A win?

– Who cares? We still didnt win the World Cup.

– I didnt like Ishanth Sharma. He’s got a promising height and nothing else.

– Wtf was Romesh Powar doing on the tour?

– I liked watching Kaarthick bat.

– I liked watching Ravi Shaastri speak.

– Tamil commentary on Raj TV was idiotic.

– Dravid’s innings was brilliant. Sachin’s was boring as usual.. (‘as usual’ – since he played that innings in Sydney- Waugh’s last test.. remember?)

– The Reynolds ‘dependable’ ad with Sachin is a waste of time and the Sprite ad is too boring.

– Grounds were good. So was the Crowd enthusiasm.

– I missed Veeru and Bhajji. But they better stay where they are.

– Tendulkar should be bowled more.

– We should import Mashrafe Mortaza.

What say?

Who’s more glamorous? Thats the question.

Is Indian presidential seat getting reserved for celebrities? lol. Looking at the names coming up for the possible candidates, thats what it looks like.

Narayana Murthy, Amitabh bachchan, Amartya Sen etc are names with no or very little political experience and they are no more than celebrities. I guess the trend began with Abdul Kalam’s nomination for presidency. At the time of his nomination, he had had only recently received the Bharat Ratna and was becoming a popular ‘man-of-science’. So, obviously he was a celebrity. And now i hear that even Shah Rukh Khan’s name is doing rounds. Oh my God! What has the nation come to?

There are people looking for a lady president. And going by the trend, we are in search for a celebrity. Can i suggest something? hmmm.. How about Sania Mirza? I know she’s not of age. But we can ammend the constitution for a glamorous president, cant we?

The pursuit of happYness

I saw this bloody amazing movie yesterday. And I had to do a post on it! It’s probably the most beautifully crafted movie I have ever seen.

Though Will Smith has to take most of the credit for the brilliance of the movie, the real credit should go to the man himself, Mr. Chris Gardner. All those looking for some inspiration in your lives, this is a must watch for you.

A bomb scare

They might rant- ‘we live in a dangerous world’. Hell. No. Its become funnier. Its more comical. Its more ludicrous.

This morning, we had a bomb scare in college. Yeah, I am talking about that incinerating device which produces light and sound along with all the other effects its supposed to produce. We heard about the bomb when we were in VHDL class. And we ran. Not because we were afraid of losing our lives, but for just the sheer fun of it. We ran. On the 5^th floor, we asked each other which theatre was showing Spiderman-3! And we ran. On the 3^rd floor, we talked about how we could get to that theatre. And by the time we got to the ground floor and out of the building, the spidey plan was ready.

And the bomb? Who cared a damn! Everyone knew there was none. Even the policeman who was frantically suggesting to us to clear the compound knew there was no bomb. There was no tension. There was no fear. It was a joke to us. It was a joke to the great person who supposedly ‘tipped-off’ the police about the bomb. We stood on the other side of the road and watched the drama unfold. Sniffer dogs came. Police jeeps kept coming. We saw until we got bored. And we left. No, we didn’t go to spidey. Most of them had already seen it.

There was no report of it on any of the national channels. Some local channels simply scrolled the message- “Hoax bomb scare in a Bangalore college.” That was it. So, it was a happy ending. Happy ending? Yeah. We got a day off. The staff got a day off. And what about the caller? I guess he’s happy too.

PS: an sms message did rounds today. It read- “dude, one bomb blasted during a diffusion attempt. 4^th floor has entirely collapsed.” I replied- “good to hear the upper floors are intact”!!

The beti is back

Its been quite some time now since I have seriously followed politics. Indian politics to be specific. Somehow I think Indian politics is more complicated than, say, French or American or Latin American politics.

Well, I did follow the elections in UP, intermittently at least. One important reason for my interest was Rahul Gandhi’s foray into the scheme of things. Ever since he became an MP, I have become his fan. And I was fervently hoping that he does something for the UP Congress which in turn could give a launch-pad for his political career. But some of his propaganda comments seemed to be made by an over-enthusiast child rather than a PM-in-the-making (just using the media’s favourite tag-line). Amar Singh was another guy I was interested in. He comes across to me as a very interesting politician. Oh wait. Can I call him a politician?

In this mega circus called UP elections, I missed out one name. Mayawati. Though the media was surmising her return at the helm, I wasn’t particularly interested in her. The Beti of the UP people bouncing back with such an astounding win was something which I had never imagined. After the end of a decade and half of coalition politics in UP, I hope,  with her single-handed victory she brings some stability to the state- where law and order is an eternal problem, where literacy levels are not on par with the national average, where good-health is still a luxury, where goondas and men with guns and lathis call more shots than the law-makers, where caste-based equality are only for text-books. The people of UP believe that Mayawati- with her humble background, will be their saviour. Will it be so? We will see in 5 years.

PS: Can she still be interested in the Taj corridor? Oh, forget it!

Solitary Reaper

I was thinking about changing the name of this blog since a long time. When i began this blog in june 2006, i christened it ‘BEING THEJAS’. That was the first thing that came to my mind when i thought about giving my blog a name. Probably it was influenced by ‘Being Cyrus’ which released during the same period.

In february of 2007, i seriously got into blogging. February 14th to be exact. Dont read too much into the date. I was free on that day(!!) and decided to kick start my blogging career. I decided that ‘BEING THEJAS’ was too boring a name for this blog and named it ‘PHILISTINE BANALITIES’. And i got too many negative comments for having such a complicated name for a blog as simple as mine. I just formulated the name out of two random words i picked from the dictionary. And with the meaning i deciphered out of the word ‘philistine’, i thought it was best-suited for my kind of writing.

In the last few days i found and read a few articles with the word ‘philistine’ used in them. And in each one of them, i discovered that ‘philistine’ was used as a negative adjective. So, a name-change for my blog was imminent.

Well, the new name i would choose was obvious. It should infact have been my blog-name since my first day on wordpress. ‘SOLITARY REAPER’ has become a kind of my alter ego ever since i used it on orkut instead of my name. There are people who prefer to call me ‘reaper’ instead of Thejas.

I should not forget to mention my admiration for the one and only William Wordsworth, whose brilliant poem (one of my favourites) has been an inspiration for this name.

And henceforth my blog shall be called SOLITARY REAPER. Enjoy it and keep your comments coming. Bye for now.

Nudity is a part of life

7000 Mexicans take off their clothes… just for the sake of art..

Read the Los Angeles Times’ report of the event

‘coz Rashtrapati Bhavan is not Infosys..

Sagarika Ghose writes here why Narayana Murthy is not her choice to become India’s first citizen.

“…just as Bill Gates will probably never be president of the America so also NR Narayana Murthy will probably never be president of India. And perhaps that’s how it should be“

A candid confession..

Sometimes I can be too bloody mischievous. I do something one evening and next morning- I repent it. And it’s not something that happens too frequently. This is what I did when I had that little twitch in my brain last Friday.

I am having a terrible time with the mosquitoes which my mortein isn’t getting rid off and I decide to have a little bit of fun by turning into a detective of sorts. Well, I dont know how good I am at it. I decide to get G’s number somehow. You will know G if you had read my previous posts. Well, I guess I am just too good a detective. I get her number in minutes. So, what’s the next step? Send some teaser message. Yeah. That’s what I do.

I wait for almost an hour to get a reply. And when I get it, I am ecstatic. I continue sending the teaser messages. Its 11:30pm now. And I am still chatting. (yeah. That’s what it turned to) I am getting a little bored now. So, I tell her an interesting story- which can keep her mind occupied all night- and then doze off. I still haven’t told her who I am.

Next day, I am not happy with what I did last night. So, I delete off the number from my phone. At 11, I get a message from her. I recognize the number. It simply says- “Story was interesting. Who are you?” I want to delete the message and forget all about it but I send- “your secret admirer.” God save me! And I am an atheist for God’s sake. Well, I just keep forgetting that I am an atheist. And I get a few more messages asking me who I am. I guess she’s too innocent to tell- “Fuck off, you bloody idiot”. I never reveal myself and I don’t want to. Just when I begin to wonder what a terrible mistake I have done by playing all such games, I get a shock. From one of her messages, I realize that this is a wrong person I am chatting to! Oh my God! (oh shit, I have to put that atheist sticker back on my table) I probe a little and find that this girl I have been wasting my time on- is actually G’s sister. Should I laugh or cry? I don’t know. I am totally phlegmatic now.

I send those routine apology-seeking messages explaining my mistake. I get no reply. She’s totally miffed up. At 8 pm, I get a message. “Hey, this is G. Who the hell are you?” Hmmm. What do you think? Bold, isn’t she? I again send some apologetic message and stop messaging. I keep cursing myself all night. I get up next morning after a nightmarish sleep. I decide to forget about girls for sometime-only to get my thoughts back to normal.

2 days later: I am doing some work for my HOD in the third floor when a friend comes to me says- “dude, there’s your girlfriend G prowling in the corridors of 5th floor. I guess she’s waiting for you.” I am shocked. I say- “dude, G doesn’t even know who I am” to which he says- “Apparently, she knows it was you who sent those messages. I overheard a conversation she was having”. “Oh that’s brilliant. Fuck my luck”, I say. I avoid 5th floor for an hour. All I hear myself saying is “Did u need all this, you @#$%?” But I begin to admire her. I now realize who the better detective is.

Well, it’s been 4 days now. I haven’t seen her again. Thank God. (oh no! not again) But one of these days, in case I come face to face with her sometime, I have decided to apologize. Hope it solves the problem. And one more thing- G doesn’t appear in my dream anymore. There’s a M now……

ps: the poem below (previous post) was written for G. I have no time to write one more for M. So, i officially dedicate the poem to M. How convenient!