Doodles of a crazy man!

Some Things Change...Some Dont

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:37:00 +0000

Remember the baddies in movies of yesteryear who would tie up the old rich man and threaten him of dire consequences if he did not offer that "one signature" so that they can get the possession of his bungalow, car, factories, properties, his undergarments etc? How simple were those times! Nowadays even for a simple home loan, the bank guys insist you to sign in at least fifty places. No wonder the recent movies have no baddies who ask for that "one signature". I am sometimes happy that such naivety in Indian movies is gone. But, I sometimes miss the stupid charm of such scenes!

***

Another major improvement in Indian cinema is the disappearance of the "poor hero". I dont think there is any other country which glorified and celebrated poverty as much as we did. In the old movies, the poor guy is a honest 'paapa' person. And rich guy is evil. Almost always. The reality is, a poor guy need not always be the one who was cheated by the evil guy. He could a person who is lazy, or one who blows off all that he earns on gambling and drinking. A rich guy need not always be the one who exploits the poor, he could be one who earned money by working hard and being smart. Alwa? The common dialogue in the old movies are "I have no dhana, but I have guna". The sheer contempt they exhibit towards dhana is so meaningless. Just like that forward which said - "Money can buy you mattress, but not sleep". What they forget is that comfortable mattress and sleep are not mutually exclusive. If you are cursed with sleeplessness, dont you think its better to suffer lying on a comfortable mattress? This chee-cheeing of money has gone of late. Thankfully!

***

Indian movies have become "bigger and bolder" over the years. Read it as more budget and less costume. But, the interesting thing is that even now, all the lovemaking scenes are accompanied by songs or background music. Not sure if censors object to moaning in Indian cinema. Well, I think I am having high expectations. We are yet to have a comfortable kissing scene in Indian cinema and I am asking for much more. Remember the Vidya Balan - Madhavan kiss from "Guru"? Thinking of it always makes me laugh. You could easily finish a Tower of Hanoi puzzle with 6 discs by the time they searched for each others' lips. I think Madhavan might have felt that Vidya Balan's big nose was too much of an obstacle :)

***

I dont know if you have been in such an argument, but I always have the knack of finding that Some Other Person (SOP) for such an argument.
SOP: I dont like Dr. Rajkumar. He is not a nice person.
Me: Why do you say that?
SOP: Because he has done nothing for the people.
Me: Means?
SOP: Look at Rajnikanth, he gifts autos to his fans. Chiranjeevi also gives a lot to his fans. What has Rajkumar done to his fans?
Me: Why should he?
SOP: (with a perplexed look) What do you mean why? He is what he is because of the love of the people. He should do something for the people.
Me: You got it all wrong. The thing is he is an actor, thats his profession. People like his acting, they see his movies, he is popular. Thats it. People pay up to see what they like. Would you expect a very famous money-making blogger to donate something to his readers because he is what he is due to his readers? Ridiculous! So, if someone has made lots of money, its up to him how he wants to use it. If he wants to do some charity, thats fine. If he wants to spend it himself, that should be fine too. Nobody has a right to tell someone what he has to do with his money.

I have not got a proper response from any of the SOPs. If you are one of those SOPs, let me know what you think.

IPL - Fun Unlimited

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:56:00 +0000

Ravi Shastri is a great commentator, or so he thinks. Its not too surprising when someone is in the company of Sanjay Manjrekar, Arun Lal and the likes. And lets not forget, he was the inventor of that historic phrase - "The last thing the team needs at this stage is a run out". As if there would be some stage when "run out" will move up in the "necessary" list. Well, anyways!

Thank heavens, his statements are not as ridiculous as Arun Lal who would say - "Rameez, I reckon when the required run rate keeps shooting up like this, the batsmen have to get the boundaries".

But, Shastri provided ample entertainment last night at the IPL finals presentation ceremony.
"Ladies and gentlemen, on stage we have Sharad Pawar, president of Board of Control for Cricket in India, Lalit Modi - Chairman and Commissioner of IPL,......., Sharad Pawar - president of Board of Control for Cricket in India"
With so much (repeated)attention showered, no wonder Pawar was a happy man!

Shastri to Yusuf Pathan: "You scripted a fabulous win! Were your nerves jangling when you went out to bat?"
Yusuf Pathan: "Hh Hh Hh"
Yusuf Pathan took almost two minutes before he said a comprehensible word. He looked like a mixture of Yuvraj Singh facing a Murali doosra and Saurav Ganguly completing a third run.
Yusuf Pathan: "Bowlers ne acche performance diya. Shane-bhai ne accha dekh baal kiya. Hh Hh Hh..."
Shastri was visibly disappointed that Pathan did not pick the "scripting" and "jangling" part of it and promptly switched over to hindi.
Shastri: "Jab aap batting karne ke liye aaye, kya aap nervous thae?"
Yusuf: "Mashallah, main nervous thaa. Par main Watson se baath kartha raha"
Now, if Yusuf could not understand the "scripting" and "jangling" bit of Shastri, funny how he understood the "maete", "baetsman" accent of Watson?

Javed Miandad had a long standing record of the most ridiculous english speaking Pakistani. My favorite of Miandad's has always been - "The team play well. All batsman plays well. And bowlers plays well".
Sohail Tanveer grabbed that record to his kitty along with the purple cap.
Shastri: "Terrific match Sohail. Were your nerves jangling during the final over?"
Sohail shook his head rigorously and mumbled something that was as unplayable as his bowling. What a fitting response to Shastri's overused "jangling" statement!

Last but not the least, while introducing the Chennai Super Kings players when they were out to receive their medals:
"Makhaya Ntini. Terrific athlete. Great performance today. He has added color to this Chennai Super Kings".
Now, did anyone else found that statement unintentionally racist? Or is it just me? :D

Giftsoo Giftsu

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Fri, 23 May 2008 07:59:00 +0000

I am too just-married to get tired of writing stuff related to the wedding. Gone are those days when people were anxious to know what gifts they got. Nowadays its all about hoping that the unwanted gifts dont exceed the storage space at your home. There are 3 broad categories when it comes to gifting 'items':
Innovative types
Only 2% belong to this category. They know your tastes, they know how usable it is to you, they know that the chances of someone else gifting the same item are slim.

Ganesha types
If I were Lord Shiva or Vishnu, I would have cursed the entire humanity for how I am ignored when it comes to gift items.
A typical conversation of a couple goes about like this:
Husband: We have to go to that wedding in the evening.
Wife: What gift shall we buy?
Husband: Some Ganesha gift item of course.
Wife: (smiling) Of course! (What else?)

54% of the people fall under this category. Ganesha has got great range, he comes in all forms - from the most artistic to highly innovative to funny to absolutely ridiculous. My brother has a collection of over 200 Ganeshas - dancing, playing music, sitting, standing, sleeping, programming - you name it, we have it. So every time someone gives a Ganesha, its mostly the one you already have. Or even worse, you get two pieces of the same variety on the same day. I love you Ganesha, but bring on the Ayyappas, Kaalabhairavas and Gajalakshmis please!

Clock types
No occasion is complete without a few unusable clocks being gifted. 54% of the people fall under this category as well. I am seriously planning to have one of living room walls as a "clock wall" and hang all the clocks that we got, each one set to the time zone of a different country.

Those of you who must be wondering why the percentages are not adding up properly, 10% of the people actually gift clocks with Ganesha on them! :D

*****

If you are not the innovative types when it comes to gifts, better stick to giving cash. You will be really appreciated. There are many varieties in the cash givers as well and each one may belong to one of more of these categories:
Anonymous
There will always be a few who do not write their names on the gift covers. Few are definitely the "dont-want-to-be-discovered-of-giving-so-less" type. The rest belong to the very old thinking that even writing their names on the covers amounts to showing off.

Coverless Anonymous
Among the gift covers, you will at least find a note given by someone who just slipped it into your hands while offering a handshake. May be these are the ones who paid an unexpected visit, had no gift cover, at the same time did not wish to go giftless.

The One Rupee
They will never ever give you money without a one rupee coin along with the gift amount. One logic I have heard from them is that "plus one" means continual growth and thats wishing for prosperity. 50, 100, 500, 1000 just dont exist in their worlds. It has to be 51, 101 and so on. The funny thing about this is, may be 50 years ago when one rupee was still a decent gift amount, did these people give two rupees? :D

Documenter
This, at least to me, is a new phenomenon. Of people writing "100/-" in the corner of the cover, near the opening and even sometimes as a heading on the cover. They are exactly opposite to the "Anonymous" types. They want the giftees to know how much they gave. Even if the money accidentally falls off from the cover, they ensure that you know how much they had actually gifted you.

Staple, Gum, Staple-n-Gum
Some staple on the cover, some staple on the cover and the note together. Some use gum to close the covers. And some are so generous in the usage of the gum as well as staples that I have a few notes that I am not able to take off from the cover!

*****

On a completely different note, have you noticed that even in today's times, most of the men hesitate to shake hands with the bride and most women hesitate to shake hands with the groom when they come to wish the couple on the stage?

Scenes From A Marriage

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:25:00 +0000

I think only a misandric person could have formulated the customs in a South Indian marriage. How else can you explain the dhaare ceremony where the bride will be in a beautiful saree and the groom in a ridiculously translucent white kachche? The bride gets her hair beautifully styled and the groom gets a mysore peta to cover his receding hairline. Utmost attention is given to the bride's face for her to look divine, while all that the groom gets is two drishti bottu (to ward off the evil eye) placed with such precision that guarantees maximum possible pathetic looks! Trust me, every man finds his woman absolutely stunning in the wedding saree. But, I am yet to meet a woman who thought her husband looked mind blowing in that white kachche. Not just that, I spent the last week before marriage running from store to store searching for that elusive white underwear (you guessed it right, to go along with the translucent white kachche) while the wife (the then fiance) was shopping for her jewelry and taking tips from parlor aunty on how to look even more stunning.

*****

Feminists who scream hoarse about patriarchy and all that crap have no clue how men are actually discriminated in the society. Men just do the "I am the boss" act, but its the women who pull all the strings. Women in south india have this habit of gifting each other "blouse piece" during any religious or social occasion. Men usually get nothing, the lucky ones at the most get a kerchief. If you are in the closest family circles, the women get nice sarees when all you get is a lousy "shirt piece" (yes, the white shirt with blue stripes or brown checks) Researches have shown that the gift shirt pieces get redistributed 5 times more than gifted sarees.

*****

The most used phrase on the reception stage by friends/relatives is "Please bring him/her home sometime". Apart from "Happy married life" of course. I have already promised 1583 people that we, the newly wed couple would "definitely" visit their home. Even if we visit one family every weekend, I will almost be 60 by the time I fulfill my promise. By then, we will not be a newly wed couple though.

*****

"Remember me?" is the most tricky question, often asked by that over enthusiastic uncle on stage when you are already on the verge of collapsing due to dehydration and bright video recorder lights. "Hmm, yes uncle" and a sheepish smile works most of the times, while your mind is busy guessing if he is a distant cousin of dad, an old colleague of mom or someone who was supposed to be going to the wedding in the adjacent choultry. The even-more-enthusiastic uncles dont stop there, they come up with a "Tell me who I am". Seeing the name written on the gift cover from the corner of your eye helps sometimes (It can backfire too, if he is giving the gift on behalf of his aged father who could not attend the wedding) "I know uncle, but I dont know exactly how to tell it" is the safest, most innocent-looking and honest-but-not-rude answer.

*****

Sanskrit was my first language in high school and college. I understand it quite decently. But, I have no idea what all things I have promised to the poojari during the marriage ceremony. Just like knowing english does not ensure full understanding of what you have agreed upon while signing up your home loan papers. You just have to do it blindly. And trust your lucky stars!

Bells They Are A Ringin'

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 07:06:00 +0000

Pauline Thomason once said "Love is blind, but marriage is an eye-opener". But, even the pre-marriage phase also can open your eyes to so many things. And if you are as general-knowledge-deficient as me, every moment is a new discovery. If you have a sense of humor, each discovery can be complete fun.

***

Just before the saree shopping, mom asked about my fiancee - "AvLu work sarees wear maadthaLa?"
I understood it as "work 'ge' sarees" and told - "No mom, she generally wears jeans or salwars to work"
Mom was least surprised by the all too familiar stupidity of her son and said - "Work sarees do not mean the sarees which you wear to work. It means sarees that involve lot of handiwork like embroidery, mirror work etc."

***

Shopping for sarees will introduce you to so many new things - crape silk, tusser silk, raw silk, butta, mango border, peacock border, temple border, self, contrast, double color - the sheer magnitude of terminologies can cause a data overflow error! The shopkeeper comes up with different adjectives for even the most pathetic sarees, a skill that can put HRs to shame. Self border rich pallu, contrast saree grand look, big border traditional wear, lateshht dejign fancy saree - believe me, getting this knowledge imparted can be a very humbling experience.

***

The interesting thing is that while most saree shop keepers are such great ego boosters, the shopkeepers of men's dresses are in complete contrast (Yes, its a contrast, not a self :D)
You go to buy a formal shirt and the one Hritik is wearing in the ad looks very good. You ask the shopkeeper if he has the same piece and try it on. It looks quite ridiculous on you. You ask the shopkeeper if its a different shade or something. The shopkeeper would say its the exact same piece with a big "Thats Hritik, this is you" smile.

You look at some other trousers and ask your fiancee - "Will this look good on me?" and the enthusiastic shopkeeper jumps in the middle - "Sir, you go for that one - that one would look good on you. Since you are not tall sir, this will not suit you..."

You go for the suit trial and ask the tailor - "Is this okay? Or has this become a little big?", the tailor who has no idea of your beaten-up morale tells "This is perfect saar. Since you dont have broad shoulders, it looks like a little big thats all. Otherwise its just perfect"

Thats when I realized why men and women differ so much in their shopping frequencies. Women go to shopping to boost their egos. Men avoid it to protect their already low self-esteem from hitting rock bottom.

***

The other thing that strikes you at this stage is the importance of gold in human lives. Mythologies are full of gold related stories. "Hiranya garbha" or the golden womb from which the universe is formed, bears an uncanny resemblance to the big bang theory. Hiranyakashyapu and Hiranyaksha were the earliest of demons - kind of Bhimas and Chemmanurs of demonosphere. The earliest known story about gold was from Ramayana. One idyllic afternoon, Sita spotted a golden colored deer in the forest and suddenly realized that she had not shopped for gold from the last 10 days or so. When Rama was back from his jungle jogging, Sita looked at Ram in a way that makes men ask "What do you want honey?". Sita in a very husky voice said - "I want gold dear". Rama, who had studied mostly in bhojpuri medium schools understood it as "I want gold deer" and killed the golden deer Mareecha. This enraged Ravana, who then decided to kidnap Sita. The rest, as they say, is mythology.

The anthropologists also believe that the discovery of gold changed the equations in human society. In the very early hunter-gatherer societies, the persons who were strong, who could fight with animals, who could run for miles were considered to be very useful in the tribe. So the strong, big, fat, stout, sturdy people were well respected. The big, strong, sturdy guys got all the great girls (which means big, strong, sturdy girls) in the tribe. The thin, slim, sleek, delicate types were constantly ridiculed and were subjected to social bullying all the time. "Thin is in" is believed by many anthropologists to be the first ever hate slogan - to force the thin, slim types not to come out of caves. Within a few hundred years, gold was discovered and the big, strong, sturdy guys started losing out to the thin, slim guys who had found gold. But, this created a peculiar situation. The gold discovered was still not enough for the big, well built girls of the tribe. Jean Pierre, the first known statistician cum fashionista discovered that the thinner the girls are, the lesser the gold required and he manipulated the century-old hate slogan "Thin is in" into a very popular fashion statement. Humans, even today, have not discovered enough gold that meets the demand - and the fashionistas have maintained the balance with the still popular "Thin is in"!

***

Marriage is not without its share of compromises. If you take my example, I always wanted to marry on a wednesday in some city far far away from Bangalore. Sounds weird? There is an interesting logic to that. If you are marrying on a wednesday outside Bangalore, only those people who are very close to you will attend your wedding - applying leave and taking the trouble of traveling to a different city. Its a very effective method of avoiding unwanted acquaintances who might attend your wedding for the only reason that its anyway a holiday and the choultry is very near to their homes! But, I have compromised - for getting married in Bangalore on a sunday. Yes, this sunday! :)

When I Almost Became A Movie Star

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 06:55:00 +0000

It was late night. Surprisingly, the first auto I stopped agreed to come from Rajajinagar to BTM. The driver looked like Vijay of the movie "Duniya". He had long hair, wore a gaudy shirt and sported a 92.7 FM logo on his faded cap. I dont initiate conversations with auto drivers in general. But, when they start an interesting conversation, I know how to keep it going.

He was silent for almost 15 minutes.
"Saar, I will get the gas filled for the auto. Jusht 2 minutes", he said as he took the deviation off the main road. I remembered my dad warning me just an hour back that Bangalore is no longer safe and to be careful while going home.
"It wont take long, right?", I tried not to sound too worried and suspicious.
"Jusht 2 minutes saar. We can join the main road directly from there itself. See, here is my driver identity. I did not get time to stick it on to my seat", he seemed to sense my uneasiness.
"No thats fine, I just meant to ask if it wont take too long. I had to go to office early tomorrow, thats why I asked", I smile sheepishly.
"What are you working as?", he asks while taking a weird U-turn near the petrol bunk that seemed to defy all laws of physics.
"I am a software engineer", I blurt out.
"You also do computer graphics? If you know anybody who can do movie posters, tell me. There is an opening in Gandhinagara (Kannada movie industry) they pay 8000 saar", he tells me as he fills the gas into his auto. "My auto was missing from one month saar. Got it just today"
"Oh, what happened?", I knew I was getting into a long conversation zone. He got off the petrol bunk and joined the main road.
"I am actually Vinod Rajkumar's car driver saar". The way he legitimizes Vinod Raj's surname amuses me. "I had rented the auto to a friend. He owed me lot of money and also escaped with my auto. I spent so much money in finding it. When I found him, his wife begged me not to beat him up. Even Vinod anna and amma (Leelavathi, Vinod Raj's mom - he calls her amma) told me to forgive him and forget about that money. Bere yaar hathra aadroo avnu hinge maadidre majestic li hoge ne"

The way he said "hoge" makes me uncomfortable. [For those who are not familiar with Kannada or this slang, "hoge" means smoke - which is symbolic of post death ritual. The sheer audacity and casual carelessness towards death gives "hoge" that chilling effect]

"Vinod anna said that shooting will start next month, and I have to help them in farming also. Amma cooks nice food to us all the time. Vinod anna lost almost one crore ten lakhs when he made 'Shukra'. Even 'Inthi Ninna Preethiya' did not yield much money. So next month we are starting 'Govindu, Karnataka Nindhu'"
"Did you not enter into the movie industry?", I ask him.
"I have acted in 'Shukra' saar. I was the villain who raped the heroine and killed the inspector. And then Vinod anna comes back and takes revenge. Nowadays, anybody who has made some money in real estate business can cast his son as a hero. After 'Mungaru Male' and 'Duniya' were hits, everyone wants to act as a hero. 'Nanda Nanditha' was good, the girl has acted well, even the hero was okay. 'One Two Three' was nice saar. Full comedy. 'Om shanti Om' was good too, did you watch it?"
"I saw 'Om Shanti Om'. You watch lot of movies, is it?
"Tamil, telugu, hindi - we watch all and remake them into Kannada. Who writes original stories in Kannada today saar? And did you know, even the hindi people copy from english movies?"

As we were still half way to BTM, I decide to ask him about the actors. Movie trivia flows effortlessly as he speaks.
"Ganesh, saar, has same type of dialogues and mannerisms in all movies, he will fade away. And he will be replaced by 'Nanda Nanditha' hero. As far as I have heard, Shivrajkumar is the most decent in his family. Puneet earns one and half crores per film saar, but no commissions, no rollcall. Nenapirali Prem, 'Sainika' hero, 'Shishya' hero - they are all big rowdies saar. Darshan is good, he has struggled a lot to reach where he is today. He used to do up-and-down from Mysore in lorries so that he can save 20 rupees. My friend who is a lorry cleaner has told me this. But, Darshan is not proud, very down to earth. And Vishnuvardhan - he is almost God saar. His heart is purer than Rajkumar's. He has got homes built for all the people working for him, and he treats all the people - from his car driver to bathroom cleaner - equally".
As I keep wondering if someone needs to be employed full time as a bathroom cleaner, he abruptly stops the auto at a junction near BTM. "If you take a left from here and then first right, the third house is Darshan's"

"Why do Kannada movies get their heroines from Bombay?", I ask him, half expecting to hear stories about Kannada heroines not 'compromising' to 'expose' when a 'role demands'!
"Kannada heroines ge kobbu saar. This 'Cheluvina Chittara' heroine got 25 lakhs for that movie. Before that, she had got only 10000 for 'Shishya'. Now, she is demanding 1.5 crores saar, Narayan has filed a court case also. Kobbu saar, kobbu. But, heroines from Bombay, they are inquisitive about our industry and want to prove something.", he said dashing all my hopes of some juicy gossip.

As he takes the last turn towards my home, he makes me an offer - "People in our industry loot a lot for giving an acting chance. If you want to act, dont go anywhere. Come to our office, give 3 photos of yours, mention my name on the backside. I will get you a chance, no money. I am the one who processes all these things in Vinod anna's office"

As I get down from the auto, I imagine myself in a movie awards function, dedicating my first award to this driver.
When you are not talented enough or ambitious enough, you should at least be brave enough.

I sit here and blog, while I could have been applying make up in the van or watching that driver get beaten up yet again trying to rape Vinod anna's onscreen sister!

PJ Proverbs

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 07:45:00 +0000

Disclaimer: Good understanding of Hindi, English, Kannada is recommended. And absolute tolerance towards non-sense is mandatory.

I was just thinking about how some proverbs have multiple meanings when you interpret it using multiple languages.

There is a proverb in Kannada called "Hani hani kooDidare haLLa" (Same meaning as "little drops of water makes a mighty ocean")
Hani = Drop; haLLa = Water body
Now, "hani" sounds exactly like "honey". "Honey" is a term used to address a very lovable female (or male depending on your gender and orientation!) Now "Honey honey kooDidare" means adding many such lovable females to your list - which means having multiple affairs. "haLLa" can also be interpreted as in "haLLa hidyadu" which means "to be in ruins". So, this proverb also means that multiple affairs are not advisable.

Have you noticed that people from different countries have different body shapes? To be more specific, butt size varies from one race to the other. The asians (excluding the Indians) have the smallest butt sizes - you can almost call them non-existent! Next comes the Indians, followed by the Caucasians. Africans undoubtedly have the biggest butt sizes. There is a beautiful hindi proverb that sums it all up:
"Jaisa des waisa base" ;)

Tagged!

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 07:34:00 +0000

Parijata has tagged me to list five posts of mine with the following subjects:

Family I have rarely written about my family. The only one I could find was the visit to Chamundi hills with my brother.

Friends There are very few posts I have written about my friends too :( Now I feel like I am too self-obsessed than what I originally thought myself to be. The only post I could find was one of the conversations I had with my friend Bata.

Myself My blog is too full of myself, but there are only few posts that I love when I read it again at a later date. My first earthquake was definitely one of them. The history behind my name is another. And how can I forget Crime Diary that made me quite famous :)

My love If "My love" means the usual "My love", I have not blogged about that ;) But, let me interpret this in a generic way as something I love - and yes, you guessed it right, it has to be movies! I like India's contribution to world cinema and of course my blog post on Woody Allen (no, I tell it for one last time - he is not my alter ego ;)) I thought Jodha Akbar was quite funny too.

Anything I like For some reason, I like this attempt at story writing.

Now I tag Bikerdude, Madhuri, Soumia, Venu, Krupa.

Jodha Akbar

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 06:17:00 +0000

Most of the people unnecessarily hype up Akbar's religious tolerance. Not that he was not a religiously tolerant man, but what annoys me is that his other great qualities are completely overlooked in this frenzy. Akbar was not only one of the earliest kings who started the trend of inter-religious marriages, but also perhaps the first king to prove that inter-lingual marriages can work.

Who was 'that' wife, you might be wondering right? Its the same Jodha, the rajput princess! "What? we saw the movie and both of them seemed to speak Hindi and as far as we remember we did not see any subtitles when either of them spoke. Are you sure?" If these are the questions you are having, step back for a minute and observe what you had overlooked. Jodha spoke 'shuddh hindi' with an overdose of sanskrit, a language that would have become extinct, if not for those uninhabitable suburbs of Barjatya's Sundarnagar. Akbar spoke his hindi with heavy influences of urdu, arabic and persian. To call both of them as the same language is as ignorant as calling all the people living down south as 'madrasis', just because their languages 'sound' very similar.

A typical conversation between Jodhaa and Akbar generally went like this:
Akbar: "Mashallah, kya khoobi, kitna noor hai aapke soorat mein"
Jodha: "Hey Bhagwan, aap bhi toh itne sundar aur prakashmaan hai, mukh thoda lamba hai, paranthu kya thejaswi dikthe hain aap"
Akbar: "Hum aap se nikaah karne ki khwahish rakthe hain. Aap ki intezaar-e-raazi mein bechain hai hum"
Jodha: "Mai bhi aap se vivaah karne ke liye uthsuk hoon, paranthoo...ek vichaar hai jo aapko krodhith banaa saktha hain, paranthoo..."
Akbar: "Lekin? Be-shakkh aap uska zikr kar sakthe hain. Aap sirf mallika-e-hindustan hee nahin aap hamari kaabil-e-maaf-o-ghussa bhi hain..."
Jodha: "Mujhe Bhaarath ki raani hone ki aasha toh hain, par main Kishan bhagwan ki bhakth hoon aur..."
Akbar: "Bismillah, hum prasann huye...uff, oh no, hum khush huye...khuda ki jo bhi kadr karthe hai woh hameh pasand hai, chaahe naam jo bhi ho..."
Jodha: "Paranthoo...hamari saas, I mean aapki ammi jaan ko dukkh ho saktha hai na?"
Akbar: "Naheen, ammi jaan jaanthi hain ki mazhab mazhab hai. Fateh fateh hai. Pyaar pyaar hai. Aur war war hai"
Jodha: "Hum bhi isme vishwas rakthe hain. Ki dharm aur prem ka aakraman ya yuddh ke saath koyi sambandh nahin hona chahiye"
Akbar: "Subhanalllah. Yaa parwardegaar. Yaa Khwaja. Hum elaan-e-muhabbat karthe hain. Jab Jodha Akbar hai raazi toh kya karega Baazi" (both smile at the then futuristic joke on Ashutosh)
Jodha: "Hum bhi aap se bahut prem karthe hain, haay bhagwaan" (gets shy for a moment, forgetting that she is a rajput)
Akbar: "Yeh daastaan-e-ishq-o-muhabbat duniya yaad rakhegi"
Jodha: "Jab tak rahega Taare Zameen Par, tab tak rahega Jodha Akbar" (gives the expression of wow-did-not-realize-it-rhymes)

Akbar and Jodha showed that language is not a barrier and communication can happen through food, jewelry and not to forget through bodies (now dont get dirty ideas, I was talking about sword flighting! :D)

Today, in a country like India where the number of major languages exceeds the number of religions, anyone who follows Akbar-Jodha's example will have at least a hundred times more prospects at marriage than others. And every time a "Religion no bar, language no bar" in a matrimonial site brings a smile on your face, dont forget to tell "Jodha ki Jai, Akbar Zindaabad"!

Post Death Paranoia

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 02:00:00 +0000

What happens after a man dies?

Is there a God waiting to settle things? Is there another world? An afterlife?
Does Chitragupta use the latest version of Tally for his accounting purposes? Or do dead people get bored to death waiting in never ending queues for their turns to come up as he flips through the pages of his dusty old books?
Would St.Peter's job be outsourced to some other Indian saint from a tier 2 city? Will the Indian saint have lost it to a mexican or a philipino by the time you reach there?
Do the jehadis get their share of 72 virgins? Or will they be given a raw deal citing the dwindling male-to-female ratio as the reason?

No, these are not the exact questions I am having. I am thinking more on the lines of what happens to the online world of a person after he dies.

Have you ever wondered what will happen to the email account of a person once he dies? What happens to their blog? Their flickr account? Their adsense? I have no clue why, but this question has been bothering me from quite a long time. All these are not very old technologies and considering that the adoption is higher among the younger age group, people might not have faced these situations often. But these would be serious questions a couple of decades from now.

Just imagine for a moment that you have an online friend about whom you dont know a great deal about. You dont know where exactly they live, what exactly they do and you dont have common friends, but you are constantly 'in touch' with each other maintaining a great deal of anonymity and discussing only about 'common interests'. If they die, there is no way on earth you could know that. Of course the email account will be disabled due to inactivity, but how do you differentiate between the inactive mailbox of a living person and that of a dead person? :) Same thing with blogs. How do you differentiate a blog that has been inactive for a while and a dead person's blog? Would people in general prefer somebody else to inherit their blogs or would they want their blog to end along with them? Interesting question actually!

If people want their online world to end along with them, there needs to be some sort of notification system - something like a "Out of office reply". You could actually configure your message what you want to convey to people and store it in your mailbox or your blog settings. And only your lawyer will have the access key which triggers sending this message. Once this system matures, there will be provisions for custom messages for individuals or groups.
A generic message could read something like this:
"Hey, I am dead now. Sorry for not responding to your mail. For any further queries, contact my family at 1-545-..."
A message to an online girlfriend can go like this:
"Honey, I am dead now. Apologies for not buying you the diamond necklace I promised. Dont keep in touch"
A slightly complex message could be configured for a particular friend and only for forwarded messages:
"Yeah bastard you were right. I ignored all those 'send it to 20 people or else bad luck will haunt you' forward and I am dead now. Send this message to 20 alive people you know"
so on and so forth.

Blogs can have a 'last post' option, where you can save what you want to say to your readers if it were to be your last post. And of course, the account will be locked once that post is triggered. The blog search results will display the alive people blogs and dead people blogs in different colors. As you have guessed correctly, the dead people blogs will not have RSS subscription :D

All those people who want their legacy to continue will make 'wills' to make sure that who will inherit what. A lawyer reading it out will be something like "The son will get the blog account and all the ad revenue generated from that. The daughter will have access to flickr pro account and youtube account and the son cannot share her flickr account to upload the pictures for his blog posts. The grandson will get the Rapidshare premium account and if it is noticed that he is using it to upload porn, it will be given to charity. The wife gets nothing as she does not use the computer at all"

Come 2025, the possibilities are immense! :)

Where Do All The 30 Percents Go?

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 07:10:00 +0000

You are asked to do the estimation for a module or a task.
You consider the coffee breaks, orkut scrapping and the innumerable hours spent on Wikipedia and IMDB. You make a very high end calculation and add 30% buffer to it and send it to your lead.
Your lead takes into consideration the time he would lose in mindless discussions, unwanted conferences and adds his 30% buffer.
Your manager thinks of time lost in motivational meetings, online trading and the estimation goes up by 30% more.
Finally, your account manager not wanting to be left alone, follows the 30% funda and sends the final estimation to the client.

Everybody seem happy dreaming about the happy days ahead.

But, from the day the project starts till it ends, everybody starts slogging their posteriors off. I wonder, where all those 30 percents vanish!

I know this was a lousy post. But, there are many reasons why I wrote it:
One, I dont have enough time.
Two, I am in a cribbing mood and is there a better listener than a blog?
Three, I am not getting any ideas to write and dont want any readers of this blog to think that this blog is dead! :D

Food Sensibilities

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 03:53:00 +0000

You know when the supposed-to-be-motivating team dinners and unavoidable lunches with acquaintances become much more painful to me than they usually are? When the topic happens to be on food habits.

Here is a sample:
"You dont drink?", asks the team mate in a friendly tone.
"No"
"You dont smoke?", unable to hide his surprise.
"No"
"You dont even eat chicken?", the italics for "even" would barely convey the utter shock he would experience.
"No"
"Man, you are amazing. Do you at least eat eggs?", the shock has now turned to pity and the look in his eyes tells that he cannot survive another "no" for an answer.
"I eat eggs. In fact, I love them", would be my biggest sentence in the whole conversation.
"Thank God, you at least eat eggs", he exclaims, a mighty relieved now - and in his book my existence is not as useless as it would have been if by any chance I did not eat eggs.

I escape quite easily. But, there is always someone at the table who does not eat eggs. They would get the same questions mentioned above. And the "no" for eggs prompts some more mindless questions.
"Oh you dont eat eggs. So you dont eat cakes?"
"I dont eat usually. And whenever I eat, I check with them if they have eggless cakes"
"What about icecreams? Even many icecreams have eggs"
"Oh I did not know. Anyway, I dont eat egg in egg form, but you have to survive na?", the pure veggie throws an emphatic laughter.
"Thats tough man, why dont you eat? Which caste you are?"

I will already be in the last stages of my WTF mode. Somebody please take me away from this place, for Ramssake!

And then, the discussion goes on how his brothers eat everything (even though their caste forbids them to eat) and being so proud of being "dharmabhrasht". The veggie exclaims how their kid is even more of a strict vegetarian than them and how their legacy is in safe hands and animals can roam around fearlessly near them. I dont know if you were in the middle of similar conversations and if they even irritate in the first place. I personally find it very repetitive, dumb, boring and highly uncreative.

I know people who indulge in this conversation in my presence would not read my blog, but still I have to vent out my frustration. I neither relate to these superior-feeling non-veggies or the holier-than-thou veggies. I find myself quite lonely when it comes to "food sensibilities" [Food habits is different from food sensibilities :)] I am a veggie who eats eggs. And this is not because I should not eat meat because my caste forbids me to. My reason for not eating meat may sound very silly, but this is the reason why I never consciously experimented. Whenever I think of eating any meat, I would imagine that animal roaming around in my stomach. Now, dont laugh - this is a serious mental block I have. For so may years, I did not eat brinjal for the reason that I had seen a worm near my home quite regularly, that resembled the cut piece of a brinjal :D I have unknowingly eaten chicken and beef once. I neither have pride nor guilt or even regret about that. You tell me that jellies contain pork or mayonnaise contains elephant meat, I will not stop eating them :) I dont go on lecturing people who eat meat that human intestine is not constructed naturally to digest meat. And I wont go on saying that vegetarianism is great just because I used to have a huge collection of Pamela Anderson wallpapers :)

I just dont really care what people eat. And I dont judge anyone by their food habits. Why dont I meet more people who match my "food sensibility"?

Cheque please!

Random Scribblings From The Flight

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 01:47:00 +0000

Why dont the Lufthansa air hostesses smile? They seem too unfriendly, too cold. Its okay if Indians dont smile, we are used to it. Any others, we expect a smile, even a very fake one. Their entertainment facilities suck! There is a common TV on which we have to watch the movie being played. And why oh why are they so costly? I hate the Frankfurt airport too, it looks too hostile. I guess visiting Singapore raises the expectation too much. Not every airport is Changi!

I observed that the seat numbers in a row are listed A-B-C, D-E-F-G, H-J-K. There was no "I". I remember noticing this in other aircrafts as well. Not sure what the funda behind this is. Any idea?

When I asked for Asian Veg meals, I was told that it was over. I thought of taking a salmon meal and eat everything else except the main item. But, then the air hostess asked me if I am okay with a "Hindu meal". That was the first time I had heard something like that. What has a food got to do with religion? Do they even have veg meal of other religions? Does "Hindu meal" include kosambari and puliyogre, I wondered. I was disappointed for expecting too much - I had to settle just with jeera rice and payasa.

Why is it that all females who give instructions in hindi have a nasal tone? Any airline, any lady - it has to be nasal. "Krupya dhyaan de...vimaan ab udne ke liye tayyaar hai...apni kursi ki peti baandh le" Have you ever heard this in a non-nasal tone?

I Have A Dream

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 11:38:00 +0000

Many guys dream of becoming pilots and many girls of becoming air hostesses when they are kids. Thats what I have heard. At least from so many movie stars. But, I was a different kid. I never wanted to be a pilot. In fact, I never wanted to be anything. I was happy spending long hours looking at my fishes photo book or drawing using my sketch pen set with 12 colors.

Even when I was in high school, I did not know what I wanted to become. But, I could realize that not knowing an answer was looked upon with contempt. So at some point in time, I was giving the answer as "I want to do IAS in future". Till today, I have no clue why I gave that answer. A country as screwed up as ours definitely did not need an IAS officer like me. But seriously, I wish I had the guts to do an anti-Luther King and proclaim - "I dont have a dream"!

After the PU, it was the usual medical or engineering question that was posed by the people. When you are quite decent in your studies and when you are not exceptional in anything else, you are forced to give an answer to that. Medical was out of question for me. First of all, I was not good at Biology. Second, my parents had this inherent fear that I would walk out of a critical operation and start flicking TV channels. My parents thought it would amount to mass genocide, though some differed in their view that it could have been an effective method to control population explosion.

And as the saying goes "Kuchh nahin toh engineer ban jaayega" I ended up being a software engineer. Even here, I did not have any big dreams, never like I wanted to be 'this' at some stage in my life. But, it was in Sun Tech Days, I realized that I wanted to be 'this' at some stage in my life. Evangelist! I liked the sound of it. If anyone asks you "Which project you are working in?", you can answer "Project? Me? Kidding? I am an evangelist" I dont work, I keep trying out new stuff, writing opinions, blogging on the latest trends, going to tech conferences and talk about things that will be conveniently ignored by the techies who come there only to burn some company money. And the best thing is, there is no deadline, no deliverable, no accountability! It sounded damn cool!

Too many miles traveled in the memory lane. Just to say that my dream was in a vague way fulfilled when my article on "The future is IT" was sent to Data Quest and it has been published! The original painfully long article has been reduced to a short paragraph. Here is the link:
http://dqindia.ciol.com/content/25thanniversary/2007/207122401.asp

Hail the evangelist!

Jumping Off 10 Stories

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:25:00 +0000

I often overrate my instincts. I do have huge self-destructive tendencies. On such days, I pick a really bad movie to watch. Today, it happened to be "Dus Kahaniyaan".

I had no big expectations from the movie. The movie was just 2 hours long. That makes it a mere 12 minutes per story. Even if 3 stories are good and a few are not unbearable, I felt it was not a bad choice and it did not seem too risky. How wrong was I! I would not bore you by writing about all of them, but definitely a few that got on my nerves.

Strangers In The Night
Mahesh Manjrekar and the lady with the longest face, Neha Dhupia are a weird couple who spend their anniversary day disclosing their past infidelities. Neha discloses that she had kissed a stranger in a railway station before meeting Mahesh. Flashback, we get to see Neha kissing the stranger's palm, her chin touching his elbow! She kisses his palm, his fingers - some of the most innovative ways of kissing never seen before on celluloid. Flashback again, in the railway station a small muslim kid runs towards her crying for help, she hides him from the rioter carrying a sword, confronts the rioter, kisses him on his palm and diverts his attention long enough for the kid to escape. I had tears in my eyes. I actually had cold!

Zahir
Manoj Bajpai, an ex-banker, a wannabe writer and a pessimist comes to stay at a friend's apartment for writing his novel, where he meets the retarded looking yet optimistic Dia Mirza. They talk, drink coffee and when Manoj falls for her and tries to kiss her, she rejects him and goes away. Disappointed Manoj goes to a bar to get drunk and finds out that Dia is a call girl interacting with a 'customer'. When Dia comes over to Manoj's place for giving an explanation, Manoj teaches her a lesson (there is another word for this - "rape"!) without letting her tell what she intended to say. Few months later, now in a hospital, the unshaven Manoj realizes that she had come to tell him that she had AIDS and now he is also affected by AIDS. This becomes the story to his novel. What? Why? WTF? Yeah, I too had those questions. Sanjay Gupta releases his movie the same month as World AIDS day and leaves a message - Never rape a HIV patient!

Lovedale
A soon-to-be-married girl meets a woman on the train, who gives the lone ear ring that she wore and suddenly disappears (You guessed it right, she should be a dead person with a great motive!) The girl gets off at the station in search of that woman and she stumbles into Aftab's house, where she has coffee with him. Then, she meets him again at her engagement ceremony, finds out that Aftab is her fiance's friend and her dad Anupam Kher asks her if she is really *really* happy about her marriage. The girl obviously displays the utter confusion thats so natural for a typical desi heroine, to which her dad gives a lecture on *true love* - he narrates a story of his youth, where he had met a beautiful lady on the train to whom he had gifted a pair of ear rings, one of which has remained with him. Surprise surprise, it matches the one she had got from the woman on the train. She runs towards Aftab and hugs him, comes to know that the woman was Aftab's mother, dead 10 years ago.
Had the woman being alive and Anupam Kher married her now, the girl and Aftab would have been 'socially siblings'! On the other hand, if the girl and Aftab had married first, the oldies marriage would be cross-in-laws marriage :D

Sex On The Beach
The career-going-nowhere, still-depressed-from-Bipasha-dumping Dino Morea is vacationing in a lonely island. He discovers a book buried in sand, opens it and makes his signature. And out of nowhere, a lady in skimpy golden bikini storms in a water boat towards the sea shore. After exchanging blank glares, she invites him to her home. Dino reaches her home and accidentally drops a pack of condoms on the floor while talking to her (Wah, the "maturity" of Bollywood!) and waits on the couch, while she excuses herself to 'slip-into-something-comfortable' (why do people wear uncomfortable clothing so often? ;) ) When the lady takes more than the average time a woman takes to get ready for a party, Dino enters the bathroom and finds that the lady is dead, her eyes as expressionless as when she was alive. He gets panicky, runs out of her home, on the way getting confronted by the lady bhooth and the next morning, the kids playing on the beach discover Dino, as dead as his career. A new visitor on the island discovers the same book, signs it and the lady in skimpy bikini storms in again (and so on and so forth).
Somebody comes to know of it and carefully turns this virgin beach into a burgeoning tourist destination (Sorry I made the last one up - my sense of humor seriously affected by this gem of a movie)

Rice Plate
A businessman buys a pack of cookies and enters the airport lounge. A shabbily dressed man comes and sits next to him. He picks a cookie from the pack the businessman has kept by his side and starts eating. The businessman takes a cookie from the pack and looks angrily at the man. The man picks yet another cookie, the businessman takes the second cookie and walks away, thinking how rude that man was. On entering the flight, he opens his bag to discover that his cookie pack is still intact and it was he who was taking cookies from the other man's pack. Moral - Never judge others. Ever read this forward? Replace the businessman with an old Tamil woman who is prejudiced against muslims, replace airport with railway station, replace cookie pack with rice plate - and you got an original from Rohit Roy!

Gubbare
A couple traveling in a bus start quarreling over some trivial thing and the angry wife gets up and sits a few rows behind. She sees a very calm Nana Patekar holding 'gubbare' (balloons, if you didn't know) He talks to her in maniacal calmness, about how he also quarrels with his wife and he takes her gubbare to pacify her. He narrates his stories very fondly, with the pouted heroine listening to it with a "ooh so cute" look. It did not take me a second to guess that Nana's wife must be having Alzheimers, in a coma or already dead. I was right, we see Nana sitting by the side of his wife's grave, planting the gubbare there and narrating all the trivial details with maniacal calm affection.

I remember listening to a bunch of people over the last few days as to how Bollywood is changing and making different movies. "Bold" topics, extra-marital affairs, using words like 'bitch' and 'bastard', awkward kissing scenes, showing a pack of condoms - if this is what qualify as world class, Sanjay Gupta deserves standing ovation. I guess I should go back to my "I-wont-watch-a-Bollywood-movie-unless-strongly-recommended-by-some-sane-person" mode. I think I will!

P.S: I found the hugely criticized, self-obsessed largely mindless "No Smoking" to be quite a unique and interesting cinematic experience!

Meeep

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 09:08:00 +0000

Tring Tring. Tring Tring. Tring Tring. Tring.
"You have reached the automated voice messaging system of so-and-so. Please leave a message after the tone"

Can you talk to the voice messaging system the same way as you would talk to its owner? If you can, I envy you. If you cant, do you know if there is a name for this disability? :)
Just like anyone else, I talk to different people in different ways - the way of addressing, the tone, the language changes with each individual. Its like a protocol set between two people. The response of the person on the other side of the conversation is very important to that protocol. If its a voice messaging system, which is nothing but a dumb recorder - I cannot talk to it like I talk to its owner. I have tried it too hard, but it does not work! I try to sound as normal as possible, but I sound too weird!

My recorded-voice-o-phobia is not limited to voicemails. I also hate calling customer support centers - it makes me very uncomfortable. If you are one of those who make business with me - charge me 50 or 100 rupees more by mistake, I wont bother calling you up. If you get too greedy and increase it by more than that, I would get someone to call you on my behalf ;) No, I am not that bad actually, but you get my point!

"Thank you for calling us. Your call is very important to us. All our agents are currently busy. We appreciate your patience. Please hold the line while we transfer to the next available operator or go hang yourself (I mean hang up :D)" Cant anyone think of less boring and less stressful messages than this? Who discovered this lifeless tone, this pitch and frequency? I guess this was a practical joke started by someone when they were asked to design a polite and friendly voice message! I guess nobody has done a study on how this tone of talking can be seriously injurious to mental health. I would love to find out the statistics of mentally unstable persons and the frequency of customer support calls that they made in their lifetime - I bet it will have an interesting result. These automated messages are repeatedly played accompanied by some piano music or Kenny G instrumentals. Have you noticed that the same songs that otherwise sound very melodious and soothing get on your nerves when played during a customer support call? To me, the whole exercise seems too tiring - listening to the recorded message, some music, message again, music and after a few iterations, the message suddenly changes, I hear "Hello" a few times and it takes me a while to realize that I am no longer listening to the recorded message, but an agent with an equally lifeless voice.

The only place where I can tolerate a voice message is in Google Talk. Actually, I adore it. Every time I call someone using Google Talk, there is a part of me that silently wishes that the person would not pick the call and I can hear the recorded voice of the lady say "The person you are trying to reach is not available. Please leave a message after the meep. Meeep". Its sounds so silly actually, but it makes me smile even when I hear it for the thousandth time. There is a certain childish exuberance and non-mechanical friendliness about the lady's voice that makes it so adorable. Especially the way she says "meep" - its almost like making a mockery of "beep" messages. Dont you think its high time all voice messages go "meep"?

Howls That?

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 21:50:00 +0000

Its a very chilly night, perhaps the coldest I have seen till now. The sleeping pads, the heater, razaai just making sure that the death count in Grand Canyon does not go up. The thermals, jacket, sweater, gloves, socks, sleeping bag - losing the battle against the invincible cold. I am slightly shivering, unable to sleep.The whooshing wind outside acts as the perfect partner for the cold. Just like the pace bowlers, they hunt in pairs. My co-occupants of the tent - Krupa and Saif are sleeping peacefully. May be they were too tired by the travel or they have had their share of struggle with cold already. After more than an hour of losing sleep, I feel a bit drowsy.

I enter my home in Mysore. Its too crowded. Dont know why there are so many people, may be some function. I proceed to the backyard, where a few cousins are sitting and chatting. I join the conversation. All of a sudden, I realize that there was a cricket match the previous day. What happened to the match, I ask my brother. He has no clue. I make my way into the room saying hi's to the relatives sitting along the way. I open Cricinfo and see the heading - "Match ends in a thrilling tie" The home page has the picture of Stuart Clark holding a stump in his hand and another Australian who is not visible in the photo, possibly running towards their team in celebration. The two Indian batsmen are behind them. Che, let me see the full scorecard. Australia 317/9 in 50 overs. India 317 all out in 49 overs. Last over reads 0-4-1-0-W-W. What??? Now, I can understand why Aussies were so happy. On any other day, for them, a tie is as bad as a loss!

I know that the tent is placed on a vehicle, I can feel it move. How else can it be so windy?

The green cricket ground. Shoaib Akhtar is the 12th man. He is running towards the pitch from the boundary. He has discovered a new type of ball that resembles a mace. The ball tied to an elastic rope, the bowler holds the rope, swings sideways and throws it at the batsman. This is so batsman friendly, that the ball can travel higher and farther. The batsman plays the shot, the ball travels higher and higher and I can see it traveling over my home in Mysore, going past my neighbor's house and landing inside the compound a couple of houses away. They send me to fetch the ball. I go there, I can see the ball next to the gate, surprisingly its size twice that of a football now. Half of it has become very muddy. I see a fat fair lady inside that house watching tv with a remote in her hand. She is wearing an off-white long gown, which somehow does not suit her. She is changing channels with absolutely no change in her facial expressions. I shout at her if I can come inside and take away the ball. I get no response. I decide to enter and take it, when I see a man emerging from the muddy pond in front of her house. He is bald, covered in mud from head to toe. I get scared and run away.

As I approach the end of the road, I see a few dogs coming to the middle of the road. Four dogs become eight and then twenty. They dont show any signs of urgency to attack me. They howl very loudly at me. I remember Hitchcock's "Birds" - I can slowly walk and get away. The dogs come nearer and nearer till they almost block the road. I howl at them in return!

The tent is still moving and it suddenly comes to a halt. We have stopped to get Gems chocolate from some store. We get out of the tent and see lot of 2 dollar coins near a telephone box at the corner. Why are there so many 2 dollar coins thrown here, I ask.

I wake up. Its still dark, cold and windy. I recall the vivid dream I just had with the minutest detail and wonder if I really shouted or I only shouted inside the dream. I get sleepy again.

After getting up in the morning, I hesitatingly ask Krupa.
"Did I shout in the night?"
"Not exactly, you howled", she seems really amused.
"I was not exactly barking I guess"
"No, your howling was cute. You were almost pleading in that howl"
"I know, I was not shouting at the dogs, I was just trying to convince them that everything was okay". I was least embarrassed even as I speak so incoherently.
"I should have had a voice recorder", she starts laughing.

We all have a hearty laugh. She starts telling about her dream - where Deepak Tijori was the murderer and how she could not convince us about that!

Abuses & Animal Names

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 05:12:00 +0000

I have always been fascinated by curse words or abusive words. Though I am quite familiar with abusive words in other languages, I will give more examples from Kannada, as those were part of my growing up.

Let me start by analyzing how cursing works. The main intention of abuse is to insult and also hurt the other person. Thats the key. If you have a set of vocabulary that your recipient does not understand or does not consider derogatory, sorry sir, its a waste!

Kids begin their cursing using simple words like "stupid", "idiot", "fool" etc. And it does not take too much time for them to realize that these qualities are so common and acceptable, they cease to be curse words in the long run.

And as kids, our abuses were mainly restricted to the animal names. A typical kid fight when we were young would go like this:
Kid 1: "Kaththe" (Donkey, not ass ;) )
Kid 2: "Kothi" (Monkey)
Kid 1: "Naayi" (Dog)
Kid 2: "Goobe" (Owl)
Kid 1: "Handhi" (Pig)
....
....
This would go on and on till our limited vocabulary of animal names were exhausted or one of the kids would decide that the best way to tackle a verbal abuse is by your fist! I dont know if kids quarrel the same way even now. I dont think so, they know more animal names by watching NGC and they would have learnt more sophisticated curse words by watching TV!

There were few other variant words of demon/devil like "Devva", "Bhootha", "Pretha", "Peede", "Pishaachi" - it helped kids like me, who knew very few animal names and not too keen to get into fist fights!

I dont know how kids choose only certain animal names for cursing. Is it just following what other senior kids used for cursing? Or do they possess a sense of perception of inferiority or superiority in animals? If so, does it depend on their appearance, the work they do, the way they are treated? How do they actually decide if an animal is abuse-worthy or not? I have never seen a kid cursing someone as "You lion", "You tiger" or "You cow". I dont know why! An animal like hippopotamus, donkey or a pig intuitively becomes eligible for abuse. A cat somehow escapes being used as a curse word, whereas a faithful, widely loved, not bad looking (unless a street one) animal like dog ends up being the most used abuse among animals. [Dog is the only species where the females dominate the curse world! :D]

As we grow older, most of the animal names lose their effect. In fact, some of them change their meaning altogether.
"Kaththe", "Kothi", "Handhi" almost move out of ones vocabulary.

"Goobe" becomes a very affectionate word, reserved for very loved ones. There are so many versions of this like "Goob", "Goobs", "Goobal", "Goobad", "Goobalt", "Goobald" etc. usually accompanied by false anger, a suppressed smile, a pout or admiration in the eyes!

"Naayi" however takes different meanings altogether. Here are a few examples.
"India Australia kayyli naayi thara hodskondru" (India got beaten badly in Australia's hands)
"Avnu naayi thara thinthane" (He hogs a lot, like a dog) - Dont know if dogs eat a lot, I think "naayi" here takes the meaning of "too much"
"Avnu naayi thara odhthidane exams ge" (He is reading very well for the exams)
"Avnu naayi panta!" (He is an expert)
Dogliness is not always an adverb, it can be an adjective too!

When childhood is over, innocence is lost, animals can no longer help, the "real" abusive words come to your rescue. More on them in the next post!

My First Earthquake

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 05:51:00 +0000

It was just another tuesday evening. A bit more strenuous perhaps. Yet another conf call. Tired voices. Stressed out faces. The projector looks the brightest in the room, almost too inhuman. I am just rocking in my chair and all of a sudden I am rocking more. And suddenly less. I shiver. Tense faces show unusual signs of alertness. "Hold on guys, we may be having an earthquake", tells my manager. A less tiring day, he would have screamed it. The realization had not hit me. I could not visualize the wreckage, the pile of garbage and unrecognizable dead bodies yet. Its just a little jerky boat ride. And then a slightly bigger tremor, that gives me what cricket commentators call butterflies in the tummy. "Will call later" declares my manager as he disconnects the phone.

We all head towards the door. A colleague is just standing there coolly checking the message on his phone. Another colleague gets a text message within a few seconds from his brother - "You felt it?" Yeah, technology! We have a laugh. The cool colleagues asks us why we are going down. If you go down, the lamp posts and other things may fall on you, this is the safest place, he tells and gets back to his phone. Yeah, office on the sixth floor and safest!! My manager runs back to the conference room and asks us to stand near the door holding the door frame. Oh yes, table is a good option too, it looks quite strong, tells another. I have a great rush of adrenaline, I am completely excited. I cannot control my big grin. Its way too exciting to be scared. Am I the same person who gets scared when a dog barks in the next street?

Everything is still within a couple of minutes. Calls from the families asking if they are okay. My manager who might have seen at least half a dozen earthquakes is visibly shaken. He knows a lot on them too. He keeps giving trivia one after the other. Usually, if there is a small tremor and a big tremor after that, the impact is huge. Sometimes, even though there are no visible damages, there may be leaks in gas stations that can cause devastations. There is some geological week spot that runs through California, which makes it so vulnerable. US is never safe from earthquakes, tremors, typhoons. This was BIG, must be 5 or 6.

The other colleague, who had his first earthquake experience like me, was a bit startled. But, that did not stop him from opening his browser. Tab after tab, we were reading google news which did not have this news. USGS, within the next few minutes, had already updated this info on their web site. Wow, tells the colleague. Must have been 5 or 6 on the Ritchers scale, this was BIG, tells the manager again. The colleague refreshes the page. The scale shows 5.6! Bingo! He replies to all the text messages and answers the calls from family. Will there be updates on twitter? Blog search reveals that many bloggers have already blogged about it. In a matter of minutes. Only blog addiction can make a man lose his self preservation instincts. The colleague refreshes the page again and there is a question mark for the scale value. Must be they have multiple servers and its not cached on one of them, opines my techie colleague. We techies are like that wonly saar. One more refresh, it again shows 5.6 and verified by a seismologist! My manager recollects the earlier earthquakes starting from 1989. Few more people join in the room and start telling their experiences.

"Here we are along with a very visibly excited Vasuki" tells my manager as we begin the conf call again. The funny thing is the people who knew a lot and experienced were more worried and I was having a real real great time. May be thats why they say that ignorance is bliss. Its quite strange too that small application errors and slow servers can annoy us to no end and big things like earthquakes can give us great joy. Yeah weird, I know. I am too excited to sleep now. May be I will relive those memories a few more times.

Whhoo-ah!

Judge...Admire...

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 07:48:00 +0000

RK of RwB has tagged me to write on the kinds of people I judge and things I admire.

People I judge:

Myself (I am too self obsessed to ignore myself!)
Who dont maintain eye contact while talking
Who talk extremely loud
Poor listeners
Who give advice even if unasked
Who cannot accept a different opinion or view
Who are extremely polite or overtly nice
Who watch soap operas
Couples who sit side by side (and not opposite to each other) at a table in a restaurant
Who dont have a passion about anything in life
Who tell that they dont have time for anything
Who use Internet Explorer (No, not exactly, well, yeah, may be!)

Things I admire:

Honesty
Movies
Music
Cartoons
Humor
Exploring different things
Inquisitive mind
People who manage time very well
People who accept their faults gracefully
Left handed people (Sounds too silly, but its very fascinating for me!)
People who know what they want from life and achieve it
People who are knowledgeable, without having 'holier-than-thou' attitude

I am not as familiar as RK about the Inky Pinky Ponky methodology. So, I would tag anyone who would be interested in taking it up.

Cricketing Excuses

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 04:30:00 +0000

No matter how strongly you love something, there are some aspects about it that will irritate you. I happen to love cricket very much. I think Manindar Singh - Yashpal Sharma - Arun Lal brigade's hindi commentary easily takes the first position among things I hate about cricket. The second place deservedly goes to Charu Sharma, "I-will-give-cute-smile-by-stretching-my-mouth-to-fit-wide-screen-tv" Mandira Bedi and the entire Sony channel who turn the game into soap opera. The next place definitely goes to the losing captain's cliched speech in the post match presentation ceremonies. Here are a few samples:

"We had a bad day at the office" (I hate the guy who invented this statement. Why not work from home for a change?)
-----
"We are playing non-stop cricket for the last few months. Its taken a toll on the players. I know we are professionals, we are proud of playing for the country, but, well, I mean, you know...(and the show me sympathy look)"
The opposite is true too.
"We had a long break leading to this game. The boys are rusty. We have lost the momentum. We should be better going forward"
-----
"Its the first time we have been outsmarted in this tournament."
"Mate, you are 0-4 down in the series, what are you talking about?"
"I knew you would ask that. In the first three games, we were outplayed by the opposition."
-----
"I think there are three things we need to focus on in the future games. We need to bat well, bowl well and field well. Simple!" (Wow, such a relief to hear that. So, you mean you are well prepared with your hairdos and antics, right?)
-----
"We are beaten by a better team and we are not ashamed to be on the losing side" *with hands on his hips* (If you had seen the ICC rankings table before playing, it would have saved so much trouble)
-----
"I think our opposition dominated for most part of the game and we did not have a chance" (Most? If you ignore the lunch break, the opposition dominated the 'entire' game. Correct?)
-----
"We were never in the game" (Waw, I thought it needed two teams to play cricket!)

J And J Went Up

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 23:27:00 +0000

When was the last time I had met U? (No, I am not a messaging freak. So, U does not mean "you", U means "U")
U looked majestic as she walked, her Irish skin glowing in that evening sun. And there was I accompanying her. (For the uninitiated blog readers, I does not mean "me", I means "I")
Both U and I offer me handshakes and we sit on a bench nearby.
All of a sudden, U asks me "Can I get some pepsi for us?"
I looked surprised. It surprises me too. U was the laziest person we had ever seen and completely surprised by this question.
"What happened Madame Lazee?", me teases her.
"Hey dumbo, I loves searching vending machine, he will get the pepsi for us. Me aint goin' nowhere no more" My guess was that she has been listening to lot of R&B nowadays.
I gets up and goes searching for the vending machine.
"Know what, I have never told this to anyone. But, I was in love with U since the college days", I tell her.
"Really dumbo? Why were you silent all these days? Its too late, nothing can be done now right? At least I feel happy to know. Thank God, I is gone, coz I get scared when I becomes jealous"
"No fool, I was talking about U. She used to sit next to you in the exams - you had consecutive registration numbers!"
U seemed a bit disappointed, for some reason I could not quite figure out - "Oh I got it, I thought it was something else, I is coming. Stop!", she said as I comes balancing 3 pepsi cans in his hands.
We watch the fireworks in the distant skies as we slowly finish our pepsi.

----------

Agreed, that was a lousy little story. No doubts about that. The point I was trying to make is even after more than two years of serious blog reading, I find it extremely stressful to read posts where people have single letter acronyms. The effort increases drastically when someone meets their friends R1, P1, R2, R3, P2, P4 and J (For those of you who might be wondering why P4 after P2, P3 could not make it in the last minute! ;) )

Does anybody feel the same way or is it just me?

There are only three reasons I can think of for SLA (Single Letter Acronym) approach.
1) Laziness - I am always a huge supporter for laziness. So, go ahead and use R1, R2 while you write. Once you are done, do a search and replace with actual names. Easy!
2) Abstraction - I dont think my friends will get upset if I use their real names (not unless I say mean things about them!) In fact, they would be happy that you have not reduced their identity to a single letter. Yet, many non-anonymous bloggers use SLA. It looks cool, but definitely not reader-friendly.
3) Anonymity - A few bloggers remain anonymous and they would want to extend that anonymity to their circle as well. Thankfully, nobody has used M, F, W, H when referring to mother, father, wife, husband. It is not so easy when you are talking about multiple relatives, friends or colleagues. How about using abstractions like "coolguy_78", "hotbabe_blr", "pathetic neighbor", "friend, another friend, yet another friend" - or something like that. That was bad suggestion, I know. So, how about changing their names and writing the post? The best approach would be to write their actual names and still retain anonymity. [Example: A blogger named Vasuki cribs on unnecessary things (name changed to maintain confidentiality)] :))

I am scared of the day where kindergarten kids will be taught:
J & J went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water
J fell down and broke his crown
And J came tumbling after.

Uno Cero Cero

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 21:20:00 +0000

"Impossible!"
I have now learnt to use that phrase very judiciously. I would have used it two years back, if you had told me that I would open a blog. And here I am writing my 100th post! Yaaayy!
Thank you, thank you (in advance, for all the congratulating comments :) )

There are a few posts that gave me great joy while writing and I happen to like them even now as I read them. So, here are my favorites - for those who came late to my blog, for people on bench with great taste, for people whose managers are on a long vacation and those who have to read a post for the second time to get motivated to leave a comment :)
American GaadegaLu - This post got published in Vijaya Karnataka (with no reference to me) as a forward from some reader (this post still amuses me, apart from teaching a lesson on copyright protection)
A few funny incidents, without such, life would be so dull - Howz it goin'? A What? Reducing Prices
A trip down the memory lane posts like Pens and Cut Cut Cut
Stories like Auto Manja and Why he felt miserable
India's Contribution To World Cinema - Thanks to all those who added to this list by commenting
Humor & Oversensitivity
Allenified - I admire Woody Allen a lot, but for all you people who keep telling "you are just like him", I would say - I dont have red hair, I dont wear glasses, I am not well read, I am not seeing a shrink and I am not having affairs with tall women :)
Forgetting Names
On The Same Page

Some unwanted analysis like these that I cannot not do:
Tell me your mail id
A picture is worth a thousand words
Patriotism
The Difference

Audio:
Crime Diary - This showed me the power of internet, within a week it was all around the globe.
My first country Song - Volcano Girl - A song that is very close to my heart, I even made a few friends because of this song :)

I have been thinking of writing more on the movies I watch, in fact I wanted to start a new blog on movies. Most of the movies I see fall under "No comments" or "Dont care" categories. The others are real gems, very close to me, that I feel too scared to write about them (its the same level of awkwardness you feel if you are asked to write an essay on your mom, while you can easily write an essay on cow or pollution :D) Most of my friends say that I cannot have a decent conversation for five minutes without referring to a movie. I understand their predicament, so not sure if I want to scare away the few readers I have got. More than anything, I still have not got that real kick, so till then my movie blog is on hold.

Blogging gives me great pleasure. But equally satisfying is getting to know different people, alternate views, the attention, compliments, criticisms (and of course being so greedy about comments!)

As Mark Twain once said, "It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech" - I had been thinking what to write for this post from a few weeks :D

P.S: I have used at least 5 subtle mind techniques to induce people to comment. How many did you notice? Which one did you like the most? Let me know ;)

Rose [Is A Rose]+

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 07:29:00 +0000

I have been tagged by Of This And That.

There are 3 rules.
Rule 1. The rules must be mentioned in the beginning of the tag.
Rule 2 You must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had.
Rule 3. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag.

Well, I dont have a middle name. So, I would choose "NIHIL" (I like the sound of it. "Nihil" means "Nothing". So it kind of makes sense to have it when you dont have a middle name :D)

Numbers
I am obsessed with numbers. I dont like even numbers in general, more so if it is divisible by 2 and not divisible by 4. If I see a 4 digit number, I will try to see if the digits in that number has any relation or not. Prime numbers hold special fascination for me. (If you see a guy staring long at your vehicle number plate, that must be me) I can tell the square root of a number up to the first decimal place accuracy (I used to do it constantly in my spare time during my PU days. My speed has reduced now, but I can still manage)

Imagination
If there is an old couple and the old man's son from his previous marriage wants to marry the old lady's daughter from her previous marriage, is it okay? No?? Then, is it okay, if a young couple marry and the girl's lonely widow mother wants to marry the guy's widowed father? Yes, I can come up with hundreds of such hyper-active unwanted, totally useless imaginations. I keep imagining, thinking and analyzing totally unnecessary things that people's reaction varies from pity to disgust to shock. Well, I wish to be like them, but then I would not be me anyways.

Humor
If there is one thing I am proud about myself, thats my humor. Be it an irresistible PJ (Ex - Q:What do Hritik Roshan's friends say when he tells something amusing? A: Gimme six! :D) a great pun, a very sarcastic remark or my weird movie scripts. I know there are so many people who get slightly annoyed by my humor, that makes it all so worthwhile :). Life, without humor would have been so unmanageable!

Irritation
I get irritated very easily. I dont get angry in general and I dont shout or scream or act rude. But, things, very small things irritate me. FM radio channel RJs, bakwaas movies, daily soaps, traffic jams, crowded choultries, loud people in long queues, dogs and over-enthusiastic dog owners ("Dont be scared, its a very mild dog. Come on, give shake hand to uncle" types!), people who give unwanted suggestions, inefficient people, inefficient settings in a computer, lots of desktop icons, internet explorer, view mode in icons or thumbnails...oh, the list is endless!

Luck
Its not that I have never put in any effort and been offered everything on a platter. But, for some inexplicable reason, I strongly believe that I am hopelessly lucky.

Now, I tag Krupa, Soumia, Venu, Shruthi and Madhuri.

P.S: The title represents the "Rose is a rose is a rose..." statement as a regular expression. I hope I have got it right.

California Dreamin'

noreply@blogger.com (Bit Hawk) — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 07:47:00 +0000

I love airports. I always remember the opening scene of "Love Actually". There is so much positive energy in there. It is so unlike the air travel itself, which is pretty boring and congested. The lady standing next to me in the check-in queue had a quiet confidence about her, her hair carelessly tied up that made her casual look so lovable. "Shall I help you?" she asked me while I was trying to lift my heavy baggage. I guessed I was probably unconsciously mimicking someone, thereby exaggerating the difficulty in lifting my bags. "Girl, you look thinner than me. And I don't want to disrupt your carelessly tied hair" No, I did not say the exact words. "No thanks, I can manage". I am not against taking help, its just that I could easily manage myself.

While standing in the queue for getting boarding passes, I was given a form to fill and filling forms is one thing that I hate so much! I am generally very conscious while filling forms, as I am paranoid about losing concentration and entering wrong data. Name? This was the easiest, I filled it out without much difficulty. I looked around at the newly refurbished airport lounge. Looks decent than before, may be even slightly better than KSRTC satellite bus stand. Passport number? I looked a couple of times, before entering it in the form. I verified once again after filling it up. It was right! (I was so overconfident some time back, that I had entered my passport number wrong in the visa interview form without looking at my passport - had swapped the last two digits - and had also argued with the official there that I had entered correctly :D) I looked at the lady who had offered me help. Her eyes showed the complete courage to take on the world, oh! Date of birth? Careful, is it MMDDYY or DDMMYY? Okay, I got it right. One of the air crew girls in ash grey suit walked skillfully against the conveyor belt and crossed to this side. Sheer magic! Date of expiry? Must be 2057. No, it is 2058. What about the day and month? I dont exactly know when I am gonna die. Should I ask the personnel there if entering the date is mandatory. It took me full 10 seconds to realize that it was the date of expiry of the passport! I was so relieved.

While I was having my near death experiences, the lady was gone. It was good, she was slowing me down, I would have missed my flight! Singapore Airlines was very good. No no, I am not just talking about the air hostesses, but the service and seating etc. :D The air hostesses wore some traditional looking dress - a combination of dark blue, purple and orange colors - which otherwise does not please me, suited them perfectly. They spoke so softly, that I failed to imagine how they would look yelling at others! I was too tired, so decided against watching movies and slept peacefully after having dinner.

Reached Changi airport by 7.00 AM and I had more than 2 hours to explore around. I love looking around in a place and find interesting things about a place. My logic is that, you can tell how different a place is from others by looking at rest rooms! The pee pots in the rest rooms here were huge and long (a kid can almost hide inside there!) and they were very low. Do they have lot of short people here? Standing there, I felt as if I am very tall. I read the caption just above the pee pot. "No touch required" What the hell is wrong with these people? No. I sometimes judge too prematurely that I had failed reading the second line - "Automatic toilet flush control"! The shops here were the usual - jewelry, bags, electronic goods and for a long time, I did not see any food places! Do these people eat up the electronic goods, I wondered. Then, I found the food court where most of the names were unknown to me - then I saw Subway! But, I would not need it anyway, I would be off in a couple of hours. Rinko Kikuchi walked up the escalator with a big suitcase and nobody seemed to notice her. Should I go and talk to her? No, she looks to be in a hurry. In half an hour, I had seen at least a dozen Rinko Kikuchis and my face recognition skills were seriously being questioned in this part of the world. I returned to my gate, 10 minutes to go for it to be opened, listened to the announcement - "Flighth number one zero thoo thoo..."

I opened my eyes and saw nobody around, I realized something was wrong and I ran to my gate. I asked the woman at the gate, "SQ 3, flight to SFO?" "You are Vasuki Raghavan?" How does this lady know my name? Does she read my blog? No, you fool, they must have announced my name. "We called you sir, the gate has been closed now. You have to get a transfer" The flight was at 9.15 AM. The electronic time display showed 9.08 AM. The voice in the announcement had a soft Singaporean accent - "Gates will be closed 10 minutes prior to the departure" 3 minutes! I had to find someone to blame. I blamed Billy Wilder for making "Double Indemnity" which made me sleep late 2 days ago, then it was the thrilling India-Pak Twenty-20 match and finally the lovely air hostesses of Singapore airlines! I blamed the training provided for the announcers - the monotonous tones are never the best ways to wake someone out of deep sleep. May be they should have shouted my name!

Finally, I coughed up 150 Singapore dollars for getting a transfer ticket. Strange things happen to strange kind of people! But, the good thing is whenever a screwup happens, a lot of many things occur in great synchronization to make the screwup less painful - I had got another flight for the same evening. I was feeling hungry by now and remembered Subway. My geography failed me again, as I failed to find the route I had discovered earlier (I could not even figure out even after looking the map!) One left turn and I saw a topless Keira Knightley covering her breasts with a big hat. Yes, I remembered coming into the route now! Thats how I found Subway, but instead opted for eating Poori Bhaaji at Kaveri!

I did not go to the free movie show or the free Singapore ride. One bitten, twice shy. I did not want to miss the flight again. Strolled around, got a great foot massage from the foot massaging machine called "Big Foot", did a Singaporean crayon artwork myself and most importantly got the elusive topic for the blog post. All for just 150 Singapore dollars!

The flight to San Frasisco was smooth and I came out of immigration by 8.00 PM. Courtesy her super exaggerated animated hand movements, I could spot Krupa and Saif in that airport. She had a grin as big as the Caltrain. I was expecting her to tell me something like "Good to see you", so that I could irritate her by saying "I know that" in my Jack Clouseau accent. She hates my mimicry, so she did not give me an opportunity to use my french accent. The cool breeze hit my face as I remembered the conversation from Annie Hall:
Tony Roberts - "Lets get the hell out of this crazy city. We will go to California, Max, all the show business is out there"
Woody Allen - "You keep bringing it up, but I dont want to move to a city where the only cultural advantage is you can take a right turn on a red light"!