Moral Bankruptcy

Let me begin by saying that I am a big fan of Sanjay dutt and his brand of comedy movies. More recently they have been instrumental in re-introducing the concepts of Gandhian philosophy aptly named Gandhigiri to the masses. How ever this piece is more about Sanjay Dutt the person who recently decided to contest the parliamentary elections, the person who was convicted of possession of illegal firearms procured from his terrorist acquaintances. The same people who were indited in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blast. Now out on bail he is trying to get the supreme court to find a way for him to contest. I wonder if this is the kind of person we would want to be our representative, however great be his artistic credentials.

Another case is that of Mohd. Azharuddin, the former captain of the Indian cricket team , a very elegant batsmen and a well respected fielder. Towards the end of his career he was suspected of being involved in the infamous match fixing scandal. He was accused of colluding with some bookies to throw away the cricket matches for monetary gain. As a result he was banned from playing cricket by the ICC. Now he has also decided to contest elections this April.


Now they are busy these days, making political speeches resolving themselves of all guilt, and feigning ignorance. It is obvious that even after being punished for their crimes by the law , they have not learned anything to make amends.

The question I would like to asking why we as a society are still willing to support their political ambitions. Are we ourselves so morally bankrupt that we are willing to bet our future on these fallen heroes rather than try to find leaders with the highest moral credentials. It is time we should show these two their place.

Their hopes and dreams to "lead the country" should be vehemently and unequivocally crushed.

London Diary

London has its unique charm for someone like me who has always been curious of the various pre-independence artifacts and influences left by the British in India. That why I decided to visit London for a couple of days this winter. Here are some diary entries.

Friday, Dec 5

4:00pm – Landed at Heathrow a while back, immigration went through in a jiffy and changed my 600 dollars to 364 pounds (damn!!). I was distinctively feeling a brit accent now after being so used to the American accent. The signs are a bit unclear since the terminal is new. I had to go to the departures since there’s a pickup point for cars there. Eventually I was able to find my childhood friend Manuj, who had come to pick me up. It is great seeing him after a long time, he hasn’t changed much. We used to go to the same high school using the same bus on and off for 5-6 years.

6:00pm - We are sitting in the Tube (Metro rail) going to Central London/Oxford street. This is the place where every one hangs out on Friday nights. Earlier we checked into a hotel near the airport. Tube is very much like the Delhi metro, though appears a bit older. Our journey time is about an hour.

8:00pm – Oxford Street has so many light and people are walking everywhere. This is much like Delhi with people crossing roads from any where they want to and cars whizzing past them at high speed. Lot of people are lined up to get into the around the place. It is really cold and even drizzling a little, we should find some food.

10:00pm - We walked for a couple of hours around the place searching for an Indian restaurant, however, could not find one. Finally, we got tired and are sitting in a Mc-Donalds. At least they have a veg burger here. It’s getting late now so we will catch the Tube back to the hotel and call it a day.

Saturday, Dec 6

9:00am – I got up early today to make the most of the day time. However, it still took us a while before we could get out of the hotel. Today, first we will go to the Tower of London. We got ourselves a two day London pass which includes some sort of a combo deal for entry tickets to many interesting locations.

12:00pm – We started with the Tower Bridge. This is nice looking bascule suspension bridge that can be opened up in the middle to let the river traffic like ships to pass through the bridge. Many people confuse this with the London BridgeLondon Bridge is falling down”. After this we visited the navy ship HMS Belfast and walked over the actual London Bridge which is further downstream. By now we were very hungry, so we stopped over for tea and sandwiches at a shop “prêt à café”. made famous by the nursery rhyme “

2:00pm – I just saw the Kohinoor diamond in an exhibition at the Tower Castle. It was as big as a lemon. I never thought that they can have diamonds as big as that one. The place was filled with diamonds and jewel of all sizes. There were rocking chairs, beds and fountainheads made of pure gold. Now I am getting a little dizzy seeing so much wealth.

4:00pm – We took the cruise boat on River Thames from the Tower of London to the London Eye and have just reached the Big Ben besides the London Parliament. While my friend who seems to need a tea every two hours is getting some, I am watching the hoards of protesters gathered here protesting about something or the other they feel deeply about. This seem to be a routine affair with some people protesting about the war in Iraq or global warming, while others promoting veganism etc. There is also a troupe from the Hare Krishna Hare Rama sect promoting peace and soliciting donations.

6:00pm - Finally after waiting in line for about an hour we are now taking a ride on the London Eye. This is a giant wheel along the banks of River Thames which is higher than any other building in London. From the topmost point the night time view of the London skyline is totally breathtaking.

8:00pm - We have been walking along the London Eye, Big Ben, Downing Street and Trafalgar Square for some time and now I am totally tired. I think its time to call it a day and go back to the hotel.

10:00pm – BTW, the metro broke down on the way back. Instead of the one train to the hotel, we had to change five trains before we could reach the destination. Phew!

Sunday, Dec 7

9:00am – We started the day by visiting the Arch of Wellington. India Gate in Delhi has been modeled on this monument. It is situated in the Buckingham Palace grounds. While there, we saw a contingent of guards on horses patrolling the grounds.

10:00am – There was a large crowd in front of the Buckingham Palace. This is the home the Queen of England. We visited the Queen’s art gallery inside the palace. It had some very beautiful Flemish painting made by famous painters collected over centuries by the monarchy. This is the first time when I have seen some authentic paintings and I can say they were absolutely beautiful. One can spend a long time admiring the detail and blend of colors present in each one of them.

12:00pm – Feeling a bit hungry, we went to a coffee shop at Trafalgar Square having our daily dose of tea and sandwiches. This is a fairly busy place with lots of bronze sculptures where tourist are getting their pictures clicked.

2:00pm - Being a Sherlock Holmes fan since childhood, the trip can not be complete without a visit to 221B Baker Street, the fictional residence of the famous detective. It was a nice place where they also had a museum containing statues and props depicted in various stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle.

4:00pm –After spending some time walking around Downing Street we were headed to the Royal Albert Hall to look at some fine buildings around the university area at Imperial College London. Then we spent some time the science museum.

6:00pm – This bring us to the end of the day, Manuj had to leave early before nightfall to go back to his home so I bid him good bye. I will also call it a day now as I need to catch a flight back home tomorrow. In all it was an amazing trip and I am glad I decided to stop over at London. Hopefully this will not be the last visit….

Monday, Dec 8

12:00pm - Catching the flight back to India. Yayyay !!

Tales of Passion

This a a great clip I stole from a friend's(KM) profile. This is part of the proceedings of an yearly conference regarding socially relevant issues. It is amazing how effortlessly the speaker uses humor to shed light on some very important issues. check it out !!

Taare Zameen Par

Last week I got chance to watch Aamir Khan's Taare Zameen Pe. It is an amazing movie which deals with the sensitive subject of dyslexia. The child actor, Darsheel Safary has given a stupendous performance as a childhood dreamer who is unable to concentrate on his studies due to dyslexia. Its a subject which many of us can identify with while bringing us closer to the carefree days of childhood. Shankar Ehsaan Loy have delivered another brilliant score handling the fast paced and slow numbers with equal ease. Especially the heartfelt rendition of the song "Maa" which was pictured when parents send their son to the boarding school. Verdict: A must watch for all ages.

Movie Review: Guru

Last Night I got a chance to watch Mani Ratnam's latest film "Guru". One can discount the fact that the storyline loosely based on Dhirubhai Ambani's life may not have provided much space for entertainment. Still, the movie is not even a patch on the expectations from the director who is known for his master pieces like Roja, Bombay and Dil Se.

A.R. Rahman disappoints with his soulless music, and could not provide any humable tunes to take home. As far as the lyrics are concerned, probably Gulzar forgot to write any, since all I remember is "Gurubhai Gurubhai aala re ...". The dialogs or the lack of it also did not help much for the cause.

The movie sometimes appeared to be too fast in its narration where many characters were left underdeveloped. If Mallika Sheravat had one item number, Aishwarya Rai had a couple more. There wasn’t any thing much for her to do in the film other than dancing or washing clothes. I specially could not understand her abrupt introductory scene where she was doing a disco on top of a rock in the middle of the river bed. I had better expectations from the director who introduced Madhu with "chhoti si aasha ..". The camera was strangely handled by some nincompoop who appeared to be dancing along with the girls in most of the songs, leading to a very unstable song picturization.

The film was solely riding on Abhishek Bachchan's shoulders who, has finally matured into a good actor. With his boyish charm he appeared to be comfortable sharing screen space with other characters in the film. Mithun and Madhavan provided strong performances to support the film. Vidya Balan brings breath of fresh air to the otherwise confrontational scenes. Her character however, wasn't very much etched out and could have been given something more to do.

Unlike the Ratnam's previous ventures the film carried a weak message, that bribery and bending the law is acceptable if done for overall progress. The ending was abrupt and weak where the hero could turn the judicial opinion with a small sermon. All said, Amitabh Bachchan can safely hang his working boots now that he has a new bread winner in the family in form of Abhishek who can now take over from him. As far is this Mani Ratnam-A.R Rehman film is concerned, I do not think I am going to remember much about this in a year from now.

True heroes are forgotten and terrorists become martyrs

Some of the sentiments in my previous post are echoed in this great article on the first paramvir chakra winner Major Somnath Sharma.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/nov/03spec.htm?q=tp&file=.htm

Check it out !

Punishment for Afzal and Activism

As a child I was taught that every good deed will be applauded and mistakes would be punished. It seems not everybody agrees with me. For last couple of weeks I have been following some discussion regarding the capital punishment given to a 7/11 accused Afzal. One of my juniors in college is trying his best to build support for a presidential pardon. He has many arguments to support his position; however I still fail to see his point. To such people, it seems to be fashionable to paint themselves as a secular social activist and oppose any sane decision. As far the accused is concerned, the fact that three different courts have upheld the sentence proves beyond doubt his guilt. The argument that his wife and child would be left alone should not hold water, since law should not bend for any body based on their relations. I am quoting the funniest argument I heard.

pls take into cognizance the fact tht the intent of the terrorists who attacked our Parliament was not to murder our politicians, but to spread their demands thru an appropriate platform... had they wanted, they could have killed many... and who are u fighting for?? our hon'ble politicians? ? have u never wanted or said "in saalon ko to line main khada kar ke goli maar deni chahiye"??? y so much pain, agony, and hue and cry if somebody gave shape to every indian's idea and thought?? still, this is wrong and not pardonable.. . this is not the right way to take things forward, even if this is what i wanted to do when while protesting against reservations, my 'helpless and innocent' fellows and friends went on hunger strike and were lathi charged at the cue of these very politicians... what came out of it?? out of all the peaceful protests?? we lost tht battle, fell on our face... these politicians are dumb and deaf, and need an explosion to hear wht is being said...
in today's world, when u can sing "khoon chala" frm RDB, and clap when aamir khan murders our defence minister, then how can u not side with Afzal?? dwell more into his demands pls...

Not everybody takes things in the same context. The recent trend of extremisms in some of the movies (Which I also appreciated) seems to have brainwashed many people. They fail to distinguish between the internal corruption and international terrorism. I feel it is most irresponsible and idiotic to think that even if a terrorist goes against the system, he should be glorified as a hero.

Punishment is a necessity in any civilized environment. Are we such a weak state that we can not even punish our guilty. I have always followed the guiding principle of “Naimatma Balheenien Labhya” , or perfection can only be achieved by strong. I guess, India still has a long way to go …

Of Culture, Saraswati and Barkha Dutt

While I don’t usually agree with her, but I do admire Barkha Dutt a lot. She is one of those few journalists who in spite of having their own opinion, still try to present a balanced account of any situation. The other day while reading one of her articles, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that she was a fellow modernite. The article was concerning the recent "Vandemataram controversy" and talked about the presence of religious symbols in the Indian school system.

I distinctly remember the mural of goddess Saraswati, she talked about that was embedded in the wall at the school reception area. In sixth class when I started school we used to pass it 3-4 times every day. It was like an unwritten rule, that anybody who passed it, used to touch the feet of the goddess. Even when the traffic was heavy, the unordered flows of students used to converge to single orderly line then again revert to the previous chaos.

At that young age we needed to jump to be able to touch the second feet of the goddess, but by the eighth class it had almost become a reflex action. There was a joke that any body that touches the parrot on top of the mural would come first in the class. While I never touched the parrot, but I think I can count the times I did not touch the feet on my fingertips, and I must have passed that corridor more than five thousand times.

In those times communalism, secularism were words I wasn't aware of. I think what the school taught us was the respect for the knowledge that we were getting, a respect which was observed by all, irrespective of the religion. About a year back I visited the school. The reflex action is still there, the respect is still there. Is this my religion or my culture?

Pizza with multinational friends

Pizza is probably the most widely accepted grad student party food all over the world. Last friday, Lee invited me and some of his friends over for a pizza party. I remember the first time I had pizza made by Lee was on the first day I came to US. It was Lee's turn to cook and in his enthusiasm to welcome his new roommate, he invited his friends Charlie and Jay and had decided to make pizza. He has always been very meticulous when it comes to cooking. He himself makes the dough and the sauce, shapes them into the pizza with chedar cheese on top of it., bakes it for the right time and hey presto, you have a pizza ready to eat.

Coming back to the present, this time we were all supposed to gather at Nina's house for the Lee Pizza. He had also invited Faizal , a fellow student from pakistan. There were four of us each from four different nations. Offcourse as for the pizza , it is getting better in taste with time. Soon, we gobbled up all the pizzas save for the fourth one which got burnt in the oven since we were preoccupied with the banter. Later in the evening we headed off to gameworks the gaming arcade. One of the games I really like is DDR. Save for Lee who has played it since infancy, I am pretty good at it. Offcourse the "table hockey puck" game is also a great time pass. My team won 2 of the 3 games we played. Finally we ended the evening with a couple of doughnuts from crispie creams at midnight. Although my evening went on since I was expected to call a friend...

Twenty five and going ...

Twenty five!! Seems like a big number. Almost every body expects you to be more responsible and mature as if you have moved into a new category. The realisation came to me, when some days back my kid brother asked me how old I was gonna be this time. The comment I got back was " Wow 25 is big".

Well, All I can say is, finished with a quarter of my time, and ready to make merry in the rest three quarters.

The Anti-Matter Blog

I remember talking to a friend who suggested I should write something about "Anti-matter". Till this day I have been thinking. The problem with anti-matter is that nobody knows if it exists. Infact, matter by defination is something that can be felt/seen/smelt etc.. effectively they have an existance. However anti-matter, just be virtue of its english meaning does not enjoy an existance.

It all stared when a guy named Paul Dirac was solving his recently invented equation in quantum mechanics. As is with most mathematical equations, he got a negitive solution for one of the calculations for the energy of an electron. Instead of following the convention of ignoring the negative solution, he decided to propose the concept of an anti-matter particle. Since then it is believed that every particle in this universe has an anti-matter particle. If their is a collision between the two, they annihilate each other to produce energy as per Uncle Albert's famous E=mc^2 equation.

Friday at the freshmen party ..

Last friday before the school starts. I was exicited about it since thats the day they have a freshmen party at the PV Beach. Last time me and my room-mate were probably the only indians to the gathering. But we each had loads of free pizza and a free T-Shirt each (Time vasool). Not to be left behind this time I took all my family(house-mates offcourse) . The weather was nice with a little drizzle. there we about 4-5 hundred people collected at a small place with a stage where they were trying to entertain people. There were small events going on like open the frozen T-Shirt, free airtickets , and offcourse the Hip Hop performance which had a spectacular synchronicity in their chaotic movements. Young freshpersons were doing rounds in the crowds making them dance to the tunes.
As usual we had fun, eat free pizza grabed free T-shirts each. One of my mates suffering from a bout of chivalry that day, gave away all his freebies to random girls dancing around him ...

Passport to fun

School's Starting this monday. Dorms are full and the semester is ready to roll. Every year at the beginning of the academic year we have this cool thing called "Passport to ASU" at the Memorial Union the hottest hangout at Campus. For three hours all the eating outlets at MU provide free food samplers to one and all. There are a lot of free games , prizes etc. Pool tables and Bowling alleys are open for every one to try their hand. Just as you open a new Dhabba on the highway, you have to provide free food for a day to all the truck drivers, similarly all the outlet are trying their best to entice the new students.
Not wanting to miss the fun, I skipped my lab to reach there with my only other vela friend. We had a great time. Tried out free pizzas, salsa and what not. Won a strange looking pen stand by throwing some pebbles in a hole at taco bells. Then we moved on to the pool tables and then over to the free bowling alley.
One of the coolest things we saw was a guy playing DDR. He was playing at such an advanced level that I could not even see the arrows on the screen, still he was scoring prefects. We were so impressed that we played it 4 times. With the fast paced music it is really fun.

Birthday Party

My friend had a birthday party this Wednesday. I have really started enjoying such events, whereas earlier back home I wasnt very much into it, especially my own. For me birthday was just an other day when you get older by an year. But here I can imagine how nice it must feel when some body bakes a cake, somebody gets a card, somebody get a T-shirt, some one starts planning for it a month in advance and somebody is there just to be with you (Yep that was me !). Guess thats what friends are for ...

Of Bikes, Busses and Pasta

Feeling bad for not taking my "recently arrived from india" roommate to walmart I started my day with an offer to go to walmart with him to get a bike for him. We started at 10 and caught the valley metro to towards Walmart in Mesa. On reaching there both of us both of us started searching for the bike rack. However the 53 dollar bike that we had come to buy was already sold out. Not to be outdone, he asked the store representative, if they had an other one in stock. Luckly they had it so he brought it. After some more random shopping we reached the bus stand and started waiting for the bus back.
The first bus came after waiting for half an hour, however both the bike racks were full. Not wanting to leave my friend alone in the sun I let the bus go and started waiting for the next. It was lunch time and there was a seemingly nice italian joint "Fazoli's" right across the road. Both of us decided to go and have a quick lunch. I had a spicy pasta marinara. I have eaten pasta only 3-4 times, and this one was the best amoung them. Sobti had a pizza.
As we were just about to finish we saw another bus coming with both the racks full. Left out of options we decided to take the next one. After the meal we waited another half hour for the bus at the stop. The Third bus came still with all the racks full, thats when we decided that I would take all the stuff with me to the house whereas sobti would ride the bike home.

Bike collector

Yes thats me. I am probably the only international student in ASU who owns three bikes. No , I did not start this hobby out of my own free will rather a series of unfortunate events led to it.
My first bike was a 53 dollar "mountain fury" from walmart. I rode it for a semester with a 10 dollar U-Lock. Alas one day the 10 dollar U-Lock got stuck while the bike was parked in front of my appartment house. I tried the whole week to open it and broke both my keys in the process. Unsucessful as I was, I started looking for a replacement.
Luckly we had a spare bike in our household. One of my room-mate's former room-mate had graduated to a four wheeled car so he didnt feel the need for a two wheeler. As a result I got my second bike a "Glacier point Magna" for free. This time I chose to invest 20 dollars in a big master U-Lock. I was happy with my bike's performance the second semestor. But fate had planned it otherwise. During summer when I had locked my second bike alongsode my first bike, I lost my keys to the U-Lock(yes all of them). Without the keys I came down back to catching a bus every day to school with two bike buried in my graveyard.
School is starting in a weeks time. To prevent us from the dependance on bus timings, today me and my friends Srini got ourselves a refurbished (like new) bikes for 40 dollars a piece. Mine is a purple colored 15 speed , both brakes working, water bottle included diamond back mountian bike. Its a cool bike, I got a 10 dollar U-Lock too. I hope I can ride this one more than a semester. I only have two more to go...

Sunday on top of A mountain

My sunday began with my "recently arrived from India roommate" pestering me with his lets go to walmart cries. After much effort I was finally able to convice him that no bus goes to walmart on a sunday, atleast to the one which we wanted to go. Instead I suggested a hike up the A-mountain which offers a breathtaking view of ASU. Four of us started around lunch time towards A-mountain with some holding the misconception that they would find a grand restaurant on top to eat lunch. I wonder who misled them.

The weather was nice and windy with no sun and we went along clicking useless photographs . Journey to the top was mostly uneventful, except for the fact I got a call from my "Sunday Friend". I haven't been seeing much of this friend lately, may be because of the busy schedule I keep. Being the considerate one, he contacts me once a week (mostly sundays) even if just to know if I am alive and kicking.

Eventually we reached top where I had a chance meeting with a friend I had made in london, we exchanged notes and caught up on some things and then bade goodbye. I climbed the topmost rock on the mountian where we could take a beautiful view of the Tempe Lake and ASU campus. We spent some time identifing different buildings on the Campus from the top. By this time all of us were very hungry so soon we ran all the way down A-mountain. We had our lunch at the subway and I parted ways to spent the rest of the evening in my Lab ....

Dinner with Lee and Nina

Eating together is a great way to meet friends. The other day Lee called up saying that he wasnt getting his daily doses of indian food since he had left our place. Hence wanted to come over and cook something. Now if some body calls me up and expresses a desire to cook for me, there is no saying no. This led to a dinner invitation for Lee and Nina.

As soon as Nayan came to know about it, he started running around cleaning up the place. I offcourse joined in since we only had half an hour's notice. While there was no need offcourse, but the problem was that, thats what Lee used to do when ever he invited any body home. He used to spend hours cleaning up the kitchen , the restrooms, vacumming the house etc etc. Now how could we be left behind, so we had to clean up the dishes and stuff to make it appear that every thing was hunky dory as always. Luckly we reached a presentable state in time.

As planned Lee and Nina arrived for the dinner. Nina had got some bread and some "macedonian subzi". Lee offcourse being a gourmet chef created a "cabbage subzi" in no time with nayan chipping in with "Dal" and " Caulifower subzi". Myself offcourse was just busy talking with every body. We enjoyed the food, talked about a lot of things, all in all it was an enjoyable evening...

Writing on food ... nah !!!

Nayan doesnt like my blog much, he thinks I should write about more interesting things like food. While this may be easy and interesting to some but certianly not to me. Some people live to eat, I am of the other kind.

For me meals are just a way to be alive, and missing one or two in between are of no consequence. I do like eating out a lot, but the culprit is my indolence not my epicurean tendencies. Inspite of this what amazes me, is that I do like cooking some times. I even like going the extra mile to cook some difficult dishes which used to be cooked at my home. But once done, I just lose my appetite for it. I just try to convince my self that it is the journey not the result that is important.

Being a vegetarian I can very easily blame my disregard for food to the meagre choices available in US to satisfy the people of our kind. Still that would just be kidding myself since I do know many people who inspite of this are enjoying their food and wine. Recently a friend said to me that people who like eating food are very good by nature, I wonder what they say about people who dont like eating food ......

Safe Haven goes out of business

For years Britain has been a safe haven for harbouring criminals , terrorists and other anti social elements who have are evading arrests and judicial proceedings in their respective countries of origin. Take the case of the Music director Nadeem who being a prime accused in the Gulshan Kumar murder case in India, is still roaming free in London , while to indian judicial system is unable to bring him to book. Further more it is a well documented fact the many radical elements in britian openly operate and collect funds for funding terrorist activities in the name of religion throughout the world.

With the recent blast in the london tube this has started changing. I was reading this article where the british govt has identified 500 radical elements and would soon start deporting them. People who were respectable and acceptable earlier have suddenly become extremists. Isn't it strange only when our own house burns we start calling a spade, a spade......