Reservations Vs Merit

I have never written about "casteism" in my blogspace. It is a very popular and blogworthy subject and thousands of blogs have been written over it. I am just adding my own. A very long one! The recent "Gujjar Vs Meenas" riots in Rajasthan were the catalyst in nudging me to vent my frustration. For the un-initiated, the core issue is that Gujjar's want to be "downgraded" as "scheduled tribes" just so that they can get a share of the pie called "reservations" and "affirmative action". Meenas already "enjoy" that "proud distinction" and obviously do not want to share their spoils with the Gujjars. Hence the riots.

This incident should have been a very big source of embarassment and also eye opener to all those politicians who are championing "reservations" as a tool for eradicating social inequality in my country - India. This blog is an open letter to Hon. Indian minister for HRD, Mr Arjun Singh who I percieve as the current representative of the entire reservations brigade for the purpose of this blog. I should also mention that I belong to the so called "upper castes" and I might be a very ignorant intellectual on this subject but these are just my personal views, whether right or wrong, to accept or reject it is your choice.

Sir,
With the Rajasthan incident as the backdrop, don't you think that it is time to reconsider the merits or de-merits of your strong opposition to withdraw reservations for the "creamy layer", and from instituions of higher learning (read IIM) and private companies (read IT companies)?

Let me place my view points in perspective vis-a-vis yours :

I am Not opposed to reservations if they are designed to help ONLY the needy. My definition of needy is a "person who is oppressed, is poor by Indian standards i.e lacks basic necessities like food shelter and clothing education and finally, lacks access to internet, because then he cannot read my blog and understand his or her rights". In a nutshell reservations must be made available only to the needy and not necessarily to a person belonging to so called "lower caste".

I remember reading your comment somewhere about reservations that it were not incorporated in our constitution for the purpose of upliftment of poor but instead as a tool to eradicate the social inequality. I fully agree with the spirit in which this dictum was written by our national forefathers. HoweverHowever I am now 100 percent sure that our honorable forefathers NEVER foresaw a situation similar to what we recently witnessed in Rajasthan. It never occured to them that the very people for whose upliftment they were struggling would one day desperately want to remain classified as "downtrodden"and all because of this "reservations" policy. Oh I wish they were alive to see this rotten fruit of their labor!

Sir, did it occur to you why this anti-climax happened ? I think I know few reasons why. Listen.
My simpleton 2-dimensional belief is that when ancient Indians flourished they never meant to create caste based society, it was supposed to be a role based society. A potter, a blacksmith, a king, a knight and a teacher are some role based examples. Very logical indeed in those stone age days. Over the years, the teachers, by virtue of learning and Kings by virtue of power flourished and progressed well beyond other fellowmen. The "vaishya's - business men" did not really become "Brahmins" but due to virtue of richness were not really considered "Shudras". The people left way behind in the race were potters, blacksmiths etc, basically unskilled labourer class who finally grew into "lower caste". This disparity slowly evolved and turned the entire society into caste based where somesection of society called themselves "upper cast" and rest as "lower caste". Some of these ancient people nowbelonging to "upper caste" wrote the dictats of the Hindu religion and the vedas and everyone else simply followed it. Thus the one-way wheel of religion and caste was set in motion. Give or take some from this story but I believe thisis the bottom-line of our caste based society. If you need a modern equivalent of this evolution cycle just look at the economic disparity brought by IT revolution, people working in IT can afford the sky while similarly placed public servants cannot! One day this will turn us into another "Class" based society! Who knows....

Note the glaring absence of "omnipotent" GOD from this story. I dont want to complicate it by adding the 3rd dimension that it was GOD who created upper caste (Brahmins) from His forehead and Lower castes (Shudras) from His feet and blah blah...

Presently, it is a known fact that Hindu Religion and Vedas cannot be re-written. It is therefore IMPOSSIBLE to completely eradicate casteism from psyche of Indian people belonging to both castes simply because the provision to upgrade someone from lower caste to upper caste DOES NOT exist in Hindu Religion or Vedas!! So you have to be born a Bramhin to belong to upper caste and if you are born in a lower caste, you are done for life that way. No matter how many reservations you reservefor the lower caste. UNFORTUNATELY this distinction will always remain in one form or other. Period.

So then, what is the real "solution" to this problem? I feel it can only be two pronged:
1. Abolish reservations based on caste, instead make it available only to economically backward. Because as we have seen in Rajasthan it only encourages people from "Lower Caste" to be proud of themselves but it does not really help abolish casteism!
2. Encourage social equality in a very social way, namely through MARRIAGES. Encourage inter-caste marriages AND announce HEAVY reservations for any FAMILY which is wedlocked from lower and upper caste. Provide police and legal protection to such families from harassing and opposing parties.
My challenge to you Sir, is the above. Can you pass laws to make and promote inter caste marriages? Do you have the political guts to incur the wrath of so called "upper caste" and cajole or lure grooms or brides from upper casts to wed someone from lower caste? Only when this is achieved the real social equiality will return to our society. Any other solution is farcical and only politically motiviated.

Now you may call me a dreamer to even believe that such inter caste marriages will gain acceptance. To this I would once again point you back to Rajasthan episode. What Gujjars are doing is out of greed, and greed comes naturally to us Indians !! So if you dangle the reservations carrot to "Upper caste" for marrying their children into lower caste I am sure atleast 8 out of 10 will fall for this carrot sooner or later. Maybe even I would have, had you shown me this carrot before I got married!! The reservation benefits will be obvious and lucrative enough to bend even the most adamant. Divide and rule, buy them if you cant mend them! Havent we learned from Britishers? You may question about the quality of emotional bonding which such marriages born out of greed will have. But that is something we can try risking. Boys and and girls from upper caste will surely think twice before they fall to their greed and they will be mentally prepared before they wed into such marriages. Even if this does not happen in large volumes at least a time will come when even people from upper caste who dont agree to do it themselves will atleast not look down upon other who embrace it. It may take decades but will SURELY succeed. With your current approach, it will never succeed to remove the equality even if it may help people from lower castes to become rich. And that is not what you really want! I believe if my solution is achieved we will not only achieve social equality but it will also promote a merit based society and help the really needy -the economically backward! Its a win-win situation for all. I urge all to think over it seriously.

Say NO to reservations and Say YES to MERIT. Our country needs Merit badly.

~Amit

Domestic Tension !

This blog was supposed to be updated weekly. Hence the name weekinmylife. But looks like I will have to change the name to monthinmylife or even quarterinmylife :-) Anyway..."I was busy ay work" is as socially acceptable excuse as "I am running half an hour late" these days as. But I must make sincere efforts to keep this blog active. Hence here is an interesting tit-bit of a blog-worthy subject that I came across in last few weeks:

An Iraqi immigrant Wafaa Bilal in US who is a new age live artist has put up a very innovative exhibit to protest US war in Iraq. The exhibit is called "Domestic Tension". Basically it consists of a small room where Bilal has locked himself up since last few weeks. He feeds live video of himself over internet (www.wafaabilal.com and www.crudeoils.us) 24X7. And now the real crux of the exhibit: The webcam acts as the view finder of a paintball gun! So viewers can see him online and move the gun left or right (not up and down) and shoot him with paintball pellets at will ! So there will be two categories of viewers, one who wish to shoot him and others trying to save him by pulling control and turning arond the gun away from these trigger happy men.
The idea of the exhibit is to show the world the sadist ways of US military might which can shoot at will from thousands of miles away at some target which they cannot see and hear. The light bulb moment came to Bilal when he watched an interview of a US soldier sitting in Colorado shooting missiles remotely in Iraq which he doesnt even know for sure whether they hit intended target or innocent civilians. So civilians in Iraq live in constant fear of some bomb falling over their heads and that is the experience Bilal wants to live through by way of this exhibit. Bilal wanted to name this exhibit "Shoot an Iraqi" but his sponsors and the art gallery for which he works toned it down to "Domestic Tension". Also search for "paintball project" on YouTube for watching and hearing Bilal's daily video blogs.

So pick your choice "Shoot an Iraqi" or "Save an Iraqi"...
~Amit

Happy Holi !

Happy holi to all ! Enjoy! Hope to come back here soon!

Las Vegas & Grand Canyon!

Yet another comeback on the blog with yet another (very long) travelogue! Though it has always been my hobby to travel, but off late only travel and vacation seems to rejuvinate my sagging spirits. Earlier a bottle of beer and music in a pub used to suffice. But that was in some past life. If old age is approaching fast on you then take my word, nothing can uplift your spirits like a visit to Las Vegas - the city of lights. Literally. Read on.

We started off with a flight from Chicago to Vegas where Dear A's bro joined us from Phoenix. Then we rented a car to Grand Canyon on a drive through beautiful desert landscape of Nevada and Arizona. On the way we halted to see the mighty Hoover Dam which is an awesome monster of cement and concrete blocking the course of mighty colarado river. We took a guided tour around its power station. It reminded me of a school trip to Koradi thermal power station in Maharashtra,India many ages ago. Then we continued onward to one of the natural wonders of the world - Grand Canyon! My "visited" list of worlds wonders is fast closing in to completion! It was a scary ride through the nite in the deserts with hundreds of miles of straight-line pitch dark roads with hardly any other roaring engine nearby. Dear A drove all the way from Hoover to Canyon, I was asleep most of the time. By the time we checked in the hotel it was quite late, but we still managed to sneak into the Jacuzzi to wash off weariness of the journey. Next day, we got up at the first light to watch the sunrise in the Grand Canyon. First halt was at a Gas Station and in the 10 min that it took me to fill the fuel my right hand thumb was frozen solid!! I actually had to use other hand to bend it. Then I looked at the exterior temperature meter in the car which showed -24 Celcius!!! Brrrrr.....But still we braved on and caught the sunrise in the breathtaking Canyon, shivering all the time. The snaps are worth a laugh.I really missed hot corn and road side tea stalls that you get in good ol' Lonavla:-) Rest of the day was luckily quite warm and sunny and we spent it seeing various spots in the Canyon. One gets a very natural and breathtaking view of a landscape formed about 6 million years ago. You can neither capture it in cam film or eyes. It can be stored only in your memory! I also bought a replica of an Red Indian musical instrument as a momento. I like to pick up one momento of every place I visit for my collection. Another sign of approaching old age:-))

By mid afternoon we left from the natural wonder to the man-made wonder - Vegas and reached there late evening. After a short catnap we were rested and raring to see the Las Vegas Boulevard - the main street called as "strip". We dressed up in our best Vegas clothing only to be spoiled by bulky winter jackets we had to wear over that:-( Winter in desert is such an oxymoron. Nature is crazy. Ain't it? The first night was, I must admit, badly planned so we basically did nothing more than hanging around and walking up and down the strip in the cold. But I actually wanted to do just that. Hang around and soak-in the spirit and spectacle of Las Vegas. So we just saw things around, visited miscelleneous places and retired by 3AM. The next two days were more organized as we now knew what to see and do. So by end of the trip we kind of covered everything there is to see in Vegas: The free shows, Bellagio fountain, Freemont street experience, Casinos, Buffets (Alladin notably), malls, and et all. We visited all the casinos on the strip in the 3 days but just kinda window shopped. I had come prepared with a resolve not to gamble. Visited Vegas and did not gamble? That would be a natural shocked reaction from you dear reader, but gambling is not my forte and I am never lucky enough to win anything free. But, I spent a small fortune seeing some of the outrageously expensive Vegas shows. If you dont have the big heart required for gambling, then the next best thing to do in Vegas is to watch these shows. Atleast you are guaranteed to win. Each casino has a trademark attraction in form of a comedy, erotic, magic or some other creative art form in their respective theatres and some of the shows have been running uninterrupted for several years. It's next to impossible to see all of them in 3 days, but top 3 on my list were "The Blue Man Group", "Bodies Exhibition" and "Bite".

I had read about the Blue Man Group show in some flight magazine years ago. This show is a must-see for all those in "creative art form" business or even otherwise. The show is basically a comedy without any dialogues. The actors are these 3 bald blue colored men who ooze creativity from every pore and the audience! Yes audience too is actively involved in the show. It cannot be described in words, the show entertains your visual and auditory senses. See it to belive it. Period.

The other unique exhibition that I saw is called "Bodies" and it exibits well preserved human bodies in various states of decomposition!! It would have been a hideous site if it were not for the tastefully arranged exhibits who once were living human beings like us. Visit http:/Also demonstrated are various "components" of human body in entirety or as cross-section dissections. Another hideous exhibit is pre-mature babies from 1- day old to 2 months including a pair of conjoined siamese twins! The best exhibit was a "skeleton" with just viens and arteries which look like a huge mass of entangled wires. Visit http://www.tropicanalv.com/ent_bodies.asp and see the image gallery to get an idea. It is undoubtedly the best exhibition in the world which leaves no bad taste but awe for natures best creation - the human body.

The 3rd show was called "Bite" which is basically a erotic + acrobatic show based on the theme of vampires and their hidden world. Though it was nothing like the Lido show that I saw in Paris, it helped "complete" our Las Vegas "pilgrimage": Been there and done that! We left back for Chicago on the 3rd day with a resolve to come back soon. One can never get tired of that place called Las Vegas!

Cheers!

Happy New Year

I have been hibernating again! Hope to be back soon. Happy New Year Bloggers!

~Amit

The Dream Library - At Last

Another long one.
Ever since childhood, I guess since age of 7 I was imbibed with the love for reading (But not exactly study books. I am honest you see!) All thanks to my mom and the lineage on her side. My collection has always had numerous comics, books, novels in all the three languages I read and speak. I have also been life member of various libraries throughout my life. But all of these libraries had one thing wrong with them - they were Not libraries. They were just a one or two room collection of books of some individual running that humble but God-sent place. Yes some real libraries did exist in some of the cities I have lived but either all of them were too far from my home and hence not accessible to the young and minor myself or they belonged only to members of some universities / societies to which I did not belong. Note that one never belongs to an univerity/college which has best infrastructure. Grass is always greener in the other campus, be it facilities or uhmm, gurls:-) Anyway, even when I was independent and eligible (read "Mr small money bags") to be member of such libraries or owned a vehicle for going that looonnnng distance to fetch a book, I was already entangled in the rat race life of an IT professional which left me with little or no time for persuing this hobby at peace.
Cut to circa 2006, I come and land in a subarb of Chicago and I chance upon this treasure trove and huge building which houses the local county library. More research reveals that it was numero uno library in its category of size last year and this year it still ranks in top 5 in entire US of A!! I lost no time in registering there as a life member and have since (3 weeks) been reaping fruits of this small fortune.
It happens to be that dream library I used to see in my dreams all these depraved years of my literary existence (OK. A little exageration never hurts anyone!) It has just two but really huge floors full of book shelfs neatly organized by every category of books that one can possibly imagine. Rows after rows of shelfs containing reference books, study tables, sound proof study rooms and a eerie pin drop silence litters the vast expanses of the library. Every nook and corner has a comfy sofa or chair to relax and read as long as you wish. No pesky librarian will ever come and bother you. That PC where you can look up, search and explore the online catalog of the library is never too far from you. Just search the call number of the book, wade through the shelfs and reach the book you want! Only a reading enthusiast knows the pleasure that this small treasure hunt gives! I was impressed by the number of PCs they have. They also boast of an internet cafe, a small pantry and a entire section devoted to the library of DVD/CDs of latest movies within the premises!! And the proverbial icing on the cake is that the service is amazing. Each member gets a digital membership card which makes check-out a hassle free process and believe it or not, you can check-out as many books as you want!! You don't need to go to library to if you want to renew the book! Do it from comfort of your bed and laptop through their neat website which does much more than renewals and reminders. And as if all this was not enough the building itself is located in a very picturesque place just 10 min drive from my home! I am simply in love with this place and dread the day when I will have to bid goodbye to it. There might be better libraries in the world than this, but it happens to be my first real library.
Since I have devoted so many pixels to this new abode of mine, a few words about "what I am reading" currently are also due! Well my current fav section in the library is "World War 2 Literature". I have read quite a few horrendous and rare books detailing the holocaust in last few weeks apart from some other. Then Asterix and Calvin N Hobbes are my other constant companions. Right now I have checked out "Tales from Arabian Nights" to lighten the dark mood which these war books have created and I have blocked Parvez Mussharafs latest: "In the line of fire" for my next check out.

Don - Remakes Work!!

Usually you wont find too many moview reviews on my blog. It's because likes and dislikes in movies is a highly personal and individual choice. So if some slap stick Govinda humour can tickle one it may give seizures to another and like wise Sharukhs stammering may seem "style" to his fans but gives me the hickups:-) So this is my view of Farhan Akhtars "Don-The chase begins" you are free to have yours.
The verdict upfront is that Remakes, if not the Remixes, work well!! You will return fully satisfied with the wholesum entertainment that this thriller offers. Even if you spend $25-for-two as I did, it will be "fultu paisa vasool". Except Sharukhs repetitve acting style of menacing sneers, stupid smiles, slightly improved stammering and a desperate but inadequate effort at matching the original Don (Big B) everything else in the moview is well above average. It is slickly shot and can easily compete any above-average hollywood thriller.
Acting Department: Sharukh is routine. But his extremely trendy wardrobe and a fitter physique make him look ultra cool.He is a delight to (just) look at. Priyanka Chopra and Isha Koppikar are regular looking gangsta molls, hot bods with attitude and everything. Even their acting is believable. Boman Irani, though a misfit (due to his physique) in his role of a crime branch action packed DCP, is excellent as usual. He has a meaty role in the movie and does full justice to this opportunity. Then there is a surprise guest appearance by a leading actress for the main event item number - "Ye Mera Dil...". She fails miserably to oomph even an ounce of sexiness in the gyrating moves of the song which the original protagonist - The sizzling Helen could do even in sleep. But still she looks hot, what with those lost pounds which she badly needed! Om Puri has no role worth mentioning. Arjun Rampal, gets yet another role where is shown handicapped. Poor fellow, as if his handicap of acting talent is not enough!!
Music & Choreography: Considering that new "Don" is a remake, I did not expect new songs. But unfortunately Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy did add few soundtracks of their own and ended up diluting an otherwise excellent remix score. "Ye Mera Dil" and "Khai Ke Paan" have some new foot tapping beats. Udit Narayan did really well at the latter song. But the best part was the background score throughout the movie. It is inspired from the original Don but the music directors were successful at adding a hypnotizing lull to that. There is one particular piece which stills rings in my ears. Dance sequences in all the songs were a treat to watch. But the director cum script writer Farhan Akhtar has got the "set" and "situation" for the rustic holi number "Khai Ke Paan" entirely wrong. Its difficult to digest traditional "Bhaang mixed with milk" being available in Kaula Lampur!
Script & Story: THIS is the biggest plus and stronghold of the new "Don". For a change there is a main stream hindi cinema which has strong, gripping and flawless script which covers all other flaws mentioned above. The pace of the movie is just right, not too fast nor too slow. Gives time to digest while keeping you on tenterhooks until (literally) the last scene. Suspence is maintained well and even and is very hard to guess. Be ready for a double whammy!
The script has many deviations from the original one, which I believe does not qualify this movie as a version-2 but a real remake complete with makeover. Though it is a remake it has its own personality which refrains the audience from comparing it with original Don. And for this I raise my hats off to Farhan Akhtar. It was very intelligent of him to do so, because it frees his new Don from shackles and shadows of original one which otherwise would have been its own dejavu! Well done. Here, take your five stars *****
Now lets wait for Ramgopal Varma's Sholay!

Frogs in the (huge) well

This is a long and maybe a boring post. So be warned.

I have been a regular newspaper enthusiast since childhood. I guess I started reading newspapers since the 7th grade and always had subscription to at least two of them - one in English and other local vernacular edition. That was always in addition to subscription to various magzines like Outlook and libraries. Some of the best papers I have been reading since childhood are The Hitwada, Navbhart, Dainik Jagran,Economic Times, Sakal, Lokmat, and ofcourse the Times Of India(ToI)which I prefer to call TOIlet paper these days. I would love to switch over to The Hindu which I have heard is a much better paper. I will never get tired of praising the benifits of reading a newspaper, especially Indian newspapers.
Thanks to the Brits for leaving us a gift, the lingua pura- English language which I feel is spoken in its purest form only by Indians these days. I see only "slang" and "spoken" English in US, UK and other tradionally English speaking countries. The worlds business language is now limited only to that - business, in form of ultra shorthand emails and crisp news items which sounds like notes from technical manuals. The poetry and prose heritage of English is found only in some rare novels now a days.
Anyway lets come back to the subject of this post again: The above gives a background to the audience that yours truly has been a regular newspaper reader.That holds good even here in US since I have subscribed to "Chicago Tribune". This paper rougly compares with Tabloids as far as dimensions are concerned and is so thick that I feel it is humanely impossible for anyone to ever finish reading the paper all in a day. Such a waste of paper and environment.In contrast,I find the size and dimensions of Indian newspapers perfect.
But that is not my key complaint. I wont mind such thick news papers provided they have some QUALITY news in them. One thing that I have noticed in all the developed countries that I have visited is that their media (Print as well as Television) is very country centered. For them international news is limited to natural disasters
(that too only if they are the size of Tsunami), nuclear explosions,big explosions,tiny explosions,diwali cracker explosion and of course those political turmoils which can be a "threat" to their existance. Everything else is immaterial and not news worthy.
And US seems to be leading the pack of such nations whose media believes in keeping their masses highly ignorant of happenings in the world other than those mentioned above and in their immediate vicinity and radius of about 50 miles. And this I believe is the root cause of the shock and awe an average american felt after 9/11 while he or she was left wondering why on earth would someone want to hurt their "peaceful" country so badly. It was only after that they woke up and took notice of existance of many other smaller muslim/asian countries and read about how their wrong foreign policies lead to a general discontent and discord against US in minds of these nations.
Had the media of these developed countries fed information about the issues facing the developing world, I believe at least the shock would have been less. How can anyone explain the Breaking News of "a mother and a child disappearing somewhere in US only to resurface later" being covered round the clock on CNN when there are many more important news worthy things happenings all around the world? Watching news channels and reading news papers here is a joke.I sincerely wish the media in US sets their priorities right and dishes out something interesting and informative to read in tomorrows paper. That may be a tall order considering the average inability of an american to comprehend issues not related to them! Alas they are the frogs in the Well who believe that they live in a ocean. Only difference here is that the size of thier country and economy is really oceanic so it doesnt really matter to them!

Clemency for Afzal ? - An unwilling NO

Here is the reproduction of a reply that I gave to an opinion poll on a popular portal on the subject of clemency for Afzal who is facing the noose in the 2001 parliament attack case:

"I am usually against the institution of capital punishment due to the human values and principles that I have imbibed. However since many decades the so called freedom-fighters have been targeting India for the cause of "free Kashmir" and that this idea was fomented by Pakistan is a well known fact.Recent statements made by Pakistan Govt clearly indicates that "free Kashmir" is an already lost cause and all its original instigators have given up on the idea.So what they do next is to make "use" of local Indian youth by misguiding them through false propoganda and cashing on their poverty and unemployment. Even highly literate youth are easily tutored, not because they believe in the Jehadist cause but simply because literate people can think logically and all their masters need to do is spin their thoughts with consistant propoganda and thus make the idea of jehad seem very logical. Thus homegrown terrorist are born. Due to this, difficult times have set in for the country and tough times call for tough measures. It requires us to toughen our hearts, overcome the emotions and clench the jaw and give a nod to hang our own brethren who have gone horribly wrong, including Afzal"

Space Tourism & Blog!

This blog of first women tourist in space, Anousheh Ansari is a must read http://spaceblog.Xprize.Org/.
I am sure you will be jealous of her just like I was when you read about her exploits in space. Well a millionairess can afford such expensive getaways. Sigh...There are some things which money can't buy and for everything else there's wishful thinking! (p.s: Did you note it's my parody on the master card punchline? I might have some blog coming up over my own master card).

Bad Writing? Naaahhhh

Dear A asked me few days back why I tend to write long and complex sentences in blogs or emails in general which she feels average people may not understand. I took that as a compliment because I dont think I am that good a writer! Thanks to a link on Sidins blog I found a article on "awards for worlds most badly written sentences" which I showed to her in my defense. You can read about the awards here-> http://www.aldaily.com/bwc.htm. Some of these very serious and scholarly writings are actually nonsensical to the point of being hilarious. So if I compare my writings to worlds worst writings I feel good about my blogs! Gives me a tad bit more vigour to keep it alive and ticking!

Suicidal Instincts?

How much ever I hate to reduce this blog to just a compilation of travelogues of little interest to others, of late this "trend" seems to be ruling the roost on this space. I would like this space to be used more for current topics which are my favorite. But alas...there's something called lazyness...
So, coming back to the title. Suicidal instinct is about an inherent trait which every human has though in different levels. Ability to kill yourself; one form of which is taking your adrenalin and testosterone levels to himalayan peaks so much so that your heart stops beating for some excruciatingly never ending seconds. What can motivate you to hurl yourself at 300Mph vertically up into the sky to a height of 420 ft and at 90 dgree incline saddled in a open chair on a train going up on metal rails with just a tight harness around you? Or what can motivate you to sit in worlds 3rd biggest and scariest roller coaster which takes you to some 250 ft high and drops at mind numbing speeds into a loop of roller coasters which swirl you around at death defying speeds? And to top it off you are also willing to stand in a serpentine queue moving at snails pace which takes at least 1.5 hours of wait only to experience these 30 sec ride and torture. Ofcourse it is your suicidal instict showing its signs of life!!

That very much sums up my and Dear A's trip to Cedar Point (www.cedarpoint.com) in Sandusky, Ohio yesterday. (Dear A also shares my penchant for thrill). Cedar Point boasts to be worlds best and biggest amusement park for 8 years in succession. It has 4 of the top ten roller coasters in the world, each scarier than the other. I was talking about "Top Thrill Dragster" and Magnum XL 200 roller coasters respectively in the description above which rank as worlds number 7 and 3 respectively. Unfortunately we could not do the worlds biggest and number one ride the "Mellinneum Force" due to lack of time and long waiting queues. But we also experienced "Raptor" which literally stretches your face skin back as it hurls you around in impossible twists and turns. But magnum is scariest of them all though Top Thrill Dragster simply scares the sh*t out of you just by looking at it. I had been to this place two years back as well and then I had chickened out of riding Top Thrill Dragstor, but this time I did it! We could not do Reverse Bungee jump due to lack of time and a small dis-agreement on its moneys worth :-(

Our day started bad, first we both and two other friends got up late and reached very late to the park only to find these long queues for each ride and could manage just one ride on Raptor by late evening. We were about to step into Top Thrill Dragstor when it was shut down due to mechanical failure (I though it was not in my destiny 2nd time in a row!) but just one hour before park closes at 10 PM we got to do both Magnum and Dragster! That rounded off the day well and happy for all of us. We had the fun and rides of our life. On the way back we had to drive 6 hours with sleepy eyes in the witching hours and finally reached safety of the home at 5 AM. On hitting the bed I just went into baby sleep but not before this thought - "How the hell I managed to do such suicidal things" I believe I have a lions heart and am game for such thrill, but still these death defying rides in one single day was stretching luck too far. But then what the heck, I enjoyed and then with a smile of achievement retired for the day. Been there and done that. Peace!

Will be back soon !

I was off from this space for an extended period. Hope to be back soon :-)

Amsterdam!

Yet another vacation and yet another Travelogue. Its little long and self-indulging.

We are just back from a 3 day trip to Amsterdam (27 to 30 Apr), the city of canals and known as the most tolerant country in the world. Sex, drugs, gays and lesbians are all perfectly legal here. You can just walk into any authorized coffee shop and order your spacewalk Hashis, Weed or Marijuana cake or jut smoke it the old style. Then there is the famed red light district complete with its exotic escorts sitting in shopping window. Interested in Window shopping anyone? Well, ofcourse I did not indulge in any of it thanks to the "you know what I mean" angry glare from Dear A! You know, there is some cross between me and this city, I passed it thrice before, planned a trip 3 times as a bachelor but still it evaded me. Fate wanted me to visit this city for bachelors only as a married man! So be it. I still made a perfect vacation out of it!

On Day-1 we visited Madam Tussauds Wax Museum, Amsterdam Dungeon (which depicts the atrocities and torture inflicted by raiders on the dutchland in 16th century, its enacted byy live dummies, its horrible, not meant for weak hearted.) Then we visited the Anne Frank house belonging to Anne Frank and her family. This Jewish girl is famous for her immaculate daily diary she wrote when she and her family were in hiding for 2 years in that house in a secret Annexe. Even the neighbors did not know for 2 years about their existance in that house! I am currently reading her diary which was later published as a book. Later in eve we vistited the Teaser club, the disco and pub chain famous for its topless waitresses and beer. Its works on the lines of Cayote Ugly. Later we had leisure walks on sides of many canals and also the red light district.

On Day-2 we started with a 3D movie showing all Holland attractions. It was a dream come true because we took the early morning show and theatre was empty with just two of us!! Then we visited Rembrandt (16th century dutch master painter) museum, Van Gogh museum (over 200 of original Van Gogh masterpeices) and the National museum showing the prime time of Dutch royality of 17th century. Later in eve we visited the Holland casino and tried our (rotten luck) on some tables. Then we had a romantic canal city tour by on a cruise. It must be heaven for those living in house boats in those Amsterdam canals. In late night we saw a live show meant for couples at one of the joints in the famed red light districts. Been there and done that! You cant miss the red light district in Amsterdam and say that you visited it!

On Day-3 we visited our prime attraction and reason to visit Amsterdam- The Tulip Gardens. The Tulips are in full glory in this season and we had a fortune to have a bright sunny day. Its the most romantic place and has to be experienced first hand to belive it. All photos are like picture postcards...perfect! Yash chopra made the Tulip feilds immortal in his romantic classic - Silsila. Though the tulip feilds (not the gardens! in Holland they farm variety of Tulips on miles and miles of land, its a sight to behold forever) were already cut to a large extent but we still saw a major part of it. Next we visited Madurodam, the minitaure to-scale model of all attractions of Amsterdam. Its amazing, you feel like King Kong in a toy city. Wonder why India cant have something like that. Its such a hit with the tourists!

Apart from this I must mention the lively ness of the city itself which manifests in the numerous coffe shops, bars, pubs and discos which can be found in every nook and corner of this city. Its always full of young party animals and the city itself never sleeps, its like one big party day and night. We also had the fortune to visit the city during the time when Queens day is celebrated in Amsterdam, its their yearly showpiece event celebrated this time on 29th Apr when whole city traffic comes to a halt as party animals, road side stalls, live music bands swarm the city which bears a look of one bug 24 hour carnival. It was simply amazing, not a inch of space to walk. It was full of revelers. The city smacks of beer smell for next 3 days! Amsterdam is one hell of a city to enjoy, married or bachelor. It has something for everyone. I wouldnt mind visiting it every year!

Down With Lido !

The icing on the cake in our trip to Paris was a 'big-dent-in-pocket' but must-see hotspot of the famed nightlife of Paris - The Lido cabret on the Champs Elysees square (akin to the more famed but too crowded Mouline Rouge cabret). It was a formal black tie affair with a sit-down evening complete with champagne served with a flourish while the exotic and elegantly-nude dancers present various spectacular dance and gymnastics sequences on equally elaborate sets.

However after many breathtaking and awe inspiring sets they came up with a "eastern" (read Indian) dance sequence which had some nude dancers dressed like Lord Ganesh and the Deity Nataraja giving the backdrop of the imposing set for that sequence. I can understand their usage of dummy Elephants and may be even Nataraja (which I guess is a godess worshipped by dancers) in designing the sets. I can also understand other dancers dressed in mythological Indian dresses dipicting the Apsaras, because the beautiful Apsaras who used to dance for the Gods are mentioned in Hindu mythology. But neither the nude dancers were any Apsarsas and nor the audience were any Gods. So seeing Lord Ganesha in female form portrayed by boob showing whores was bit of a shock even for a mild atheist like me!! It was out of place and smacks of complete ignorance to cultural sensitivity of the French who boast of their religious tolerance. It was downright disgusting and deplorable and I strongly protest through this humble blog. Though I can try to do it myself, but I leave it to the numerous cadres of the saffron Brigade to book the culprits and bring an end to this sequence in this show (not the show ofcourse because other sequence were really good!!). I hope someone reads this and takes it up in Paris! I am a couch potato for doing all that.

This and all the further acts did not get any applause from us. Period.

Evenings in Paris !!

I am just back from a 3 day vacation to Paris- the numero uno romantic place and the fashion capital of the world!! Me and A had a perfect spring vacation. Memories of the Eiffel, Louvre Museum/Mona Lisa, Champs Elysees square, Notre Dame, Siene river, Arc De Triomphe, Disneyland, Mouline Rouge, Lido, Renault F1 showroom are still fresh in our memorries. And so are the leisure walks on sprawling Parisian boulevards, fashionably dressed french babes and the evenings in Paris in open air bus which are well captured in about 900 odd snaps in my digi cam!!

Paris is a city you will never get tired of, its lively a any time of the day and has got romance in its air. Its fun to just walk hand in hand along the siene river and see the illuminated historic monuments in the evenings. Then there is so much to buy, see, eat and if there is nothing else to do then just travel in the parisian metro during non-peak hours. The metro is fun and it probably ranks the best in the world. I guess after our Italy trip this one would rank next best in our memory! Now we are planning to visit Amsterdam on the coming weekend, hope that turns out even better!

The let downs were the Mona Lisa which seems to be too small a painting for its tall fame and a bit of cultural in-sensitivity of the famous cabret of The Lido. Read the next blog for details.

The Toy Train

How many of us have an attraction to the coochie cooing train when we were kids? I guess to some extent all. Every little boy (and some girls also) has a collection of toy cars and trains in the kinder days and I was not an exception. I too had my cache of toy cars and amidst them was this toy train which did the job of carrying around the cars and other assortement of toys from one room to other:-) This train was down to earth it had a dummy steam engine with about 3 bogies. It had nothing electronic about it. So I had to push it around while kneeling on the floor and all the time wishing that it somehow worked on remote control. This childhood fantasy never came true, but I did have the fortune to see the spectacle of one man actually using a real life train for real life purposes with remote control as part of his daily work! The train station in the city of my work place has a some manufacturing factory behind it and it requires train to transport its goods to and fro. The factory has its own locomotive shed and a mini railway station. There is this man who doubles up as driver, lineman, shuting man and signal controller all rolled into one. He uses a hand held remote control to shunt wagons and attach or detach them to the engine. He also runs along and changes tracks manually until he gets the sequence of engine and wangons behind it correct. It is such fun to watch this man working that almost every passenger on the railway station enjoys it while waiting for their respective trains. It is my favorite pastime in the mornings. I really wish this stranger of a hard working and lucky man who is living my childhood fantasy all the wishes!

The Baby Boy - 12 Feb 2006, 11.24 PM

This blog is for the latest addition to our family and my brand new nephew, who was born on 12th Feb 2006 at 11.24 PM actually while I was writing a blog (the next one) :-) until named formally he will be known as 'baby' and will be the cynosure of all eyes. He will always have a special place in my heart. Love you baby and wish you all the good things in life!
Yours
Mama (maternal uncle!)

Music and Swear Words!

Sounds like yet another indi-pop remix? No! This blog is about two songs, which seemingly are latest college and hostel anthems across India. One of them originates from Pakistan! After a long time I came across some rustic teenage humour which reminds me of the carefree college days and it was quite refreshing!

The first song "Sutta Na Mila" is by a pakistan based band called "Zeest" and has swear words like BC and MC used liberally:-) The second one, "G***d mein danda" is by XLRI band "Bodhitree". Its interesting to note that XLRI band also has some girls jamming on these words!! They also have other songs which are also ok....

Read more about the songs and download free mp3 from the links:

Sutta Mil Gaya-> http://www.jammag.com/etc/etcshow.php?art_id=21
G***d Mein Danda-> http://www.jammag.com/rock/show_rock.php?article_id=66

Rashmi Bansal too has covered them in detail. See the link to your right. Enjoy the songs, and just dont take them too seriously!

~Amit

Yuva!

The Indian youth is breaking traditions and daring to explore new avenues, freeing themselves from the rigmarole routine of every average Indian household-> kindtergarten-high school-graduation-engineer-doctor-service-retirement (and a marriage in between)! We are going the Western way and for once, imitating a better trait of "doing-your-own-thing". Two such news I heard recently were Sidin, a fellow and already famous blogger quitting a dream consultant job after going through labour pains of IIM-A and deciding to become full time writer, and the other was about 5 ex-IITians who floated a political party called PARITRANA (www.paritrana.org) with idealogy that was depicted in Mani Ratnams experimental movie - Yuva (sans violence). Rashmi Bansal's - "youth curry" has covered both news in detail, so that spares me from re-writing a stale story. Look to your right for the links. My best wishes to both endeavers!
~Amitk