Wake up Sid is about you and me...

Yes, Wake up Sid is about each one of us. I saw it and liked it. It was crisp, simple, fun, and touching at times. It was a feel good movie and i was smiling all through till the end :) Thanks! KJo for once. I had lost all hope in you after seeing the ageing SRK again and again in NY. I really needed a break...and this is just in time :)

If you are a college going kid, you will love it...I assmue you would coz the show i saw probably had 70% college going kids and they were all having a good time! If you are a parent, you can identify with it and the attitude of the Y generation. And if you are like me, you will smile looking back at your younger days and how your life has shaped on few years after college. After all there is a Sid in each one of us. And of course if you are woman from a smaller city, fighting your way into a bigger city, some parts may just strike a cord.

Whatever be the case, there is a good chance you might fall in love with the colorful Sid and his funny innocent ways and expressions. And yeah, you might say he's too colorfull for a man :) Yes, Ranbir is all there for you with his muticolored striped socks, red shorts, cartoon sketched t-shirts in nice bright happy colors!

All in all a light hearted movie to be enjoyed. If you have time, go for it and let me know if you liked or hated it! And if you are the movie critic...choti moti galtiyon ko jaane bhi do yaaron...

Maya Avenue - abuse of tax payers money

After her love for statues...Mayawati now turns her attention to spend 42cr of tax payer's money on her own mansion sprawling 1 lakh sq ft - Maya Avenue.

She has encroached upon all the land neighbouring her mansion and work is going on full force.

Why the hell is the govt allowing all this?

Read this outlook report

Equality in marriage

Got this you tube link from Amit Varma's India Uncut blog
Check out this brilliant ad. Its beautifully done :)

Our auto goes abroad and turns pretty

The world is flat! Really! so flat that our neighbourhood rick drove itself all the way abroad.

I took this pic on the streets of Brighton, UK.


























The pricing is just right! 3 pounds for the whole day! Wow!! Our rick guys need to catch up. Im sick of their tantrums and strikes every now and then for more fare.

And im so so impressed with the driver seat belt and that too in use :) Safety standards for ricks too!!...unheard! hmmm is anyone in India listening?

Another pat on the back...yes! its a battery operated rick. clap clap! a real green rick finally! I had got tired of the gimmick of painting CNG fitted ricks green and doing the environment bit.

And yes! its a lady driving it! And she's all set for the long day...has her water bottle and coffee nicely stacked in there.

So, the pan chewing, abusive, oogling auto wale bhaiya - ok.tata.byebye

P.S -Ratan please don't sue me for using your & ur esteemed company's name...pleeeaaase ;-)

Petition Update and the Statue in the Middle of the Ocean

Petition Update and the Statue in the Middle of the Ocean

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Horn OK Please!

Ive always been amused by the one/two liners written in rickshaws and behind trucks and buses. I must confess whenever I have taken a rick, I have eagerly looked around for those lines or when i am behind a truck or bus I am reading those lines, smiling, and wondering what they mean...
These are some of the ones I remember and what i think of them:

• Buri nazar wale tera muh kala (We Indians really hate black dont we? I suspect the fair and lovely type industry started this slogan! Cmon! my fav color is black...i love my black dress, my black abercrombie t-shirt, my black grey eye makeup and of course my kala kala chashma ;) !!


• Buri nazar wale tera bachhe jiye, bade hoke tera khoon piye (this variant is so funny...somebody has a vampire like sense of humour out there.)

Dekho magar pyar se (Aaah the romantic type. And you thought truck and auto drivers were heartless.)

Dulhan wahi jo piya mun bhaye, gadi wahi jo note kamaye (lol..this guy got his priorities right in life. )

• Dont kiss me (Eeewwww...excuse me!!)
• Please sound HORAN (I know inglis, im deaf and this is the rule of the road...honk honk honk!)
• Mein bada hoke truck banoonga (i love this one! seriously!!)
• Maa ki dua, baap ki chamaat (and mera ghoosa! dhishum!!)
• Main phir aaunga (sachhi? pls dont bother. I hate stalkers!)
• Phir milenge (duniya gol hai dost!)
• Singh is King (yes of course...Akshay Kumar has made us deaf with that! and madam jee's pet manmohan jee is a sure winner too! Play on...Singh will always be King!)
• Dulhan hi dahej hai (wow! thats one right minded guy out there! )
• Mera bharat mahan, lekin junta pareshan (spot on bro! u got it! pulse of the junta. couldnt hav been more correct.)
• Malik ki gaadi, driver ka paseen, chalti hai road pe banke haseena (Wah hazoor wah! Bollywood sorely needs you! Anu Malik is looking for a sing writer. Contact right away!)

BIAL should have been Deve Gowda Int Airport

So guys, i got the dope on BIAL at Devanahalli and why it is so dam far away from Bangalore city. I did speak a bit about it in one of my previous posts. It is a really cool airport and you can easily spend all the time in the world there eating, shopping, surfing, bird watching...and what have you...well that is only after you reach there battling the traffic for 2-3 hours. S0, you finally reach cursing whoever thought of constructing the airport there...nowhere!!

So, who are you cursing - Mr Deve Gowda (DG) of course! Who else can you curse for the state of affairs in Karnataka! So the story i hear from some socially and politically awake Kannadigas goes like this (if this story isnt entirely correct and you know another story pls let us know)- When DG was the PM for some time, the proposal to come up with a new airport was doing the rounds and search for land was on...and DG proposed that the new airport would be at Devanahalli. Now why Devanahalli? Devanahalli is a village and has lots and lots of land all around and nothing else. And who owns all the land??? - the gowdas of course (did u hear about their benami assets? ok more on that in another post) ...so the far sighted politician that DG is, he saw a wonderful opportunity to rake in big big bucks for himself and his family...so once an airport comes up land prices shoot through the sky and the clan rolls in money..yay!

So, while the clan is having fun we are cursing and frustrated spending all our time, energy, and money cutting across the city to this sleep village. But for a man who eats, sleeps, breaths politics, you and me of course do not matter to him! He is a political animal, whose interests are permanent.

And you may know that Devanahalli is not the only case in Karnataka. People like DG and Kumaraswamy own most of the land in and around Bangalore, Hasan, parts of western ghats, iron rich Bellary district and many other parts of Karnataka that are strategically important. Well, in a way you may argue that such areas will see development of some kind due to the their vested interests, but I have my reservations on development in this manner...more on that some day!

Do 2 monitors on your desk make u more productive?

If somethings came in doubles it would make us all happy, like - 2 salaries, 2 cars, 2 lives, 2 houses, 2 bowls of ice cream ...but what about 2 monitors connected to the same CPU on your desk!! Wierd, right? hmmm...so thinks me!

Some bright star really up in the food chain in my company decides that all employees should have 2 monitors on their desk...coz his research says this will increase productivity by 30%!!! Why? How? Logic? who cares! its not for us small fishes to think of that. But, still why doesnt every commercial establishment have the same mantra...one employee, one CPU, but 2 monitors! Cool...but why should i complain...i have nothing to lose!

My only issue being - the world is in recession and a bad one at that! Businesses have closed down, stocks have crashed, lacs of people hav lost jobs and taken salary cuts....basically all bad things have happened... My company did not lag behind...sacked people every quarter, frozen salaries, and taken to every trick in the book to cut costs - cut perqs, increased transportation charges and even went down to removing the paper towels from the loos :(

So, with all this around who is the bright star who wants to spend thousands of $ in getting each one of us one more LCD monitor to grace our workstation...Mr bright star...please give us our raise, which has been on hold for so long now...we are happy and productive enough with one monitor to stare at! But still, somebody pls enlighten me on the productivity aspect of it.

Paranoid states of America

So, racial profiling was the Independence day gift to SRK. Detained & questioned for 2 hours at Newark airport, USA. Why? Just because of his last name. Cmon, he is a celebrity and who doesnt know him!! For god sake uncle sam get real...if nothing pls google SRK !!! I am having serious doubts on US intelligence and homeland security.

Guys, pls the first thing here - I am really against the VIP culture and the habit of making mini gods out of celebs and politicians...the law is the same for everyone...but imagine if SRK is being put through all this, what is the plight of common people who cannot call up their secretaries and the Indian High Commission to sort out. There have been umpteen celebs with last names that the Americans hate...who have faced this emabarrasment and humiliation before. But, no protests, appeals, talks have ever meant anything to big brother. I have had many friends and family who have been asked to step out of the queue in US airports and have been grilled because the computers say their names were suspicious! Friends and family have told me how they felt humiliated, scared, angry, shattered, tense, emotionally scarred from such incidents...but who cares they were some poor Indians of no value and with no rights in that country!

So my point is not against some Mr. SRK or Amir Khan or Kabir Khan being screened and questioned...my point is about why time and again..again n again the people being questioned, asked to step out of the queues belong to a certain religious cmmunity. My point is about racism, about racial proffiling, which has become synonymous with USA.

Big brother always gets it wrong...one 11/9 and they make a terrorist out of every Muslim and wipe out nations from the face of this world. Isnt it rather strange, that the President himself is Barack HUSSEIN Obama!! It is a country with rather strange laws. Aren't they the SUPER power? How do they get it all wrong?

I am a world citizen and have a right to have a free mind and live with respect and dignity in this world. Why do I need to go through all this every time I travel? Why should I be harrased and humiliated? What is wrong with my last name? What is wrong with my skin color?

Thank you Big brother for fueling hatred, racism, changing, dividing, and polarizing the world forever and ever.

Irony at its best

A friend sent these 2 lines in an email -

900 people get Swine Flu and everybody wants to wear a mask.
A million people have AIDS and no one wants to wear a condom!

How true! not to trivialize the swine flu/H1N1...but think of the number of AIDS patients around the globe, think of all the painful deaths, the isloation, the ostracisation, the loneliess of waiting for death to knock on their door...and still we choose to ignore or sometimes just be careless.
Guys! fight AIDS and all deadly disease to the best that we can. Practice safe sex! It is your life. Value it. You are important to me.

The banana leaf plate

Hey! this was my first time...and i was excited. I had never had the chance to eat the traditional South Indian way...where they use a banana leaf instead of a plate. It takes time to get used to it, but it was fun. I clicked pics there!
We stopped at this placed called Kamats on the Mysore Bangalore highway to eat. I was told this was the place for good authentic Karnataka food...and so I said - lets do it guys!

They served us 3 types of vegetables (some leafy thing, chick peas, and brinjal) along with rice, sambhar, rasam, cucumber and curd salad. Some bit was spilling out of the banana leaf...my hubby managed just fine and I did have some odd moments, but I did it finally with a big smile :)

Got some pics of their open kitchen, with a battery of people preparing the grub. Checkout the bananas hanging there. They plucked and gave one to everybody who ordered the big meals.

The Sholay city

Saw the Sholay city!! Yeah! the kitne aadmi they movie!! Im talking about Ramnagaram (silk city)...as I was told that this was the place, the hills, where they shot Sholay...in fact some bit is called Sippynagar (after Ramesh Sippy who made the movie). The Sholay hill is the touristy bit there. No, i havent been there...just passed by listening to the story

Valkyrie

Guys! i saw this monster parked outside Mc Donalds on the way to Mysore...A well built huge dude and his tiny frail girl friend rode away on it! lol...i couldnt help clicking a pic...all the others in the parking lot were doing the same :)

Bangalore Mysore Corridor

So, you might have heard about the corridor that is supposed to reduce the distance between the cities and make travel easier and less time consuming...So you think its going great guns? NO WAY! I think the project has been stuck for over 1o years and now they have managed to make a small part operational....We headed out for mysore on this road and the honeymoon lasted just about 15 minutes...but the preview is loking good...hope we make some progress on this and next tme we can cruise this stretch!

Corner House...yummilicious

So what do you do when you are in Bangalore?
I don't know...whatever you do...head straight to a popular ice cream parlour - Corner House and ask for DBC (death by chocolate) This is to die for...sin, yummy, not to be missed. This is the best DBC I have ever had anywhere!! and whenever I am in bangalore, even for a few hours, I dont miss this place ever ever :)
You can find it on - Briagde Road, Koramangala, Airport Road..and many other places too...just google guys!

BIAL

Guys! uve got the to see the new bangalore airport (sorry bengaluru...personally i just dont like this name change....not to offend anybody pls) anyway...its fancy, swanky, shiny, bright....cool shops, over priced eateries...its like the airports abroad! Check out their website - http://www.bengaluruairport.com/portal/page/portal/BIAL_PageGroup/BIAL_HOME
Boy! if u have ever flown in or out of the old Bangalore airport with leaking roof, you would know what I'm talking about. This one is cooooolll...So, now you thinking wow! Well, u spoke to early...since when did we become all rounders :) no! yeah so the bump - the dam airport is a good 2 hours away from the city!!! yeah! i mean my flying time into the city was less than that...what the f**k!! and god forbid if you are travelling during peak time keep aside 3 hours...and load your ipod..its going to a mad fight through the city traffic...Bangalore is a nightmare to live and travel!
Bu, aren't you wondering why should you have an airport far away from the city? This one is reserved for another post :) later alligator :)

Darvidians Ahoy!

Welcome to my first entry on this blog. Well, my first entry had to be about South India! I am a hard boiled north indian married to a south indian (kannadiga - native of state of karnataka) and I just cant stop getting amazed or discovering the southern part of the country. For an average north indian this is a totally different place altogether...different language, culture, food, habits, family way...and so on...the list is endless...u will get to know some as we go along... :) I have lots to tell u guys...

Last week I made a 2 day trip along with my hubby to Bangalore and Mysore (his hometown) and I was bubbling...my roving eye was seeing so much and my hubby is always trying his best to explain things to me...and most of the time my questions just dont stop!!! - what? why? what? why? Yeah, I am the over inquisitive north indian some woud say! I dont care...i want to know all!!
The next few posts will be about what the roving eye saw, heard, thought...its fun guys! hang on!