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Friday, June 30, 2006
ok..so now this is a new concept. instead of tagging friends and bugging them into revealing some utterly useless (?) revealing-information about themselves, now you stand a chance to give them some cool air-return tickets. all you gotta do is read on.. :D
## Start of GoPaGaL Tag ## If your blogger friend has tagged you, follow this link to participate: http://www.pagalguy.com/goblog/ GoAir and PaGaLGuY.com bring to you the GoPaGaL Campaign where you can win free return tickets to the destination of your choice. Winning is simple, just copy paste this tag on your blog after adding answers to the questions below and publish this as a blog post on your blog! Then head out to http://www.pagalguy.com/goblog/ , fill in the form and send us your Name and Blog post URL & Finally, tag 5 more blog users and let the world know. Promise! Its that simple and should take you no more than 5 minutes!! — Answer the question below — Q) On which GoAir Sector would you like to win a free air ticket?
A) Delhi-Mumbai ( Answer the above question after you visit http://www.goair.in ) [ Link (Tag) 4 other blog users in your network so that they too get a chance to win the tickets. Without you tagging 4 other bloggers, your entry will stand disqualified.]
Tag
I would like to link the following bloggers!
1 — Srikrishnan http://agamecalledlife.blogspot.com/
2 — Priyanka http://blogpriyanka.blogspot.com/
3 — Raghav http://theroadaheadnow.blogspot.com/
4 — Amrita http://ramblesofaninsomniac.blogspot.com/ - End of Q & A - Now head over to http://www.pagalguy.com/goblog/ and submit your entry to win the tickets. New winners will be announced every fortnight!  Why? What? How? This is an unique campaign run by 'GoAir - The People's Airline' and 'PaGaLGuY.com - India's largest MBA forum'. We are giving out over 26 return airtickets over a period of two months! Join the insanity and find more ways to win tickets at http://www.pagalguy.com/gopagal/ Visit GoAir - http://www.goair.in
Visit PaGaLGuY.com - http://www.pagalguy.com ## End of GoPaGaL Tag ##
Posted at 03:10 pm by Lord Q
For Posterity
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Then ...
stingsoc writes
too
early in our conception, we have been thrust into the limelight. the
fastest growing society of all time already has a dedicated cleintele,
publishers and critics. we are all humbled by this response & hope
that we shall continue the hatchet jobs in the future.
our mission
We
just love gossip. and if we cant get true gossip, we create it. we are
friendly, malicious, totally amoral & riddiculously wicked. in
other words, we are totally lovable.
our vision
to
create an atmosphere of fun, frolic & deep mistrust between people.
to make superstars out of mundane everyday individuals. we believe in
andy warhol when he says that, "in the future, everybody will have his
15 minutes of fame". we are ensuring your future for you.
our equipment
All
Nokia phones enabled with cams/video recorders & most
importantly..bluetooth technology. Hence, all models older than N6600
are summarily rejected.
the people
we
have learnt in countless HR lectures that people make an organization.
in this respect we are pleased to announce positions for fulltime
stingsecs, stingreps & stingcam guys. all folks who are genuinely
interested in a full-time/freelancing assignments may please mail us at
stingsoc@gmail.com
Now...
R.I.P.
here lies a much-maligned, much
misunderstood society whose ambition in life..was merely to be accpted,
even though it was a bit different from others. and bring a cheer to
all those who uphold the values of right to free speech & malicious
slander. We did not seek popularity, just incongruent notoreity. We
wanted to be as omniscient as avagadro's constant, but where thwarted
in our effoirts by the forces of the good & the jealous. However, it were the forces of the stupid, which really gave the kayo punch, which knocked us out.
However, a prophecy before we end
the saga henceforth. from the ashes of this shall rise a free spirit,
one which will be free enought o choose...the way of the soc. And
dormant we shall lie, till our true hero, lifts the chains that bind
us, to the normal humdrum of living and send us soaring, back to the
eyries that are now vacant.
Posted at 04:12 am by Lord Q
For Posterity
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Searching for the true springsteen
The Boss, is in my mind, the best godamn thing that has happened to rock ever. And he does the most godamndest of all things. Long-time springsteen fans will agree that of every two albums that he cuts, exactly one is worth dying for & the other merely has value because its springsteen.
Take his latest album - We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions. True, he is prone to bouts of melancholy throughout his career, but rehashing Pete Seeger's singles is not what we want him to do. NOT me atleast. For me, Sprinsgteen represents the energy of Born in USA or the irony of Glory Days. We need stories, not dirges. He comes up with stuff like Born To Run & follows it up with a tepid Nebraska. Then again a real live one with The River & follows it with Darkness On The Edge OF Town. i mean wtf. you are wasting talent, thats what. he could have been the greatest ever, and all he does is campaign against Bush.
Th genius of springsteen lies in two bits - the story & the music. the recipe for building up a classic boss song is
1. get one nice story
2. get the boss mix.
3. Let the mixture stand alone for thirty seconds
4. serve it all gun blazing with a wall of sound finish
~classic springsteen hit. not hard on the cerebrum & sweet music to the ears. ok i admit, i am no great afficinado of guitaring. Hendrix could as well be playing a fidle for all i care. the package would be complete with great story, great sound and great music. I like all three bits served together. thank you very much~
.
And thats why Seeger Sessions is so disappointing. We Shall overcome is a song that every kid in India knows how to hum, thanks to the translated hum hongey kamyaab bit. And apart from a semi-boss hit like Pay Me My Money Down, this one album isnt the boss at all. Which is really inexcusable.
Posted at 06:34 pm by Lord Q
For Posterity
Monday, May 01, 2006
btw, read any good book lately?
oh hell.
when i was a kid, life was so simple. didi had a rack of huge books which she had won over the years (and to which i added a few more); there were small ones & big books, racy thrillers, abridged classics, great stories from the past & greater tales of the sci-fi, ramayana & mahabharat, stories from the panchatantra & akbar-birbal, there were amar chitra kathas, there were jungle heroes like phantom & magicians like mandrake. there were heroes on a ship like Jim, and on a boat like Huck; there were smart ones like Tom & petrified ones like David; super sleuths like Hardy Boys & Jupiter Jone's gang. there was Sebastien vs Holmes & the ever dapper Poirot's egg-shaped head. there were knights on a round table, knights taking on windmills & knights fighting dragons, knights in chains & knights climbing on dark towers. there were betrayed knights & knights on a round table; there were heroes of the sea; madcap captains & bandy-legged sailors, wild whales & wilder seas. there were merry outlaws & dastardly ones. there was a sense of adventure infinite, in whatever i read or did.
you see, it was rather easy to become a bookophile in those times. there was simply too much magic in the air. and the shelf had plenty of books to read. so, whenever there was an afternoon to be whiled away, there was always some ready adventure to go on.
Cut to now. If what i had then was, say x, now i have 100x. The choice available to spend a lazy afternoon away has just expanded to include almost anything under the sun...or has it ? somehow, Coleridge is right across the centuries & contexts, when he says
"Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink."
its just that now, i just have way too many books to read from, but not any one to read. somehow, the question: read any good book lately acquires a desperation quite contrary to its implied meaning.
somehow, the quest to find a good one is all the more harder, maybe thats because i have a lot..or maybe thats also because we've ceased to create classic literature any longer. the sort that could appeal even after a couple of readings and be just as inviting as it was at the start. i wish, for once, there was a book i could read without the creeping lassitude that comes along with it. a lassitude of having read that before, or of seeing that plot unravel the way it does eventually. Its like Orwell foretold,
A nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting -- three hundred million people all with the same face.
Oh why, oh why cant there be something that remains inside your head for years with the exact same thought & expression as it was when you first read it. And till the time, something like this comes up, the desperate plea remains.. btw, read anything good lately
Posted at 02:52 am by Lord Q
For Posterity
Saturday, April 22, 2006
the curious incident of a car in night time
What a day !! drove 1.5 hours from Gurgaon to Delhi only to find that 'd forgotten the housekeys @ Gurgaon. went back around 11.30 in the night to fetch the keys back and ran into the worst traffic pile-up in delhi that i've ever had the misfortune to be in. By using the Alto as a new-age SUV..managed to reach Gurgaon in 2 hours and some spare minutes. Decided that i could not endure another carathon. so slept.and guess what..7.30 in the morning, started for Delhi & reached in some 35 odd minutes. darn!! shoulda stayed back in Gurgaon from the start and come to Delhi in the morning itself..instead of tying to tie up all work by evening.Moral of the Story: being lazy pays off.  While in the long 4 hour to & fro drive..i've realised how radio stations contribute to the general state of semi-road rage in Delhi. after all, how many times can you hear "ooooohhh huzzoooooorrr" in one night. once, twice or if particularly brave thrice ? I listened to this and other mind-numbing skull-busting himesh whatshisname hits five times..thats one play every 48 minutes !!
Next time..someone plz road-rage the topi-waala music director. When i was a kid, NH $ meant open roads and frightful truck drivers who rolled over you in their sleep. right now, i cant see how the poor souls can even drive.Cars are like pieces of jigsaw. they plug all the available space for exit & entry to a road. Its like guerilla warfare out there. you never know who is gonna come and quickly take over that 1mm space that you had been eyeing beadily for the past 10 minutes.
And if u need to overtake, you have to stalk your prey like his shadow. familiarise yourself with his moves, anticipate the next ..feel at one with the driver ahead. and whenever you feel in his mind, a mild apprehension about changing lanes, go for the jugular. press the accelarator and brake at the same time and make a racket that will scare away a herd of approaching rhinos. Then let loose your car horn like the very sound of doom.
And while the prey lies mentally dazed and decapitated, go and claim ur now rightful section of the road. bon voyage. 
Posted at 09:07 pm by Lord Q
For Posterity
Thursday, April 06, 2006
The FMS golden jubilee batch graduated a couple of days back..well, atleast i hope that the buggers didn't flunk  . and with them passing out, the baton of stewardship passes on to us.
its not an easy task they leave us. there are and will be situations which we will need all their expertise and experience. the funny thing with life is that by the time you become an expert at something, you start doing something else. the best people arent there at their best jobs. its only wannabes, like us, who will subsequently learn throughout the course of the year, what these folks had been doing. and like them, we will hand down the responsibility to the juniors by the time we become really good at them. sweet.
anyway, lets take things as they come. this one's more about the bittersweet experiences i've had with this batch throughout the year. kinda like their story through my eyes.
the first interaction were the best..i guess the halo was still there and the judgements were temporaily suspended. for me, they were the gods on the firmament. and they did pretty well justify the tags. th induction week was..what it was. bloody trial by fire..or insomnia..whichever way you look at it.
cut to later when we had those series of soap boxes - the ancient method of platonic torture. they are important to me because it cleared me off a lot of the opium smoke i was in. suddenly well-meaning people started to make no sense at all. i make no bones about the fact that i dont like a lot of seniors...though not the usual suspects and this xenophobia owes its genesis to that period. i've spewed enough fire in thse pages in all of that period and have no wish to regurgiate what is, essentially, a known fact.
Aptitude tests miss the point. By way off. being a good manager is not equivalent to what is being thought or practised at all the high temples of management. and you need to be in a b-school to realise how true this is. but then, the question remains, how can you be an objective...insider ?
however, like that hackneyed cloud, this coin has a silver side as well. there are somethings i've realised; all those pressures & responsibilities that these people faced for each one of us..without letting us know. one thing that exists irrspective of my or anybody else's opinions...these seniors live for their juniors. as Isaac Asimov writes
"An individual life is one thread in the tapestry, and what is one thread compared to the whole?
.....Keep your mind fixed firmly on the tapestry and do not let the trailing off of a single thread affect you."
probably, i was the one thread that had to be roughed out, but thats life..and i accept it. in retrospect, i think all i needed was a bit of patience and things would have been better, really. its been a long time coming, but i' definitely grown some brains over my existing setup since i've stepped into this place.
And..for better, for worse, these guys have played a big-big role in that. thats why their passing out is so bittersweet. and as they leave, i wish they werent. there is so much still to do . here's wishing them best of luck for their future assignments from the lines of the immortal AC/DC
For those who are about to rock..we salute you!
Posted at 11:02 am by Lord Q
For Posterity
Sunday, March 05, 2006
5 reasons why i hate blogger.com
The five reasons why i hate blogger is because of this :
..i can, obviously, never remember the friggin' password. Help !!
Posted at 03:31 am by Lord Q
For Posterity
Monday, February 27, 2006
this
was a post that i had made on the pagalguy.com's "Books to read &
recommend" thread. since the reply was something i was planning to
write anyway on the blog, here's the CCP.
i'd classify the magical ouevre into three basic blocks:
1. Wizards & Cauldrons
2. Magical Beasts: notably Dragons
3. Demons , mostly Djinns, Imps et al
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The Harry Potters, Chronicles of Narnia and to some extent LOTR would
be under the wizarding type. mostly you'd find an evil villain who has
to be vanquished by our underdog hero. in most cases, the hero is not a
magical apprentice but actually pretty well versed in magic. he/she
might be inferior to the villain in capabilities, but would provbably
score over in courage, fortitude, character <yawn>..you know the
type. these books are easy to read & enjoy, the reader can easily
relate to them. mostly, there'd be a remarkable lack of width of magic
displayed - if you go by what the author says, mostly a solid dose of
british common sense is enough to knock the bonkers out of any evil
plan  |
Magical Beasts, are the most complicated of the lot. They LOVE their dragons - the more talon-ted, the better
complicated magic coupled with a huge reverence for the firebreathers.
the two fiery examples i've read are The Eldest Trilogy of Paolini
& Robert Jordan's Wheel Of Time series. what i love about the
series is the sheer depth & range of magic invoked in all the books
that you'd read. fascinating reading, if you dont mind the
over-abundant love for dragons. surprisingly, no other beast manages to
get that much attention. you do have flyng centaurs, unicorns,
gargoyles etc, but these are cannon fodder  but make no mistake, i love dragons too |
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after reading Arabian Nights, probably no other writer of the Demons
genre could probably hope to feed himself by writing about evil demons
& how they can turn you into frightening rich princes & even
more frightening paupers. as a result, most demons that you'd get in
literature now are wise-cracking, side-splitting, laugh-a-minute riots
who'd make you go double every couple of lines. they'd probably be
accompanied by half-witted magical apprentice boys in their teenage
splendor. the series would have humour, leg-pulling and some action
later on. examples are Bartimaeus Trilogy of Jonathan Stroud, Myth
Series of Robert Jordan, and the works of that author of so many
classics - Terry Pratchet. if you love your humour more than you love
your magic, go for these. happy readings and happy endings are what
these guys would specialize in..but hey! whoever heard of comic
tragedies |
Posted at 01:02 am by Lord Q
For Posterity
Thursday, February 16, 2006
A Momentary Synapse Of Misanthropy
i
got tagged. again. sigh. play it again, sam. this time, its the eight
things i'd like in my dream lover(?). yawn, so exciting. so, in
anticipation of popping bulbs of flashlight..her's the real deal.
(oops, was that a pun ?)
at
the outset, i'd like to say that i dont have the foggiest notion of
what to look for. i was in a relationship once & it was the most
difficult phase of my life. also, one of the most revealing. for one,
now i know what effect i can have on people, howsover fleeting. i am
faithful, but mostly shifty. i can be a coward, if it suits me..and a
pillar of strength, for someone who needs it. there's also this
realization if man can be good and great, the same can be unjust and
evil. there's the twain always residing inside each one of us. love
isnt being happy - on the other hand, its the little butterflies in the
stomach at sight & sound of someone. its the irritation at the
relativity of time and the nosiness of friends - pretty often, their
remarks strike well at the dead center. love is about sharing,
true..but also being jealous. the jealousness of seeing your friends
talk to her, the apparent indiference and the foolishness of young
hearts. love is about physics and physicality - its dirty &
lecherous, if it wants to be. as you stray onto the path of love,
you'll always face a set of twin roads. there'll be good &
evil in both of them. you could try & predict, but it would be a
lost cause. there is really no point in second-guessing fate, is there
? at all points, remember that there is nothing like a clean break. its
like to jagged pieces of paper..some portions remain with the other
half. forever. they add to its experince, the give color to its
existence. the paper that was torn in two remains forever scarred, a
trifle foolish or a tad wiser. but never the same. this is what will
brand this as ifferent from the multitude of its brethren reams of
pulp. and just like a million pieces of paper, it will have a life,
sound and story of its own. the scarred piece can now either alter its
fate, get a shine and be sharper, wiser or be swept away along with
other ones, in that giant clutter which we call life. i am sorry, i do
not know much about love. but life is more than an objective set of
questions & answers. the reality lies within.
cheerios
P.S. surbhi, that will be all
Posted at 11:40 pm by Lord Q
For Posterity
Sunday, February 12, 2006
i
went on this really nice trip to IIM K sometime back. all the way back
from K, i was thinking about a suitable blog post which would try n
encapsulate portions of what was really an outstanding trip...barring
the train journey though. but college & life in general
have conspired against me making a huge song n' post about the whole
trip...so i'll just add the footnotes about the whole journey.
1)
at the nth repeat, kerala is a really beautiful place & unique too.
there arent a lot of places where you could probably get a waterfall
AND a beach within 2 hours of each other. (not obv referring to the two
hours of your private gulfstream)
2)
contrary to my (popular ?) perception,..100% literacy doesnt mean that
everybody can understand what you are trying to say in English/Hindi.
there were places where i was mistaken for a foreigner & people
whom i had to communicate using that old sticks-in-sand routine.
3)
7 in the morning is the most charming time to visit any new place. the
crowds havent built up yet & the city smells almost pleasant.
though not delhi..smells even worse in mornings
4)
driving through a green, winded & isolated country-side early in
the morning inevitably leads you to sing "The End" on & on.
somehow, the music just blends in the situation.
5)
konkan railway is a overblown bag of tourist propaganda. its nowhere
near the exotic experience, its made out to be. its just a lot of
tunnels.
6)
vada-pav is the staple/only food in maharashtra. they eat vada-pav like
there's no tomorrow.breakfast, lunch, snacks, dinner..name it pal &
u get the same old twin loaf thingy with an incongrous fried vada in
between.
7)
there are no traffic lights in kozikhode.thats such a
relief..buzzzzz!!!!!! ooops! that was my auto whizzing by another auto
which was whizzing past another...drive safe guys. schumacher is not fit to tie your bootlaces. now, can i get to the station please ?
8)
i find bits of my old township wherever i go. whether that be an
abandoned roadside cyclewaala or a home built right inside a
grove...that feels so much like me. its the whole air of the place, you
know. feels like i am coming home
9) you are never lonely at the seaside.
10)
one last thing, if you are a CAT aspirant & have a call from IIM K,
dont worry about the rank of the campus in all those surveys. poor guys
cant even participate in them ( neither does FMS, i am told )..the
campus is worth staying..& unless you are that IIT stud who is
gonna be a shoo-in for Mckenzie or that London iBank, forget about
placement reports and choose a Life. trust me, its not a bad bargain.
last..one
habit that i have picked up due to lack of creative time at college is
reading the blog referrals that my tireless, if bored, blog tracker
comes up with...i wish people would stop trying to fuel their wet
dreams about my classmates here. how n00bile can you get..i know your
ip, time of referral & place of residence. atleast start learning
how to google.
Posted at 01:56 am by Lord Q
For Posterity
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