Whistling in a bus

I often wonder what it is with buses in Karnataka. Any inter or intra-city bus you get in, the conductor, like any other in the country, waits till the bus is so comfortably full that you get a free Yoga lesson on how to hold your breath with your stomach quashed. Yeah that’s normal.

But none of them seem to know that a superior technology called the whistle exists. Not the private buses atleast. How then do they inform the driver it’s time to take their hapless passengers through the state roads which “rock”(pun intended) ?

Stand outside the vehicle, hit the body of the bus repeatedly, and yell “rates ratche, rate, rape, race” or something to that effect. I’m still not sure if its a euphemism for saying “right, my friend, its time we moved on,” or if it’s a Kannada word that I’m not aware of. Yours truly and a couple of friends tried yelling “Rape rape rape” in a stationary bus, and the conductor almost did the same to us.

What pains me most is the fact that our Thalaivar Rajnikanth must have done the same thing at some point of time, even though he blows one heck of a whistle in all his movies.

 

Rana Pratap on a Bajaj Chetak-part 1

I’ve been in college for exactly 78 hours. I arrived here a day late cos I was on vacation. No, not the 30-60 odd day discontinuity from the college-hostel-college continuum that has become so routine and boring. It was a discontinuity from the beach-sitathome-party every wednesday night-home-beach continuum which I usually have to endure when I’m in the former George town. For the first time in like a million years, I went on a vacation with my family(minus the patriarch cos he’s busy getting poor souls to ram electric poles into fields of poorer farmers in west India). So it was me, the elder imbecile sibling, and the mummy, along with an aunt and a pesky brat cousin.

Rewind.

It all started with my mom suggesting that we go to Sikkim and/or Darjeeling on a holiday. And since for the rest of the country, North-east/”Nepal”= Insurgency/Maoists, relatives urged us to look at other options as they were “concerned about our well being.” I personally wouldn’t have minded kissing the clouds in Gangtok, but you can’t disobey a grandfather’s orders in the hep city of Chennai. So we decided on the closest thing to a Himalayan wonder- the Thar desert.

The next thing to do was to find a good package. Makemytrip seemed like a good place to do it in. So we call and talk to a chick in their call centre who thought it was cool to intersperse words like “theek hai” and “ho jaayega sir” among other words which have been accepted in Indian English, even when fully knowing that she was talking to probably Hindi challenged Madrasis. As her name was ****inder*, I had to resist the urge to use the few words in Pnjabi that I had picked up from Rang De Basanti(think- sister day, followed by the last name of Jackie Chan’s partner in the Rush hour series).

*name changed for security reasons

Anyway, she promised us “3 star hotels or equivalent” for our entire stay. And the entire cost of the package for five people came to ****************_

_ amount changed as my mom tells me not to talk money matters to strangers. And I couldn’t use a * here, hence the _

We also booked our flight tickets with the afore mentioned tuckers, and soon we were being served breakfast@ Rs.150 by not so well endowed plain janes in spice jet, which included a bhej sandwich and a slice of “cake” from Bangalore Iyengar bakery. Anyway the flight arrived ten minutes early in pink city, so I won’t complain too much.

We then proceeded to find our allotted driver, who stood at the arrival lounge with a placard having our names(all wonderfully misspelt), grinning from ear to ear, each of which was predictably pierced in true Rajput style.

Proceed to pick up aforementioned aunt and her offspring. Nothing eventful happened, and we went on to hotel.

Ahh the 3 star or “equivalent.” Not exactly, but it said heritage hotel on the outside, so I guessed they could be excused. Turned out Rajasthani heritage was painted white walls, 2 sofas, a double bed, and a nightstand bought from furniturewala, a 1995 Onida TV, and Oh, a reproduction of a painting of Sawai Jai Singh, which looked like it had been cut out of a calender and framed. That took care of the heritage part I guess.It wasn’t too bad a place and service was decent. But mmt needed some lessons on what exactly was ***.

Anyway, Jaipur was pretty good. The women went to shops and bought nothing, the 2 men(c’est moi und mein brudder- call centre officials aren’t the only ones who have a right to mix up languages) got themselves some “curt-aahs” as the Scripps spelling bee pronouncer would call it.

The Mango beer fort was nothing short of amazing, and the Jaigad fort was very repetitive. The air around Hawa Mahal stinks, and the Birla Mandir was the best I’ve seen anywhere in the country. Maybe that’s cos the illustrous family is from Rajasthan. And oh, if there are any southies out there who think the Birlas have a unique style of building temples(like I did), think again. All temples in Rajasthan are built that way, only these guys go overboard with the marble. but it was the Jantar Mantar which really took my fancy. It’s one of those “India was such a great country with such brilliant people back then. Look at us now” moments. I only wished I had visited the place when I was around 14. Might’ve helped me score a coupla marks more in Science in the boards.

City palace was another “waaw watay wunderpull palace” place, with guides plaguing you till you finally give in, and charge you what a breakfast in Spicejet would cost you, only for walking around and reading the placards placed in front of each exhibit.

We left Jaipur after spending 2 days, 2 nights, as per itenary, and went onward to Jodhpur. Nothing happened unless you count that the slacks my cousin bought at the local bazaar for the price of 1.4*10^2 were “gasp I cant breathe” tight, so she demanded we book a hotel room in the highway so she could change and come out. Kids these days(she’s an 18 yr old neonate), so adorable. Everyone including the driver lauded her brilliance.

Watch out for part 2. The real story of Sallu in the forests near Jodhpur will soon be revealed by yours truly muhahahahaha.

 

Temples, Beaches and Bikini clad bimbos

Yes, I know the title seems blasphemous, but that about describes the place in one sentence.

January 2009- Republic day weekend. The only long weekend which my college lets us have the entire semester. One would think they lose money by letting their students loose once in a while. Anyway that’s not the point of this post.

I made a trip to Gokarna with Venkatesh. A place famous for it’s beaches, most famous of them being Om beach

That tells you how the beach got its name. Anyway, we went there hoping for a weekend of fun, frolicking, football and girl gazing, and we weren’t disappointed. But to give you a background of the place, I must move back a bit.

After a four hour bus journey from Manipal to Kumta, we took an Auto to Gokarna, around 30 Km away. This was in the dead of the night(1 am). The driver, who looked like a shady character, took us up a mountain of sorts. We kept going and going and going until we thought we were being abducted so our organs could be sold for a hefty sum, cos, come on, where do you find mountains next to the beach? But the western ghats amazed me yet again, for after a point, the path dropped right down to the beach(not exactly, but it was amazing).

After a day of fun, we heard there was also a very famous Shiva temple in the place, and since we’re both die hard fans of the Maijuana dude, we decided to make a trip there.

Oh some interesting info for the perenially high friends of mine: Gokarna is the place where weed originated! Yes, that’s right, the world owes its Ganja culture entirely to this place. Another reason for you morons to visit the place. Most of the firangs I met there came solely for the cheap weed.

Coming to the temple, here’s whats different about it. In most temples, only the priest is allowed into the Garba Griha(sanctum sanctorum). Here, its a free-for-all Thirupathi style jarugandi jarugandi, only inside the Garba Griha instead of out.

Once inside, I looked around for the deity but found none, and everyone was in a kneeling or prostrated position around something in the centre of the room, not visible from my viewpoint.

As the salesman priest successfully convinced us to perform archana for the well being of our families, he guided us to the centre where we saw, behold- a hole in the ground. Still confused, I did as he told us. He first bathed my hand in milk and curd, and then told me to put my hand into the hole. I did so, and felt a protrusion inside the hole. This, my friends, was the atmalingam, believed to be the most powerful of shivalingams by Hindus, after the natural lingam in manasarovar, which is believed to be the embodiment of Shiva himself.

Mantras, prayers, and teekas followed. I then enquired a bit about the history of the temple, as I was not just mildly surprised about the form of worship here. What followed surprised me further. Every temple has a story behind it. In most temples in TN(the famous ones), you will find a board somewhere inside the temple campus which tells you this story. I found none in this one. Some broken Kannada conversations with the priest and a lot of googling and wiki-ing later, this is what I found.

Ravana was a great devotee of Shiva and a devout Brahmin. Once, Shiva, extremely pleased with his prayers, appears before him and says he’ll fulfil one wish of his. Ravana, like all other “villians” in Hindu mythology, asks for immortality. So Shiva gives him a Lingam, and tells him to take it to his palace in Lanka. As all of Shiva pvt ltd offers contain terms and conditions, this one was no different. The phallice had to be carried all the way to Lanka without being kept on the ground even once. If done so, it would get embedded and no one can remove it ever. Also, his wish for immortality would remain a wish.

Now the “good” guys are real worried. Indra sets up an emergency conference with Deva and co. They need to curb the growth of Ravana somehow, so they send Ganesh(son of Shiva, the genius who granted him the wish) to stop him.

Ganesh, disguised as a Brahmin, meets Ravana when he is on his way to Lanka and the two of them walk together talking about stuff Brahmins those days used to talk about. It’s evening time, they’re in Gokarna. Prayer time for the dudes. But alas, Ravana can’t set the phallice down, so Ganesh offers to hold it while he goes to take a bath. Needless to say, he placed it on the ground.

A furious Ravana tries to use all his might to remove the phallice, but to no avail. With each mighty tug, the outer cover of the Lingam came off and fell in far off places due to conservation of momentum. The four places were Sejjeshwara, Gunavanteshwara, Murudeshwara and Dhareshwara.Thes 5 temples are known as the panch maha kshetras.

Mythology apart, its a fantastic place to visit by itself too. The name Gokarna means cow’s ear, and the name was given to the place because Shiva emerged from a cow’s ear in this place, eons ago.

What’s sad is, this isn’t a story of good winning over evil, no matter what people say. I’ve always been of the opinion Ravana had much better character than Ram, and he earned his wish. The Devas had no business to take it away from him. But Hindu mythology is replete with such stories. Maybe they left it open to interpretation and it shouldn’t be taken literally.

It was one awesome story and I was surprised I didn’t hear it earlier. The Mahabaleshwar temple too, isn’t half as famous as it should be. It would not be overstating it to say it is the Thirupathi of Shivites.

And like most other temples, this too had eason to disappoint. I found a board outside the Garba Griha saying “no foreigners allowed inside sanctum sanctorum.” This is something about Hindus I’ll never understand. What with the purity of blood and that faith can come only through birth. Something I’m hoping will soon change with time.

So if you’re planning a holiday anytime soon, keep Gokarna in mind.

 

Of oppositions, atheism, agraharams and atyachar

A guide to Tamil Nadu politics

Udal mannukku, uyir Tamizhukku(the body is for the soil and life is for Tamil). These were the words which brought Annadurai’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam to power in the 1960’s.  So great was the margin of their victory that the congress was literally driven out. This was at a time when the rest of the country wasn’t aware that parties other than the Congress even existed.

Tamil politics are, without any exaggeration, the most contradictary, confusing, and weird in the nation. First off, it’s been over four decades since a national party came to power in this Dravidian state. It’s people are cut-off from the national mainstream and want to be disassociated from the rest of the nation.

Talk to an average Tamilian and he will say “I am a Tamilian first and an Indian second. The Tamil interest is of much greater consequence to me than that of the nation.” And this is clearly seen from the fact that it’s denizens overtly support the man who was responsible for the assassination of our former Prime Minister. Tamil pride is way more important to them than national pride is.

Before you start judging the people, please think about the reasons for their behaving in such a way. Tamils are pretty much ridiculed and hated in most of north India. This post does not support either side, but merely tries to analyse the cause and consequence of the emotions which run high in our country. Most Tamilians feel the centre has been unjust to their state ever since it’s formation, which is why the anti- Hindi movement was such a huge success in the 1960’s.

Most people who visit from the north are disgusted by their adamance to not speak Hindi even if they know it, but the reason, contrary to popular belief, is not just because Karunanidhi encouraged it. Rather, MooKa encouraged it because of the public’s obstinacy.

Further, hardly anyone spoke Hindi in Tamil Nadu throughout. After Hindi was made the national language, all milestones and roadsigns were written solely in Hindi and English. Apart from the fact that they wanted it written in ther own language, it’s also true that a not so well educated guy’s vocabulary in the national language is limited to “arey bai acha acha.” Protests to get it written in Tamil as well did not yield the Congress government led by Rajaji, who even made it a compulsary language in schools. At the same time, Dravidar Kazhagam, a social service organization, spawned the Dravidar Munnetra Kazhagam- it’s political faction. These guys started the agitation, and the rest is history.

In any part of the country, it is a big thing for a Dalit to win an election anywhere except a reserved constituency. Here, on the other hand, a Dalit candidate is a norm. A forward class candidate’s win is the equivalent of a Dalit winning in another state.

The state of Indian politics at the moment:

The Congress has allied with the DMK. Another comical case of desperation overruling ideological differences. The congress is mainstream while DMK is anti-national. The Congress wants Prabhakaran dead for killing it’s leader and doesn’t mind killing a few insignificant civilians during it’s course. It therefore, supplies weapons to the Sri Lankan government. The DMK leader on the other hand calls Prabhakaran his “friend” and says he wants the LTTE to survive and fight.

End result: weapons are provided from the centre to SriLanka and the state starts an agitation against Sri Lanka using those weapons, provided by their allies. But the Congress and DMK are chaddi buddies

That’s a merger of difference in ideologies. On the other hand, let’s compare the two biggest parties in the state.

The DMK and AIADMK don’t have an iota of difference in ideology and are sworn enemies.

DMK was started by the champion of Kanchipuram- C.N. Annadurai. The AIADMK was started by MGR in memory of Annadurai to implement his ideology.

Dialogue from the movie Iruvar(translated) to best describe the difference in these two parties: “Our ideals are one, but our fortresses are different.”

Let us examine some more contradictions in my home state:

In the land of Iyers, Iyengars, Agraharams, Ayyanars, and Andal, the biggest atheism movement in this part of the world grew. Notorious for their idol breaking and blasphemy(which runs till date), the then Congress chief minister Rajaji of the Madras province, had no choice but send off his deity Balaji of Thirupathi to neighbouring Andhra when the states were formed. In exchange, Tamil Nadu got industrialised Madras, the southern port of the Brits. I digress, but that’s why Madras Tamil has Telugu and Urdu words sparsely peppered in it. e.g: jobi, Kosam, kastam, Nizam, Inam etc.

Looking at it even more microscopically, you’ll find that each district is a microcosm to this contradiction. DMK is the party which has a problem with god and religion and indulges in blasphemy. AIADMK only arrests religious heads and brings in conversion laws. The most religious of places in Tamil Nadu(Hindu) are Kanchipuram and Madurai. They are extremely religious and support the atheists with a vengeance. Thirunelveli, on the other hand, has a Christian majority, and that’s a stronghold of the AIADMK, the party which brought anti-conversion laws to the state.

Karunanidhi is a staunch atheist in the open. He asked “who is this Ram? Which engineering college did he graduate from?” when religious heads opposed the Sethusamudram project because it involved the breaking of a bridge, believed to be built by lord Ram. But it is rumoured that he visits the temple in his street at 2 in the morning to apologise for his blasphemy. Also he wears a yellow shawl, which people say is associated with religion. He is against all languages except Tamil, yet his TV channel has an English news programme.

Jayalalithaa is a very strong willed person, but not a very adept politician. During MooKa’s rule, rowdyism is given a free hand, and police powers are very limited. During her rule though, they come down on miscreants with an iron hand. She believes in numerology and is a devotee of Sri Sri Ravishankar, yet she arrested the Sankaracharya when he was suspected for murder, that is something not many politicians would be willing to try for fear of losing the Hindu majority vote bank.

She also proved that she is not for or against any religion by bringing in conversion laws at the same time. To curb the conversions to christianity through force and money, she brought in some guidelines which missionaries have to follow while carrying out conversions. This bill was soon removed because the missionaries went on a hunger strike in Velankanni and Bishops appealed to the entire Christian community to vote against her. This was again a very bold move on her part, because Christians too, are a large chunk of the population in southern TN.

The reasons for Jayalalithaa losing the 2006 elections were mainly because she fired over 7000 state government employees for staging a protest, the conversion laws, the Acharya arrest, and the Vijaykanth factor. Quite a few people who traditionally voted for her, voted for Captain. As a result of this, Captain won a lone seat in the assembly elections but got his deposit back in most constituencies. The DMK vote remained intact on the other hand. This way, the DMK gained a majority, not because of its own credibility, but because the entry of Captain into politics got Amma to lose.

I’ll end my post this time not with a poll analysis but my opinion of the two parties, and why I support one of them.

The DMK harasses the public in the name of law enforcement. MooKa changed the date of the Tamil new year. The month Chitrai is like January in the Tamil calender. He changed Thai to the first month of the year. That’s equivalent to changing new year from January to October. The only thing I can fathom from this is that he is old and will soon kick the bucket, and wants to do something to prove his might like Augustus Caesar, who tried to make August the most important month of the year.

Not only did he change the date, he also passed an oral order saying the traditional reading of the Tamil calender in temples on new year’s day must be stopped. He, as an atheist, has no reason or right to stop a community from celebrating a festival. It goes against democracy.

Also, he has increased reservation percentage to 77% in the state(as far as I remember), when the constitution clearly mentions that a figure over 50% is not permitted. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against reservation for the oppressed communities, but you don’t make the general quota to be lesser than the reserved. The forward communities are not intelligent or privileged enough to get admitted into colleges with 23% seats.

Jayalalithaa has her own flaws. She comes down too strong on issues she believes strongly against, without pausing to think about why it was caused and what effect her actions will have. But at the same time, she is fair and just. More so, she is a woman who has stood up against MooKa, who vanquished all his foes by force on his way up the ladder. Standing up to him is no small feat, even more so for a woman.

Last but not the least, she is extremely well educated, intelligent, and talented. She has an entire library of books, each and every one of which she has read. She has prowess in nine languages, and has much more experience in dealing with issues. For reasons wrong or right, I feel the educated are much better informed and can handle situations in a much more comprehensive manner.

Whether Amma is going to win this time or not is a different issue, but my support she definitely has, and I urge my fellow Tamils to follow suit.

 

Going 2 steps down

Never have I seen a state where former chief ministers are small fry. In the present Karnataka elections, you have S. Bangarappa-(CM from 90-92 representing INC) fighting B.Y. Raghavendra-son of current chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa in the Shimoga constituency, and opinion polls show that the latter has quite a good chance of winning(it’s his first election).

Deve Gowda, a former CM and former prime minister lost to a new entrant Tejaswini Gowda of the congress by a margin of 1 lakh votes in Kanakapura in 2004!

Veerappa Moily(CM 92-94 INC) is performing Dare Devil antics. He’s leaving his constituency which voted him in for the past 15 years and is standing in a far off place. Bold move. A bit too bold in fact.

As for the others such as Dharam Singh and J.H Patel, they don’t even have an appearance at the moment. S.M Krishna and Kumaraswamy have been reduced to whimpers after completion of their terms.

In the end, it’s the present CM who tramples in everywhere and says “I’m Yet-your-appa”

 

The Swiss, the swindler, and the stupid

We all know that one of the BJP’s points in the election manifesto is to bring back the approximate amount of Rs. 25 lakh crore stashed away is tax havens abroad, particularly Switzerland. The Congress response to this was that they are doing the “requisite” to bring this money back and doesn’t need lessons from the BJP. The media response to this was to laugh and speculate in jest.

Hardcore supporters of the Congress even question as to why the BJP didn’t do it’s part to bring this money back when in power. Since NaMo* or LalAd** have not been instrumental in giving their reply so far, I shall do my part in giving a(largely) neutral account of this.

The attention span and memory of the public is shortening at an alarming pace, and the media, as usual, conveniently forgets, the real reason why this point was brought out by the NDA.

Let’s get to the heart of the matter. Switzerland has certain tax laws which enable citizens of other countries to open numbered accounts in their banks. These banks have security measures which make Fort Knox go green with envy. They won’t reveal the identities of these account holders even at gun point.

As a result, you have the rich from all over the world making trips to the Alps every year to stash away some of their “hard earned” money. Recent information reveals that it’s the heads of state of the poorest countries in Africa who hold the largest accounts. They aren’t able to enjoy the money themselves as they are under the public eye at all times, nor do they let the country use what’s rightfully theirs.

Back to our story. The Swiss goons usually never reveal the identities of their clients, because their laws protect them. But what happened last year was, the head honcho of the guys who speak the “high” form of their(the Swiss) language(for the Deutsch illiterate, the Germans), pressurized the Swiss govt. to release the names of the Germans holding accounts in some particular banks.

Needless to say, they obliged, and in that list, the Germans found the names of about 300-400 Indians as well, along with citizens of other countries. As they had no use for these, they sent word to each of these countries. When India received this information last year, it came under the jurisdiction of the then finance minister- P. Chidambaram. He was told that the information would be given, but they need to ask for it in writing as a formality. He in turn gave them a request which a only a man trained in Harvard can:

“Give us the list of all the income tax payees from India holding numbered accounts in Switzerland.” Now I’m assuming my dear readers have something in their craniums/crania, and thus I ask you all to think;

how is the German government supposed to know/ infer who in that list is an income tax payee of India and who isn’t?

And so that list remained in a shelf in Deutschland and is gathering dust till date. And the UPA claims they are doing the “needful” to obtain that money. Wow. No prizes for guessing why PC did such a thing.

THAT is why the NDA couldn’t do this during their own time.

Update: Swiss bank rules were relaxed only in 2006-07 under pressure from USA, UK, and various countries in Europe including Germany. Before that they were rock-solid. Remember Bofors anyone?

And as for the members of the press poking fun at Advani for bringing this point to the fore; please read the article titled”Swiss ask US to drop tax evasion case” in the Indian Express-27/4/2009. The summary of the article is that UBS, a bank in Switzerland, has agreed to pay the American government a penalty of $ 780 million, and also reveal the identities of 300 of it’s American clients to avoid legal trouble, but Obama has refused and the case continues. The reasons for the US and India pursuing this is the same- recession. This money can save us from all our troubles.

Article titled “NaMo rules Nanoland” in “The Week” calls this statement of a 55 year old security guard in Gujarat “Times have changed and there is recession. We need this money now” blind faith towards Modi. But I feel that’s very mature coming from someone of his stature in society, and I agree. I’m not blind to the sins of Modi either.

These banks are estimated to have in totality around $ 11 trillion, that’s 11*10^ 12. For those who think in Rupees, it’s Rs. 5.5*10^14 or Rs. 550 trillion in today’s exchange rates. Of this, the Indian amount is estimated at Rs. 25 lakh crores. That’s 13 times larger than our foreign debt! The interest generated by this itself will be larger than our budget. This amount can not only save India from the recession but also eradicate poverty and get our GDP up by more than 50% (this is when I get dreamy and assume that a social evil called corruption does not exist).

Coming to the Advani bashing(you thought I was lying weren’t you), Chidambaram said the right thing when he said LalAd was unwittingly warning the guys who actually have accounts up there, and they can easily make arrangements to transfer their money elsewhere. Assuming the BJP does come to power, it will take a while before they can actually get through the bureaucracy and start letting the money flow in. By the time you get to the banks, the money would have vanished. A job like this has to be conducted in absolute secrecy, with even the second and third level politicians not catching a whiff of what’s going on, and the media being kept as far away as Yasser Arafat from a Barmitsvah. And if that’s done, the human rights activists and fans of “democracy” will cry foul.

Secondly, getting it back is by no means a simple job. For one, Switzerland in not the only country which is a tax haven, it is just the most well known. Various other countries in South America and islands around it, Mauritius and the Cherman islands also have such provisions. It is just not possible to tackle each and every one of them.

And third, supposing you do manage to get your hands on the account, it’s contents, and the name of the person who holds it, you will not find anyone willing to own up to the account. The reason is this:

If you have an account containing 50 crores worth of cash, not only will the government seize that money, but also charge you with a penalty for that amount. So you’d be better off losing the account alone.

Due to all the other factors mentioned, this cannot be implemented by the NDA and will not be implemented by the UPA even if they could.

In the end, you’re still going to have the ameer baap ka bigada bachcha(spoilt son of a rich dad) who’ll squander his inheritance just to change the colour of black money, and you can do nothing to stop him, so there. I said it before and I’ll say it again- corruption can be removed(or tackled very effectively) only in movies like Sivaji.

* NaMo: Narendra Modi

** LalAd: Lal Krishna Advani/ Lalchand Kishenchand Advani

Sorry I’m a thambi at heart. Every politician has to have a name like “MooKa.” It’s fun

Other such names- anyone who can guess who all of them are wins a free trip to where ever you are right now

SoGa, LaPiYa, MuSi, RaGa, JaJa, ChaBaNa, SuSwa, RaSi, DeGo, BooBha, MaSi, NiKu, VaRa(ha), (ma)RaTha, ViDesh.

Don’t aske me who they are. I might forget the acronyms myself in a while.

 

Twin spark, fuel injection and Transformers

Bajaj does it again. Right from the “Humara Bajaj” days to the beginning of the “definitely male” saga, they never failed to strike a chord with their target audience. This is by far their best ad ever! It even received a mention in autoblog. The two R’s of the auto industry in India, Ratan Tata and Rahul Bajaj, have raised the bar real high. I raise my hat to you(figuratively).

Plus, Bajaj is launching it’s new 300 cc Pulsar with twin spark ignition in the US market! Here are some comments I found in autoblog.

Jeff Banks:

Upon checking their website, i’m even more pissed off.

They have a picture of their Pulsar 220 with the rider putting his knee down on a track. Plus it has:

-F&R disc brakes
-Fuel injection
-Tubeless tires
-Digital readout w/ oil temp

Air-cooled thumper sport bike? Yes please! Plus it’s probably cheaper than the Ninja 250 (which is Kawasaki’s best selling bike by far)

Asifgrkhan:

@Jeff Banks
Here is what will piss you off more. The 220 probably costs less than $2,000 in India. That is in a country where an Accord V6 or the Passat 2.0 retails for $50,000+.

.

Rahul my boy, you have nothing to worry about. It’s all written.

Pulsar 300

 

Mayawati and her party BJP

Hai I am an uber cool guy who started following the elections last week and boy am I excited. In my family, the people who are least interested in politics are my brother. I told him to start following but he say he want to study for entrance exam. He doesn’t care about our country waste fellow.

I am a student of Chemical engineering third year in aniramzee’s college. I don’t like wasting my time watching sitcoms and youtube videos. I want to be busy always. So I joined a web-designing class last month. I also joined an off-roader building class this semester conducted by the mechanical department. That is how I know Anirudh.  My classmates told me I was fool to join but I told them I want exposure in all branches of engineering before I graduate. So what if I don’t have any projects related to Chemical on my resume? I’m learning that only in college na why waste time learning more about it outside?

I don’t understand any of what they teach in that class yaar, so I keep asking Anirudh questions in the middle. He said he also doesn’t understand but how can that be? He’s in mechanical na. He should know.

Today in class Anirudh was very quiet. Because I am interested in politics, I thought I would talk to him also. Maybe he also is interested in developing the country.

I am a very big fan of Mayawati and her party BJP. Anirudh told me her party is BSP but how can that be? I saw her right hand man on TV last week. He is a very good guy. I liked his speech. He told they are all just like the common people. They go to the villages and talk to the public, they partake food with them and drink water from their wells. Stupid Anirudh said that will make them stay hungry for a whole day but what does he know, he didn’t sawed that speech na. Uttar Pradesh has developed like mad after BJP came to power. Everyone is happy and has electricity.

Initially even I thought he was faking, but I could see he had something in him. He spoke from his heart. I thought I will vote for the elephant only this time in Bombay. Then I came to know from Anirudh that BJP is there only in Uttar Pradesh. So only I have decided not to vote for them. Now I have to look for another party to vote for. But I don’t think anyone can be as good as Mayawati.

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Sigh…you do have these cases everywhere don’t you.

BTW, I’m not exaggerating one bit. All characters in this post are purely original. Resemblance to certain persons alive but should be dead do exist and is not coincidental.

Update: A friend in my hostel didn’t find anything wrong with his thinking BJP was under Mayawati. He said it’s his “opinion.” Another product of Manipal University.

 

The poonal poem

Ode to the threads which straddle my left shoulder

Three threads for the Elephant king riding his mouse,

Six for the protector of the universe on his giant snake.

Nine for mortal men doomed to die,

None for the kshatriya kings on their golden thrones.

In the land of TamBram, where the kudumis lie.

Three threads for celibacy, nine threads for family,

One day to hold them all, and in the temple, don them.

In the land of TamBram, where the kudumis lie.

Key:

Brahmins wear the sacred thread, which is called the poonal. When unmarried, they wear 3 threads, after marrying it becomes six, and finally, depending on the sub-sect they belong to, they wear nine either when they become fathers or when their own father passes away.

The elephant king refers to Ganesh, who is a brahmachari, i.e, he is unmarried.His vehicle is a mouse.

Vishnu is the protector of the universe who resides on a giant snake with his wife Lakshmi, and he doesn’t have kids. Hence the six threads.

On the day of Avani-Avittam, Tamil brahmins perform a ceremony to cast off their old thread and don a new one.

Kudumi is the Tamil word which refers to the bun Brahmins in the olden days used to tie their hair in.

TamBram- Tamil Brahmin

Education was wasted on those who haven’t seen the original:

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

 

But where did it all come from?

Recession? What recession?
You hear it all these days;

1.I’m sorry I can’t call you this month sweety. My dad’s wallet is affected by the recession.
2. The fish aren’t biting these days. Probably cos of the recession.
3. The guys aren’t trying to grab my ass in the bus.Oh maybe recession.

But amidst all of this, when we’re bang in the middle of the Parliamentary elections, deep inside the recession with a myriad number of security threats, the country has people with enough money to hold the IPL in another country with just as much grandeur as they would’ve in India.

To top it all, thousands of citizens have the moolah to travel to South Africa and back for pure entertainment value.

But where did it all come from?