Hardware stores – Out of serivce

I know a rock/jazz band,.. personally . They loved our Idly, Dosa and they taught us pasta and tortellini.

One day they they gonna top the charts and you come back and read me here,.. again.

read or buy

A theist debate

Bicycle Repairman

There is this site, which can calculate what does the internet think on anything you wish. To start with I keyed in the same keywords any curious Indian would do, “India” and “Pakistan”.

Nothing conclusive , but good to see the results this way. On the same lines, there is one ”bicycle repairman” joke on relevant to this. Here it is if you haven’t heard of it, enjoy:

Manmohan Singh and Barack Obama are sitting at a pub sipping bear. A Journalist who walks in and sees these guys and the conversation :

J: What on the earth you guys dicussing in a pub?

BO: We’re planning World War III.

J : Really? What’s your plan ?

MS: We’re going to kill 15 million Pakistanis and one bicycle repairman

J: A bicycle repairman!?!

Manmohan turns to Obama and says: “See, I told you no one would worry about the 15 million Pakistanis!”

Thorpe park colossus

10 Public Intellectuals

The Top 100 Public Intellectuals Poll was conducted in November 2005 and June 2008 by Prospect Magazine (UK) and Foreign Policy (US) on the basis of responding readers’ ballot.

Noam Chomsky : American linguist, philosopher,  libertarian socialist

Umberto Eco : Italian medievalist, semiotician, philosopher, literary critic

Richard Dawkins : English  evolutionary biologist  author Atheist

Václav Havel :  Czech playwright, essayist, former dissident and politician.

Christopher Hitchens : British author, journalist, and literary critic

Paul Krugman :  American economist, liberal columnist, and author (Nobel)

Jürgen Habermas : German philosopher and sociologist

Amartya Sen : economist,  Professor (Nobel)

Jared Diamond : merican scientist and nonfiction author Atheist

Salman Rushdie : British Indian novelist and essayist

Fethullah Gulen : Turkish preacher

Muhammad Yunus : Bangladeshi banker and economist (Nobel)

Yusuf al-Qaradawi : Egyptian scholar and preacher

Orhan Pamuk : Turkish novelist (Nobel)

Aitzaz Ahsan : Pakistani Advocate

Amr Khaled :  Egyptian activist and preacher

Abdolkarim Soroush :  Iranian thinker, philosopher, reformer

Tariq Ramadan : Swiss Muslim academic

Mahmood Mamdani : Uganda) is the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government in the Departments of Anthropology

Shirin Ebadi :  Iranian lawyer, human rights activist

A weird analyses on the results for  Top 100 Public Intellectuals Poll conducted by Prospect Magazine (UK) and Foreign Policy (US). Do you see any difference as I did?

People who voted think religious preachers are more impotent intellectuals to this world than atheists. The same crowd was mentally aright  in 2005 . Also , now there are more intellectuals in south Asia and gulf compared to west.

Looks like whole poll has intention of appeasement.

2005 list :

1. Noam Chomsky : American philosopher, libertarian socialist
2. Umberto Eco : Italian critic, philosopher
3. Richard Dawkins : English biologist , author, atheist
4. Václav Havel :  Czech playwright, essayist, politician.
5. Christopher Hitchens : British author, journalist, and atheist
6. Paul Krugman :  American economist, liberal columnist, and author (Nobel)
7. Jürgen Habermas : German philosopher and sociologist
8. Amartya Sen : Indian economist,  Professor (Nobel)
9. Jared Diamond : American scientist , author Atheist
10. Salman Rushdie : British Indian novelist,  Atheist

2008 list

1. Fethullah Gulen : Turkish preacher
2. Muhammad Yunus : Bangladeshi banker and economist
3. Yusuf al-Qaradawi : Egyptian scholar and preacher
4. Orhan Pamuk : Turkish novelist
5. Aitzaz Ahsan : Pakistani Advocate
6. Amr Khaled :  Egyptian activist and preacher
7. Abdolkarim Soroush :  Iranian thinker, philosopher, reformer
8. Tariq Ramadan : Swiss religous academic
9. Mahmood Mamdani : Ugandan Professor Government
10. Shirin Ebadi :  Iranian lawyer, human rights activist

Review:Dil Bole Hadippaa

Dil Bole Hadippaa! is another Yash Raj crappy movie. If you are not in high school (or below) and love your reasoning ability you shouldn’t like it. The movie is based on day dreams and fantasies of a fourteen year old.

Remember you were fourteen dreamt about being Chinese figure skating couple (with girl of third bench in your class) after watching it in ESPN? or dreamt about being Spanish Matador after watching it in a news channel? or being secret agent for RAW India and air dropped into Rawalpindi Pakiland for an assignment only you are capable of doing, fantasised after watching a crappy 007 bond movie? It’s same here in Dil Bole Hadippa. Scriptwriter was in a mindset of a high school kid and he just watched a Cricket match!!!

If you were to fantasise a cricket match …..

• Match will have to be won, and it should not be an easy win. It will be a “Last Ball, Last wicket, four runs” win
• Match will have to be won and more importantly won against political or traditional rivals. Also, it has to be a revenge win… 10 year old revenge.
• Opposite team will have 11 all-rounder world class players? Your team will have only you and your captain can play cricket. Rest of them are good for nothing. Still you win
• On the process of winning your vital bone will be fractured, your hand. You will still play to win the match. (If it were foot ball your leg will be fractured and if you are a ballet dancer your ankle….& so on).
• At one point of the time you will have to hit six sixes.
• You will have the ability to score big runs as right and also left handed batsman

Unfortunately all these fantasies are true in this movie; they are incorporated as it is; giving you the ability to predict every scene in the movie.

Other Masalas….

1. Masala #1 Songs: Packed with bad songs. Not single one of them is worth remembering again. This movie is targeted for NRIs around the worlds and specifically Punjabis, so each song is bhangra, with loads of colours and stuff. Exactly. I have never been to Punjab, but I am curious to learn if they dance all the time there as shown in this movie?
2. Masala#2 Re-unions: There are many reunions in this movie, and enough amount sentiments associate with it. First, the father reunites with son, after 10 years resulting in son giving up his career for his father’s silly ambitions. Mother reunites with father for no reason at all!!
3. Masala #3 Item girls: There are two of them in the movie, unnecessarily wearing less than necessary clothing.
4. Masala #4 Realization: Gender Equality, Social Equality, Cricket ethics, work ethics… and other topic attended at philosophical level shot at each other and rest of the world making them realise that they were totally wrong. It is presented such a way that before release of this movie there were none of the above listed ideas practiced in our society.
5. Masala #5 Disguise: Biggest mistake!!! Everyone in the audience (including any retarded ones, if any) can see Rani is in disguise as a man, but no character in the movie could figure that out. For whole length of the movie Rani hides behind thin beard and a turban. Not a soul, including her teammates, captain, spectators, Pakistani visa department, border security and the even the doctor had a teeny tiny doubt!!!

But Shahid could finally find out it’s actually a babe, not a guy and do you know how? Her freaking left contact lenses falls off!!!! What a genius!!!

Lessons learnt: Yash Raj movies suck, always !

How to convert an indian to christianity

This is what happens when kids read holy books instead of history and geography. She says “My friend Sara is Indian and I learned about her culture and realized she needs to become christian, I wanna save her but right now its not looking so good .“

Learned about her culture ??? common you dont not even know the difference between India and Africa for crying out loud. It worries me that this kid who doesn’t even know what religion is, how notorious and stupid it is, is trying to convert some one for fun (or may be a school project)!

You know what kiddo, you tried with an Indian friend. Try it with a middle east kid next time and let us know how it worked out for you…

Early believer

Cartoon lifted from here

World Naked Bike Ride – London 2009

A small clip of  ”World Naked Bike Ride – London 2009″ . I had captured this in my camera sometime back near Hyde park.

I could have crossed the road and shot a better view but did not do it just for a single important reason : want to stay married

Disclaimer: Almost no visible nudity in this clip

Review : Love Aaj Kal

“Love Aaj Kal” is a very pleasant movie. This is one of the 5% Bollywood movies where director has common sense and actors can act.

Straight to the points, I liked these:

• Acting. There were no overacting !! All characters were good in their place. Saif was in his best, he is  better actor than Salman, Shah rukh and Akshay combined.
• Hats off to the director. He dint try too hard to communicate anything.
• There was nice sense of humour in the movie, even in emotional scenes and climaxes. All of those had quality, unlike Akshay’s jokes in his movie.
• Deepika was good. She looked hot , sexy and tall (taller than Rani and Preity combined )

I dint like these:

• Songs. Songs were OK, but i dint like them inserted in the movie. When are we getting rid of this practice ?

I read many reviews saying “plot is difficult to catch and confusing”. Well , that’s not true.. at all. This movie is no matrix, you will be able to catch is easily if you have ability to see beyond typical Bollywood Masalas.

I hope this movie is a big hit.