Defeated ...tormented ...dejected

After a horrendous and bloody battle with the icici direct website for the past 1 hr and 15 minutes ...even with advanced weaponary such as comcast high speed network, wireless connectivity, direct ethernet connection, vpn access (through wsgc network), I have failed. I submit ....I submit to the power ...to the will ...to the might of the ICICI network.

it was a one-sided affair in which I was thrown out inexplicably - innumerous times - I was given the 'page not found' many times and I was left teary-eyed ....most of the times.

the war is over ..icici has won yet again.

I will now retire into the loneliness ...to the dark of the night and sleep ...a tormented soul shall now sleep.

-A

What is Intelligence

or should I say Un-Intelligence in the case of India's security agencies ...the IB and the RAW ????

Two blasts in 2 days ....and the second one despite a e-mail threat ..its plain ridiculous what the state of affairs are. Who is to blame for this miss - apart from the maniacs who committed this dastardly act - it has to be the politicians, the cops and the so called 'Intelligence agencies'. In a few days ..they will claim to get some leads, catch or frame some innocent folks (presumably some muslims) - that will start a cycle ...a vicious cycle of more angry minorities.

Life is cheap these days ....too cheap. This incident like any other previous acts of terror would soon be forgotten and by soon ..I will say 2 days. India will be back to the Dhoni's, the Kareena's the Shahrukh's, the Salmans, bribery scandals for votes ....soon and 50 lives will be forgotten just like this ...poooof !!!

I dont know who to blame ....who is the enemy ....where to start and now where to end ...
Life will go on ...anyway ..

Some articles for a further read
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Ahmedabad/State_intelligence_network_in_tatters/articleshow/3286440.cms

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1826950,00.html

-A

Yes yes ..there has been a fuel price hike in India

And how would u know that? well for starters ...take a look at this ....



Bravo folks....Bravo !!!!

and well we have bandhs (strikes) too ...look at this

http://hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=4a49c294-db94-45ed-af36-c66cac6a0d8b&&Headline=West+Bengal+bandh+affects+normal+life

I am at a loss for words now ...

-A

A sad BART Commuter

To the SF BART representatives ....

I have tried all means of trying to communicate my grievances about the problems on the Fremont-Hayward line since the past few weeks. But I dont think I have yet received any satisfactory explanation to how a sub-station problem like the one that occured on May 11th - can take 2 months to repair in today's age and specially when the BART ridership is at an all time high.

To-date since May 11th
-- I have seen at least 3 people faint on the train thanks to the sweltering heat and the crowds
-- I have noticed people lose temper thanks to the packed crowds (and tensions thanks to that)
-- As a daily commuter from Fremont from SF - I have travelled around 10-15 times standing all the way (the other times I hav avoided by travelling back all the way upto 16th Street from Embarcadero to get a seat)
-- Have got up at least 3 times to give someone my seat (mostly ladies or old people)-- Erratic timings of trains (trains from Fremont to SFO leave at any arbit times - its impossible to plan anything)

All this given that Fremont and Union City have probably the largest community of BART riders. These days people beyond Union City dont stand a chance of getting a seat (sometimes not even people from Union City).

It almost feels like no one cares as to what happens to commuters on the Fremont line. As it is we had trains only once every 15 mins ...now even thats an old story ..a luxury ... I have tried speaking to BART employees at stations and also called the BART Customer Service line but everyone seems so apathetic to our plight.

I sincerely hope that something is done to address the concerns of thousand of riders like me.

-A

Holding India ransom ....is easy

Its one group one day ...its some other group the other day .....the latest being the Gujjar community. Strikes, protests, bandhs .....are the order of the day and its just so easy....to stir up something

http://www.hindu.com/2008/05/29/stories/2008052955561200.htm

I just dont get the idea of reservations and quotas. Do these people purposely want to demean themselves by getting themselves classified as 'SC'/'ST' just to get way with an easy life thanks to quotas et al. ?

I abhor the Indian govt and its vote-band politics for having even started paying attention to such matters. All the Mandal commisions and gujjars and whatever the $%^k these folks want ......Come on guys !!!! Are other people idiots ....are folks from poor families who dont belong to the 'ELITE' SC/ST tribes fools to slog for their daily bread and a decent life????? Why the heck should there be difference?? Life is tough ....and accept that rather than resorting to such dirty and pathetic tactics of bandhs and rail-roko craziness ..just to get away from HARD WORK !!!!!

-A

A third of us live on Rs 20 a day ....

http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/artMailDisp.aspx?article=10_08_2007_001_004&typ=1&pub=47

Though I am not going to speak too much about this - I guess this was always known or at least I believed that the Indian growth that we hear about ...was superficial. A few rich people ...who get richer by the day. Agreed that the quality of life has improved for a lot of people. Agreed that now we get all "Imporrrrrted' stuff back at home itself and and agreed that we have Starbucks, Walmart ...right at our threshold - but the comman man ...his life ...is still a struggle.

-A

Innocence

What else in this world could represent better - the innocence and beauty of life ... judge for yourself ......

p.s. - this by the way is my two-month old niece.

-A

x-mas weekend ...

23rd Dec
4:00 a.m.
start on a looooooooong drive .....
Rahman all the way ...it is .....
2:00 p.m.
Arrive at san diego (10 hrs later) ...check-in to the hotel room ......sleep ....
6:30 p.m.
Search for a starbucks ...have coffee ....
search for a hang-out place ....lots of places to do that ...pick one .....get drunk ....
dinner ...desi ....coool place ....
float around in downtown ....

24th Dec
9:00 a.m.
breakfast@starbucks
10:30 a.m.
seaworld ....for the next 5 hrs
5:00 p.m.
san diego beaches .....wowwwwww
7:30 p.m.
hangout@TGIF + meet up pals
12:00
zzzzzzzzzzzz

25th Dec
Merry Christmas
9:00 a.m.
forced to wakeup
packing .........
11:00 a.m.
Checkout ...followed by dinner
12:30 p.m
beach@lajolla - wowwwwww
1:30 p.m
the journey back ....
again ...Rahman all the way ...

hmmmm ......wish I never had to return bac .....

-A

Can't think of a Title ......

Sometimes I wonder, whether or not Rahman's music has created a protective blanket for my ears or set standards so high, that any other music just sounds so bland, so unimportant and so repulsive at times. I used to consider myself a good music critic - now though when everything starts and ends with Rahman, I guess am no longer one. Obviously, I am not sad about that :-) for what he has created in the past 14 years - each and every bit, each and every song, each and every tune - is enough to make me happy for a lifetime.

I remember a episode from the monthly news diary - Newstrack (probably 12-13 years back) where some music directors had called Rahman a 1-film wonder, a speck so immaterial who would disappear into the darkness in no time. Boy !!!! I knew at that time that they were wrong and how. So so wrong were they .....

Salaam-e-Ishq
Heard ...Salaam-e-Ishq today- the latest offering from Shankar EL. Know what !!! in a world without Rahman's music - this album would have been fine, just fine. But not in a world where just about 2 weeks back 'Guru' had been released, not in a world where me and my girl were playing just Rahman all through the morning and not in a world where my car just plays Rahman (through my ipod).

Shankar EL are getting too repetitive. They are a good group - better than the Himesh's and the Pritam's of the world. In fact, they would rank behind ARR and Vishaal Bharadwaj in my list.
But this album just about sounds where they left off in KANK or any of their previous albums.

My recco - not worth a buy but ok for a ' hear'.

Oldboy
Saw this great South Korean movie ....Oldboy. Not for the weak-hearted and definitely a tough story to digest (note that this movie was copied in bollywood too as 'Zinda' which was ok but the story was attuned to suit the Indian conservation indian audience).

The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Reading this book - a Pulitzer prize winning attempt, I think. Its a really gud read about two boys (cousins to each other) who want to make it big in this world and are inspired by Houdini and comic strips. A full review once I finish reading it.

-A

Weekend

Two days, saw Casino Royale (the new bond is pretty decent), drove around, hogged like anything, slept like a log, surfed the net, watched some tennis, forgot everything about the place called gym.. didn't go for jogging, didn't play anything ....i look bac and this is what i see :-( ..aaaaaaarghhhh !!!!!

the one gud thing that i did though, heard guru over and over and over .....all the while
the verdict is clear ...rahman rocks ...yet again :-)

-A

A flying India visit, music and more ...

Yet again, its been more than a month since my last post .....
A Chicago visit, an India visit and now back to SFO - thats what happened in the past one month.

The India visit was a really ...really.... short one - 15 days of which more than 2 days were spent flying to n fro from India. As for the days in India itself, the split goes like this
Bangalore - 4 days,
Delhi - 2 days,
Kerala - 1 day
Chennai - the remainder of my days with my folks

So I was flying and going around in taxis even in my flying visit to India - whew !!!! Now I need a vacation after a vacation ..I feel ...

I certainly need to write a lot about India which I will for sure in the coming days. The so called economic growth and industrialization and all that crap ....but not in this post. (having read the last line, u must surely know what the tone of my writing would be ...)

Music
The Music scene has been really dull recently. Blame it partly on Rahman who has so few releases and blame it partly on the other music artistes who are as bland as ever.

While in India, I did manage to hear some new classical stuff which I did end up buying. Nothing great but music for the music starved ears. Picked up a couple of Malayalam and Hindi stuff too - again nothing great to write about at length here .... (except the old Hindi movie album 'Dhoop' - which probably has some of the best Ghazals and compositions I hv ever heard)

Movies
Got the DVD of RDB (Rang De Basanti) for dirt cheap ...there was a special offer while I was in India .....really a steal at Rs. 199.
Got the DVD of Alaipayuthe too - thats for my gal - its her favorite movie ....

Saw two new Hindi movies which deserve a mention here ...

Khosla ka Ghosla
An amazing movie with no real stars except Boman Irani and Anupam Kher - have to rate this as one of the best comic movies I have seen in the recent past. A must see.

Dor
A poignant and touching tale of 2 women (its inspired from a Mallu movie - which I heard was inspired by a book - Inspirations galore ....) . The star of the movie was undoubtedly Iqbal a.k.a Shreyas Talpade - boy !!!!! this guy is a startling revelation - an amazing mimic and an original actor nevertheless (which the movie 'Iqbal' brought out brilliantly).

Day to Day Life
gas prices are back to normal, SFO weather has been amazing this week, its Diwali today/tomorrow, its Friday today, got my car washed yesterday, reading a Jefferey Archer after a loooooong time (cat o nine tales) , listenin to music all the time, watching Chunking Express and working .....

-A

Its really been a while ...

Since my last post, it exactly been a month now. Lying low is me but life goes on ....Memphis ..Chicago..and now back to SFO, thats what I have been doing the past month ...

And as for the world ....People figthing each other, blasts here and there, hatred, traffic ....the same old stories ..nothing in this world ever changes ....

I seem to have the lost the knack of writing .....for words are failing me right now ....want to write about a lot of stuff but nuthing ...blank ..absolutely blank am I !!!!!

So back to Music and Books ...music first ...

Music:
a) Stellar Road - Heard this rock band at the Navy Pier at Chiacgo. No new band has ever managed to impress me this much the first time I hear them. A rock solid 2 hour hearing is what I gave them and was floored for sure ...they put up such an awesome show of guitaring and vocals that we stood there stunned. Got a CD of theirs ('Better than Yesterday') - great buy it..plays in my car day and night (and Rahman of course :-))

b) Bob Dylan (Modern Times) - The lyrics are gud ..the music is really gud ...Bob Dylan is great but dude ....I can't seem to understand what u r saying ....might be my judgement ....but neverthless, the vocals are not clear .....

c) Audioslave (Revelations) - Definitely a gud buy ....considering that their last album was a dud and was definitely worth nuthin at all .....

d) Don (Hindi) - Simply ignore maadi ....except for one song (Aaj ki Raat ...by Alisha Chinoy)

Its amazing how even though there are a gazillion musicians across the world and a zillion styles and form of music of which I might probably be hearing around a billion different ones (probably boasting about my music mania) but finally what soothes me and what makes me happy about discovering the joy of music is Rahman ....A R Rahman ....there was, there is and there never will be anyone like him ....this as I wait for the music of 'Provoked' and 'Guru' - the next Rahman albums looming large on 'my musical horizon')

Books:
a) Glass Palace - by Amitav Ghosh - a good fictional fast paced novel set in the pre-independence era about an indian boy in burma and his subsequent travails and his life and lives of people connected to him in some way or the other ...

b) Two Lives - by Vikram Seth- good one...a biographical account of his Uncle and Aunt.

c) Tipping Point - by Malcolm Gladwell - an ok book about social epidemics and behavior

Over and Out ...

-A

I need a happy book .....

Maybe I am really bad at picking books or maybe I am bad at taking recommendations on what to read or maybe I just like reading sad books - the 3 books I have read in the past couple of months have all been so depressing -

A House for Mr. Biswas,
Fine Balance,
Anil's Ghost.

Depressed people, war, people who are victims of bad circumstances or corruption - thats all there was ...the harsh truth of life and as we all know - Truth Hurts.

Add to that the war in the middle-east ( and the stunning coverage by CNN particularly Anderson Cooper) and the other calamities (natural - tsunami or man made -war, iraq ..and violence) and you have a really depressed person i.e. me

I need a happy book now ....
Whats a Happy book though ? According to me - a happy book is something that will make me happy by way of humour or by way of telling a plain simple story which is relaxed and casual.
And so I hunt for a happy book :-) . Lets see what I find ...

MUSICALLY ....
I am pretty much still bored ...though I heard two albums which I had been trying to get my hands on (or ears on??) for a long time now -

Dire Straits - Live at the BBC and
Metallica Gold - acoustic

Both get a thumbs up from me :-)

Rahman and his music(new music) have completely dissappeared from the surface of this earth, it seems and so the wait continues.

-A

Bad day for mumbai ....and music

The date 11th July - 6 or 7 blasts in mumbai... more than 100 dead...

Just fail to understand this - just a day or so after I wrote that I believe in the existence of a power called God - I am forced to ask myself whether I was and I am right. I don't know...really don't know...

Death and such dastardly acts are becoming so common-place now ...over the past 2 days ... airplane crashes in siberia and pakistan, bombings in iraq and now mumbai ...

Music

A sad day for music too ...Syd Barrett of Floydd died today (aged 60). He died a natural death though (diabetes being the cause). Though I think Syd hadn't recorded with Floydd beyond the early 70's, he was one of the founding members and a lead vocalist and guitarist for the band at one time. Didn't know this but the wonder number 'Shine on you crazy diamond' is supposed to be a tribute to Barrett. Anyway, a diamond he was and will be a legend in his own right ...forever














-A

"World Music" Day

June 21st(yesterday) happened to be "World Music" day as I discovered today ....

"World Music" is just another one of the classifications that have found their way into Music dictionaries of the world.

Wikipedia says - "world music" refers to any form of music that is not part of modern mainstream Western commercial popular music or classical music traditions, and which typically originates from outside the cultural sphere of Western Europe and the English-speaking nations.

Anyway, belated happy 'World Music' day .......please note ..its not "World Music Day" :-)

-A

The wait ...

The wait for a Rahman album when you know one is round the corner somehere - is just unbearable...as I discover here - waiting for JoK (Jillunu Oru Kaadhal) to release.....

And so while I waited I heard KANK(Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna)

KANK is by SEL(Shankar Ehsaan Loy) . Quite an anti-climax considering that this was one of the most anticipated ost of the year (since its a KJ - Karan Johar movie). Not that I had high hopes (specifically because it was a Johar movie ..he he ). The songs are quite bland and sound somewhat like Karan Johar's earlier movie songs.
I feel that the SEL trio have not composed what their usual fun stuff is but rather have been bound by KJ. SEL are good ..an intelligent lot but they need to be given their space as is the case with Rahman.

My recommendation - hear it once or twice - some songs might grow on you but on the whole expect nothing extraordinary.

-A

Memphis...Graceland and Work

In Memphis this week, on work. Though I had today to msyelf .

And so went to Graceland (Elvis Presley's home) - one of the shrines for people into Rock n Roll. Though not the biggest fan of the man widely regarded as the King of Rock n Roll, I wouldn't have missed this oppurtunity in a lifetime. The mansion is pretty big and pretty well maintained and is owned by his daughter(Lisa) as the audio tour guide tells me. Elvis bought it in 1958 for around USD 100,000 or so. The tour itself is pretty well done, with the guide (audio) detailing out his life and times and people pretty well.

My knowledge of Elvis was limited to his music and movies only but today was introduced to his philanthropic side and boy !!! - did that surprise me..... He has in his lifetime given so much to organisations and people in Memphis that its amazing how even after being who he was, he was so deeply attached to common people and their troubles. Rockers aren't really known for this :-). Anyway, this really did tons for my respect for Elvis. Truly a King ...

Theres a Car musuem too which houses the Cars and Bikes he owned. Apparently he had a real love for machines and that shows....

Also, did you know Elvis was a Black belt in Karate (in two different levels that too).....

Fun day or rather a fun 3-4 hours ....

More later ...as I brace myself up for tomorrow and work ..... :-(

-A

IpodVideo60gigBlack

A shining new black 60 GB Ipod Video was handed over to me as a gift by my gal.
thank u lady ......

Rahman and Rock on iPod now .....

(shud have written this 2 weeks back but better late then never)

-A