102.6 - Honey!!! I blew-up myself...

“Sandy you have lost weight...”

“No da, he has actually put-on a bit more...”

“is it so??”

"So what???"

I am quite used to such contradictions between my friends. That was actually a morale booster for me, I always think that I am at least maintaining my weight so people feel I’ve either lost or gained. To help I will wear tight fit dark colour dresses, but of late these still doesn’t help. Couple of weeks back I thought I should at least measure the weight... I expected to be around 94-96 as that’s what I usually get on an analog weighing machine. This time I went for a Digital one to be more accurate... it clocked 102.6 Kg... This is impossible... It was quite a disaster that day... I never thought I could strike 100. It was always around 94 to 96 for quite some time... My height of 6 ft 1 inch will no more save me from looking fat. I never felt the need to stop that Wicked Brownie with General Samson every Friday. I just has full meals twice a day and a samosa in the evening with poori or upma. Morning was a lite breakfast. But this weighing machine was absolutely unfair. Do you think that Grill chicken once in a while and occasional Biriyani would have added so much fat. Since that day, whenever I go through the Bannerghatta road, I close my eyes, so that I don’t have the see the hoarding saying “He’ll never hit the Gym”. To be honest, Gym is not my style of reducing weight... You workout for three month with a low calorie diet and lose 4 Kgs.. If you lose 4 from a 60 Kg person, that might be substantial, but on me, 4 Kg is just like skipping my breakfast... so negligible. So I lose the impetus so soon. People have advised me to lose weight... I used to think I should also advice them some times. But some day I should realize... if you want to advice, you should first follow that..

I’ve not been able to use my engagement – pants or my favourite red short shirt for the last 3.5 years; I spent a bounty on them. I have them safe in my wardrobe so that, some day, through the natural process, I will become slim to fit into it. But natural process seems to take really long. Could I afford to wait with this weight?

I’ve got to decide... the needle is ticking, faster on the weighing machine than on my clock... I’ve got to do something about it.

Neil, Lalit, Varun and Gopi

It’s almost a month since I blogged. Time I shun away my laziness. It’s time we act, play our tiny roles that we choose. Lots of things happened in the last few weeks. First to mention: Geetha George, the reason I started this blog, my inspiration to blogging delivered her best blog, a baby boy. I am happy for Eddie, Geetha and the new addition to their family, Neil Arnav George. Having a baby is a whole new life thing. Let them enjoy the pleasure of getting fathered, mothered and soned .

IPL Shifting outside:

It is neither a shame, nor is it a pleasure. It is just unfortunate, but still ok. I would rather have a peaceful election, rather than having this as a reason for a security failure. Cricket matches will be a soft target for the terrorists, so its better if it happens fine outside during elections as long as it is safe.

The new poster boy of saffron party:

@$hole: I believed that things in this country will change with time as the youth will be matured enough to drop all the burden of past and walk towards a new future.  But this man is a killer of that hope. India can do well without this man. I hope he gets defeated both in election and the case and stays in jail for not less than 3 years for the crimes. It is not the severity of the punishment, but the certainty of it, that will stop the crime.  But BJP has done this before in Gujarat, they are used to polarizing the people and cash-in with votes.  Hope they don’t get away with this one.

Ray of Hope

Hope, though wounded, still survives. People are looking forward to a change; they hope there will be someone to rescue them from this mess. Politics is not just dust that can be swept away, it’s a gutter filled with mud and water, dirt and rotten, stinking and sick, it’s not possible to clean it without getting your hand dirty. True, but, why don’t we flush them out. The flush button is there on the polling machine (EVM). Let us all vote them out... I am sure the question would be: whom we will vote for? Are we going to vote the better of the worst? Yeah... we have been settling for something lesser than what we deserve. But do a few things to get this straight.

1.       Get your Vote registered.
2.       Understand your candidates
3.       Ensure you poll your vote as per your conscience.

Our collective conscience is the key to success. Don’t mind which party your

 representative belongs to. If your choice is an independent, that is even better.

 I read Times of India yesterday and I am very keen on looking into the profile of Capt Gopinath from my constituency: Bangalore South. I don’t know much about this man apart from the part that ‘he once owned airdeccan’.  But his words connected with me and so I choose to probe further.

 

Slumdog Millionaire – (Re)Viewed

We had this movie on our computer for at least 6 weeks now. But I and my wife never had the time to watch. She was particular about me watching the movie with her, so I kept my calendar busy. After the Oscars, we decided to block some time out of our lazy calendars to watch this movie this weekend; my mom accompanied us for the first half. I probably expected too much from this movie, so it obviously didn’t meet my expectations. After the movie I never felt that I saw 8-Oscars won movie. It was Good, but I have seen better, so it’s not the best.

Movie was well directed, Background score was brilliant, and kids had acted really well. But throughout the movie, I felt like I was nude standing in front of a gallery full of people with every eye probing on me. I felt this way because my country was projected from the perspective of a foreigner for the rest of the world. I am worried that the Oscar would give the movie a lot more publicity and this perspective would be projected across the cinema halls around the globe. Oh my (non-existent) God!! I am worried as if I am going to stand like this in front of several thousand galleries after this one. Religious violence, orphan kids, mafia sending kids to begging and prostitution, cheating, arrogant police force, gangsters killing at will, slum state etc., etc., the India I know off, is a lot better than this. But the India Danny Boyle knew was just this. Half way thru the movie we decided to take a break for Dinner, and my mind was restless but my thoughts were stabilizing. I was just hoping for some confidence.

As we settled after dinner, during some discussion, my mom expressed her anger against the movie, with my stabilized thoughts, I said “Whether you like it or not, what they said in the movie is true. It’s unfortunate that every foreigner is going to watch this part of the truth, but the fact that even these realities are the components of Indian society should be accepted. We need to find out how we can fix it, rather than blaming the producers of the movie.”  How can a girl say “it’s not my fault that my skirt slipped, but the neighbour shouldn’t have laughed at me for this”?  Isn’t it her responsibility to tie the skirt properly?

I remember a proverb my friend quoted sometime back, “When you are getting raped, and if you can’t escape, the best thing to do is to lie down and enjoy” It is one way of looking at this movie. I continued to watch the rest of the movie. It had love, and Jamal turned to be good, he kept winning, and the end, they lived happily ever after. It was not so painful now, but still painful enough to make me think.

Why is India like this, totally uncontrollable, yet exceedingly beautiful? Is it population, is it corruption, is it politicians, is it the people or their mindset, or their patriotism or the lack of it, what can fix this country and make us feel proud of it once again. I know I forced myself to enjoy the movie this time, but it may not be easy once more, even if it wins several Oscars. I can’t continue to picture mother India to be a porn star again. I feel I should do something to correct this place, not sure where to start, but soon I will.

Mozart of Madras

I am proud to be a fan of the Award-Winning Music Director, A.R. Rehman. Talented yet humble, Rehman and Sachin are the typical examples of how real skill behaves in public. What more, he spoke a few words which made my hair jump away from its follicle. First time, he spoke in Tamil, I was very happy to hear my mother tongue on the Oscar Stage, Second, He spoke about the choice of Love and Hate, and where Love has taken him. Wow… I am not sure how many of the millions of viewers across the globe watching that show live would have digested this message as I did, But I was thrilled.

On my way to drop my wife, she said… "You are humming that song Jai Ho.." Was I??? Oh yeah… okay… I asked her, "What's the meaning of Jai Ho?" She said its "something like victory, or Go win and come" kinds. Wow, I think Gulzar(The Lyricist) had predicted this long back.
People said, "We don’t have to be so happy, this is not an Indian Film, some one came from there used our story and he is getting all the money…" So what, we don’t just need money, do we? We needed some one to win an Oscar for India. I was hoping for long that Kamalhasan will win that first. But that possibility was always remote, considering the Academy's procedures. But I am even more happy to see Rehman win it, Now he will get more offers for Hollywood movies, his nominations would become every year affair, and he will win much more than we imagine. With the trend of music getting popular, more music directors would get opportunities

He has taken Indian music to a different level, we don’t have to wait for the concerts of Michael Jackson and Bryan Adams in India. USA and Europe will wait for Rehman to conduct his concert there. There will be a day, when my manager will tell me that he got the latest Rehman's Music CD before I did. Wow… would I still be downloading that of Torrentz? Nah, Shame!! But for now, I am Proud. Jai Ho...!!!

Valentine’s Day

Though it’s just another day in the calendar, Feb 14^th has gained a lot of importance in the recent past. Love is not new to this world, We can see the evidence of love from Adam & Eve(If they were true) or from the evolution of sexual reproduction. Mysterious thing love...Do we really need a day to celebrate love? May be we can do without it, but what harm can a little more love do to this world. If it is another day for the mankind to forget about their problems and live in happiness with their love, why not allow it?

Muthalik, A man (is he?) who has gained a lot of publicity for the wrong reasons, preaching the wrong culture to the youth and that too, forcibly. His followers are desperate psychos trying to let go the animal instincts in them to unleash with a stupid reason and purpose. Going to a Pub is “Freewill by law”, beating them for going is “Free-will against law”. The law should protect Freedom and freewill by law by acting on freewill against law. When law cannot stand up, Freewill and freedom will rise up to protect itself. Though not desirable, that is an eventuality. The government would do well to crush these miscreants at sight that would prevent a lot of embarrassment for the govt. Due to vote bank politics, BJP does not want to be seen as acting against “Hindu Culture Lovers” at the same time, does not want to be seen as encouraging them which would be un-“SECULAR”. Bull crap, we should have a political system which does not depend on vote bank politics. Democracy fails here. Making preventive arrests is the best thing they ever did. That doesn’t nullify the home

 minister’s comments.

Pink chaddi Campaign... a show of anger and frustration on an illegal act, in the most unprofessional way. Do you think it solves the problem? Mind you, I will be surprised if it doesn’t cause more. Why should we hurt someone’s ego in public? If Muthalik decides to be smart, he will create sympathy on him and his Sena as victimized for trying to protect a non-existent but most-believed culture. A wrong cannot be corrected by another wrong. It can bring momentary pleasure for the pink chaddi senders. But it will aggravate the anger against the free men. Send him love, send him roses, greeting cards, chocolates, pastries, sweets etc., etc., make him realise what we mean by love. Heaven sake doesn’t settle for a chaddi. I would have thought that as the act of spreading love. Why settle for spreading hatred.

Regarding Siva sena and Bajrang Dal creating problem for people spreading love today, it is obvious, they want their share of publicity. They are least interested in the Indian culture, they just need the publicity that is easy to get, they found their leader in Ram Sena.

If the day is for love, better spread that. If Muthalik wants, we can celebrate a day for spreading hatred. With the state govt’s support, they can name it as Muthalik’s day. Everyone can find their own muthaliks and gift them with Chaddis and beat them in public. How silly can we get? Stop it guys...

Got together - Some things never change, but some things do

Last weekend we had a long awaited Get-together of my Delliberates-Unplugged team. I’ve been planning to host them all at my place since November. But thanks to some of their Vacations and my exams, it got delayed by a couple of months, honestly, it’s worth a wait. Eddie and Quarter along with Viv and Queen were the first to arrive. Ass-ok was closely followed by me with the food. Zula and Keerthi came on Asif-bhai-Kairiyath-ah?’s tail. I took the curious few for a guided tour of the house which was promptly captured on a video by Ed. Tension Sharma(Dev) a subject of Vivek’s long distance spitting came along with Banali at 2:45.(Didn’t we miss Amar to send the login-logout report?) He was the most awaited person as some were having the ‘war of the intestines’. Food was waiting for almost 2 hours; it was so cold that the milkshake had become Ice-cream for the desert. My pulao and Queen’s last minute salad were the first to get over.
After some chatting, lunch and fight for the remote, we settled for a Karaoke Session. Keerthi chaired the session with his googling skills for lyrics. All who had the liking to sing were sharing their voice. Overall it was a mess, never the less, enjoyable. Keerthi was literally singing to the tunes of Zula who was captured swishing her finger. As the divide between the participants and audience grew, we called it a song and moved on to play Dumb-sherads. It was all fun as we played. The highlights were, Ashok losing a point when he was trying to show “IN” with his finger entering some tunnel, and Queen guessing the movie even before Keerthi signaled ‘one word movie’. As time was ticking fast, we had to end it there.
Panna was expected to settle scores(thanks to Vivek) was doing that on his bed. At 2 PM he said he will be here in 30 mins, but at 3 he was still snoring. Mrs. Subashini was not able to make it as Sanjeev was out of town, and Niyath was not healthy enough to come over. However tough my rules are, I am always lenient on leaves. Their leaves were granted, half-heartedly. Amar was on planned vacation flying. Better luck next time.
The title should come somewhere during this blog. Here it is, some things never change – Deliberates and Fun are always synonymous, but some things do change, in fact did, I hope it’s for good.
Sahana, Navitha and Sandy were proud and happy to host the get-together. We thank all who made our day unforgettable. When everyone was packing up, we decided to capture the group on camera. Once a few timed-pictures were clicked, we parted to live happily ever after. :-)

Top of the world

Yeah, it’s me… and I am starting a blog. Thanks to those who inspired me either through their own blogs or through their acts which is worth a mention in my blog. I am all pepped up to write a note every hour on my blog. But due to my workload at home, office and on the way, I might be able to write only one when I find time. I am convinced that even the readers may not have time to go through such a boring (though not intentional) blog quite often. Being considerate I am determined not to ask you “Did you read my blog?” when I call up the next time. Even you can avoid such a question by leaving a comment- SO, NO PRESSURE. I am still thinking what to write, only to realize that I have already written one, so simple?!?! Welcome to Sandy’s World Top.