Friday, February 27, 2009

Did we really vote for THESE guys?

...Congress floated the idea of an `achieving India' and listed among the milestones the Indo-US nuclear deal, Chandrayaan, near 9% growth and the total sweep of the Oscars...

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cong-counts-8-Oscars-as-part-of-UPA-achievements/articleshow/4179161.cms

a) Danny Boyle is in no way Indian.
b) Bollywood and India as such played no part in the making of the movie (apart from providing crap infested shorelines, blood thirsty extremists who dress their kids up in the image of their gods, and the omnipresent dark eyed villain)
c) Had it not received the (undeserved, this author thinks) accolades that it did, there is a good chance that the same party would have struck down the film for its so-called derogatory depiction of India.

Oh and while we're at it, the UPA government was in no way responsible for the decline in inflation, which Mr. Mukherjee claimed at the interim budget.

What's a Unicorn?

Ans: "You know, mythical beast... the car that can't be stolen"

- From Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)

Here's to the ones who keep trying, the ones who beat themselves up over mistakes they never committed, who move mountains only to find whole ranges lying behind them. Keep the faith and fight the good fight, for the struggle will make the victory taste so much sweeter.

Walk on.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Go Ape

Time magazine's website today ran the following "Quote of the Day" -

"We have an African-American President, a female Speaker of the House — and there's the white guy."
KATIE COURIC, noting the diverse Democratic leadership triumvirate of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Joe Biden

As I recall, four years ago, India had a Muslim President, a Sikh Prime Minister (that's Taliban to all you American-philes), a foreign lady leading the party in power, and a Hindu leading the opposition party.

Who's aping who now?

Mocha Dreams

And even though time dims our senses
And wrinkles our minds to dust
The yellow tree shall bloom again
Telling us everything’s not lost

And in the morning we’ll be gone
Back to the place before our birth
Brief lives remembered by epiphanies
And those rare pitchers full of mirth

Monday, February 23, 2009

The Departed

The young have mirth,
While we are sapped and weary
Another tale ends in the middle of my story

What comes to pass?
We’ll be but an illustration
Of what’s remembered by those in our wake

Trials and midnight oil,
We’ve burned it all
And morning after night,
Amassed at the muezzin’s door,
To regale ourselves with laughter and stories of war

But, at length, we each depart,
In our own separate direction,
Our tired minds bent beyond the point of our inflexion

Yet the stories carry on
Till legends they become,
Our time immortalised in the red rays of the sun

Not a bittersweet song
Or a textbook story, we walk on
Constantly striving to achieve
But a glimmer of what we had during our arduous journey’s reprieve

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Job Descriptions

With the placement free-for-all just around the corner, and given the current shit we are all in right now, one has to really start considering the kind of things one wants to be doing for the rest of one's life (too many "one"s in that last sentence...)

So I've begun thinking of jobs from the point of view of the one-liner job description. It's really cool how some seemingly boring jobs kinda jump out and vice-versa. It makes your really rethink what you want to do. Of course, being the brash, naive brat that I am, I will not be without my biases. Feel free to comment, and I will make changes accordingly.

Evangelist - I give people hope.

Investment Banking - I tell really really rich people where to put their money so that they eventually can earn more than I will (else they won't come to me)

Marketing - I make you want stuff, even if you don't really want it in the first place.

Social Work (NGOs etc) - I do the dirty work that no one else wants to do and my payoff is not monetary.

Investment Banking v2 - I do the dirty work that no one else wants to do and my payoff is monetary.

Consultant - I tell people how to solve their issues (like an organization level shrink)

Shrink - I listen to people and tell them how to solve their issues.

Civil Servant - I run the country.

Police officer - I do the dirty work so that your kids can go out safely.

Roadside sweeper - If I didn't do my work, you'd have to do it.