The TimePass of India

Let the Games begin!

No one gave me a chance..
Winning is not for you mate.. you can just dream..
10 years of hard work so that we can live this dream..
They said you can try, but you can never win..
I had to prove them wrong, now let the games begin..

If I had won a silver, they would say
oh, it aint that great!
He must be lucky, must be an aftereffect of the eight-eight-eight
But what do you know! Today aint eight!
And its a gold, not a silver, man its fricking great!
Everyday aint Sunday, every season aint spring..
I did my best, now let the games begin..

One billion people... are jumping up their seats
The curtain closes... they throwing roses at my feet..
Thank you all.. you make me feel a star..
I am glad...glad that I could raise the bar..
I beat them all..all of them in the Dragon's den,
The tiger growls, now let the games begin..

Girls dont have my picture up their walls,
Dhoni neednt perform always to get the dolls..
Not many like a man with a gun,
the police, the gangster, either one..
But after everythings said and done
I just have a gun..
What can I do?
-give my best at the five rings..
I know you care, let the games begin..

Kapil is still on TV selling shoes, Milkha no one knows about..
I got us the gold, after a 28 year drought..
Its an achievement, its a new dawn..
I wonder if you will remember my name, after I m gone..
But its just one gold, I hope one day we get ten,
And now....ladies and gentlemen...let the games begin..

-Arshat Chaudhary (for Abhinav Bindra)


Dedicated to Abhinav Bindra, the winner of the Gold medal(10m air rifle) at the 2008 Olympics..
This is India's first Individual Gold at the Olympics ever..

P.S. The post derives its poetic inspiration from Eminem's "When I am gone"..
Let the games begin!

I have come to believe there are not as many good songs coming out nowadays like they used to when I was 15-16 yrs old.. I mean look at AR Rehman, even hes dishing out mediocre stuff like Jaane Tu(mediocre by Rehman stds). Even the English songs are not much to write home about.. No Shania Twain, no Eminem, no James Blunt, no nothing..

So I had a tough time trying to find 5 songs in the last 12 months which have echoed in the walls of my brain..(Echoing songs dont mean my brain is empty, its just an expression)
Here goes my list..

1. Rihanna:Umbrella
First heard on: July 14, 2007


This song always reminds me of Siemens.. I had just joined the company when this song was released.. Rihanna played in my head all day long I remember..
And when she went "Under my umberella..ella..ella..ae..ae.. Under my umberella", I couldnt help but drool...

2.Chamillionaire: Hip Hop Police
First heard on: Dec 4, 2008



"Go, Go , Go , Go , Go , Go
Keep runnin' homie"
He came, He rapped, He conquered.. One of the most stylist hip hop lyrics in the last year.. The video was well shot, just made you hip hop along with Chamillionaire..
"A big celebrity, a case we long for
You a pirate, Why you got that eyepatch on for?"
Dont miss this one mate..


3.Atif Aslam: Pehli Nazar
First heard on: Feb20, 2008


The only hindi song that has impressed me in the last one year.. I know its a direct lift from tht Korean song.. I mean how can we copy from Korean songs!! Didnt we detest anything thts made in Korea, Taiwan or China?

But still, the Korean version (as expected) is inferior to the Indian one.. What do we have that they dont? Well, we have Atif!!! Actually, we dont have him, Pakistan has him.. But Pakistan was formerly a part of India.. (Do I see Musharraf's planes heading for my house?)

When he went... "Wooo jaane jaaa.. dono jahan ... meri baahon mein aa.. bhul jaa.. woo..oo".. Time stopped.. My heart skipped a beat, or maybe two or maybe three..er.. well, u get the point..

4. Wyclef John feat Akon:Dollar dollar bill ya
First heard on: June 2, 2008


*OFFICIAL VIDEO* Sweetest Girl- Wyclef Jean, Akon, and Lil Wayne

The song is okay.. okay only till you dont have Akon starting to croon.. When he starts with his stanza.. - "See, I'm a tell you, like WU told me,
Cash rules everything, around me..
Singin dollar dollar bill ya..
dollar dollar bill ya.."
WU here is Western Union.. Yeah Lyrics actually make sense..


5.Nickelback: Rockstar
First heard on: July 10, 2008


The Lyrics, the Song, the band, the legend!
Nickelback does it again..
The Lyrics are what most sadhus in Hrishikesh are trying to find out..

So tell me how u gonna do it?
I'm gonna trade this life for fortune and fame
I'd even cut my hair and change my name


'Cause we all just wanna be big rockstars
And live in hilltop houses driving fifteen cars
The girls come easy and the d**** come cheap
We'll all stay skinny 'cause we just won't eat
And we'll hang out in the coolest bars
In the VIP with the movie stars
Every good gold digger's
Gonna wind up there
Every Playboy bunny
With her bleach blond hair

Hey hey I wanna be a rockstar
Hey hey I wanna be a rockstar

If someone asked me 2 years ago..
What do you want in life?.. Er.. me? er.. i dunno..
If someone asked me 2day..
What do you want in life? Heya heya.. I wanna be a rockstar! Top 5: Songs in the last 12 months

A post was long overdue.. Largely coz I was engrossed in one of man's biggest quests!!

I have done it.. I have done the unthinkable.. For years together engineers have dreaded reading any book thats fatter than 4 fingers put together.. Infact we love thin anorexic books, that explains why Jigar and Easy solutions(God bless Techmax Publications) were such a hit! How they included the whole syllabus in 27 pages max still leaves me dumbfounded!

So, as I was saying I have done the unimaginable! I have read "Shantaram".. For those who came late, Shantaram is a book by Gregory David Roberts. This is a fat ass book with over 930 pages.. Thats more pages than most engineering students read in an entire semester!!!

Would I recommend it? Well hell yeah!

So how many days did it take me to finish it off? 60 days!!! Did it actually take me 60 days? Well hell Yeah! It did! And the fact that I didnt read it for anymore than an hour each day didnt help :P
Its a dumb book for starters.. There are like 177 characters in the book and for the first 30 chapters, the story goes no where!! The book has like 42 chapters, thats more chapters than all of ApMech, Metallurgy, SOM, DOM put together!!

So how to read Shantaram with minimum effort?(You like tht, dont u?)

#1. Dont try and remember any names..There are like 57 Muslim names, 22 German, Swiss and German-Swiss names and like 84 Hindu names. Ofcourse there are Algerian and Iranian and Afghan names too..

#2. Dont worry if you dont remember the names, Roberts describes the facial contours of every guy who has a dialogue in the book. He goes like "I looked into the Amber gold eyes of the handsome Afghan" and you know hes talking bout Abdel Khader Khan.. And you can be sure Abdel khan is gonna blurt something out..

#3. Dont read the description of facial expressions.. Roberts has this extremely annoying habit of describing the facial expressions and the colour of the eyes and hair and such admists a dialogue.. By the time you finish reading it, and come to the dialogue, you forget what topic were the characters speaking about in the first place!!
He describes "Kalra", who plays his love interest, like 13 times in the 900 pages.. and he doesnt do it like normal men who are in love go, he goes "and her green eyes, like the green of the sea, her black hair like the black of the sky.." - sheesh!!
I mean, its okay, but 13 times!! 13 times?!!!!?

#4. Dont miss the fight scenes!! They are the only reason why I kept reading the book. Also the jail and the slums are well depicted(not tht I have been there :P)..

#5. Dont expect too much funny from Roberts, there are a few instances when he extracts a chuckle or two from you, but thats all you gonna get.. No feel good book this :P

#6. Dont take Roberts too seriously.. He boasts of learning the local language when he was in Bombay for 4 years.. He also claims that he knows marathi and farsi and half a dozen other Asian languages.
Well, his Marathi is nothing to write home about. He goes "Kay pahije tum?" when the right usage is "Kay pahije tumhala?"(What do you want?).. Now dont mistake me for a Shiv Sainik or anything, I am glad that a gora Australian is trying to speak my language... But honestly mate, had I stayed in France for 4 years, I would speak better french than Roberts speaks Marathi..

#7. Dont miss the war in Afghanistan..Loved the war scenes at the end..(I make it sound like a movie!)

#8. Dont expect a story.. Its not like the Godfather or any other book you have read for that matter.. Shantaram is a memoir and is written like one writes a diary. Ofcourse a lot of stuff is made up by Roberts.. If I have to categorise the book, I would call it semi-fiction.

#9. Dont expect sophistication from Roberts.. As it is, its a mafia novel.. But there are more F words in the first 100 pages of Shantaram than there are in the whole of Godfather. Whats more? There are assorted choicest of Indian gaalis, used by him. I would have loved to list some of them here, but this blog has a PG-13 rating, so cant do it mate!!

#10. Dont lose patience, there is a lot to learn from the book. Every 19 pages he comes up with something wise which lingers on in your memory..
Reading 19 pages for that one wise thought is cruel!! Its like those technical reference books(by foreign authors ofcourse!) you get from the college library, where you have to read 30 pages to get one formula!! (Ah..Those were the days!!)

I so wish Jigar and easy solution would join hands in a quest to bring us this wonderfully weird book in an anorexic form!

But I am still recommending it.. not as strongly as Pushkar, Aroop, Sandy or Madhuri had recommended it to me, but its definite read :)

Theres a lot to learn from the book just like there was a lot to learn from those foreign authors' reference books..

Now only if we could have Shantaram enrolled in 27 pages!!



Dedicated to Techmax Publishers.. A lot of us owe our degrees to you 10 Donts while reading Shantaram!

Well, I had a lotta free time of late. So I decided to update you guys on my favourite women on Indian Television(not that you care much )

I have a kinda countdown here, but point to be noted here is that I like all of them almost equally (I am saying this so that none of the women mentioned on the countdown feel bad). Let me also clarify that I am not "rating" the women, so all those feminist organisations, please dont blacken my face...


5. Ahana Deol:
Coming up at #5 is Ahana Deol, Hema Malini's shy younger daughter.. Ahana is camera shy, which is evident from her ads, but it adds to her charm.. Its quite a heartbreak that Ahana wont act in movies, shes more interested in working behind the camera..



Check out her video below(Kent water purifier).. For the untrained eye, its difficult to identify whos Ahana and whos Esha, well, a piece of advice- The one who looks pretty is Ahana



4. Amrit Maghera:
At #4, we have the half brit-half punjabi supermodel Amrit Maghera.




She hosts "Top Ten Countdown" on Zee Cafe. So what makes her appear on my list..? Her Accent!! Love her accent. She was born and brought up in Britian, so she has this British accent.. So when she presents the show its more like - Welchum to the Tup Ten Countduwn... (Okay, I did a really bad imitation of her accent)..



But u get the point, dont u? And she sways from side to side when she presents, that again is very um..er.. whats the appropriate word here...um..haan..sexy..




3. Parizaad Kohla:
At #3, our very own Parizaad makes an entry.. The classiest of all presenters, this girl had a natural charm. She rose to fame when she compered "The Great Indian Laughter Challenge".. The show was male dominated, with the judges, the participants and even the band was all male.. In such a barren show, the only oasis was Parizaad...



Her dimples made men drool, her elegance, her looong legs, the way she talked, her broken hindi, her smile, her dimples(did i mention tht already?) made us men weak in the knees... Her innocence was charming.. Her inabilty to understand Suman's and Sidhu's double meaning jokes was actually liked by the conservative Indian...



Shes got married 2 years ago and is now expecting.. Now only if she gives birth to a daughter, 20 years down the line, I hope I can write bout her as I did for her mother (The fact tht 20 yrs down the line i will be 40 should not be considered)




2. Parineeta Sheth :
#2 on my list is Parineeta sheth...I first saw her when I was in the 11th grade. She presented some travel show on DD-1. Well, just for the record I had no cable TV for 2 yrs - the 11th and the 12th grade.. I found cable to be quite a distraction and asked my cablewala to cut the connection (which to my surprise he gladly agreed to..)



Back to the topic, well the thing is, I was in love with Parineeta Sheth... She was perfect.. Tall, curvy, classy... I dont like travel shows much, so it came as a surprise to my parents that their son was interested in some travel show on DoorDarshan!! But then nuthing escapes the seasoned eye of the parent, my mother realised that it was not Italy or Mauritius that I was interested in.. I was interested in the Presenter!!! For a 16 yr old, its difficult to accept that he likes someone, so what if she comes on TV!!



Parineeta can now be seen as a mom in some ads, she also plays a part in CID (Sony). She had a small part in Saif Ali Khan starrer HumTum
This is probably the longest affair I have had with a girl.. Its been 7 years now, and I still cant get over her...!! She would be the first on the list had it not been for the girl who takes the #1 spot...





1. Shriya Sharma
Finally the #1 spot.. The prettiest woman, (well, actually shes a girl) on Indian Television today. Shes one of the 5 kids on the new show - "Kya aap panchvi pass se tez hain?". While SRK is supposed to be the star on the show, he fades out when hes beside Shriya..



Though I believe having Shriya on this list is not fair to Parineeta and co., shes just too cute to resist.. Plus if you were to meet these 5 women/girls out on the street, I am sure Shriya would catch your attention before any of the other girls did..



Shriya is not just a doll btw, shes pretty intelligent too (judging from the way she answers the questions on the show..) And she can give SRK some serious competition when it comes to screen presence
____________________________________________

Hmm.. so there goes my list.. Readers are welcome to post their lists in the comments section Top 5 : Prettiest women on Indian Television

"Oh, I hate Maths, not that i m not good at it, I just dont like it.."
"hmm.. I kinda knew tht you were not a Maths girl.."
"Oh, whats a maths girl?"
"A Maths girl is the one who likes maths, they are kinda tomboyish and aggressive, u knw,they r not tht girlie.."
"hmm.. i see.. everything tht i am not?"
"Yeah :).. right! You are an Anti-Maths girl"
"hahaahahaha....And wht r they supposed to be like?"

hmm... Over that conversation, I realised I had identified one of species of the female kingdom.(bravo!)

Defn: An Anti- Maths girl is the one who is so by the virtue of not liking Maths, not necessarily because shes not good at it.. This kinda girl can be found outside most medical, biotech, bioinformatics colleges...Usually found where Biology rocks and Maths sucks, or simply where Maths sucks

I have come to like them over the years.. Now that maybe coz there arent a lotta maths girls around, even if there are they are pretty much like us, and lets accept it, "us" arent that interesting.. "Us" are geeks, we are emotionally dyslexic(wht a term, ah.. genius), films like Kuch Kuch hota hai are as boring as calculus, come to think of it, calculus aint half as boring as KKHH





So, I was wondering what makes me like the Anti-Maths girl..and this is what I came up with..

They are pretty! Yeah, very important trait tht
And not only they are pretty, even their handbags, cellphone covers, pens, nail-polish, notebooks are pretty.. There is an overdose of colour there, and most of it is pink.. Ofcourse, its not just pink, its called "baby pink".. Theres something with these girls, they have to actually identify the shade of the colour.. So the pendant that she is wearing is not blue, but "turquoise"... Now wasnt turquoise supposed to be an animal? The one which goes into its shell when it senses danger and stuff? Oh wait,... thts tortoise!!

The kurti that shes wearing isnt brown, its "peach".. Peach? Peach is a fruit girl, NOT a colour!
Talking bout colours, anti-maths girls are the ones who can carry off "electric green" nailpolish on Tuesday, and replace it with "shocking pink" on Wednesday.. Btw, it looks good on them..

While we are still on colour, dont take an anti-math girl to shop with u..
"What coloured T-shirts you like.."
"er.. me? Well.. black and white, then brown, navy blue.."
(Looks at you bewildered)
"Those are not even colours!!"
bwahahahaha..everyone(including the salesgirls) laugh laugh...

And whats with the rings these girls wear.. they can wear one in every finger of their hand(including the thumb) and it still doesnt look that bad.. Actually it looks nice.. there is something bout metal and girls, cant explain in words.. But metal touching a girls skin is such a er.. ahem.. sexy sight.. But seriously, when you see men wearing ear studs or thumb rings, they look like, well, ugly..



Its not just the way they dress that we like, its also how they make you feel when they are around.. Like when they laugh even at your silly jokes.. I dont know how, but evolution figured it out I guess, and somehow allowed men to access the hidden reserves of humour inside them when a girl is around..

Its weird, but I feel when a man says he misses a girl, he actually misses her laughing at his jokes.. Its the most wonderful sound, guys should be allowed to tape the laughs of the girls they like and listen to it when they are down or alone..


Its funny what maths can do to your Emotional Quotient.. It just messes the emotional part of the brain... There are times when you dont understand why are you feeling so messed up and they can actually tell you what you are feeling and why in words that you never had in your vocabulary..

Most of these girls are smarter than us for sure, but they will never make you realise that.. They let you win arguments and two-player xbox games that you force them to play.. They use "how cute" and "how sweet" in every 5th sentence, and you try and find out what statement of yours made her say tht.. You make a mental note of tht statement and say it everytime you meet her only so tht you can get a "how sweet" again..




hmm.. there... I said almost everything I know bout the Anti-maths girl.. One of my frds got into a Phd prog today.. Now only if they had Anti maths girl as a topic of research.. Research sounds more fun when you like the subject, nahi?
Dr.Arshat Chaudhary, and how cool wud that sound..

P.S.
I thank all my guy friends for sharing their experiences over the years..

Disclaimer: No girls, Anti-maths or otherwise have been hurt in the process of this research... Anti-maths Girl!

I finished reading Chetan Bhagat’s new offering “The 3 mistakes of my life”. It’s the story of one Govind Patel, a 25 yr old businessman. The story is set in Ahmedabad. Chetan’s story telling abilities come to the fore as he takes the story through different different episodes, spanning three years or so…

The reason why 5 point someone, Chetan’s first book, was such a hit, coz he made the story seem like his own. His writing is blog like, no hi-fi words, no phrases, just simple feel good stories… Btw, if you thought Chetan was actually a 5 pointer, u are mistaken..Chetan has always dodged questions related to his GPA in IIT.. But the point is, the fabulous characterization makes readers believe that he is incidents which actually took place.. This superb semi-fictional style of writing coupled with fantastic characterization makes Chetan such a favorite among twentysomethings..

Coming to 3 mistakes.. 3 mistakes, as far as characterization is considered is a sequel to 5 point… The characters Govind, Ishant, Omi and Vidya are photocopies of Hari, Ryan, Alok and Neha respectively.. Vidya whos Govind’s love interest is precariously close to Neha’s character.. She has the same smile,same hair, same round face.. She even wears the same clothes as Neha.. Sometimes I had to wonder if Vidya was actually wearing Neha’s hand-me-downs.

The story goes through many episodes- Bhuj earthquake, terrorist attack on the two towers, Godhra riots.. While it may be unnerving for any other writer to research and write about all this, Chetan does it with flair..

Would I recommend “3 mistakes..”?? Ofcourse I would, read it if you liked “5 point..”. If you didn’t like 5 point, which is weird, then don’t read it.. I think only if you read books like - The Alchemist and The Fountainhead in the 8^th grade, and don’t like light reading should you keep away from “3 mistakes..”, else, it’s a buy!

Like Govind would say -
Its a straight 6!..

the 3 mistakes of my life...

If we resort to lawlessness, the only thing we can hope for is civil war, untold bloodshed, and the end of our dreams.

A Sikh protestor was shot at by one Ram Rahim Singh's bodyguard near Nirmal Lifestyles, Mulund Watch the video here




The outraged sikhs blocked roads and stopped local trains and buses in mulund..


I was at home that day receiving calls from friends asking me to stay inside. One of my friends was caught up at some shop near Mulund station. Mulund station had seen most of the rioting since morning..They were showing clips of men with swords ransacking the station... I couldnt get through her on her cell, a sms later, she called me, she sounded tense.. She told me that she was walking from the station to her house.. I asked her where she was and if I should come and pick her up.. But it seemed that no private vehicles were allowed to run through the streets, I had to get there on foot... The place where she was stranded was downhill, and I knew if I run fast enough, I will reach there pretty quick...

I started outta my house, I havent felt this unsafe within 100mts from my house ever in my life.. And I have been on the these streets as late as 3 am... I could only see police vans all around. There were very few private vehicles... Pulsars and Indicas and most of them had Sardars riding it... While I was running along, someone threw a heavy metal box in my direction.. It wasnt meant to hurt or anything, I think.. I looked around there were sardars walking along..It couldnt be them, they were too far away... I contemplated going back home.. And I would have, had it not been for a friend..

I kept walking, my eyes searching for her everywhere.. I saw her, actually she saw me first and waved at me.. She gave me a smile that I have gotten used to over the years.. As I walked her to her house, she said between sobs..

"I thought they were a peace loving community..."
"Why so? coz Karan Johar has them in his movies, laughing and joking?", I said..

She always had prejudices(A friend explained, that this case is more of a stereotype).. all of us do, but its been preprejudice for her..
But as we were walking I wondered why I hadnt been shocked at the fury unleashed by them.. Aint I more prejudiced than her? And in a worse way...

We reached her house, she said thanks and I looked at her, I had respect for her. She was a brave girl. She saw people go beserk.. She saw men brandishing swords and knives.. She saw them rioting.. And her she was trying to put up a brave face, I could make out that she had been crying.. I wonder if I would have enough guts to walk all the way from the station to here like she did..

As I walked back to my house, I wondered if there was such a thing as a peace loving community..

Gujratis and Tamil are a peace loving communities.. I have some Gujrati friends... I love their dhoklas and the importance of colour in their lives, their flamboyance... And I like the fact that they are a peace loving community.. But werent Gujratis involved in Gujrat riots?
I have many Tamil friends, some of them very close to my heart... I have always seen them as peace loving community.. But isnt LTTE a tamil terrorist organisation?
Maybe the illiterate arent peace loving then.. But then what about the AIIMS doctors who when on strike dont attend patients.. Isnt that equivalent to rioting, taking people's lives?

1 billion people living in India.. The worlds most densely populated country.. Jam packed trains and buses.. Encroached footpaths, system abused , blatant twisting of rules... Even after all this we are able to live in harmony.. I read somewhere, "if so many Germans, Italians or French lived in a country this big, there would be bloodshed... "

I dont think there is any other country more tolerant than India.. And considering the number of people who are packed here and the poverty, I dont think theres a country more peace loving than India..

So what goes wrong in times like these? What happens to Indian who usually says "Chalta hai" when he doesnt get a place to sit in the trains or when there is no footpath to walk on or when manholes are left open without covers...?

Indians only get angry when you mess with their beliefs.. Even the Mutiny of 1857 took place coz the British tried to mess with our beliefs.. And they were smart enough not to do that again in the next 100 years that they ruled India!

I dont think anyone supports rioting, not even the ones who participate in it, unless they are paid for it...Riot is their way to get heard, which ofcourse is wrong, but is timetested and the easiest way to get the concerned people to take notice... As we grow more as a country and get ourselves educated, we will refrain from rioting.. There are other ways to be heard... And these ways are definitely more peaceful and in the long run, more rewarding...

The single clenched fist lifted and ready,
Or the open hand held out and waiting.
Choose:
For we meet by one or the other. Mulund riots..