Cappuccino Musings

2008-05-13T00:15:00.003+04:00

Regulate the blogs?
We all know about Indian media picking up the most irrelevant issues and looking at it with the most pessimistic eyes. With the increasing popularity of the blogosphere, a debate on the "good" and the "bad" of blogs by our media was long pending. So, we have Barkha Dutt of NDTV bring in a few bloggers to her show and debate on whether blogs should be regulated.

Having followed a handful of blogs pretty regularly, I can vouch for the fact that there are some responsible Indian bloggers in India and abroad. They bring in plenty of intellectual and entertaining discussions from credible authors to fill up that boring hour at office.

Obviously, NDTV would want to have nothing with these bloggers. Instead, they get in someone who calls herself "Compulsive Confessor" who gleefully keys down the most intimate details of her life. She looks hardly keen to hide her "bed jumping" chronicles to the hordes of voyeurs lapping up her blog and showering appreciation for her "courage". Giving company to the Confessor on the show is a gay guy who again runs a "gay" blog and a Confessor clone called "Foxy Tanya" (Fancy that for a name). With such an "elite" panel, Barkha Dutt discusses the dangers that blogs pose, possibility of invasion of privacy, irresponsible journalism and basically, the end of world. A massive generalization is made about all blogs in India and then the question about regulating blogs is popped up.

Talk about bad statistics and bad extrapolation, we have all seen that before

2008-02-09T23:11:00.000+04:00

Bangalore Times
It's that whiff of Saturday morning breeze that brought a thousand memories gushing. Having lived in a place of scorching heat and chilling cold for quite some time, it seemed like there was no room for middle ground. But this Saturday was different. It felt like what is known back home as "Bangalore Weather". A day which should begin with iDli vaDe sambhar and a day when you are completely justified to hate cereal in cold milk.
Though I am guilty of crying hoarse about traffic jams in Bangalore, there are plenty of things dear to me about Bangalore (I refuse to call it Bengalooru) and let the nostalgia flow...

1. Janata Hotel, Malleshwaram: In our Sandalwood version of James Bond movies, we had villains going after a secret formula of a scientist who seemed to have beaten the Superpowers in creating a weapon of mass destruction. It all seemed funny then, but I wouldn't mind putting my money on the thugs to get me the formula for the sambhar at Janata Hotel. It had just the right mix of everything and a crisp vaDe to accompany it.

2. Corner House, Residency Road: Finishing a full serving of "Death by Chocolate" was a "manly" thing to do. A sense of accomplishment prevailed when rich dark chocolate amidst layers of vanilla was conquered. The lesser mortals who resigned from the battle were given generous tips and "techniques" involved in finishing up the bowl.

3. Halli Mane, Malleshwaram: Located on the one-way street of Sampige Road, it used to take us forever to reach Halli Mane. Though the "rural" tag didn't sound convincing, the food was excellent. The akki rotti, anna saaru, mosaru anna and "JOY" ice cream to end it all, it was worth every paisa.

4. Pizza Hut: I always loved the Indianized version of pizza with "Paneer Pizza", "Tandoori Pizza"et al. And ofcourse, the funny debate about which is better: Pizza Hut or Pizza Corner. It all seemed like debating between Pepsi and Coke. How could you ever tell the difference?

5. Masala Corn, Garuda Mall: Driving all the way to a huge mall just for a small shop which serves corn? It all happens when you get corn smeared with butter, chaat masala and lime, just the right thing you want when you are, or accompanying a window shopper.

6. Bun Samosa, Bakery near MSRIT: Bun samosa was the ideal thing to cheer us up after having screwed up our internal exams, with all the green chutney and ketchup to get our think-tanks in the group to hatch up strategies to catch hold of question paper for the subsequent internals.

To add to the list, all the churmuri, masala puri gaaDis at Seshadripuram, Malleshwaram 13th cross, all the Gobi Manchurian and Fried Rice aDDas and ofcourse the famous Dayana near M.S.Ramaiah campus, notorious for serving Veg Noodles made at the canteen next door at 2 Rupees extra.

2007-09-14T09:33:00.000+04:00

Indian Idol
There were days in good old Doordarshan when we had mini-serials which usually lasted for 13 episodes. The prime time shows did not have to walk the tight rope of TRPs. The viewers didn't have to watch the shows amidst frantic punching of SMS'es. These shows did not trigger blog-wars on the internet and spawn countless Orkut communities. Those were the days when TV shows were not corporate "brands".
Enter Indian Idol.
I can't help wondering that if the urban Indians voted in our electons with the same zeal as they vote for Indian idol, we probably would have had a much better political system.
This only speaks about how our media vigorously market their shows. They don't have to wait for a India-Pakistan cricket dual to get the entire nation's frenzy. They know just the right ingredients to package a TV show into something a family would love to discuss at the dinner table. The show managers probably wouldn't mind people like Javed Akhtar and Annu Malek making absolute fools of themselves as long as they can fuel more debates among the janta. The gossip rooms are filled with smoky rumours of Chang-Deepali fling. Gender debate, regionalism debate - you name it, Indian Idol's got it.
People who talk about indian police's inefficiency and condemn it for not acting fast, haven't obviously seen the way it has been voting for Prashant Tamang. Another contestant, Amit Paul, has been named the Ambassador of Meghalaya. When was the last time a person got a chance to be the ambassador of a state because of a singing competition? To quantify the nation's hysteria for the show, every episode receives a whopping 50 lac votes.
This only shows how a mere singing competition, if packaged into a nice brand, can become an absolute hit. Some food for thought for wannabe MBAs?

2007-03-12T07:30:00.000+04:00

Classic ToI
There have been many instances where the editors at Times of India have been caught napping. Here [Link] is one such instance which proves exactly that.
The articles is trying to convey that Kareena Kapoor is going great guns in her career. The author obviously new to the job is making an all out effort to use metaphors and words right out of his high school english textbook.
Thus we have phrases like "She’s looking like a million dollars these days". Her skimpy outfits may make her tempting to a few lusty eyes, but words fail me when someone says she looks like "a million dollars".
The article goes on to say "anyone would be on Cloud 9. But Bebo is surely higher than that". Huh?
The article then abruptly starts mentioning about fitness and working out. Just when you thought the article was meandering out of it's territory, our smart author pulls it back with a smartest pun ever - "everything seems to be working out right for me".
The article following this about Sanjay Dutt tries to do better. It says "Sanju is a perfect example of men who are tough on the inside, soft as a pancake on the inside".

2007-03-07T22:43:00.000+04:00

A tale of two weddings
People who have been following the Indian newspapers wouldn't take long to figure out which are the two weddings in question here. Two celebrity pairs, Arun Nayar-Liz Hurley and Abhishek Bachchan-Aishwarya Rai, are getting ready to tie the knot in the two most extragravant wedding bashes and understandbly, our media has a huge resposibility to give us every detail, from what the chef is garnishing the main course with, to the fantasies of Sir. Elton John, the best man to Nayar-Hurley wedding, of wearing a sari to the wedding.

As always, our media has lived up to it's expectations. After all, Arun Nayar is a playboy billionaire of London who fought and won a bitter divorce battle with his Italian ex-wife. Elizabeth Hurley is one of the very few celebrities who climbed the ladder of fame just with the help of "trigger-happy" photographers rather than her acting skills. Can they be better qualified to occupy the front pages of our newspapers?
So, if Hugh Grant, Hurley's ex-partner, decides to go "Dil Chahtha Hain" way and spring a surprise at Hurley just like Aamir Khan did to Priety, rest assured, our alert media will jump into action and give us every possible detail.

That leaves us with Ash-Abhi pair. When Abhishek proposed marriage to Aishwarya, our media was gracious enough to treat the event as though their own Beta was getting a Bahu to the household. Consequently, their wedding has become a household event of every reader of newspapers. All of us are waiting with bated breath to find out if the wedding will be held in Jodhpur or a lavish palace in Jaipur. Our trained investigative journalists are spying on every palace of Rajastan to give us the answers which all of us will lap it up with relish.

Thank goodness, our media knows it's priorities.

2007-01-22T01:42:00.000+04:00

Rashtrabhasha
We all know that India is a land of diversity and this is one of the main reasons which makes the country so fascinating. Amidst all the diversities, we seem to have forgotten that the greatest source of unity to a nation is a common national language. Although unofficially Hindi is the answer to this issue, the refusal of some of the states in India to embrace Hindi has resulted in a clear North Indian-South Indian rift.
Leaving out a few cosmopolitan cities in the south of India, Hindi is outrightly banished from the society and kids grow up with a notion of Hindi being a sin etched in their minds. Consequently, when we have a group of people from different corners of India in a conversation, there is no common medium for communication except English. Isn't this so typical of a nation with a colonial past? Moreover, English can't be a viable alternative to Hindi since outside the corridors of urban India, English has absolutely no influence.
English may have opened up the gates for India into the world scene and probably if it hadn't been for English, nobody in the West would have dreaded the word "Bangalored". But surely, amidst all these prosperity, India is missing out on one common "Indian" language for all Indians.
So, who is to blame for this? Is it the Hindi-haters? Is it the people from North India who see every South Indian as a "Madrasi"? Is it the IT age which has made Hindi irrelevant?
Probably, it's all the above. If all the regional languages in South India got the respect they deserve from "outsiders", the aversion towards Hindi may subside significantly. On the same vein, the love for their language of the South Indians should not have a repercussion of hatred towards Hindi. Loving Hindi does not mean hating your language and loving your language does in no way justify hating Hindi.
Masala Dosa or Malai Kofta, we are all Indians, right?

2006-12-26T05:20:00.000+04:00

The flicks that weren't.

It's the end of another year and as usual we have a plethora of over-hyped Bollywood flicks whose storylines weren't as catchy as their trailers which were bulldozed on the viewers.

When Amitabh Bachchan sang "Khaike Paan Banaraswallah", he brought to life one of the most memorable characters which we all know as "Don". Although the movie had a pretty ordinary storyline, the culmination of a ruthless gangster and a paan-chewing rustic potraization of the Big B made the movie an instant hit. Little did we know that two decades later, the Don would emerge again as Shah Rukh Khan with flashy gadgets to cater to the Gen-X techno-savvy audience. Without a prize-winning storyline, the movie ended up being a direct "who is better?" contest between the two hall of famers SRK and Amitabh Bachchan. We would really not want to mess ourselves with this debate now, but the pertinent point here is the amount of hype the movie received both in India and abroad although it was nothing more than an old story retold with a "twist". Nobody cared about the story or the breathtaking locales or the James Bond style gadgetry in the sequel. Rather, people flocked into the theatres to see if SRK really measured up to Big B or if Kareena wore skimpier than Helen. This is exactly what the producers wanted but little did they know that repackaging an old story with a contemporary superstar and over the top hype cannot sustain a movie for long. I hope the makers of Sholay2 can get a message or two from this.

Anybody who has seen Dhoom Part 1 can be pretty sure that this is not the kind of movie where you can find Vivah-like family drama or the hackneyed Karan Johar style "marriage gone all wrong" story. Dhoom 2 was no different. With some logic defying stunts and a policeman chasing a thief, only to set him free in the end , the only thing "family" about this movie was the presence of Uday Chopra reminding all of us who the producers of the movie were. But given that Bollywood has always catered to all audiences, the saas-bahu soap lovers weren't to be left behind. Hence we had the off-screen mom-in-law waiting Jaya Bachchan and Ash drama over a liplock scene. Apparently, this scene was so offending to a lawyer in Indore that he went to court with a law suit. The scene became so famous and hyped up that people wanted to see it more than the spiderman antics of Hrithik. Scripts are passe. Today films are all about how you market them and how you strategically create controversies that are just enough to arouse curiousity and give the nudge to people to walk to the theatres...

2006-12-23T19:34:00.000+04:00

End of an era
Shane Warne has announced his retirement from domestic and international cricket. Nicknamed "Shiek of Tweak", he is undoubtedly responsible for reviving leg spin at a time when batsmen started slurping with delight when a spinner came to the crease to bowl.
As a tribute, here is a video of Warne which many people term as "The Ball of the Century".

2006-11-29T09:11:00.000+04:00

Gandhigiri or "TADA"giri?
It is quite baffling that Mr.Sanjay Dutt aka Munnabhai has been let off from being charged under TADA and instead charged under the Arms Act. The terrorist tag has been ripped off from his name much to the rejoice of his Bollywood buddies and relief of his producers.
In his deposition, Sanjay Dutt apparently claimed that he only possessed the weapons for "self defence". I ask you, who on earth would possess an AK-56 for self defence?
AK-56 rifles are used for massacres and mass carnage. When these weapons are coming from Abu Salem, one is tempted to believe that the reasons were more than just self-defence. But now that the judicial system has pronouced it's verdict, it has to be accepted respectfully.

But what is debatable is the mass support that Sanjay Dutt managed to get from Bollywood. Even before the verdict was pronouned, the film fraternity had almost given a clean chit to Mr.Dutt. Perhaps the reel life persona of Munnabhai embracing Gandhigiri had tweaked the mindset of Bollywood into forgetting Dutt's own confession of receiving weapons from Abu Salem which killed thousands of people in Mumbhai, the home of Bollywood. Perhaps the Munnabhai-Circuit combo erazed all memories of the infamous Sanjay Dutt-Chhota Shakeel phone conversation where Dutt was asking favors from the Underworld.

Now that Dutt will most likely re-appleal his verdict and also for an extension of his verdict, his comeuppance seems least likely. Sigh! Celebrities and politicians, they always walk away scot-free.

2006-09-16T08:44:00.000+04:00

Stay beautiful
Does this remind you of anything? If you spend most part of your day "scrapping" your friends, you probably would know what I am talking about. For the benefit of those who are not big "fans" of social networking websites, I am talking about of Orkut, arguably, the most successful online socializing community.
Orkut's popularity doesn't sound all that surprising considering that the mastermind behind it is the almighty Google. It is adept in making all the right moves to get a mass user following. One such sure-shot technique to build up a large user base is to make the membership covetous. This is what Google did with Gmail and Orkut. By making the membership "invitation-only", Google made the membership the most fashionable thing to have. No wonder there were news of invites up for sale at eBay.
Talking about the popularity of Orkut, we all know that instant messengers replaced email, but who would have thought instant messengers would be replaced by "scraps". To quote an incident, a few days back, I was supposed to meet up with my friend. But surprisingly, there were no calls or messages from him which made me assume that the meeting was off. To my bewilderment, my friend calls me up and says "Heavens, What is with you? Don't you check your scrapbook?".
There is no doubt about the fact that Orkut has helped people catch up with long lost buddies. It is a definite treat for anyone who values a moment of nostalgia. Orkut communities are slowly replacing yahoo e-groups. When I thought I could never be able to recollect my high school prayer, all I had to do was ask my batchmates at one of the communities, and the messages started pouring in, each one keying down the lines they could remember.
On the flip side, Orkut has also being started to use as a virtual dating site. There are plenty of people prowling for potential preys with nice looking photographs and inviting profiles. "Shall we be friends?", "Interesting profile, scrap me back and we'll be friends" are some of the common scraps you see on some of the scrapbooks. There are some hopelessly obscene profiles and communities which have reduced Orkut to a mere sex network. Orkut claims that it has been policing such communities and profiles, but the sheer magnitude of its users makes it impossible to cleanse. Well, as they say, this is the cost of popularity.
As for me, let me refresh my Orkut webpage and see if I have any new fans, testimonials and scraps. Wishful thinking as it was, there aren't any.

2006-03-24T08:13:00.000+04:00

Master of her game
The mystery lady is back with her game. With one strike she has silenced her detractors and given her party just the edge it needed in the "moral highground" battle. It's a perfect gameplan by someone who is from the First Family of Indian Politics.
Let's turn back time a few years. Sonia Gandhi is still a novice in Indian politics and is being jeered from all corners as someone who has just come to answer the SOS call of Congress Party. The plan backfires and she ends up getting her party a shameful score in the Lok Sabha elections. To further dent her political ambitions, Sharad Pawar walks out the party. The entire nation is laughing it's heart out. When things couldn't get messier, she has the "famous" tea party with Jayalalitha and plots to bring down the ruling government. As Vajpayee with his famous speech puts down his papers, Sonia rushes to the President claiming to have enough support to form a government, only to realize that she had caused more embarassement to her party. This was enough to create a sympathy wave for BJP and because of Sonia's folly, BJP romped home to victory.
As time clicks, it's contest time again. Congress pulls out a miraculous victory and Sonia becomes the object of resentment at the prospects of her becoming the Prime Minister of India. This time, she plays the masterstroke by pulling herself out of the contest and putting in a dummy aka Manmohan Singh on the chair while still holding the reins. The media proclaimed this to be a "Supreme Sacrifice" and overnight, she became a saint.
Having scored enough brownie points, she decides to carry her "sacrifice" game a little further. When the opposition is crying hoarse about her holding office of profit while still being a MP, she decides its time to bowl the googly again. She relinquishes her MP post and the media again drenches her with glory for her "yet another supreme sacrifice".
Well, nobody is sure what exactly her motives are and for the people who have seen the political situation of India, it still appears to be some kind of a shady plan with definite gains and to pawn out the opposition. But one can never be sure. Is she really genuine about her sacrifices? Is she really "different"? Is she the "saint" which her party proclaims? Well, she still remains a mystery. And she still remains a Master of her Game.

2006-03-23T09:30:00.000+04:00

Life can have it's crowning moments of glory. Even the most rigid atheist may start considering you as God. You may be the source of hysteria for a billion people. A hero in it's real sense for a nation which badly needed one. Picture perfect. You really couldn't ask for more in life. But alas, life turns it's cruel face and Thud! You fall from grace and the very life which gave you the Hall of Fame is making you take the Walk Of Shame.
Sachin Tendulkar carried the Mumbai pride on his shoulders and gave even the "Joopad Patti" cricket fan a sense of pride. "Sachin Aala Re" was the hum heard when he walked into the pitch. A billion fans flexed their muscles for a fight to conquer the world. As he drove the ball through the covers, an entire nation roared. When the hero departed, there was a deafening silence. The battle which seemed to have been won, now seems to be a distance dream as the king trudges back.
And then, the winds of change blew. Little did the King know that the same people who had immortalized him would make him join the rank of mortals. As Sachin nicked Anderson and started walking back to the pavilion, a familiar silence in the Wankede stadium was replaced with booing. A stunned Sachin couldn't believe his brethren could be doing this to him. The enormous expectations was just too much for the throne to be undisputed. A string of failures was just too much for the fans to apprehend and before he knew it, our hero was taking the walk of shame. Such is life. Sigh!

2005-08-10T18:13:00.000+04:00

Times of India has come out with one more of it's shameful bulletin boards : Send hate mail to Dravid and Chappell. When will they ever learn?

2005-06-06T16:10:00.000+04:00

Here is an interesting article about Nandan Nilekani, Infosys CEO's visit to Beijing.

After watching 8-lane highways and digital maps of a
3000-year-old city, after bumping into an architect who says he will build seven
Chinese cities in four years, Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani drives home to
Bangalore past ghostly girders of incomplete flyovers
The quote says it all. When the new buzzword in the tech industry is "Bangalored", it won't be long before China bangalores India.
Nobody in their dreams believed that Bangalore would grow in this magnitude over the past decade. This city was once known to be "air conditioned", where the only hangout places were Cubbon Park and Lal Bhag and where Utility Building was the only major skyscraper landmark. Today the same city has turned out to be the destination of all major IT players in the world. It has seen some worldclass shopping malls which cash in on the spending powers of the Bangaloreans, who now prefer a Forum than Burma Bazaar.
All this comes with a price. The massive growth has created large number of jobs which obviously results in a large influx of people from outside looking out for jobs. Bangalore was ill-equipped to handle this "all of a sudden" glory. It started witnessing huge traffic jams. Anyone who travels via Airport Road to office will tell you that if God gave him a wish, he would ask for wings for his bikes just to escape from the long traffic queues. If you wanted to hone up your driving skills, try maneuvering though the potholes on some of the major roads. We have a government in place which is so concerned about holding it's herd together that it has little time to spend on setting up atleast a basic survival infrastructure. As a consequence, we see incomplete flyovers everywhere and a lacklustre public transportation system.
It wasn't before long that the IT bigwigs started crying foul. Azim Premji threatened to pull out of Bangalore if he didn't get proper infrastructure. Noises and grumbles started coming from all corners. A "Chinese takeover" is now eminent. We have a communist country putting it's heart out trying to make China the most favored offshoring hub in Asia. The wakeup call is long gone and our Government is still sleeping over the whole thing. It is totally blind to the abandoned flyovers. Did you say traffic jams? Did you hear about some neta visiting town and all roads to the Airport will be blocked for 4 hr? Sigh! Wake up Dear Bangalore before the "Great Wall of China" will result in the "Great Fall of India", or should I say "Great Fall of Bangalore".

2005-06-06T00:51:00.000+04:00

I am just back from Washington DC and had a great time catching up with my high school buddies.

2005-05-15T22:28:00.000+04:00

Bollywood is never short of innovations. They never run out of ideas when it comes to luring the audience to the theatres. Just when people had enough of guy and the girl dancing in Swiss Alps, they come out of a novel idea. Bring in a look-alike. This is just what the film "Lucky" is all about. Surpringly, the idea really worked. It aroused enough curiosity among the people that they took front row tickets and ran down their analysis about the Ash bot and gathered enough justifications to settle arguements with their friends whether the bot aka Sneha Ullal resembled Ash or not. To spice up the things, you have Salman Khan at the other end and the Ash look-alike brooding over him ! With all these things in place, who needs a story?
Does Lucky have a story? Ofcourse not.
And does anybody care? Not me. I just saw the movie twice and am on my way for the third time ;-)

2005-05-01T02:30:00.000+04:00

Here is an interesting blog about the counter GMail has on it's homepage. For those of you who haven't noticed it yet, GMail has a counter for it's mailbox size counting from 2GB onwards from April 1st 2005.

2005-04-17T23:09:00.000+04:00

Well, the result is out and our "Famous Eleven" never fail to disappoint us. Being two up in a series was too good to be true and we all knew this was coming. Earlier, we had a Ganguly to vent all our anguish and make him the single reason for all the misfortunes of Indian cricket. Now that he is out of the way, who do we blame?
- Do we blame Sachin for never rising to the occasion when it really matters? His century in the previous innings was a wonderful effort and deserves accolades, but you can't rest on previous laurels and use your days of glory to guarantee a place in the side. Sachin, we respect you for all the fond memories you have given us, but if you can't get us a win now, please stay out of the way.

- Mr.Sehwag, I hope you do realise that a huge six over long-on may make you a hero, but the thing which will give you real stardom is consistency. A few flashes of brilliance and then batting like a minnow will not help the cause in any way whatsoever.

- Kaif and Yuvraj, you still have a long way to go to justify your place in the side. I won't be surprised if the 6th ODI will be the last game you guys played in your career.

- What on earth is Dinesh Mongia doing in the side?

-I really can't blame Nehra,Zaheer and the hapless Balaji. I guess I'll just let them rub their wounds and ponder over what really hit them.

Its about time heads rolled in the team. We cannot afford to have people who take their places in the side for granted. It should be curtains for people who are no longer productive and try to bring in fear among the players that a century in a game does not guarantee a place for the next ten games. Get rid of the Hall of Fames who are now just a burden on the team. Please do not humiliate us any further.

2005-03-28T01:40:00.000+04:00

Give him a break. He has built around him the best team ever. A team which has looked most likely of beating the champs. He brought into the team the one thing which has always been elusive. Aggression.
His own form has been questionable lately. But let's not be myopic about the fact that on his day he can destroy any bowler in the world. He surely deserves another chance. His contribution in building "Team India" gives him the right to be treated with dignity rather than continuous barrage of mindless criticism. I am sure one stylish off drive to get his century will make him a hero again. After all, public memory is very short lived. When that does happen, the idiots at indiatimes will have their mouths full eating their words.
Yes, Mr. Ganguly, you deserve another chance.

2005-03-13T22:54:00.000+04:00

Dream come true! my webpage got listed at google! I put in a lot of sweat linking and crosslinking to get my page listed.
Check out the link.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A2005-01%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=%22shankar+on+the+web%22&btnG=Search

2005-03-08T09:42:00.000+04:00

It was always believed that P.Chidambaram, known for architecting some of the best budgets, will not fail us this time. But horror struck everyone at the end of the budget when they realised that their own hard earned money is, well, not their own anymore.
Consider this scenario. You go to the ATM, punch in your pin and withdraw your money. Let me stress the word "your" here. If you thought things went on perfectly fine, and you can walk back home all smiles,I am afraid you are sadly mistaken. If you look closely behind your shoulders, you will see that our FM is watching you closely. The moment your withdrawal exceeds Rs.10,000, you have to shell out a 0.1% tax to the goverment. Just to stress my point, it is your money!
Mr. PC has given us a 2 point justification for such a ridiculous taxation. Encourage cheque based economy and keep a check on black money. A cheque based economy is highly unlikely to materialize in India due to sheer distrust between the retailer and the consumer. The next time you go and buy a TV, try paying it through a cheque. Chances are that you will be shown the door. One more factor that prevents us from moving to this kind of an economy is fear. How many of us really have the confidence to reveal our credit card information on the Internet?
Moreover, retailers always try luring the consumers into paying up with cash with incentives of discounts.
By taxing the money you withdraw, Mr.PC claims that he can keep a tab on black money. Everybody knows that all the unaccounted money is safely hidden in mattreesses, wardrobes and huge iron lockers. We need lot more stringent methods for tracking all the unaccounted money rather than tax the hapless salaried class.
Well, looks like nobody is laughing all the way to the bank. Atleast not the salaried middle class.

2005-03-07T07:41:00.000+04:00

If you had a fascination for thriller stories and didn't know where to go, look no further. Our Indian politics will give you enough fodder to quench all your thirst for thrillers.
A hung assembly, an incumbent Chief Minister who is entangled in all the scams possible, a wife desperate to hang on to power to save her husband's skin from the law, all the right ingredients for a spine chilling thriller.
All eyes were on the Governor and our friend from Jharkand did a villian act to invite a person with questionable standing in the Assembly in terms of numbers to for a government. There cannot be a shade of doubt that the entire thing was done at behest of the Congress Government at the center. As L.K.Advani rightly said, the Governor is acting like a hired hitman of the UPA goverment. Moreover, what makes the episode more ugly is that the man on the hot seat is Shibhu Soren, a man tainted with scams.
No doubt, the incident has shown the UPA government in totally bad light in front of the national media and Sonia and Co. are definitely in a spot of bother. In the coming days, they'll be putting their steps with a lot of caution just to prevent another embarassement in Bihar. They are definitely not helping themselves by publicly announcing that they'll be supporting Lalu under the pretext of keeping "communal" forces at bay.
Well, let's see what events unfold in the coming days. But one thing is for sure, every time I open Times of India, it's absolute paisa vasool, in terms of thriller value.

2005-02-16T03:43:00.000+04:00

I revamped my homepage. You can catch it at http://shankarnrao.tripod.com

2005-02-14T04:38:00.000+04:00

I had a big realization yesterday. A realization as to what the power of influence can do. I was awed at the big clout Hinduism is creating for itself in America. A visit to the Kalachandhji temple ( more or less ISKON ) gave me an insight as to how people are gripped by Krishna consciousness. When I say people, I don't mean the Desis trying to catch up with their roots, but actual American Whites. This embracing to the Hindu culture can be traced to the popularity of yoga and ayurveda. When people came seeking yoga for peace of mind, they saw that attaining "Nirvana" was much closer. The thought of eternal peace brought them closer to the movement, a movement which is bringing in "Indianess" to the American soceity while stilling trying to maintain it's cosmopolitan tinge

2005-02-14T02:39:00.000+04:00

Cappuccino Musings

2004-11-22T13:50:00.000+04:00

Ok, lets talk about one of those "dramatic" reality shows on TV. I came across a couple of them while doing my usual rounds of channel surfing. Sony is broadcasting the desi version of "American Idol" called Indian Idol. Zee is doing its bit with India's Best ( or whatever it is called ). There is a lot of hype and hoopla surrounding these reality shows portaying them as the biggest talent hunt on the face of earth. Fine, i'm not here to dispute the fact that it does showcase some of the very good talents in the country. But what I find totally annoying is the "emotions flying around" depiction in the shows. Come on, don't the guys at Sony realise that people can easily see through these orchestrated acts. You have an angry mom storming out of the studios, mouthing the choicest of expletives, putting everything and everyone around her in grave danger. And end you see her sobbing daughter accompanying her trying to reason out why she was rejected by the judges when she so totally deserved to qualify. All part of the "hype" game. Project the show as a "will do anything for" thing and then gain some cool TRP ratings. Guys, we are not gullible to fall for that. You claim to be a Reality show. So, stick to that. Don't bring in all the dramatisation. You are fooling nobody here.
And by the way, the mother daughter incident I talked about, it so happens that the mother is a struggling actress in Mumbai who never says no to putting in small acts in reality shows such as these.

2004-11-15T09:21:00.000+04:00

Well,Well... Does anything happen in our country without taking a political colour? The answer is... No, it doesn't.
When Kanchi Shankaracharya was arrested last week, we all knew what was coming. The thrishuls were out. The war cry was heard throughout the country. Yes, its that thing again.. the Secular Vs. Communal battle.
The hindu religious groups viz-a-viz the VHP thought that this was just another exercise by the government to resort to Hindu bashing to appease the minorities. The DMK, which always had an anti-Matt stand, could hardly hide its glee. Hold on, have you ever heard or seen a situation where the Amma's AIADMK and the DMK agreeing upon anything on this earth? Well, you have it here. Both of them nodding their heads in approval. So then, where does BJP stand in this? You have Mr.Arun Jaitely holding press conferences publicly condemning the arrest and seeing a "foreign hand". Well, can't blame any of them. They are trying to do what they do best. Score petty policitical points.
But then, the question remains. What happens to the seer now? The way he was arrested midnight leaves a lot to be desired. The religious leader should have been given an opportunity to consult his legal counsel. What was the hurry? Do you expect a religous figure of such stature to flee to Nepal/Dubai?( This was actually the reason given by the prosecuter ) . Had the same thing happened to a leader of minority community, could anyone have the guts to arrest him without being painted as communal? Does being secular mean just Hindu bashing?
Nobody is above the law. If the Shankaracharya is guilty, so be it. Let him face the consequences. But let us also give him a chance. Lets not project this as a triumph of secular ideology and a victory to politics of appeasement.
As Laloo Prasad said "Let law takes its own course", we all said "Look who is talking".

2004-04-12T13:14:00.000+04:00

Hold your breath.. Will be back soon!!