The TimePass of India

I was at Pune last week.. Now like every true blue Mumbaikar, I have been brought up to look down at every city other than Mumbai..
I wasnt expecting anything special from Pune..
I was pleasantly surprised...


Some musings...

*There r more colleges on one street of Pune than all of Mumbai.


*The rickshawalas are allowed to joke.. Rs.800 for a 6km ride at 1 am? hahahahaha... so funny..

Another time another day..
Me: Jagtap dairy? kitna?
Rick: meter+half or return
Me: Nahi re.. itna paisa nahi hai
Rick: okay.. 90
Me:nahi 30(something I learnt from my bargainin pro female frds..)
Rick: kya sahab.. chalo aapke liye 60..
Me: nahi yaar 30(man!! i am good..)
Rick: okay 50..
Me: roz ana padta hai yaar.. 50 roz-roz bahut costly hai..
Rick: (shifting to may marathi) 20 rupayat tumcha kay jaanar..
Me:(sticking to matrubhasha hindi) nahi yaar.. bahut costly hai..
Rick: aacha baitho

In bold letters MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!

Btw, we got to be good friends at the end of the ride.. he told me what buses to take and what all places to visit in Pune.. I asked him if he was on orkut and what his name on his profile was but then he thought i was getting too personal.. But he did tell me that he had his Ricks pic on his profile.. I have been searching for it ever since..



*There are only two age groups in Pune less than 25 and more than 55...There is no middle aged uncles/aunties around here..You will not find anyone around 35-40 walking the streets on Pune..I dunno how they do it..But I gotta feeling that the Govt. secretly kidnaps guys who are more than 25 yrs and less than 55.. To me, it looks like a social experiment.. Someone's got a better theory?

*Darvin derived inspiration for his theory of "Survival of the fittest" from the the Pune traffic.. The driving skills possessed by Punekars would make a Andheri bred-SV road driving-foul mouthing-horn honking rickshaw driver envious.. Punekars drive like they are playing a PC game.. Its like they gain extra point for cutting lanes and overtaking on flyovers..
If you dont overtake someone from the wrong side in the first 3 mins of driving its considered a foul.. You are red carded and ejected from the game for 90 mins.. what? seriously!!!



*The girls here are pretty, or so you guess..coz all of them have scarves around their faces with only their eyes showing... A lil tid-bit- Men in Afghanistan can tell a burkha clad womans age and how beautiful she must be just by noticing the spring in her step..Infact there are stories about how these Afghani men caught burkha clad female Russian spies just by noticing their walk.. I have become pretty much the Afghan myself...

*There so many scarves sold here... Girls, you know!! they have like 7 diff scarves for 7 different days - (baby pink for Monday, green for Tuesday, turquoise for Wednesday etc.).. btw, turquoise is a female version of blue..
According to the last budget 07-08, the sale of scarves in Pune contributes 0.3% to the country's GDP.. Its the second biggest industry in Pune after IT..

*Koli was driving me around the city one day when this scarf clad girl picked up a race against us.. She beat us for the first half of the race, but the male chauvinists that we are we werent ready to accept defeat from a lady rider.. Koli revved up the engine and beat her to the Pune university(thts where she was going we figured out).. For the record, the girl had an Activa while we had a fully loaded 150cc Xtreme..

*Pune is one of the few places which has an ideal boy-girl ratio.. Apparently ever guy with a bike has a girl(scarf-clad ofcourse..) on the back seat.. In much anticipation I asked my frds if they had found someone special, they hadnt.. it turns out they didnt have bikes!! Two of them had cars though, but as it turns out, cars dont do the trick.. How do u spell l-o-s-e-r-s?

*The apartments that I stayed in Pune deserve a special mention.. I stayed near the IT park in the burbs.. Huge apartments they have.. I stay in a 3BHK here in mumbai but flats in Pune are wayyy bigger... and their balconies.. hugeee balconies(half the size of the my bedroom)..The living room is the size of Eden gardens.. You could actually play Test matches there..(one tappi out ofcourse)

*I cant do without mentioning the weather..The weather is pleasant..
There was this day when I went sight seeing, I walked around 7-8 kms that afternoon, and not a drop of sweat!!
It doesnt rain tht much, but the temperature drops a good 5 degrees every night...With balconies big enough for you to play golf in, the evening is the best time to sit out there and soak in the scenery..
Both the apartments that I stayed in during the visit were on the 7th floor and offered quite a view of the city.. One word - Beautiful.. Dont tell Mumbai, but this was the first time I thought of settling outside mumbai..



If I have to compare between Mumbai and Pune, I would say Mumbai is like a middleaged businesswoman..(It has to be a woman, a man wont wear the queen's necklace now, would he?) Shes well established, respected and powerful.. She has worked hard to get where she is now.. shes always busy..she never sleeps...shes enterprising.. shes colourful.. shes fantastic!

Pune on the other hand is a 15 yr old.. Shes fun loving.. Shes beautiful, just like most girls are when they are 15.. shes got a few pimples here and there, but they only add to her beauty.. Shes growing up.. shes busy, but not coz she has to attend business meetings, shes busy coz she has to meet her frds or go shopping or do other girlie stuff..

As different as they are, they both are special in their own way...For the first time I am finding it difficult to choose between Mumbai and some other city.. And I thought this day would never come..

Special thanks to the guys who had to bear my company: Harish, Amit, Hemant, Suru, Ambrish, Abhjit and Koli.. All of them SPCEites.. What camaraderie!
Special thanks to Rishikesh aka monu
Thank you for the memories.. A city called Pune..

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...