A load of crap from an idle brain

….today since i got married   And am stuck at work

First Anniversary post

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Miffed at the Indian Premier League’s snub of Pakistan players, Javed Miandad says the cash-rich Twenty20 competition is turning out to be ‘a big mafia’.

“The Indian Premier League is becoming a big mafia that wants to control world cricket; it is not only endangering the existence of the International Cricket Council, but also the rest of the cricketing nations.

“It is my message to all cricket boards around the world that the IPL is the biggest danger for their future; if it is not controlled timely it will engulf all boards.

“India is trying to control the world of cricket through the IPL and wants to become a super power; India is trying it and India is doing it,” the Pakistan cricket icon told rediff.com in an exclusive interview, shortly after the players’ auction for the third edition of the IPL in Mumbai on Tuesday.

His reasoning is that “a number of players have refused to play for their own countries because they can earn more money overnight than they could throughout their careers”.

Saying the players are receiving money more than they are worth, he urged the ICC to form rules to curb the League’s expansion.

Mafia? err…ummm… Isnt your son married to the biggest mafia leader’s daughter Mr Miandad?

Full article here

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1. Completed my MBA. Finally.
2. Went Bangkok for Valentine’s day
3. Visited Velankanni church and fulfilled a long pending desire of mine.
4. Celebrated our first Wedding Anniversary at Hyderabad among friends and family.
5. My brother got married.
6. Moved my blog from WordPress to a self hosted domain.  Went with the WordPress recommendation of Justhost as the service provider; and their service has been superb.  Havent had any issues with them yet.
7. Completed 5 years of blogging. Non-stop.
8. Completed 9 years in Singapore.  Never believed i would last so long here.
9. Increased my investments in the stock market. Took the crash in the begining of the year as an opportunity to buy into some good stocks at cheap.  And when the market recovered a bit, i was into profits already.
10. Didnt fall sick even a single day the whole year.  Thank God for small mercies. Hope it stays that way.
11. Wifey joined me here in Singapore.  Loving it.
12. Started off slow, but in the last 2 months of the year, read 4 books.  Hope to continue into the new year.
13. Watched almost 150 movies in the whole year. Managed to document only around 120 of them in the Movies page

In 2008

If you are looking at something that goes into the details, you can skip this book.  But if you are just wanting to read a concise and crisp book about what made Madonna what she is and if you want to read her struggles to make it to the top, this is the book.  Not much juicy stuff inside.  A to the point book that chronicles the birth, struggles and stardom of Madonna.

I’ve always admired Madonna for the chameleon like traits she has in her character which makes her re-invent herself to the situation.  At a time when music and musicians hardly linger in your memory for a few days / months, you have a 50 something woman who still makes you groove.  Someone who’se songs still hit the top on the hit list even though she has been around for almost 30 odd years.

250 million albums sold in a career, 27 top 20 singles, earnings of $193 million in 2006 alone,  a networth of $850 million, Madonna is a once in a lifetime phenomenon.

There’s no such thing as the perfect soul mate. Your soul mate is the person that pushes all your buttons, pisses you off on a regular basis, and makes you face your shit.  Its not easy having a good marriage. But i dont want easy. Easy doesnt make you grow. Easy doesnt make you think. I thank God everyday that iam married to a man who makes me think. That’s my definition about true love.

- Madonna speaking about her love and marriage to British movie director, Guy Ritchie.

I have an iron will and all of my will has always been to conquer some horrible feeling of inadequacy…I’m always struggling with that fear. I push past one spell of it and discover myself as a special human being and then I get to another stage and think I’m mediocre and uninteresting. And i find a way to get myself out of that. Again and again. My drive in life is from this horrible fear of being mediocre.  And that’s always pushing me, pushing me.

Madonna – A Biography by Mary Cross

Even though its a small book, i took almost 2 weeks to finish it.  My wife picked up the book in the library, but it was me who managed to finish it even though am somewhere a few pages into other books that Iam reading simultaneously.

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First a trip to smelly and dirty Chennai, then a trip to equally smelly and extremely dirty pilgrim town called Velankanni (with the famous shrine of Mary) and finally to an extremely clean, cold and windy Hyderabad.

Chennai was sweltering hot, i sweated buckets.  Coupled with that the scarcity of water and a city that is used by its citizens as a garbage dump.  You wonder where the municipal workers of the city are?  If at all they are doing the work.  Whether you are the middle of the city or at the outskirts, one thing that defines Chennai is the consistent crappy smell in the air.  The air stinks in Chennai and uniformly so.  Dont know why and how.  This is in addition to the dirt and filth all around.  Wonder which moron decided to name it a metro.

Velankanni was equally dirty.  For a piligrim town with such a potential for tourism, there are hardly any good lodge/hotels.  The only good ones are the dorms run by the church, but they too offer you rooms for the next day only.  And if you are the ones (like me) who just drop into the town with no reservations, hoping to stay at some hotel, be disappointed with the kinds of rooms you get there.  As for the restaurants, stay away if you dont want to come down with some extreme case of food poisoning or diarrhea.

If you have any plans of going to Velankanni, stay at Nagapattinam, a town near Velankanni.  Take a bus in the morning to Velankanni, see around and come back to Nagapattinam.  This was advised by my friends after i did my trip much to my exasperation.

Took a train from Chennai to Hyderabad.  Was travelling by the Indian Railways after more than 11 years and loved the experience.  Reached Hyderabad early morning around 6am on the 14th (our 1st wedding anniversary).   Was amazed at how clean the city of Hyderabad was at 6 in the morning.   Either the roads were swept clean or at some places the cleaners were hard at work.  Kudos to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and the people who work for them for keeping the city reasonably clean.

It was drizzling all through and there was a nice cool breeze.  Loved it. Since we were tired, we preferred to rest.  There was not much celebration for the anniversary as all plans were for wifey’s birthday which was 2 days later on the 16th.  Had a get together at home for friends and family for wifey’s birthday.

Later on in the week, went to the new mall in town, GVK-1.  Good place to hang out, but there was something lacking in the place.  I prefer Hyderabad Central or City Center.  Also the mall is pretty new and the shops are only coming up.  Maybe it will be good once it fills up.

Saw the movie New York.  Not bad i thought.  Better than the crap that Yash Raj is famous for churning out. Saw the movie at the new INOX multiplex at GVK-1.  The seating is good and so is the sound system.

Travelled back to Singapore via Chennai again.  From the superb airport of Hyderabad to a garbage can called Chennai Airport is a perfect example of what the private sector can do to our economy while at the same time, the Chennai airport run by the inefficient babus of Airports Authority of India have really screwed it up.

There were no seats at the international departure.  They simply disappeared.  For someone who’se flight is yet to start check-in, they simply have to stand there waiting for the counters to open.  Can you believe that?  What about the elderly and the people who need to rest?  Have the airport authorities ever thought about their comfort?

And the cafe’s selling stuff in Chennai airport are nothing but daylight robbery.  Tea is sold for Rs 30.  A samosa / aloo bonda costs Rs 60.  Whereas you get a good Cafe Coffee Day coffee at the Hyderabad airport for just Rs 15.

I can go on and on about the pathetic situation at Chennai airport, but its a waste of time.  Its a perfect example of why the airport needs to be handed over to a private player so that they can do a better job of the same.  Anyone with doubts can look at Hyderabad, Bangalore, Delhi and Bombay airports and compare them to the ones run by AAI.  There is simply no comparison.

Back at office and a mountain of work stares me in the face.  Time to get going.

Chennai picture courtesy: I’m seeing green ;  Hyderabad tank bund and NTR gardens picture courtesy: Hyderabad

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Doesnt feel like it, but a year has passed since i got married.  Its been a blessing enjoying the fruits of companionship and love of my beloved wife.

Am home, with family and friends, enjoying this special day.  Just cant express how happy Iam

Above pictures source: Flowersdubai & Englishcardsabroad

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According to Mahatma Gandhi, India would gain real independence the day a woman can walk fearlessly on the roads at midnight.  With the economy liberalising and with the advent of BPO and the back office industry, a bit of that dream of Gandhi was being realised, but we were not there yet.

With the decriminalising of gay sex by the Delhi High court last week, we have moved one major step towards being an equal and just society.  Ignore all the religious nuts and naysayers.  For them, anyone who doesnt believe in their religion is an adversary or a non-believer or someone who needs to be stoned to death.  And that’s true of all the major religions of the world.  So, all the false propaganda that religous leaders would like us to believe that all religions are peace loving and stuff is nothing but ‘false propaganda’.  Their love is simply restricted to people who belong to their school of faith.  Anyone else is either simply banished or is left to burn in hell.

A society is said to be a modern, progressive and liberal when everyone is equal under the eyes of law.  That’s what our founding fathers envisioned when they wrote our constitution.  They believed that no Indian will be discriminated on the basis of their colour, creed, religion, region, caste, political or otherwise belief and so forth.

We live in an ever changing world and we are supposed to change with changing times. People and societies which refuse to change are consigned to the dustbins of history.  Its indeed heartwarming that from now on the corrupt policeman can no longer harass two people in love (even though they are of the same sex) and try to extort money simply because a law created in the era of dinosaurs has been repealed.

It was high time the rule was done away with.  And kudos to the Delhi High court for that.  Three cheers for the NGO, NAZ Foundation that fought the case against the might of the Indian government for 8 long years.

And just that the rule criminalising homosexual sex was abolished, two men Amrit and Jeeta have gone ahead and got married in a temple.

This could just be the first real indication of a persecuted community’s sudden faith in the law safeguarding their lives — and loves post Article 377, and the beginning of a string of same-sex marriages in the country.

In perhaps the first gay marriage after the Delhi High Court in a landmark judgment read down Article 377, a law that made even consensual sex between adult homosexuals a punishable offence, two 18-year-old men, brushing aside protests from family and jeers from society, went to a temple near their house in Chandigarh and “got hitched for life”.

As a motley crowd of gays and a few well-wishers cheered the newly married couple, Amrit held his partner Jeeta close and said their union was possible only because of the rethink on the anti-homosexual section of IPC.

“I was so delighted after the court’s verdict that we both decided to get married,” said Jeeta, who fell in love with Amrit three months ago when he stayed in the latter’s house in Kajheri, Chandigarh, as a tenant. “We had been facing discrimination in public, at the work place and at home. But things may look up for people like us now.”

Full article here

We have finally started to take baby steps towards a truly just society where no one is discriminated simply because their sense of morality doesn’t agree with a bigger bunch of hypocrites.

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Some great news all round. India has taken a series winning 3-0 lead against the Sri Lankans in the 5 match one day series.  Meanwhile, South Africa  humiliated Australia by winning both the one day and test series.  To rub  salt into the wounds, New Zealand forced a win in the first one dayer against Australia on the last ball of the match.

Brad Haddin lived upto his captain’s reputation as a cheater by dislodging the bails with his gloves instead of the ball and had the gall to question Daniel Vettori when his actions were questioned.  Pricky Ricky Ponting followed suit in defending his co-cheatmate.  I was waiting to hear a classic in the lines of

If you are questioning my integrity, then probably you shouldn’t be sitting here.

but, unfortunately no such pearls of wisdom sprouted from Ricky’s mouth this time.  In other news, Ricky Ponting has been asked to rest. Heh.  Great news.  If Australia are really serious about mounting any challenge to South Africa or India, they seriously need to get rid of Ricky as captain.  He’s still a good batsman and commands a place in the team purely on his batting and fielding.  But when it comes to captaincy, he often looks lost when the chips are down.

Roger Federer lost in the finals of the Australian Open and that’s something iam unable to come to terms with.  Rafael Nadal seems to be his achilles heel. Nadal has quickly moved from being a good player on clay to grasscourts too.  So, Federer has lost his monopoly in Wimbledon now having lost to Nadal last year.  Am sure Federer will make a comeback and break Sampras’ record of 14 grand slams, but the delay is the killer.

Watched Vicky Cristina Barcelona last weekend.  Scarlett Johansson is yummy and so is Penelope Cruz.  I still cant get over the evil role of Javier Bardem in No country for old men and had a tough time thinking about him as a casanova in this movie.

Meanwhile, i will have some great 2 weeks starting this sunday.  Biwi ji will join me here in Singapore

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