WooHoo!! Here is the new-look ME!!

Well Junta... here it is... the new look me...!

Well atleast with a new - shorter hair cut :)

Why I did it...? I have no answer... I just got up one fine morning and said... what the hell! lets get it cut...

The entire thing took less than 15 minutes...

Seven years of long hair... and 15 minutes was all it took to become but just memories...

But... Am Happy... :)

Love

-Abhi

The deed is done!

I did it... finally!

Sometime late 2001 I started experimenting with my hair styles... and end
2002 decided to grow it long...

While in engineering I was always - The big fat guy with the long hair, who
rides a Yezdi...

The Yezdi is lying in my garage, unused... I am still big/fat and had long
hair...

Yeap... you got it right... HAD! :)

It is all gone!... all of it... back to a short hair cut now....

The moment of truth... (yea... I really had shoulder length hair)

Stay tuned for the updated pictures...!!

26 and Life is A-changing

I turned 26 recently... I am officially on the longer side of the 20s and for the first time in my career... I am not the kid in the team... :)
Yaaayy!!

But is there any difference? I am not too sure...

But life is going to change for sure... I have recently bought a new place that I am very exited about moving into... it is a decent sized 2BHK in Padbhanabhanagar, Bangalore.

Presently with the woodwork and the painting in progress - Hopefully I should be in the new place..

Her name is VYNA (why-na) and it is a Kannada/Marathi root word which means 'mesmerizing', 'beautiful' or just 'nice' (depending on usage)...

I am spooked about this place... I mean I need to choose colors and all... and that is definitely not my forte...
What I see in my imagination somehow never translates into real life colors... but what the hell... I am going to go ahead and live the vida-loca... :)

More ahead... await the finished pics :)

Making a difference

Mumbai... 3 days of utter chaos and confusion - 3 days of making Indians all over sit up; shocked, frustrated and perhaps fuming a little. In the days that followed; people suddenly woke up and wanted to know what happened? How can something like this happen!? How did the government let something like this happen!? we really cant trust the government! let us do SOMETHING and make a difference.
Suggestions on what needs to be done have been floating around since... make Mumbai (and other cities) state-cities, increase spending on internal defense, buy more posh weapons... what not...!!!
The problem with all these approaches is that it does not solve any problem... you are only looking at different ways to fight... but not solve... the problem does not go away or anything.
People also have this sudden desire to 'do something' 'make a difference' 'create a tidal wave of change' and whatnot!?! but because everyone wants to something drastic (which we cannot do) we eventually go back to our grumbling selves complainig about the 'pathetic state of affairs' and 'the horrible government procedures'...
True... each time disaster strikes it brings with it a batch of converts who are actually doing stuff; but to a large majority of us - it makes us little more than arm chair activists.

So... the question now is... what will make a difference? How do we actually create a change?

One thing that crossed my mind when all this was happening was - the nature of coverage. That same weekend, a former prime minster died, a cyclone wrecked havoc on Chennai and parts of South India; but somehow escaped the gaze of national media? why? what made this event so 'special' (need a better word here) that all other news was JUST NOT covered?

Bombs went off in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmadabad and where not... sure they were all covered... but never to this degree... people were taken hostage earlier but that too did not bring in the same interest in coverage... What changed this time?

I believe that there were a couple of factors here... firstly (and most importantly) Mumbai is the information/news capital of India... forget anything else... this is Mumbai's single most important product.
When terror struck; it was automatically put into limelight and brought before the world... news channels managed to stay on topic for 60 hours straight... a record in these days... nothing else seemed to matter...except that mumbai was under attack... Frankly... more than the terrorists themselves... i think the media succeeded in spreading terror... when a terror attack happens - the act perse is often not half as horrible as its ability to linger and play on the minds of people who did not experience it...

This is what the media has done... spread it... and along with 'reporting' they also managed to shout and screem at the cameras and spread emotions, fan it worldwide...

What happened in Mumbai was a heinous act by a bunch of crazed psyched guys... and should never have happened... I do not for a moment say otherwise... but there is a difference between reporting and fanatic sensationalizing an event... a news channel has to stick to reporting else they are liable to create more damage than the terrorists themselves....

I believe in the strength of the free estate... freedom of the presses... we need to know what is happening around the world... news and views and everything... but there is a thin line between 'reporting and fanatic sensationalizing'... and I think what creates a crossover is.... MONEY

People made money from this terror... like it or not... and this money was made by the 'good' guys... The baddies were in it for ideologies and a false sense of righteousness or whatever... the good guys made the money... the innocents were victims... as always...

Now... this kind of gives me an idea what if we remove the excessive cash flow from these media channels? keep the revenue from advertising and stuff... but remove the fatty revenue... Stop the revenue from SMSes...

SMSes.. I believe has provided the system with more money than it knows how to handle - 3-6Rs from each and every person who has an opinion and a mobile... a country of over a billion and the revenues from the bottom of the pyramid are HUGE... TV shows (reality shows)... News channels... Radios and more are able to make revenues that makes the quality of the programming almost redundant... all these media seem to be gravitating towards making more money... not better programming... When Money speaks it has the loudest voice... and it seems to be making mincemeat of every other value system there is...

What I would suggest is... If a media wants my opinion.. I should not have to pay for it... Ideally the 'asker' should be paying for it... or at the very least... It should be free... What organistion will pay the client to take its opinion... esp when the organization has nothing to gain from it?

Think about it... With the flush money gone... news channels will have to go back to making sound programming to sustain itself... true... some might resort to more sensationalism initially... but it will not sustain... never had... never will... SOme major players might close down... but the ones that sustain will not ever be a carrier of distrust... the equations will have to change...

Ever notice... whenever we speak of the negatives of an Indian evert (or even its positives) we seem to use the same cliched phrases? we are getting this from the media...

PLease people... let us not be lead blindly by them... think for yourself... ask questions around... learn to make your own opinions...

ALL Pakistanis are NOT bad... even if the terrorists were indeed pakis (which no1 has proof for) then they were 10 pakistanis... not a nation of pakistan... we cannot choose to hate an entire nation (or religion) based on 10 representatives...  I am sure we will find the same proportion of fundamentalists amoungst ourselves also... Be not a pawn but be the path... be yourself... and be aware...

What can I do about the SMS Idea..? at the end of the day... perhaps nothing... but I WILL NOT hate... I will not carry with me the negative emotions... I will choose to be happy... I will choose to spread the happy energy :)

keep well mates... Life is good... Gaea is there :)

love
Abhi

What Now Brown Cow?

Hey blog...
I have been busy...
busy thinking... pretending to think...
busy working... pretending to work...
busy living... pretending to live...
Been busy... pretending to be busy...

Actually I have been thinking...about a lot of things...
About the kind of image I portray to the world around me... about the kind of person I come across to all those non-existent people who are figments of my imagination... (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams)...
I have been thinking about communication... and effective communication...
I have been thinking about Relationships... and Stereotypes in relationships...
I have been thinking about Mumbai... and the cycle of Karma...
I have been thinking about finding the question to 'life, the universe and everything' (the answer should be 42 remember?).. and thus ending existence as we know it...
I have even been thinking about thinking itself... and how it often limits us in our actions...

I have been thinking... I need some new energy... Maybe I ought to write.... write a book perhaps... not with the intent to publish... but with the intent to get some clarity in thought...

I am trying out the new scribefire extension to firefox... bloggin from within the browser...
What now... brown cow..?

Equality and Feminism

I am a feminist - and thats the truth.

Feminism is that percept that says women are equal to men. I happen to concur; how can this statement possibly be wrong.
I have been trying to understand the underlying problem with people accepting equality as a percept -and I think the problem lies in the fact that as humans we necessarily tend to gravitate towards a status quo. We do that in two distinct styles... We want to form groups and we need to 'feel' superior...
Think about it... We have never been too goo with the concept of Authority; we have accepted it as something we had no choice about... and the first opportunity, we took pleasure in breaking the shackles of authority. Teachers, Parents, elder siblings every/any relationship that started with the concept of authority was just begging to be broken. As humans we cannot stand that we are not supreme.
I think this might have something to do with the notion of the alpha male - so this problem might be more prominent in the male species; but i have also noticed a similar thread in females... so I generalize.
The other thing we do is to form herds or groups of (who we think to be) like-minded people. we somehow seek to know we are not the ONLY people with our kinds of thoughts/behaviors or whatever... while earlier generations found little realization to this angst; with Web 2.0 Communication and  social networking, we are now finding soul-mates across geographies.
So... with these two things... Now.. let us get back to the original question.... why do people find it difficult to accept the concept of feminism... because it goes against these two needs... one.. because feminism asks a man to think outside the concept of the traditional roles of man/woman (where the man is by default the superior of the relationship) to actually taking each relationship at face value and fighting for the superiority (by individual profile) in each and every relationship he has... (the need to be superior does not go away... it just has to be taken on a case by case basis... I do not believe that any relationship can be perfectly equal)
Two... feminism asks that the man associate with a group (feminists) who are by sheer numbers a smaller (and weaker) group.. this is akin to the cliche' of a Hollywood portrayal of US high school popular jock being asked to associate with a group of nerds or geeks (Ooohh! the horror) it is not that the 'hero' is against the particular principle of the theory but is against openly associating with it and being considered part of a weaker group (and hence loosing the 'manliness' factor)
If we are to see acceptance of feminism; we ought to think of how we tackle these two issues...

any ideas?

Where am i?

I haven't blogged in a while... why? I love writing inane stuff... i make a living writing... so writing itself cannot be too much of a task... why then haven't i blogged?
I forgot myself... i forgot the inaneness that blogging allows... flow of words... thoughts... emotions... I was being too serious... i forgot myself...
Damn! not hapening...! let me find myself... let me find a new me...
the now me... i am not me... I AM ME...
and so shall begin the re-discovery... the re-definition... the re-genesis of the persona that i am...

Big words... all crap... but i need me...

Peg After Peg

Found this poem after a long time. This is absolutely hilarious... take a read.

Peg After Peg

I never take risk while drinking

When I come from office in the evening, wife is
cooking
I can hear the noise of utensils in the kitchen
I stealthily enter the house
Take out the bottle from my black cupboard
Shivaji Maharaj is looking at me from the photo frame

But still no one is aware of it
Becoz I never take a risk

I take out the glass from the rack above the old sink

Quickly enjoy one peg
Wash the glass and again keep it on the rack
Of course I also keep the bottle inside my cupboard
Shivaji Maharaj is giving a smile

I peep into the kitchen
Wife is cutting potatoes
No one is aware of what I did
Becoz I never take a risk

I: Any news on chopra's daughter's marriage
Wife: Nope, she doesn't seem to be that lucky. Still
they are looking
out for her

I again come out; there is a small noise of the black
cupboard
But I don't make any sound while taking out the
bottle
I take out the glass from the old rack above sink
Quickly enjoy one peg

Wash the bottle and keep it in the sink
Also keep the Black Glass in the cupboard
But still no one is aware of what I did
Becoz I never take a risk

I: But still I think chopra's daughter's age is not
that much
Wife: What are you saying? She is 28 yrs old... like
an aged horse
I: (I forgot her age is 28) Oh Oh...

I again take out potatoes out from my black cupboard
But the cupboard's place has automatically changed
I take out the bottle from the rack and quickly enjoy
one peg in the sink

Shivaji Maharaj laughs loudly
I keep the rack in the potatoes & wash Shivaji
Maharaj's photo & keep
it in the black cupboard

Wife is keeping the sink on the stove
But still no one is aware of what I did
Becoz I never take a risk

I: (getting angry) you call Mr. chopra a horse? If
you say that again, I
will cut your tongue...!
Wife: Don't just blabber something, go out and sit
quietly...

I take out the bottle from the potatoes
Go in the black cupboard and enjoy a peg
Wash the sink and keep it over the rack
Wife is giving a smile

Shivaji Maharaj is still cooking
But still no one is aware of what I did
Becoz I never take a risk

I: (laughing) So chopra is marrying a horse!!
Wife: Hey go and sprinkle some water on your face...

I again go to the kitchen, and quietly sit on the rack

Stove is also on the rack
There is a small noise of bottles from the room
outside

I peep and see that wife is enjoying a peg in the sink

But none of the horses are aware of what I did
Becoz Shivaji Maharaj never takes a risk

chopra is still cooking
And I am looking at my wife from the photo and
laughing
Becoz I never take what???