Finally!! The Chennai Blogger’s meet!!!

And finally, it was the blogger’s meet at my own hometown! Yup! Chennai! It was yet again a joint venture by Indiblogger and Microsoft. I had been to the previous meets organized by the Indiblogger as the representative of MS, but I have never seen a huge crowd as this at any other city.. The event was held at Hotel Dee Cee Manor at GN Chetty Road.. I wondered if the hall would be enough for 116 (and still counting) registered people.. But it seemed small and people were actually standing to see he proceedings.. I went to the venue around 3:45 PM, where the event was scheduled to start at 4! As I had been to other blogger meetings, I presumed that the event would no longer start by 5! But I was totally surprised to see the hall already half full with people talkin animatedly with the fellow bloggers..

The event, much to my surprise, started only 15-20 mins late!! The hall was totally overflowing! Man.. So, it all started by Indiblogger and Lemonade, the blogger who initiated the meet, giving their welcome and how they were too drunk to remember that who actually set up Indiblogger site amongst them ;-) .. he he he.. Then came the 1 Min to fame!! Man.. It was the lengthiest part in any bloggers meet I ve seen.. There were few people who really were audible enough to stay in my heart like

  • The Pseudonym ( The guy I loved cos of his intro and then he covered my session with his handy cam!! :-) )
  • Puyal Ganesh (My dads colleague and only person to blog abt chennais traffic exclusively)
  • Rohit Channazhi (Was kind enough to give me a lift till Nungambakkam)
  • Kiruba Shankar (who doesnt know him!!!)
  • Dhruva (person who left last along with me :-) )
  • There was this guy whos link and name I forgot, and who gafve marriage and dating tips and apparently he is unmarried and not seeing someone!!! Geez!! How can I forget his link… SOmebody help me here!!!
  • And this Great Lakes Guy!! Wats his URL?????

The Intro part took too long that few people sitting behind me got uncomfortable and were constantly talking about leaving the meet and asking if they could go and have food!! ANyways, the Intro part ended and people scattered for the snacks.. I get up and go to have hot Bhajjis and stuff.. MAn!! But one guy  comes to me and asks.. “Are you from Microsoft? We are from NDTV.. We want you to come over there for a small talk”.. I was like “Wow!!”

And the NDTV crew was questioning the Indiblogger team and then that reporter indeed looked damn sweet and the female was also cute.. Infact the reporter reminded me of Parthiv Patel :-) .. Shit!! I should have got his card or something.. But anyways, I was representin MS.. I should not behave like a “Pakki”.. (Chennai bloggers would know what a Pakki is :P ).. So, the guys from NDTV bring camera and stuff and totally freak me out.. But I felt like a star.. At this juncture, I thank Microsoft for letting me influence the blogging community :-) ..

 

SO, after the break we have this “How well do u know your readers” game.. Its fun.. But not many remembered their comments on pretext that “we have so many comments on our blogs.. We cant remember everything”.. Man.. thats a modest answer :P

So, then we have our Pesudonym doing a talk on Mobile Blogging (hmm.. Thats intersting man!! ).. Then the main attraction of the event.. The play by the theaterical group THE REBELZ.. AwesomE! One word is not enough to describe it.. I was totally ROFL..

Then, the regular small skit by Indiblogger on spamming followed by my sesison of Live Writer.. But overall the meet was good.. and I loved it..

Nice meeting you all you guys!!! :-) .. Looking forward to the Delhi and Kolkata meets :-)

One Week @ Bangalore!

It was a hot friday afternoon and I was playing games on the computer with my visual studio work space open parallely as I was working on a asp.net project when my mobile rings. My face brightened up cos it was a call from Harish Ranganathan , the web developer evangelist from Microsoft with whom i intended to intern with. “Hey Sandhya, what are you doing? I am at Chennai for a session at Taj Coramandel. If you free come over to Taj for the session”, spoke Harish from the other end of the phone. I was like Yahoooooo I am gonna meet him after a loooong time..

So, I go to meet him and get to spend close to 4-5 hours with him talking about various things and stuff. Then, he tells me that I need to come to Bangalore on Sunday so that I can attend the Great Indian Developer SUmmit which was held between 19th and 23rd May. I tell yes and go ahead book the tickets and wait for the day to land at Bangalore. Yipppeee :-)

Day 0:

Its Day 0 because, I land at Bangalore close to around 9 30 and only few hours left for day to end and I call Harish and find his fone switched off assuming his battery must have gone down. I then call another of my Microsoft colleague, Bijoy Singhal, who asks me to come to the office in an auto. So, I take an auto to the office at Domalur and reach the office at around 10 30. Who in the world would go to the office at 10:30 PM on a sunday evening with suitcase and backpack. Well, I did and I found out that my mentor Harish was there along with Bijoy and Reza.

After some fifteen minutes, me and the three guys decide to head to Bombay Post, Domlur for our dinner. By the time we reached, it was close to 11:15 PM. We had good food and came back to office. And after a while, Harish and me have a discussion on what should happen the next day..

Day 1:

Wait!! Its not morning yet! I discuss with my lead over fone to decide upon what to present for the next day and I was getting nervous all the while ‘cos he is entrusting a big responsibility on me. Or rather thats what I felt. SO, I retire at around 3 to my friends place nearby… But I couldnt sleep ‘cos I was nervous.. But all i remember next was me being waken up by my alarm and repeated phone calls by my lead. SHit! It is dawn and its a big day for me. I get ready at a snails pace and skip breakfast to reach the venue, IISc, on time. We get there and attend the Keynote by Mr.Srini Koppalu. Then, I head back to the stall for Microsoft where I had to give few demos. Me and another friend/intern, Gautami, give demos on Silverlight and Expression Blend. Am very tired and so is my lead. We decide to head back to he guest house after the sessions are done. So, we head back to the guest house and after a light dinner and a small over the table discussion about the next day’s plan, I get dropped back at my friends place. I still wasnt able to sleep owing to the tension thinking about tomorrow. Then I doze off…

Day 2:

I am again woken up by repeated alarm from my mobile and calls from my lead to wake up. I push myself to the bathroom for a shower and get ready. We leave the guest house and reach the venue. The day was not bad. It goes off quickly.. That night, there is a .NET Champagne Party for the developers and we head to it at some 5 star hotel which I dun remember ‘cos I was running temperature. I was totally sick and wasnt able to move my body. But yet I make it to the party. I have silent fun watching people interact, drink and party. I gulp down few sips of coke (only coke :P ).. By the time I had dinner I was totally exhausted and wished I could hit the sacks asap. And I reach my friends house around 12! I go hit the sacks straight after wishing good night to my lead after him taking care of me by giving me some pills to reduce my temperature.. Thanks Harish na :P ..

Day 3:

The next day dawned and my lead called up and told that we are leaving a bit late by 20 mins, and i was happy that i could sleep for that extra 20 mins. I again overslept and took time to get ready and we went really late by an hour! The day was not bad.. Went fast and we went to the office to do few work and then we decided to go to a movie after a dinner. 7 of us, headed to the Garuda Mall INOX for the movie Narnia 2. I thought it would like the most boring movie ‘cos I dint know the story of part 1. But then its always fun when you are going together as a team. We enjoyed the movie thoroughly and had fun and went back around 1. What else next? Hit the sacks!! Went to a state of trance as I had a tiring day!

Day 4:

It was Java day at the meet. So we ppl at Microsoft had actually no work there.. So, I head to the office and do some pending work assigned and had to meet few people for lunch to discuss stuff. Also I had to book my tickets back to CHennai. I look upto harish to book my tickets and he was leaving that afternoon at 3 to Hyderabad. So, I had to finish every work of mine before my lead leaves. So, he gets back to me after a meeting and books my ticket. But in a state of urgency he books it to Hyderabad instead of Chennai. So, we had to cancel it and to do it more effectively, I go to the airport with him. We cancel the ticket and book a new ticket to Chennai. After I get my tickets, I tell a silent bye to Harish. I did not want my mentor to leave ‘cos he had helped so much to achieve and advices he gave on career and the fun we had in the team was awesome. I was controlling my tears and did not look back and boarded the cab and got back to the office. Harish calls me from the airport asking me if I had got back to the office safely. I say yes with tears rolling down from my eyes. And I tell him Safe flight and cut the call. Meanwhile I get a message telling that my results have come and I become a nervous wreck. When I check my results, it was a whooping 82.4 percent and I was damn happy. I ve passed Engineering in first class with distinction. I call up my folks to tell them my result and message my lead about it. The happiest person that day as me apart from being the saddest person.

Day 5:

I spend the previous night at my cousins place and get to work in the morning with an evening flight to catch to Chennai. I work in the morning, with a hangover of so many good memories and fun that happened this week that I feel so bad to leave Bangalore and come to Chennai.. But I spent the whole day brooding about this and it was time I left for the airport and I catch a cab and go to the airport. It was the last day of working of the HAL airport. I was one of those few lucky souls who got to fly on the last day of this airport.. I land at Chennai with the hangover still on.

Day 6:

I spend a night coding applications and I wake up to some trance. And here I am writing about it.. I am waiting to get back to Bangalore to join my team and have fun.. Hopefully it should be next week.. :-)

Gonna be a Bear!

I came across these words in a picture and it was really really cute.. I hope you ppl enjoy the words as well..

In this life l am a woman. In my next life I would like to come back as a bear. When you’re a bear, you get to hibernate. You do nothing but to sleep for six months. I could deal with that.

Before you hibernate, you’re are supposed to eat like stupid. I’d deal with that too.

When you are a girl bear, you birth your children (who are the size of walnuts) while you are sleeping and wake up to partially grown cute, cuddly cubs. I could definitely deal with that.

If you are a mama bear, everyone knows you mean business. You swat anyone who bothers your cubs. If your cubs get out of line, you swat them too :-) . I could deal with that.

If you are a bear, your mate EXPECTS you to wake up growling. He EXPECTS that you will have hairy legs and excess body fat.

Yup! Gonna be a bear ;-) Cute bear

Songs I Listen to When I feel Low!

Who not loves music… Music- An integral part of life.. Its the language of love in Indian Cinemas.. Has been with us for ages in different genres.. Instrumental.. Vocal.. Its so diversified but as the universal truth states “Music has no language”.. The very purpose of music is to elevate our souls and brighten up our lives.. Everyone listens to music whenever we feel low.. Nothing beats the pleasure of listening to soothing melodies after a totally stressful day.. Being brought up in a family which is influenced by music, I ve had my doses of music from early childhood.. My dad is an ardent Ilayaraja sir fan and literally he has one full computer drive dedicated to the maestro.. I just wanted to write about the IR songs I listen to whenever I feel low or bored which actually boosts me up.. Here are they.. Let me start with Ilayaraja songs and then advance in the era of music of the latest composers :-)

  1. Naan Thedum Sevvandhi Poo Ithu from DharmaPathini
  2. Aagaya Vennilaavey from Arangetra Velai
  3. Pesa Koodathu from Adutha Vaarisu
  4. Yedho Ninaivugal from Agal Vilakku
  5. Thoongatha Vizhigal Rendu from Agni Natchatram
  6. Kathal Oviyam from Alaigal Oyvathillai
  7. Poova Eduthu Oru Maala from Amman Kovil Kizhakala
  8. Anjali Anjali from Anjali (This is Raja sirs 500th movie :-) )
  9. Nirpathuvey Nadapathuvey from Bharathi
  10. Kannan Oru Kai Kuzhandhai from Bhadrakali
  11. Engirintho Ilan Kuyilin from Brahma
  12. Anthiyila Vaanam from Chinnavar
  13. Sundari Kannal Oru Seithi from Thalapathi
  14. Adho Megha Oorvalam from Eeramana Rojavey
  15. Shenbagamey from Enga ooru Paatukaaran
  16. Kaadhal Kavithaigal from Gopura Vaasaliley
  17. Perai Sollava from Guru
  18. Nee paartha paarvai from Hey Ram
  19. Idhayam Oru Kovil from Idhaya Kovil
  20. Yaar Veettu Roja from Idhaya Kovil

Thats it for this post guys.. I dint wanna bore u with too much of songs in one single post.. These are a few awesome hits of IR sir.. Pls do also let me know ur favourite IR songs so that I can add to my list!

 

Till then.. Have a blast :-)

I ve been Tagged!

Oh yeah! I ve been tagged by Ranjani.. She has been messaging, pinging, calling and wat not to ask me to write my tagged post.. Finally got time to write it today… Ok here it goes!!!

 

10 THINGS I MISS IN MY LIFE RIGHT NOW:

  1. My childhood! (Sob.. I really wish i never grew out of 3rd std)
  2. My School days at Vyasa Vidyalaya.
  3. Enid Blyton books (Someday I am going to buy the whole famous five collection and the faraway tree ones once i start earning)
  4. My innocence :P (Evil grin)
  5. Vishnu and Viresh (My cousins in the US to whom i dedicate my blog) and ofcourse VK my uncle who has always been there whenever i needed him..
  6. My college life.. We had hella lotta fun and called ourselves Carte Blanche.. Total freedom… :)
  7.  I miss my blogspot blog.. waaaa… Some jerk hacked it and he ll have a terible life.. .waaaaa
  8. The last but not the least.. I miss my stipend from Microsoft.. Waiting to get  my hands on the money.. ( I am not materialistic alright but I do have my own basic needs.. I dun work for free :P )

I cant think of anymore which I miss. Am leading a contented life with gr8 frnds and family.. Now lets nove on to the next one!!

10 things i want to achieve within a decade:

  1. Be a permanent employee at Microsoft or Google
  2. Adopt a kid.
  3. Get married :P
  4. To shun out more negative thoughts and become a bit philosophical.
  5. To be a member of ISKCON.
  6. To visit all the 7 wonders of the world (past and the present) :)
  7. Before that I need to go around India, all alone.. Trekking and travelling :-)
  8. Have a great blog with lots of blog posts :P
  9. To shun my laziness and learn a lot of things in my life..
  10. Last but not the least, I would love to sponsor a couple of kids education and see them grow into great individuals.. If money is not a constraint, I can sponsor more kids…

Thats all about myself.. I now tag the following people..

Vivek

Anwin

Akshaya

Anoop

Are we proud of Education in India?

Below are the excerpts from old newspapers.

KANPUR: A 23-year-old Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur (IIT-K) student, Shailesh Sharma, on Wednesday committed suicide by hanging himself in his hostel room. A resident of Pande Mohal, Nariya in Varanasi, the deceased was a final year student of dual degree programme at the chemical engineering department. IIT-K officials claimed that the student might have taken the extreme step under depression after coming to know that he had failed in two courses —advanced thermodynamics and advanced fluid-mechanics.

LUCKNOW: Pankaj Kumar, 23, a student of Bachelor of Technology (electrical) in Babu Benarasi Das College in Chinhat, committed suicide by hanging himself from the ceiling of his rented room in Chinhat area on Monday. He belongs to Etah district. An elaborate suicide note was found in the room. According to the suicide note, he had done badly in his first semester exams.

NEW DELHI: A college-girl in west Delhi Thursday committed suicide a day before her English exam, police here said. Heena Singh, 20, who hanged herself in her Uttam Nagar home, was a second year BA (Bachelor of Arts degree) student at the Delhi University’s School of Correspondence Studies, the police said.

BANGALORE: At 85 per cent, Nandita Nandkishore is among the rank students of the CBSE Class XII batch of 2005-2006 of National Public School, Indiranagar. The results were declared on Tuesday, but it was too late for the 18-year-old. It may be little solace to the grieving family of the “meritorious and ever-smiling” Nandita — as the associate principal of NPS, Shantha Chandran would like to remember her — that their eldest daughter scored a high percentage in her board exams.

Do you notice a pattern here? You do? What is it? Death? Of course. But what else do you notice? Look harder. You will have to do better than this. I request you to please look harder. You will have to look beyond this article, beyond these headlines and into the lives of hundreds of such stories in our country that happen at the same time every year to be really able to see the pattern that is stitched into this disturbing fabric.

You will have to go beyond the news to comprehend the mindset of these individuals. Young men and women destined to bring glory and unsurpassable intellectual fortune to our nation. Bright minds with strengths untapped and options unexplored. Buds that never really got a chance to blossom since they were busy nipping themselves off. They now remain as mere names in a forgotten headline with other peers who took that path. Bodies dangling from a ceiling fan somewhere or a carcass that resurfaced from a grim lake outside the city.

India, to the world, is a fascinating place. A place where snake charmers roam free and temples protrude out of thick woods majestically. A country where ‘everything is on sale’ and everyone is a genius. A gentle reminder of the fact that magic and logic reside in the same bosom like two faces of the same coin. This was not supposed to be India’s future. Not based on the predictions the super powers had made about a decade ago anyway.

With religion being India’s curse and poverty being its only visible shadow who could have possibly imagined that this starving nation of a billion would leapfrog into a future that the world was not prepared for! Not a soul could have appropriately prophecied the strong manpower and stronger willpower India has now become synonymous for.

American television is having a field day with the endless speculations of when is it that India will emerge as a super power. The international market is showcasing us as the powerful underbelly of the knowledge pool that floods the subcontinent.

Special television programs and economic forums are going blue in the face debating how India’s fortunes have changed overnight. The Indian movie industry is getting a lion’s share of all this attention and is raking in big moolah while the technology sector is said to be at its all time high. Ah! What a time to be alive, is it not?

Or is it? The people mentioned above in the headlines certainly did not seem to think so. For had they been even remotely enthused by the apparent publicity India is getting in all fields across the world they would not have taken the extreme step that they did.

On an average India loses at least two dozen bright and potentially priceless minds every single time an examination result is announced. Be it Kanpur, Mumbai, Bangalore or Chennai. Some young adult somewhere has decided to call it quits.

When I used to read patriotic tales of our beloved freedom fighters who were not more than 21 when they took to the gallows with a proud smile on their face and an enviable shine in their eyes I always wondered what invisible force drove these seemingly regular people to find bliss in death. Today when I read the same aged young men and women end a precious life for something as trivial sounding as an examination I cannot help but start getting a better picture as to where India really stands.

There are many factors that drive a person to do such an unthinkable act. Strict parents who condition their children from Kindergarten that succeeding is everything. Failure is not an option. That component of fear is what grows into a monster within them, eating away at their soul bit by bit and eventually enveloping them and gobbling them in one giant gulp.

The kind of parents who have time tables of study for their children when they are in elementary school. The kind of parents who are so insensitive to the innocent mind that in the process of making a better adult they manage to successfully kill the child. The kind of parents who make the child feel worthless if he/she were to get, what according to them, is a ‘bad performance’.

The second obvious factor is our beloved education system. A cruel and heartless soul laundry of a factory that heaps loads of work for the young minds without leaving them any other option except to memorize the most mundane details about some meaningless piece of information. The monster-manufacturing unit that works 24/7 day and night tirelessly dishing out new assignments and new ways to torture the developmental process. With time this process has only become more meaningless and more abundant.

While these seemed like internally manufactured electric chairs the third factor is the world outside. The global community that is expecting India to keep pushing the envelope in this insane race towards an unknown goal. Is the need to succeed so important that it is becoming unbearable by the child and the hands that rock their cradle?

The competition in the current market in almost every field is so ridiculously Herculean that there is no way to even start to comprehend its solution, as it were. With changing lanes and growing pains this factor is only becoming worse each day. You are either in or you are out. No other choices offered.

The only question I have for all these factors is – Are we training these individuals to live or to die?

What use is this ‘cutting edge’ concept making in India if it turns out to be an evil which is cutting the throats of our future? What is the point of such a meaningless rat race if it is going to end up becoming one vicious never ending cycle of distress and suffering? What is it that eventually matters? And who decides that?

The aim of this article is not to offer solutions since the solutions are not out there. They are within us. Each one of us who is a cog in this systematic eradication methodology behind applied by the education and economic system in our country. Solutions that need to start at the grass root levels of our up bringing and social platforms. Solutions that will hopefully lessen the burden on the child who now takes a bag-on-wheels to school like an international tourist in an airport. Solutions that help the future understand that succeeding is not everything.

A solution that hopefully teaches a child to follow its own heart and not that of a looming shadow. Could this scene be more tragic? Is there a way out?

I leave you with these questions to ponder on. Meanwhile we lost a few more Einsteins, a couple of more Kalpana Chawlas and one Sachin Tendulkar this year. All hail this successfully implemented educational euthanasia

Adieu to KG, Kunal and Haricharan!

Long time since I actually blogged my feelings.. down from my heart.. Lots of things have happend in the past couple of weeks, both good and worst. But this is something that has affected me to the core. Yup! Losing my very good friends. And guess atleast once in a lifetime some of u out there must have undergone it but losing 3 ppl at the same time over a trivial issue is devastating. U may think I am being supersitious or something but what I feel is that I should not have even written a blog entry on my fight and patch up with my (ex)friend KG.  I was happy to blog on it ‘cos I had that nearly losing my friend feeling and I did not want to lose him in the future and how much his friendship meant to me. But, the worst thing unimaginable happend. :(

It was in September 2006 that Me and Vivek went to MNM Engineering college culturals. We had a friend SR, studying there. Thats when we met Ashwin, Kunal and Haricharan and in no time we were fast friends sharing all emotions, going to movies, coffee days, hanging out at someones place and watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S and of course group studying for our semester exams and calculating the marks post exams. We attended the same GRE classes and had fun. We helped each other with applying to the universities and what not? I dedicate this post to Ashwin KG, Kunal and Hari…

 Dear guys,

Sometimes deep in the corner of my heart, I ve always felt that I had some difference of treatment from you. I did not know if it was just my perception or it was for real. ‘Cos whenever I used to call uto my home, you would never come stating the fact that its far. Well… How many times have i come to ur place irrespective of the sun,rain and wind just to spend time with u… to be in ur company.. have some memorable time.. How was i to know that everything was to go down a drain.. I may have this inferiority complex that am not from a well to do family as each of u.. but i assumed friendship is more of love and emotions and “being there when u need” than some stupid money or a prank played on u…

When I lie down on my bed and see all those flourescent stars stuck on to my bedroom ceiling, I am reminded only if the times that we all spent at SRs home and coffee world and eatallica and Alwarpet! Even on the day we met at beach for reconciling, I thought it was a very trivial issue and that it would be solved and we would probably head to another coffee joint to have some fun.. But instead, it was the last day that we met each other in person..

WHo loves to get blamed for something that they did not do intentionally? YEs, i came forward to meet you guys and say sorry but u guys kept criticizing as if I did a wrong thing. Pulling ur legs was wrong, KUnal? Vivek advising Kunal was wrong Ashwin? And ordering me to apologize to KG and Kunal was hurting, Hari without knowing who was wrong.

Anyways guys, I thought we may be friends forever. Now its like even if we want, we ll be friends for NEVER.

@KG: KG, if u r reading this post, I d like to tell how much i ve loved you and I know shouting at u the other day was not my cup of tea but everything has a threshold. If not for friends who would shout at u for some wrong u ve done?

@Hari: I ll miss all ur future concerts and whenever I hear ur songs, I ll be in tears.

@Kunal: Kunnu.. I ll not have anyone to flirt with on Yahoo msgr or do that Ctrl+G thingy on the falling hearts IM Environment just to annoy you for fun. Annoying you has taken a new dimension now. Its no longer fun. It made me realise a worth of friendship.

I am not sure how many times u guys have thought about me or even tried to patch up. Even yesterday i felt sorry for having shouted at KG. Its too late for a reconcilement. Words spoken in anger can never be taken back.

All you guys..  Have a great future in the US..

@Readers: SOrry for the totally depressing post.. I needed to vent my emotions :-(

 

Sometimes…

Sometimes I think whats the purpose of this life.. Sometimes people who think U love leave you and sometimes people who u hate help you..

Sometimes life runs on serendipity (for me most of the times ;-) ).. Sometimes life is a journey where you meet interesting people or at least they stumble on u. Sometimes you feel like rolling on the floor and laughing while sometimes you feel like crying out on the top of you voice.

Sometimes you dont get what you expect and sometimes you get what you detest. Sometimes you must learn to appreciate what you have and sometimes you must do some hard work to get the extra luxury in your life. Sometimes life is full of misery. Sometimes its a chain of happy events and then a chain of sad events followed. Sometimes life teaches you a lesson the hard way when you are least expecting it.

Sometimes I feel lonely. Sometimes I get angry. Sometimes I blog. Sometimes I wonder out loud about friends who have betrayed me. Sometimes I wish I was rich, money wise. Sometimes I wish I was famous so that I get all attention. Sometimes I wish i was the only kid of my parents. Sometimes I wish college life never ends. Sometimes I wish that I never grow up but remain the same.

Sometimes I search within myself for an answer that noone can give me. Sometimes I am irritated to know that am such a confused girl. Sometimes I feel why I am still dependent on my folks. Sometimes I wonder why I am I not able to achieve certain things in life. Sometimes I feel why am i not born as a boy to enjoy unlimited freedom. Sometimes I want to fly on the clouds.. Sometimes I wonder why India is such a deprived country when so much resources are available. Sometimes I wish secretly that I had an Alladin’s magic lamp to cure all the miseries around me.

Sometimes now you might secretly wish that this blog post comes to an end cos its so energy draining ;-) .. Sometimes I wish life has an answer to all my questions.. Sometimes…..

US Politics FAQ: A Child’s guide to US Foreign Policy!!!

Yet again I got the following post as an e mail forward. If you guys are thinkingso as why I am not posting any article on my own, the real fact is whatever I  wanted to post, I get it as an e mail fwd. I ve become pretty lazy these days to type stuff. ANyways hope you guys have fun reading the post. I was ROFL..

Q: Daddy, why did we have to attack Iraq?
A: Because they had weapons of mass destruction honey.

Q: But the inspectors didn’t find any weapons of mass destruction.
A: That’s because the Iraqis were hiding them.

Q: And that’s why we invaded Iraq?
A: Yep. Invasions always work better than inspections.

Q: But after we invaded them, we STILL didn’t find any weapons of mass destruction, did we?
A: That’s because the weapons are so well hidden. Don’t worry, we’ll find something, probably right before the 2008 election.

Q: Why did Iraq want all those weapons of mass destruction?
A: To use them in a war, silly.

Q: I’m confused. If they had all those weapons that they planned to use in a war, then why didn’t they use any of those weapons when we went to war with them?
A: Well, obviously they didn’t want anyone to know they had those weapons, so they chose to die by the thousands rather than defend themselves.

Q: That doesn’t make sense Daddy. Why would they choose to die if they had all those big weapons to fight us back with?
A: It’s a different culture. It’s not supposed to make sense.

Q: I don’t know about you, but I don’t think they had any of those weapons our government said they did.
A: Well, you know, it doesn’t matter whether or not they had those weapons. We had another good reason to invade them anyway.

Q: And what was that?
A: Even if Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein was a cruel dictator, which is another good reason to invade another country.

Q: Why? What does a cruel dictator do that makes it OK to invade his country?
A: Well, for one thing, he tortured his own people.

Q: Kind of like what they do in China?
A: Don’t go comparing China to Iraq. China is a good economic competitor, where millions of people work for slave wages in sweatshops to make U.S. corporations richer.

Q: So if a country lets its people be exploited for American corporate gain, it’s a good country, even if that country tortures people?
A: Right.

Q: Why were people in Iraq being tortured?
A: For political crimes, mostly, like criticizing the government. People who criticized the government in Iraq were sent to prison and tortured.

Q: Isn’t that exactly what happens in China?
A: I told you, China is different.

Q: What’s the difference between China and Iraq?
A: Well, for one thing, Iraq was ruled by the Ba’ath party, while China is Communist.

Q: Didn’t you once tell me Communists were bad?
A: No, just Cuban Communists are bad.

Q: How are the Cuban Communists bad?
A: Well, for one thing, people who criticize the government in Cuba are sent to prison and tortured.

Q: Like in Iraq?
A: Exactly.

Q: And like in China, too?
A: I told you, China’s a good economic competitor. Cuba, on the other hand, is not.

Q: How come Cuba isn’t a good economic competitor?
A: Well, you see, back in the early 1960s, our government passed some laws that made it illegal for Americans to trade or do any business with Cuba until they stopped being communists and started being capitalists like us.

Q: But if we got rid of those laws, opened up trade with Cuba, and started doing business with them, wouldn’t that help the Cubans become capitalists?
A: Don’t be a smart-ass.

Q: I didn’t think I was being one.
A: Well, anyway, they also don’t have freedom of religion in Cuba.

Q: Kind of like China and the Falun Gong movement?
A: I told you, stop saying bad things about China. Anyway, Saddam Hussein came to power through a military coup, so he’s not really a legitimate leader anyway.

Q: What’s a military coup?
A: That’s when a military general takes over the government of a country by force, instead of holding free elections like we do in the United States.

Q: Didn’t the ruler of Pakistan come to power by a military coup?
A: You mean General Pervez Musharraf? Uh, yeah, he did, but Pakistan is our friend.

Q: Why is Pakistan our friend if their leader is illegitimate?
A: I never said Pervez Musharraf was illegitimate.

Q: Didn’t you just say a military general who comes to power by forcibly overthrowing the legitimate government of a nation is an illegitimate leader?
A: Only Saddam Hussein. Pervez Musharraf is our friend, because he helped us invade Afghanistan.

Q: Why did we invade Afghanistan?
A: Because of what they did to us on September 11th.

Q: What did Afghanistan do to us on September 11th?
A: Well, on September 11th, nineteen men, fifteen of them Saudi Arabians, hijacked four airplanes and flew three of them into buildings, killing over 3,000 Americans.

Q: So how did Afghanistan figure into all that?
A: Afghanistan was where those bad men trained, under the oppressive rule of the Taliban.

Q: Aren’t the Taliban those bad radical Islamics who chopped off people’s heads and hands?
A: Yes, that’s exactly who they were. Not only did they chop off people’s heads and hands, but they oppressed women, too.

Q: Didn’t the Bush administration give the Taliban 43 million dollars back in May of 2001?
A: Yes, but that money was a reward because they did such a good job fighting drugs.

Q: Fighting drugs?
A: Yes, the Taliban were very helpful in stopping people from growing opium poppies.

Q: How did they do such a good job?
A: Simple. If people were caught growing opium poppies, the Taliban would have their hands and heads cut off.

Q: So, when the Taliban cut off people’s heads and hands for growing flowers, that was OK, but not if they cut people’s heads and hands off for other reasons?
A: Yes. It’s OK with us if radical Islamic fundamentalists cut off people’s hands for growing flowers, but it’s cruel if they cut off people’s hands for stealing bread.

Q: Don’t they also cut off people’s hands and heads in Saudi Arabia?
A: That’s different. Afghanistan was ruled by a tyrannical patriarchy that oppressed women and forced them to wear burqas whenever they were in public, with death by stoning as the penalty for women who did not comply.

Q: Don’t Saudi women have to wear burqas in public, too?
A: No, Saudi women merely wear a traditional Islamic body covering.

Q: What’s the difference?
A: The traditional Islamic covering worn by Saudi women is a modest yet fashionable garment that covers all of a woman’s body except for her eyes and fingers. The burqa, on the other hand, is an evil tool of patriarchal oppression that covers all of a woman’s body except for her eyes and fingers.

Q: It sounds like the same thing with a different name.
A: Now, don’t go comparing Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are our friends.

Q: But I thought you said 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11th were from Saudi Arabia.
A: Yes, but they trained in Afghanistan.

Q: Who trained them?
A: A very bad man named Osama bin Laden.

Q: Was he from Afghanistan?
A: Uh, no, he was from Saudi Arabia too. But he was a bad man, a very bad man.

Q: I seem to recall he was our friend once.
A: Only when we helped him and the mujahadeen repel the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan back in the 1980s.

Q: Who are the Soviets? Was that the Evil Communist Empire Ronald Reagan talked about?
A: There are no more Soviets. The Soviet Union broke up in 1990 or thereabouts, and now they have elections and capitalism like us. We call them Russians now.

Q: So the Soviets ? I mean, the Russians ? are now our friends?
A: Well, not really. You see, they were our friends for many years after they stopped being Soviets, but then they decided not to support our invasion of Iraq, so we’re mad at them now. We’re also mad at the French and the Germans because they didn’t help us invade Iraq either.

Q: So the French and Germans are evil, too?
A: Not exactly evil, but just bad enough that we had to rename French fries and French toast to Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast.

Q: Do we always rename foods whenever another country doesn’t do what we want them to do?
A: No, we just do that to our friends. Our enemies, we invade.

Q: But wasn’t Iraq one of our friends back in the 1980s?
A: Well, yeah. For a while.

Q: Was Saddam Hussein ruler of Iraq back then?
A: Yes, but at the time he was fighting against Iran, which made him our friend, temporarily.

Q: Why did that make him our friend?
A: Because at that time, Iran was our enemy.

Q: Isn’t that when he gassed the Kurds?
A: Yeah, but since he was fighting against Iran at the time, we looked the other way, to show him we were his friend.

Q: So anyone who fights against one of our enemies automatically becomes our friend?
A: Most of the time, yes.

Q: And anyone who fights against one of our friends is automatically an enemy?
A: Sometimes that’s true, too. However, if American corporations can profit by selling weapons to both sides at the same time, all the better.

Q: Why?
A: Because war is good for the economy, which means war is good for America. Also, since God is on America’s side, anyone who opposes war is a godless un-American Communist. Do you understand now why we attacked Iraq?

Q: I think so. We attacked them because God wanted us to, right?
A: Yes.

Q: But how did we know God wanted us to attack Iraq?
A: Well, you see, God personally speaks to George W. Bush and tells him what to do.

Q: So basically, what you’re saying is that we attacked Iraq because George W. Bush hears voices in his head?
A: Yes! You finally understand how the world works. Now close your eyes, make yourself comfortable, and go to sleep. Good night.

THERES NOTHING RAJNI"CANT"

This article came in some issue of India Today. I loved it so much that I decided to put it on my blog. Kudos to the writer who actually wrote it.. I was ROFL after reading this. The second time i read it, it was even more funnier :-)

 

  • Outer space exists because it’s afraid to be on the same planet with Rajnikant
  • Rajnikant has counted to infinity – twice.
  • When Rajnikant does a pushup. He isn’t lifting himself up, he’s pushing earth down.
  • Rajnikant is so fast, he can run around the world and punch himself in the back of the head.
  • Rajnikant doesn’t wear a watch, HE decides what time it is.
  • Rajnikant can slam a revolving door.
  • Rajnikant gave Mona Lisa that smile.
  • Rajnikant’s house has no doors, only walls that he walks through.
  • Rajnikant grinds his coffee with his teeth and boiled the water with his own rage.
  • If you Google Search ‘Rajnikant getting kicked’. you will generate zero results. It just doesn’t happen.
  • It takes Rajnikant 20 minutes to watch 60 Minutes.
  • The Bermuda Triangle used to be the Bermuda Square, until Rajnikant kicked one of the corners off.
  • There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; Rajnikant lives in Chennai.
  • Rajnikant once ate and entire bottle of sleeping pills. They made him blink.
  • The only things that run faster and longer than Rajnikant are his films.
  • Rajnikant’s every step creates a mini whirlwind. Hurricane Katrina was the result of a morning jog.
  • Where there is a will, there is a way. Where there is Rajnikant, there is no other way.

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