Twitter website content...

Twitter Backgrounds Gallery like its name has a collection of twitter backgrounds and you all can vote for your favorites... Here are mine...

Typography

Twitter inspired

Photographs

Minimalism

Illustrations

Colors

Collages

Arts

3D

Beam me up, Scottie!!!

2009-07-04T16:19:00.006+05:30

We, Indians love the high!!!
We love being high; On alcohol, of course!!
We love the high of speed...
We love the high of having a bigger vehicle..
We love the combo high of alcohol, mixed with the biggest vehicle on road....

But just one thing we even love the most, the High of HIGH BEAM!! No matter where they are, on a highway, M.G.Road or the palti gali next to your house; We might forget our tail lights, or indicators or even the horn and definitely our helmet, but one thing we NEVER forget, is the HIGH BEAM on our vehicles!!!

My dear fellow bikers and carers, what makes you think that you are only vehicle on road in this country of billions... What makes you think that we, humans residing the country, have x-ray visions and we can see almost anything through everything!! What makes such a sleepy airhead and forget about other's safety... Oh! I am such a dud!! You don't wear a helmet/seatbelt, how do I ask you to be considerate about other's safety!!! Silly me!!!

Well, for the beginners and for the experienced too.. Here is a basic tutorial. Modern headlamps are electrically operated, in pairs, on each side of the front of a vehicle.

High beams ( also called "main beams" or "full beams" or "driving beams" in some countries) cast most of their light straight ahead, maximizing seeing distance, but producing too much glare for safe use when other vehicles are present on the road. Because there is no special control of upward light, high beams also cause backdazzle from fog, rain and snow due to the retroreflection of the water droplets.

Symmetrical high beam illumination of road surface

And this should be the view one has with a high beam on

High beam (main beam, driving beam, full beam) headlamps provide a bright, centre-weighted distribution of light with no particular control of light directed towards other road users' eyes. As such, they are only suitable for use when alone on the road, as the glare they produce will dazzle other drivers.

Low beams (also called "dipped beams" in some countries) have stricter control of upward light, and direct most of their light downward and either rightward (in right-traffic countries) or leftward (in left-traffic countries), to provide safe forward visibility without excessive glare or backdazzle.

Asymmetrical low beam illumination of road surface — right-traffic beam shown

And this should be the view one has with a low beam on
Low beam (dipped beam, passing beam, meeting beam) headlamps provide a distribution of light designed to provide adequate forward and lateral illumination with limits on light directed towards the eyes of other road users, to control glare. This beam is intended for use whenever other vehicles are present ahead. The international ECE Regulations for filament headlamps and for high-intensity discharge headlamps specify a beam with a sharp, asymmetric cutoff preventing significant amounts of light from being cast into the eyes of drivers of preceding or oncoming cars.

We also know that some countries have LHT - Left Hand Traffic and some RHT - Right Hand Traffic.. This basic rule eases traffic flow and reduces the risk of head-on collisions. Though originally most traffic drove on the left worldwide, today about 66% of the world's people live in right-hand traffic countries and 34% in left-hand traffic countries. About 72% of the world's total road distance carries traffic on the right, and 28% on the left. As seen in the graphics below...

Drives on right
Drives on left
No Information

Therefore the headlights in the vehicles in the respective countries have respective dip in the left or right side, as not to bedazzle the motorist coming head on towards you!! But as we all know, headlights have to be switched on.. They can not do that by themselves, so its the driver's prerogative to make sure his/her own safety and other's too!!!

Here in Pune, the main roads are quite messy and unorganized, so to escape peak traffic, the narrow by-lanes are the best options. They might take you around and around but at least traffic is smooth and unhindered... But Pune, being Pune, can anything go right here?? I would say NO!!! Imagine this; You are going on your vehicle from a narrow by-lane with a 2-way traffic... Add to that, No street lights because of the famous power cuts and even more famous, dig sidelines...

There is a oncoming vehicle, with powerful head lights on HIGH BEAM.. and behind/besides that vehicle, is another vehicle, with NO HEADLIGHTS!!! What are the chances that you will see that second vehicle??? NONE!! or may be you will realize its existence, when that second barely misses you and you loose balnce and fall into that dug pothole OR that vehicle hits you!!!

WHY JUST CAN'T PEOPLE MAKE LIFE SIMPLE... PUT YOU HEADLIGHT ON LOW BEAM IF YOU ARE DRIVING IN THE CITY!!! HIGH BEAMS ARE FOR HIGHWAYS!!!

You & Me... Extinct!!!

2009-07-03T09:16:00.006+05:30

Scary thought, ain't it?? But its true.. The humans are bound to get extinct, one day or another.. We have already lost quite a few living species to this phenomenon... Cute little Dodo, being one of them... But besides something living, what do you think could being extinct..

Ross Dawson Blog says:
2009: Mending things
2014: Getting lost
2016: Retirement
2019: Libraries
2020: Copyright
2022: Blogging, Speleeng, The Maldives
2030: Keys
2033: Coins
2036: Petrol engined vehicles
2037: Glaciers
2038: Peace & Quiet
2049: Physical newspapers, Google
Beyond 2050: Uglyness, Nation States, Death

He also has a wonderful infographics on what is already extinct, what is on the verge of it, and what will be... Here is the small preview, for the larger pdf file, click on it..

Now that's a different story.. What do you think in our own country, things are becoming extinct?? Yes yes I know, there is a long list I could go on... Etiquettes, Respect for others, traffic sense, logic and what not!!! But for a change lets talk about something tangible... Somethings that are in our houses, homes, under the sofa, behind the table drawer, inside your school-thing-box in the attic!! I'll tell you what, just open it one day and you will know what all we are just missing everyday or our lives and without even knowing it!!! Lets start...

Yellow Pages : Yes... You might never realize that the ugly-muddy-orange-big-fat-book under your papa's tables was once the most consulted book by all... Travel agents, newspaper agencies, Restaurants, Hotels, Plumbers, Fixtures, Plastic Bags, Electronics, Appliances anything and everything... That rustic feel of the thin rough pages.. Trying to find your deired content in the minimum point size ever...Sure it was fun..But now we have everything online... Even Yellow Pages themselves are establishing as online forum... like Sulekha and JustDial..

Landlines : No no no... NOT LANDMINES, LandLines!! Yes!! That little instrument, which was a bundle of wonder when we were young... The trin trin sound... The race to pick it up first... The heavy receiver weighing at least a tonne... Now this instrument is obsolete, but surely, the system of landlines with the advent of mobile phones, increase in postpaid accounts and the various internet-plugins by cellular service providers is a cause of decline in the preference of this wonder...
VCR and Cassettes : Ah!! I guess the picture says it all!! Since the innovation of CDs and DVDS this bulky medium is long gone.. So are my episodes of The Crystal Maze, Tom and Jerry and Surabhi!!

Doodhwale Bhaiyya : Though not yet entirely extinct, but surely on the verge of!!! I think my family is the only one to have a milkman in the colony... They just can't get used to the taste of packaged milk... Sure packaged milk has it's own pros and cons... Purity, quality, consistency and what not... But even I have seen the packaged milk just doesn't have that taste and flavor and absolutely useless is you want to churn out butter out of it..!! Call me old fashioned!!!

Bulb : Hmm.. If I was having a table lamp, I might be using it.. Oh and I have one in my kitchen.. The food looks better in a bulb's light rather than a CFL's!! :D

Postcards/Inland Letters : Remember the times, we used to pen friends from different schools!!! I have the inlands they wrote me, some 10 years back!!! I guess now the only place these are used is in ads like these...

Personal Cheques : Frankly speaking, I last remember using/signing/receiving a cheque while I was in my 2nd job... I would go and deposit the cheque the same evening and it felt really good!! :((

Ambrose Bierce quotes,
"EXTINCTION, n. The raw material out of which theology created the future state."

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2009-07-02T09:37:00.008+05:30

Day 2 of NaBloPoMo...

Now you wonder why the post was named such gibberish? Well, that piece of code, helps your link open in a new tab.. So how about a new perspective on life with this 100th post? Yes!! Its my 100th post and like the blog, which started as an escape capsule, now is an identity.. of me, my thoughts, views, perceptions, ethics, morals, desires, wants, hates, despises.. Everything...

Now this is a scary problem!! What would you do??

If you eat both of them, there will be nothing left for future?? You don't want that to happen?? You want more.. we all want some more!! This is what is left of us.. Wanting More!!

If you take home and breed them, you would be requiring a lot of patience... Every time you lay your hungry, greedy sight on those 2 sexy, sultry choco-buttons, you would say to yourself, "Do I really want to wait so much for a million brood of the chocolate..." But then, you just might be happier seeing the breed grow!!

If you let them be, then, YOU ARE NOT HUMAN, YOU DESERVE TO DIE!!! What is eating you??

I know, I know, I am being mean, but no point letting your instincts die just because for a show of good cause... Now to continue where I left yesterday!! you are just entering the workout area and already dread the gallons of sweat, you have to loose, before losing some the flab beneath your skin... NOW the gravest mistake I have done, is to join the gym with my boyfriend, who is 5'11" and 90 kilos... He is taller and heavier than me, BUT NO it just would not make my life easier... You will come to know later, HOW??

First is the warm-up... Easy jogging, Neck stretches, shoulder stretches, waist bending etc etc.. Now comes the treadmill. You trainer asks you to keep the pace comfortable... So you start with 4 kmph... Its easy (Like fast strolling..)
Then your trainer comes and increases it too 5 kmph.. (Yah, that easy too)
The you get all pumped up and go to 6.5 kmph... (Humpff.. Humpff..)
"I can do this, I can do this..." You keep mumbling this so maintain your rhythm, BUT then you forget to breathe properly... And in the mean time, your boyfriend besides you started 5 kmph and then went to 7 kmph and now is easily strolling even at 9 kmph...

Now comes cycling... Great way to burn calories... You start with slow speed, maintaining constant rhythm... You feel the legs working out... Tendons stretching, blood rushing through your body at lightening speed... Good! Good!! You see those flashing green dots, proving your hard workk and the calories you are spending..!! Now your boyfriend besides you has a pattern of a valley, with uphill, downhill, plateau, jagged terrain... All designed for that optimum leg workout; and you get drained even with 2 parallel rows of green dots!!

I think this cartoon from Everyday People Cartoons sums it up perfectly..

Then comes weight training!!! There are machines for abs, shoulders, legs training!! Now where I pull 5 kilos, he pulls 10... Where I lift 15 kilos by legs, He manages 30... All I have managed in these 15 days is a fluctuating weight between 61.5 to 62.4, but my boyfriend has not only managed to feel his short loosening but also his shirt sleeves are a bit tighter..!!! What the Fuck!!

This is what stomach crunches can do for you!!! I hate them the most... They are not that difficult, only to perform them with grace is next to impossible with 2 tyres wedged between your chest and legs... I try them, really hard...

First 2 are good, I can see the folds in my stomach and suddenly I begin to hate them. That gives me strength for the next 3... 5 done... Then on the 6th one, some tiny little muscle of mine squeaks... The fold groans... The fat beneath those horrendous folds, the resultant of numerous late night egg-bhurjis, Pizza, coffees, press against my organs, begging me to stop... But then I could do away with 5 more.. Then its the ten's that make the life hell... Your body aches, muscles pains, heart cries and all you want to do is 5 more... You do 11, then rest, the trainers stares at you.. Then you do 12 and cringe, then she orders you to do one more.. You are on 13th, she says 2 more to go!! You feel dead and finish 14th and she is unflinched and says "one left"!! Now you close your eyes and just throw yourself at your own legs.. PHEW!! AND YOUR TRAINER SAYS, "REPEAT SET!!" (B****!!)

Okay time to loose some flab!! NabloPoMo will continue tomorrow!!!

I, NaBloPoMo too...

2009-07-01T11:53:00.005+05:30

Hello all, My first post for the July NaBloPoMo and I am scared... Not because it quite an hectic task but also to maintain the quality of the thoughts of every single day...

What is NaBloPoMo??

National Blog Posting Month is the epicenter of daily blogging! People who want to set the habit of blogging by doing it every day for a month, including weekends, can come here for moral support, inspiration, and the camaraderie that only marathon blogging can provide. The name NaBloPoMo is derived from NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, where participants try to write an entire novel in one month.

What to think of that makes sense, everyday...
Just a photoblog every alternate day...
Movie reviews...
Quotes and their meanings...
Dialogues between me and myself during various sojourns...
Using my "the ladies seat" material
Rants and advices...
Jokes and riddles...
The amazing World Wide Web...
More rants and advices...

I don’t have internet access at home, so posting on weekends is quite a problem; Moreover its laziness that prevents me to access internet during the weekends. Some time alone for me, home, little things I miss out during the hustle-bustle of the entire week...

This would also make me a little more organized, as I have to make sure, I finish everything in order to leave before time for my gym session... Yes!! Gym... After a short swimming class, we decided to take stern action against our expanding waistlines and shrinking denim belts... Swimming was definitely good but the sheer strength of the enthusiasts was a little too much for the ordinary premises of the establishment... And yes, a must was something that gives some visible result and not just hopes...

Gym is a short and easy word to say but to reach ours, which is on the 3rd floor, is enough to understand the brevity of my stamina... By the 2nd floor, my heart is already pumping twice and with even louder sounding breath (as if louder breaths will make the heart pump faster...)

"The advantage of exercising everyday is that you die healthier."

Then changing into gym clothes is another revelation. You could never assume how healthy, overweight, or fat you are, unless you change into that t-shirt and slacks in front of a huge mirror... Everything looks in order when you start looking at yourself, starting from the shoes... Okay, nice ankles, not-too-bad calves, black-makes-my-thighs-look-slimmer... and... and... and...Whoa??!!! IS THAT MY WAIST??? Looks more like a Double-Doughnut-Sandwich!!!

Okay, okay, bad start... Turn 90* and you are sure things with be better if not worst... The same ankles, calves, thighs and wai... Well, now it looks like one of those colorful balloons sold by little kids roadside... You feel depressed, angry on yourself for all the times when you gorged on those spicy farsaans, sandwichs, paranthas, chicken pasta and umm, chocolates...

You feel like the most unfortunate soul on this earth, but still don’t lose hope; because that’s why you are here, at the GYM... You meet your trainer; meeting her would be hopeless enough, because she is around your height but half your size... Why? Why my trainer could not be like me at least reminding me of myself and the state I am in... Looking at the positive side, her vital stats at least give you motivation to keep working out... She records your height (which you initially tempt to increase by 2 inches, but you realize cheating her would be cheating yourself), weight (no point lying, she could anytime ask you to stand on that electronic meter and let the inhumane voice scream 62.4 kilos), body statistics (hips don’t lie) and all that quite unemotionally… With each pen stroke, you feel like disappearing into the ground below, but she just smiles at you, making you feel a bit sympathetic... She doesn’t tell you the target to achieve, which I guess is, not to shock the cholesterol-laden-weak-heart of yours...

Finally, you come into the workout area... Phew!! I am already tired!! Continuing tomorrow!! On a more lighter note..

In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth. And the Earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Devil said, "It doesn't get any better than this."

And God said, "Let there be light" and there was light.
And God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit," and God saw that it was good.

And the Devil said, "There goes the neighborhood."
And God said, "Let us make Man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air and over the cattle, and over all the Earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the Earth." And so God created Man in his own image; male and female did He create.
And God looked upon Man and Woman and saw that they were lean and fit.

And the Devil said, "I know how I can get back in this game."
And God populated the earth with broccoli and cauliflower and spinach, green and yellow vegetables of all kinds, so Man and Woman would live long and healthy lives.

And the Devil created McDonald's. And McDonald's brought forth the 79-cent double cheeseburger.
And the Devil said to Man: "You want fries with that?" And Man said: "Supersize them." And Man gained 5 pounds.

And God created the healthful yogurt, that woman might keep her figure that man found so fair. And the Devil brought forth chocolate. And Woman gained 5 pounds.

And God said, "Try my crispy fresh salad."
And the Devil brought forth Ben and Jerry's. And Woman gained 10 pounds.

And God said, "I have sent thee heart-healthy vegetables and olive oil with which to cook them."
And the Devil brought forth chicken-fried steak so big it needed its own platter.

And Man gained 10 pounds and his bad cholesterol went through the roof.
And God brought forth running shoes and Man resolved to lose those extra pounds.

And the Devil brought forth cable TV with remote control so Man would not have to toil to change channels between ESPN and ESPN2.And Man gained another 20 pounds.

And God said, "You're running up the score, Devil."
And God brought forth the potato, a vegetable naturally low in fat and brimming with nutrition.

And the Devil peeled off the healthful skin and sliced the starchy center into chips and deep-fat fried them. And the Devil created sour cream dip.
And Man clutched his remote control and ate the potato chips swaddled in cholesterol. And the Devil saw and said, "It is good." And Man went into cardiac arrest.

And God sighed and created quadruple bypass surgery.
And the Devil canceled Man's health insurance.

Then God showed Woman how to peel the skin off chicken and cook the nourishing whole grain brown rice.
And the Devil created light beer so Man could poison his body with alcohol while feeling righteous because he had to drink twice as much of the now-insipid brew to get the same buzz. And Man gained another ten pounds.

And God created the life-giving tofu.
And Woman ventured forth into the land of Godiva Chocolate and upon returning asked Man: "Do I look fat?"

And the Devil said, "Always tell the truth." And Man did.
And Woman went out from the presence of man and dwelt in the land of the divorce lawyer, east of the marriage counselor.

Love syndrome, hate manseutude?

2009-06-16T16:37:00.010+05:30

We people, the English-speaking lot, are just impossible, you know? Why we love certain words like "Syndrome" and just obsolete "Manseutude"?? Words like workaholics, pulling triple shifts and all-nighters, describing stuff that is deadly serious, kind of serious, totally ridiculous, and everything in between. Syndrome is one of these overachievers. From physical conditions like carpal tunnel syndrome and psychological conditions like Stockholm syndrome, all the way down to slang like 1661 syndrome (someone, usually a woman, who looks 16 from the back, 61 from the front), the word syndrome is always on the go. The syndrome syndrome is, it seems, incurable.

Recent syndromes in the news show the word’s range:

The Los Angeles Times reports on the anger of being wronged and "post-traumatic embitterment syndrome."

Something called white-noise syndrome is killing bats, according to United Press International.

The new search engine Bing is promoting the concept of Search Overload Syndrome, for which their drug—er, search engine—is the cure.

Dashiell Bennett hilariously suggests that vision-and-home-run-impaired Red Sox slugger David Ortiz is struggling with Mr. Magoo Syndrome.

And a neurologist has referred to tight jean syndrome, a phenomenon that is actually unhealthy, if fashionable.

Colloquially, syndrome and disorder are used interchangeably, but medically, they are different. Stedman’s Medical Dictionary defines a syndrome as, "The aggregate of symptoms and signs associated with any morbid process, and constituting together the picture of the disease," while a disorder is "A disturbance of function, structure, or both, resulting from a genetic or embryonic failure in development or from exogenous factors such as poison, trauma, or disease." So a syndrome is like a basket of bad things, while a disorder is more of a singular medical abnormality. It makes sense: the Greek root syn means "together, similarly, alike" and is also part of synchronousand synergy. But even in medicine, the words can be hard to distinguish: post-traumatic stress syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder mean the same thing.

The slang of syndromes lends itself particularly well to formulaic new variations, or snowclones. This is how you get from the sober post-traumatic stress syndrome to the silly post-traumatic cheesesteak syndrome.

Weirdly, I think the syndrome-coining researchers and bloggers have more in common than just this versatile, stretchy word. Why is bitterness so powerful that some people can no longer function? It must be post-traumatic bitterness syndrome. Why does a children’s doll have a chest region that is utterly preposterous? It must be Tomb Raider mega-boobies syndrome. Whether we seek to heal or snark, if we’re at a loss, the syndrome syndrome binds us together and bails us out. I hope they never make a pill for it.

Please save fusby, vilipend and embrangle...

Do you know a word can extinct if it is not used minimally?? Words are kept in trend by their regular appearance in print, broadcast and online media. Twitter, on one hand is encouraging us to follow 140 characters, reducing our already shrunk vocabulary to even minimal..

The introduction of 2,000 new words into the forthcoming edition of the Collins dictionary has meant that some of the lesser known and used words have become endangered and face being lost from the publication. To be included, an endangered word must appear at least six times in Collins's Corpus. Words will also be saved if the public can convince the publishers that they are too popular to be dropped. People can indicate their support for a particular word on the internet.

Some celebrities have taken up the challenge of rescuing a word from oblivion.

Stephen Fry has chosen the word "fusby", which means short, stout or squat.

Andrew Motion, the poet laureate, is lobbying for the retention of the word "skirr", which means a whirring or grating sound as made by the wings of birds in flight.

The list of the 24 endangered word is:

Astergent - cleansing or scouring

Agrestic - rural, rustic, unpolished, uncouth

Apodeictic - unquestionably true by virtue of demonstration

Caducity - perishableness, senility

Calignosity - dimness, darkness

Compossible - possible in coexistence with something else

Embrangle - confuse or entangle

Exuviate - to shed (a skin or similar outer covering)

Fatidical - prophetic

Griseous - streaked or mixed with grey

Malison - a curse

Manseutude -gentleness or kindness

Muliebrity - the condition of being a woman

Niddering - cowardly

Nitid - bright, glistening

Olid - foul-smelling

Oppugnant - combative, antagonistic or contrary

Periapt - combative, antagonistic or contrary

Recrement - waste matter, refuse dross

Roborant - tending to fortify or increase strength

Vaticinate - to foretell, prophesy

Vilipend - to treat or regard with contempt

Post inspired from GOOD by Mark Peters.

Build the next story @ June 19th

2009-06-11T10:58:00.005+05:30

So you never thought ice-cream and architecture could have anything in common? What if the 2 architects, Natasha Case and Freya Estreller who are ice-cream addicts go on a punning spree.. You get CoolHaus!! See!! Cool+Haus!! Ring any bells?? Any one with a design background would definitely remember "History of Design" and their famous names!

Well, They i.e. CoolHaus, are the new architect-owned ice cream truck that's been driving around LA from sweet tooth to sweet tooth delivering ice cream sandwiches named after modern architects and architecture..

They offer flavors like Frank Behry, Mies Vanilla Rohe, Richard Meyer Lemon Ginger, and most recently Neutrapolitan...

Frank Behry : Frank Gehry, is a Pritzker Prize-winning architect based in Los Angeles.

Mintimalism : Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features.

Mies Vanilla Rohe : Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, (March 27, 1886 – August 17, 1969) was a German architect.

Richard Meyer Lemon Ginger : Richard Meier (born October 12, 1934 in Newark, New Jersey) is an American architect known for his rationalist designs and the use of the color white.

Oatmeal Cinnamoneo : José Rafael Moneo Vallés (born May 9, 1937) is a Spanish architect.

and most recently Neutrapolitan..

Now, DWELL has launched a contest to ask you, pun-savvy designophiles, to invent Coolhaus's next ice cream sandwich flavor!

The Rules:

1. Your submission must include both the name of the sandwich and the type of cookie and ice cream it describes.
2. The name must reference modern architects and designers or their work.

Contest ends on June 19!

To give you a head start, the Dwell team began batting a few ideas around and before long a flurry of puns had swept through our office. (If only coming up with magazine headlines were so easy!) Here's a sampling of our least—and most—cringe-inducing ideas:

Caramel Rashid | Pink animal cookies with caramel ice cream (Jordan)
Walter Grapeious | Walnut cookies with grape sorbet (Justin)
Cherry Bertoia | Cherry ice cream between two waffles (Miyoko)
Shigeru Banana | Banana ice cream between sugar cookies with sprinkles (Tiffany)
Daniel Pinkberry (Aaron)

Okay, I also iced my brains a bit.. Searched Indian Architects, famous Indian Architecture, looked for that "Indian Touch".. And came out with this.. (Of course it a non-competitive entry!!)

Her story, his story

2009-05-26T12:52:00.007+05:30

No faces,
No speaking mouths,
No flirty eyes,
No boring voice over,
No famous smiles,
No unknown glamor..

Yet,

Its riveting,
Its fun,
Its the times of today,
Its bold,
It strikes a chord, somewhere,
Now this is something spot-on and relieving!!

Quite a unique move by Fastrack - previewing their new commercial campaign (before it goes on air) through their Twitter feed. The campaign is actually 2 ads - since there are 2 versions - one each from a guy and a gal’s point of view.

her story...

his story...

The "move on" theme has really moved on from the relatively lame returning gifts and getting on with life idea.

In the first 2 ads, it is limited to just focusing on the hands; How they play, tease, grab, speak; Which is an interesting concept and makes the commercial look different. I also liked the idea of using two points of view - sort of like in One Night at McCool’s.

Talking about One Night at McCool’s, the director, Harald Zwart says, "This film is a dark comedy about the power of women over men, and how a group of people can all perceive different realities. It's the same story told from three different points of view, and each time we tell the story, we try to reveal a little bit more about what actually happened, which nobody really knows."

The film has a lot of fun with its material. From the enthusiastically entertaining cast, to its violently hilarious showdown, "One Night at McCool's" takes advantage of most of its humorous ideas. What makes the movie even funnier is how the three men's points of view differ. The actors have a lot of fun with their characters, too. Goodman is curiously whimsical; Reiser fits his kinky, squirmy part quite well; Douglas is sly and mysterious in one of the movie's funniest performances; Dillon gives his character arrogant personality, even though Randy is a lackluster nobody; Liv Tyler is dazzling. She injects Jewel with the perfect amount of boastful charisma and tantalizing wit. She reminds us of Mena Suvari's intimate performance in "American Beauty."

Chimera

2009-05-21T10:22:00.005+05:30

She fights hard... He recalled.
She fought really really hard!
But she would have known by now,
We twin eyed creatures always had won!

He was mesmerized,
He was shattered,
He was scared till death,
He’d never know how his love could create such hatred?

She was part-human,
Part she was made up of star,
Memories so furious,
Skins and everything million light-years apart!

His blood made him cry,
Her love confused her though he could never defy.
She never believed the impossible,
He was the one who deceived her.

He told her, it was the time to bid adieu,
She dropped a lonely drop of pain.
He was her Pegasus.
She was his Chimera.

Chimera @ Klash

Cannes saw; When will I?

2009-05-15T12:56:00.006+05:30

Up - Early reaction to Pixar's 10th film has everyone wondering if everyone's favorite animation studio might have pulled another masterpiece out of its bag. Carl Fredricksen is an old man who ties thousands of balloons to his home so he can take a trip into the wilds of South America. It's not long before he discovers Russell, an 8-year-old wilderness explorer, has tagged along for the ride. Cannes has a history celebrating animation - as recently as last year Kung Fu Panda took a spot in the official selection - but Up will become the first 3D feature to play as part of the festival.

Broken Embraces - Pedro Almodovar's first feature since 2006's Volver sees him reteam with muse Penelope Cruz. Here, Almodóvar delves into noir style to tell a tale of a man (Lluis Homar) with dual identities who tries to compartmentalize his life after he loses his love (Cruz) and his sight in a car crash.

Taking Woodstock - Ang Lee is always a director whose work is worth a look and whose career has a rare diversity that ensures he scarcely repeats himself. Taking Woodstock stars Emile Hirsch, Liev Schreiber and Imelda Staunton and covers the beginnings of the infamous 1969 Woodstock Festival.

Looking for Eric - Director Ken Loach won the Palme d'Or in 2006 for The Wind That Shakes the Barley and he returns to Cannes to premiere his new film about Eric, a Manchester resident whose life may be falling apart around him even as his love for football endures. Featuring a cameo from Manchester United soccer legend, Eric Cantona, early indications put this amongst the shortlist of favorites for the coveted Palme d'Or this year.

Inglourious Basterds - Quentin Tarantino's latest will unquestionably be the biggest event of the festival, and Tarantino's history at Cannes will no doubt ensure a pretty lively party will welcome the premiere. Whether Tarantino's wonderfully historically-inaccurate twist on life in Occupied France during WW2 will go down with the critics remains to be seen, but the film's tale of a group of ultraviolent soldiers on the hunt for Nazi scalps will no doubt entertain audiences when it releases in August.

Antichrist - You can accuse Lars von Trier (Dogville) of plenty, but he's certainly not guilty of subtlety. Traditionally controversial and suitably experimental, only two actors, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe, star in this supernatural thriller. They play a couple who attempt to grieve for their dead child by living in seclusion in the middle of a forest where they encounter pure evil.

Tetro - Tucked away in festival sidebar Director's Fortnight - director Francis Ford Coppola turned down an Out of Competition slot in the main selection - Tetro stars Vincent Gallo in a tale deeply personal to Coppola. After a cool reaction to his last directorial effort, Youth Without Youth, all eyes are on this film to see if Coppola still has the talent that brought us films like The Godfather and Apocalypse Now.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus - As troubled as Terry Gilliam productions come, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus lost its main star halfway through filming when Heath Ledger died, but managed to come together with the help of Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law who all took on elements of Ledger's role. Unquestionably one of the most anticipated screenings of the festival.

Drag Me to Hell - Colour us excited for Sam Raimi's return to horror. Alison Lohman stars as a loan offer whose desire for promotion prompts her to decline a risky mortgage extension to a strange woman who puts a curse on her. How far will she go to break the curse? Typically scary and hilarious at turns, Drag Me To Hell gets a special late night screening at Cannes.

Eating snakes makes you...

2009-05-14T10:58:00.006+05:30

...a 300lbs bench presser?? You Are What You Eat is a series of portraits made by examining the interiors of refrigerators in homes across the Untied States. For 3 years Mark Menjivar traveled around the country exploring the issue of hunger. The more time he spent speaking and listening to individual stories, the more he began to think about the foods people consume and the effects they have on others as individuals and communities. An intense curiosity and questions about stewardship led him to begin to make these unconventional portraits.

A refrigerator is both a private and a shared space. One person likened the question, "May I photograph the interior of your fridge?" to asking someone to pose nude for the camera. Each fridge is photographed "as is." Nothing added, nothing taken away.

These are portraits of the rich and the poor. Vegetarians, Republicans, members of the NRA, those left out, the under appreciated, former soldiers in Hitler’s SS, dreamers, and so much more.

You Are What You Eat uncovers truth in the way only photography can, and in doing so, reveals us. Looking into the refrigerators sheds light on how one chooses to nourish or malnourish themselves and exposes how connected or disconnected one is to each other, to bodies, and to the Earth."

We purchase refrigerators the way we fill them: out of necessity—to preserve the milk; to keep the greens from wilting. But from the right vantage point, an open fridge is the perfect staging grounds for a discussion of consumption. And if the aphorism holds true—if we really are what we eat—then refrigerators are like windows into our souls. It’s that sentiment that’s at the heart of Mark Menjivar’s inventive exploration of hunger, "You Are What You Eat," for which he photographed the contents of strangers’ refrigerators. As you can see, whether it holds neatly ordered rows of labels-out condiments or zip-locked stacks of shot-and-gutted buck meat, there’s almost certainly a narrative to a fridge’s arrangement.

Street Advertiser, San Antonio, TX
1-Person Household, $432 fixed monthly income
Midwife/Middle School Science Teacher, San Antonio, TX
3-Person Household (with a dog), 1st week after deciding to eat locally grown vegetables.
Botanist, Ft. Wayne, IN
1-Person Household, Feels more comfortable among flora & fauna than people.
Retired Train Conductor, Jackson, MS
1-Person Household, Started Meals on Wheels in his community
Short Order Cook, Marathon,TX
2-Person Household, She can bench press over 300lbs.
Documentary Film Makers, San Diego, CA
3-Person Household, Efforts have helped send millions of dollars to children in Uganda.
Carpenter/Photographer, San Antonio, TX
3-Person Household, 12-Point Buck

thisiswhy you & me arefat

2009-05-07T12:52:00.008+05:30

I love food, I love India and I love Indian food.. And why, where can you find such eclectic fusion of tastes, flavors and spices.. And who would forget a distinct change of cuisine every other town.. I have lived in many cities, and probably, I would not have faced many problems, because, everywhere there is something good to find..

Let me recall.. hmm.. Indore, my hometown, my parents already own a Pizza restaurant, so that Italian beauty is out of the list, but traditional Indori khana is a music to the stomach.. Aloo Patis with Nariyaal and Imli ki chutney, Fresh hot Pohe aur Jalebi, , oh! and how could I forget, the Indore mein World Famous Sev.. Its actually exported in tonnes, people!!

Then comes, Delhi-Meerut-Ludhiana, my maternal-paternal home cities..Heaven for taste buds.. GOL GAPPE aka Paani Poori aka YUMMMM!! During my summer holidays, all the cousins and aunties-uncles would actually compete on the how many one can eat (no time limit)!! Now don't imagine the income on that vendor!! Then comes the Dahi-chaat and Dahi-bhalle...

Then came, apno Gujarat with all its colors and mouth-watering food to offer.. Starting with Khaman-Dhokla with Dahi n Sev, soft-flavoury Theplas, and the festive special, Undhayo.. And on record, the food I had in the NIFT canteen is the best canteen food ever!!

Now Jaipur is the next stop in my journey, where I had spend a good'ol 1 1/2 years of my life!! The Suji wale Gol-Gappe are the best I have ever had.. Just the right khatta, awesomely teekha and a bit of meetha, just making my day!! Then the wholesome 'Rajasthani Thali'.. I did not get to try the non vegetarian version, but the vegetarian version is unexpectedly amazing!! Variety of veggies, dals, and even more types of rotis, makes you wonder, what else can these people make out of everything!! Every time I have had one, its been pleasure for the senses and trouble afterwards!!

Recently, Mumbai has been my second home, and though I have recently started flavoring Maharashtrian cuisine, Puran Poli and Misal Pav is something which I always wanted to try and it was a real treat when I finally did!!

Now, food is not my top priority while surfing, but I came across something like a the relationship between time the average person in a given country spends eating and that country’s obesity rate (as measured by the percentage of the national population with a body mass index higher than 30).

It looks like there’s a pretty real correlation between the time people in various countries spend eating and the rate of obesity in that country. That is, the more time people spend eating, the lower the rate of obesity.

Now I really don't agree with the "TIME TAKEN" part.. Is part of this effect just coincidence? Some countries with cultural traditions of long meals (France, Italy) also happen to have pretty healthy diets... I believe it’s the content of the food (saturated fat, carbs, etc) that cause us to be obese. I can spend all day eating vegetables and someone else can spend all day eating cheeseburgers and who do you think is going to be obese at the end of that day?

The graph doesn’t explain everything, and there are obviously other factors like culture and types of foods eaten. But, all statistics are like this so take it with a grain of salt. There are general things you can learn from this, like "eat slower and focus on your food when you eat it."

It’s obvious that Americans have a lot of fast foods, and I’ve noticed a lot of people aren’t particularly fond of preparing food, and on top of that, they are very busy. Many people in the tech industry are focused on getting ahead, and work a lot. And, many people here are also busy with entertainment. So, they cut back on time spent eating for sure, and the food they eat is FAST FOOD. That’s why some Americans are getting fatter. If you don’t prepare your own food, chances are that it’s gonna be processed and not so good for you.

Being an Indian, I do love to eat, and cuisine is a lot more paced and there are lots of small side dishes. The ingredients used are often fresh and healthy. That's why the fallacy!!

Speaking of fast food..

Shake Shack Double Stack : A deep fried cheese-stuffed portabello mushroom between two cheeseburgers.

Potachos : Thick potato chips covered with chedder, bacon, tomatoes, onions, ketchup, chives and sour cream.

Toad In The Hole : Sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter served with vegetables, mashed potatoes and gravy and served in an edible square bowl.

The Thunderdome : Three stacks of bacon, sausage, elk meat, onions and cheese between tortillas all topped with sour cream, two fried eggs and scallions.

Chocolate Chip Pancake And Sausage On-A-Stick

Sexy (SMALL is) Back!!

2009-05-06T11:45:00.005+05:30

In regards to the previous L.A. freeway post, I just realized, that no much time from now on, we would not be having such a luxury of freeways, much ado about ways as in road space.. There was also a much hype about TATA NANO and how it will ~~destroy the world~~ congest Indian roads.. But I really things like these, make the world compact and leave so much space for other things...

It is a known fact that good things come in small packages!! Bucky had it right. "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." So here's how small makes it big..

An interdisciplinary team from MIT, including students from the urban planning department and the Media Lab, just won the 2009 Buckminster Fuller Challenge. Their project, which they call SPM/MoD (Sustainable Personal Mobility and Mobility-on-Demand Systems) is a car- and bike-sharing system with supercompact vehicles (the CityCar and the RoboBike) and a sophisticated dynamic pricing system that’s designed to minimize travel times and balance the demands on the system.
"Mobility-on-Demand systems utilize fleets of shared-use lightweight electric vehicles placed at automatic charging racks throughout a city. The CityCar and RoboScooter, both folding vehicles, along with the Green-Wheel Bicycle, minimize parking space and can be picked-up and dropped-off at any rack. Mobility-on-Demand systems maximize mobility and dramatically reduce congestion and pollution through energy and land-use efficiency." - excerpt from the team's proposal

The MIT team says "Mobility-on-demand systems generally are not replacements for transit systems. Instead, they operate effectively as partners of transit systems, and enhance the efficiency and attractiveness of these systems by solving the ‘first kilometer’ and ‘last kilometer’ problems."

SPM/MoD isn't just about the design of these lightweight, highly efficient, electric vehicles, it is about inserting that technological innovation into the social and cultural environment and designing an intuitive system within which they function. The technological innovation embodied in these vehicles is just one piece of a larger system design which addresses issues from pollution, to congestion, to urban space, to economics, to energy use, to the very idea of personal transportation and what that means in a world with nearly seven billion inhabitants. It truly is - in the Bucky tradition - a transformative solution rather than an isolated piece of technology.

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Named for its intelligence quotient, the Toyota IQ competes with the Smart Car. It was first introduced as a concept car at the 2007 Frankfurt Auto Show, as a production version at the 2008 Geneva Auto Show. Japanese sales began in October 2008. According to Toyota, the i stands for "individuality" "innovation" and "intelligence", while the Q stands for "quality" and points to the iQ’s "cubic" shape and "cues" a new value and lifestyle in the automotive market.

Cher Paris,

2009-05-04T12:07:00.008+05:30

I live in the city
And you are the namesake...
I might not love you more
But friendship I could surely make.

The long blonde tresse,
Reminding me of the lovely Seine...
Wondering were they contacts?
Those deep blue eyes...

That’s Hot
Is what you dream to be...
Loved by Dolce, Sebastian, Prince
Tinkerbell and Bambi.

Tour Eiffel could not klash with the famous
1 night in Paris,
Made the debut fame & name in
The Simple Life...

Proclaiming boredom
To be the root of all evil, not money...
Madame Tussaud’s compliments you on the House of wax!
Taking home in Waldorf-Astoria, and many.

Cher Paris,
Will you be mon ami??

Mon ami at Klash

If I had an International Driver's License

2009-04-30T12:38:00.003+05:30

The French writer and philosopher Jean Baudrillard once wrote of the freeways of Los Angeles as being "ideally suited to the only truly profound pleasure, that of keeping on the move." Indeed, nowhere is the pleasure of keeping on the move more profound than in a city whose freeways rarely offer it.

Rush hour in Los Angeles is synonymous with gridlock, but the sheer enormity of the situation can be tough to grasp. Fortunately, there is the architecture photographer Benny Chan, whose Traffic! series depicts the scale of overcrowded lanes of rush hour traffic from high overhead. Shot over a few years during various helicopter trips, the photographs now stand eight feet high and six feet wide, and convey, quite effectively, the enormity of the problem—as well as the need to get things moving.

Traffic! will show at the Pasadena Museum of California from May 31 through September 20. What follows is a selection of Mr. Chan’s work. Click each image to (dramatically) enlarge.

Seeing is not 'always' believing...

2009-04-21T17:37:00.007+05:30

It’s easy to miss what’s right in front of you
if you’re paying attention to something else.
This is usually funny when it comes to
slapstick comedy
we’re looking at you, banana peel)
but can be seriously tragic
when the person who’s distracted is driving.

"Test Your Awareness", a new PSA from
Transport for London’s campaign for
cycling safety, turns the fact that
we can all miss seeing the obvious into
a clever perception test that could double as an absurdist comedy–art happening.
The spot asks you to
count the number of passes
a group of basketball players
makes to one another,
but pay close attention:
It’s harder than it sounds.
We can’t tell you any more,
but if you’re like me,
you’ll probably have to watch it twice...

THE ORIGINAL AWARENESS TEST {Basketball}

THE NEW AWARENESS TEST {Whodunnit?}

THE AWARENESS TEST {Phonejoke test}

THE AWARENESS TEST {Cyclist test}

Women have choices, Men have none...

2009-04-21T17:24:00.009+05:30

. . & GOD is Chauvinist!!!

"ZITS" by Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman

HENCE PROVED, WE GIRLS CAN SAY SO MUCH WITHOUT EVEN UTTERING A WORD!!! :D

or.gas.m

2009-04-21T13:13:00.010+05:30

Why is orgasm so over-rated and at the same time so under-rated as well... To decipher that, we need to first know what actually an orgasm is...

An orgasm (sexual climax) is the conclusion of the plateau phase of sexual response cycle, and may be experienced by both males and females.

Orgasm is characterized by intense physical pleasure, controlled by the involuntary, or autonomic, nervous system. It is accompanied by quick cycles of muscle contraction in the lower pelvic muscles, which surround the primary sexual organs and the anus. Orgasms are often associated with other involuntary actions, including muscular spasms in other areas of the body, a general euphoric sensation and, frequently, vocalizations.

There is some debate whether certain types of sexual sensation should be accurately classified as 'orgasm', including female orgasms caused by G-spot stimulation alone, and the demonstration of extended or continuous orgasms lasting several minutes or even an hour. The question centers around clinical definition of orgasm.

Orgasm is usually defined in a clinical context strictly by the muscular contractions involved.

In these and similar cases, the sensations experienced are subjective and do not necessarily involve the involuntary contractions characteristic of orgasm. However, the sensations in both sexes are extremely pleasurable and are often felt throughout the body, causing a mental state that is often described as transcendental, and with vasocongestion and associated pleasure comparable to that of a full contractionary orgasm.

For this reason, there are views on both sides as to whether these can be accurately defined as orgasms.

Not getting it?? The entire sexual process sounds similar so you would never come to know when the sex begins, when the plateau starts and when the orgasm begins and ends.. For men, usually ejaculation marks are end of orgasm... Sperms are out, muscular spasms cease; but for women, what is the demarcation?? As you can see, in the figure below, only when either/or Grafenberg spot or G-Spot and clitoris are stimulated, then an orgasm is achieved... As you can see in the figure below, the yellow part is the alleged G-spot, which is at least 2 mm thicker than the rest of the vaginal wall.. This extra cushion of 2mm contains the million-billion-trillions of nerve endings, which contribute to the entire enigma called orgasm..

Now, Orgasms have been used, defined and enjoyed at various point of life... Movies are a definite part of it... Orgasm have been explored, faked, criticized and enjoyed!!

Betty Friedan says "No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor." now obviously, no matter how perfect her lover is, until unless a woman feels confident, happy and gay, don't expect her to tear the ceiling away... Claudia Schiffer never fakes an orgasm, "There is no situation where it is right to fake an orgasm. Why did God give us the gift of speech? There is also no substitute for love-making, not even buying shoes!"

A movie best fitted in this plot is Amy's Orgasm... As the name suggest, Amy is Jewish, nearing 30, single, and the successful author of "Why Love Doesn't Work" a self-help book for women who aren't in love. She's also a self-described sexorexic - she hasn't had sex with a man in four years and has never had a "mental orgasm." She gets plenty of advice - from her publicist, from her best friends (a married couple), from her parents, and from a priest to whom she goes to confession - so there's lots of conflicting emotion and analysis when she starts dating Matthew Starr, a good-looking playboy who's a popular L.A. male-chauvinist-pig radio shock jock. Each of Amy's theories and rules is put to the test - people may not change, but can love work?

Amy Mandell : The primary difference between a man and a woman is that man gets his self-esteem when a woman says yes and a women gets hers when she says no.

[When asked what she fantasizes about sexually]
Amy Mandell: The thought of seducing a celibate man away from his allegiance to God.

[talking to Amy about her relationships with men]
Priest: You have a unique talent for having bad taste in men.

[Amy concludes her newfound opinions about sex in a speech]
Amy Mandell: I had a physical orgasm, but not a mental one, where you let someone inside and you really see yourself.

And, PROBABLY, the best fake orgasm ever...

Sally Albright: Most women at one time or another have faked it.
Harry Burns: Well, they haven't faked it with me.
Sally Albright: How do you know?
Harry Burns: Because I know.
Sally Albright: Oh. Right. That's right. I forgot. You're a man.
Harry Burns: What was that supposed to mean?
Sally Albright: Nothing. Its just that all men are sure it never happened to them and all women at one time or other have done it so you do the math...