Spam
Take a look at this picture. Click on it to enlarge. You will see clearly that this is the spam folder of my Gmail mailbox.
Hell! Even Spammers want me married now!
GRR!
I have become a NRI in almost all senses. Legally I am indeed a NRI but even in other ways I have become a NRI. This post is not about my NRI status rather it is about what differences I felt when I came to India for a couple of months earlier this year.
Traffic Woes
Having lived in the Queen’s land for nearly 2 years I found it rather difficult to adjust to the traffic movements back home despite the fact that the traffic in the Queen’s land and in India runs on the same side of the road.
The moment I came out of the Delhi airport, I started crossing the road over a zebra crossing even as a Toyota Qualis was coming speeding towards me. My mind was still in Queen’s land and I thought the Qualis will stop for a pedestrian but then I realized it and said to myself – ‘Excuse me Mr. Jerry, you are in India! Traffic has the first right of use of the road here.’ I stopped myself, let the Qualis pass and then crossed the road. And then I thought that it was a close shave!
I reached home safely in a cab. But one fine day as I was walking towards the nearby marketplace, I realized and recalled how difficult it is for a pedestrian to cross the road in India. I think I stood on one side of the road for about 5-6 minutes even as the traffic refused to stop and no traffic signal was located there. Darn! I thought I may never reach the market.
And then another fine evening I was returning home in the Metro. I looked out of the window as the metro train was passing over a busy road and all that I could see were headlights of cars, buses and bikes as far as I could look. I wondered how much traffic has increased over the 2 years I’ve been away from the city. And then I wondered, what will happen if Tata Nano is added to this traffic? The only way then left for people to commute will be via the Metro.
Buses were a sight to behold. It was good to see that the DTC has introduced new red and green color AC/non-AC buses on some routes. These buses looked quite similar to the ones I have seen in Queen’s land. But the crowd inside them scared me, and I could not think of travelling in them!
Queue? What queue?
People in the Queen’s land are obsessed with making queues. You don’t have to tell them to stand in a queue. They do it by themselves, everywhere – in a shop, at a bus stop, at a train station, airport, think of any place and a queue will be there.
It so happened that I too have got used to this queue system. A day after I landed in India I went to my bank. I was patiently waiting for my turn in a queue. An elderly gentleman was standing in front of me. As his turn came he started depositing his money with the cashier. Then for some reason he moved about a foot to his left. His work hadn’t finished as he was still talking to the cashier. And as he moved the lady behind me jumped the queue and pushed her cheque in front of the cashier. It took me a while to realize that in India a queue doesn’t work!
Too late Mr. Jerry, you missed the bus. Moral of the story – you gotta be fast and furious and throw the queue system to the wind when you’re in India.
Internet kyon nahi chalta?
Seriously, what is the matter with Indian ISPs? Okay please let me crib here. Why are we still stuck in the stone age?
It so happens that even Youtube refuses to stream properly in India. I log into my Gmail account and wait for like 2 mins before I finally see the sight of my inbox! The whole reason for this is that a standard 256kbps ‘broadband’ is just too slow for these activities. Slow? You may want to kill me for saying that but yes it is true, 256kbps is slow.
In the Queen’s land I was always working on a minimum speed of 8 mbps with unlimited download limit. Now I am on 16 mbps unlimited download limit (and for the record, Virgin Media has just launched a 50mbps unlimited fibre-optic broadband, although at a heavenly price!). I am used to watching full-length movies streaming live online but here in India I can’t even check my email?
MTNL and Airtel may be good ISPs, in the sense that their network always works well but the limitation they put on the bandwidth reminds me of my days of dial-up internet. I’ve come to know that Airtel has just launched 16mbps broadband in India. It’s a step in the right direction.
Missed Call? The invention of Indians
When I got home my dad gave me a Vodafone sim card. I was happy to know that local calls are being charged @ Re 1 per minute and STD @ Rs 2 per minute. Great! That’s a far cry from an equivalent of Rs 15 per minute I was paying for a local call in the Queen’s land. I was happy to know that I am going to make calls at the cheapest rates in the world.
But was I supposed to be happy? A friend told me that he is on Airtel network and makes calls @ 30 paise per minute! A cousin told me that he makes calls @ 50 paise per minute. I was finally feeling embarrassed when I told him that I pay Re 1 per minute.
He laughed and I was visibly embarrassed when he told me that Re 1 per min was ‘high’ and that if he had that tariff he would rather give missed calls to all his friends/buddies rather than actually call them. So he suggested me a new talk plan, of Rs 134 rental and all local calls @ 60 paise per minute. He even made me switch to it.
And this made me wonder, if Re 1 per min was ‘high’ then what exactly is ‘low’? Any ideas folks?
It’s a bright February afternoon
Ah! Now for something delightful. Early February saw a massive snowstorm sent gift-wrapped to the Queen’s land from Russia. I was lucky to escape it just in time. My flight got delayed by just one hour and thankfully landed on time at Delhi.
But the moment I stepped out of the airport I soaked in the sunshine. Ah! The bright sun came beating down on my head and boy I loved it! The previous winter (2007-08) I hadn’t seen sunshine for over 4 months and the sight of clouds in the Queen’s sky really depressed me. I longed to see a clear blue sky and I knew I could get it in India only.
And February is a good time to visit north India. For me it was even better since I was coming from a place where temperatures of -10 degree Celsius were a norm. I love sunshine and I got it all in India. I didn’t even feel the need to wear any warm clothes even though I could see people still shivering and walking about wearing sweaters and shawls.
This brought a much needed smile on my face.
And now…
I am back where I am supposed to be. This Queen’s land is not a great place to live but it is here that I have to be for the time being. I will come home, sooner rather than later. But as of now this is my home. Just to underline the fact that my India may have a million shortcomings but I still love it, and I love it so much that I know that it will one day bring me back home.
This is an incident that happened on my flight to India last year. And it was rather amusing!
My flight from Edinburgh to Amsterdam had been largely uneventful except that when the aircraft was landing at the Schiphol airport, it entered an air turbulence pocket and had to make another attempt at landing. We landed safely, though an elderly Scottish gentleman sitting next to me was highly amused as the aircraft did another fly past the airport. Changing flight to Delhi was hassle free, despite the fact that most of the passengers were Indians and the usual jostling was the norm.
On my 7 hour long flight to Delhi, I was sitting on the aisle seat. Soon after I sat down, a young Dutch couple came to take the window and the middle seat.
The guy among them opened the overhead cabin luggage hold and put a small bag in it. My laptop was kept in the same luggage hold. He said something to me in Dutch which obviously I did not understand. But from his prompts I surmised that he was pointing to my laptop. I got up, looked at my laptop, saw that he had kept his small bag on top of it. I saw that his bag was light and did not pose any danger to my laptop under it so I shook my head and said OK. The couple then took their seats, the guy at the window and the girl in the middle, the aisle seat belonging to me.
Now started my adventure. I observed that they both were talking to each other only in their language (which by now I had assumed was Dutch). Soon after the plane took off the guy again turned to me and said something to me in his language. I was blank! I just said in English that I do not understand his language and then I saw that he was equally blank! We sat back. Soon breakfast was served.
Breakfast ended sooner for them than me. They didn’t eat much. Perhaps they didn’t like KLM’s Dutch breakfast.
But soon after started a kissing session! Oh boy! What was happening on the seats next to me? A kiss a minute became the norm.
Imagine my plight. There were these two people, who I now assumed were coming to India on their honeymoon, were kissing like mad right next to me (and some other passengers) and I had to do a good job of not looking at them!
I had to distract myself. I hadn’t slept the night before so I decided to catch a few winks. I reclined my seat a little and tried dozing off. I think I slept for only an hour or so. When I woke up, I got up from my seat to stretch my legs a little, went to the loo and then came back to my seat.
The one kiss a minute game was still on!
Now what? I put on my headphones and started watching some random movie. By the time the movie was over the girl sitting next to me had dozed off. Phew! The one kiss a minute game had come to an end, I thought.
But it wasn’t to be. Soon after, an early dinner was served. There was still some time for the flight to land at Delhi. I was too engrossed in my Indian dinner to notice if they were still playing their one kiss a minute game.
Perhaps they didn’t like the Indian dinner as well. Or maybe, the KLM cuisine was not up to their mark though I liked it very much. By the time I finished my dinner their kissing game had started yet again! And I was left to wonder… oh god! Not again!
I think I endured it very well. At one point of time I noticed that they were carrying a thick guide book, showing images of Taj Mahal and some forts of Rajasthan. So indeed they were on holiday in India. But why now is what I thought, for it was the month of June, a time when the summer is at its peak in the north. Did the girl come to India looking to get a tan? If that’s the case then I am sure that she was in for a shock!
But what was more surprising to me was that their guidebook too was in Dutch. As the flight was descending the guy again asked me something in Dutch, pointing to the guidebook but as expected I could not get the head or tail of what he was saying.
And then I realized that if they wanted to have a memorable holiday in India, then they needed to speak English, of all the languages in the world. Going Dutch won’t help them. Because I knew that they would find it hard to even hire a cab at the airport without speaking English. Their problem could’ve been solved if they had found a tourist guide who could speak Dutch. And I am sure such a guide is a rarity in India.
By now I had got used to their kissing game. And I thought I should’ve kept a count of how many kisses the guy planted on his girl’s err… cheeks and lips.
The kissing session lasted till we got up from our seats to de-board the flight at Delhi. I was mighty relieved to see the back of them but silently wished them good luck, for if my assumption was correct, they would’ve had a tough time getting around in India without speaking English.
How would you react when you realize that you’re gay? Or, are you really gay? Maybe you’re just confused. You like that girl, but you think that guy over there is hot! This is what was happening to Pinu Patel in Straight. He is a virgin 30-something years old owner of an up market Indian restaurant in central London who is ditched by his bride on his wedding day in India and is left heartbroken and still looking for love.
Pinu is a highly confused man, actually confused about his sexuality. When he hires Kamlesh and Renu together, he realizes that he is falling in love with Renu while he considers Kamlesh as his best friend although later suspects him to be gay. What he doesn’t realize is that his own cousin Rajat is the one who is gay and happy about it.
And thanks to his suspicion starts his streak of gayishness and his failed (and often funny) attempts at proving his manhood to the girls/women who he thinks will get laid by him.
I was quite surprised to see that the Indian censor board allowed a man-to-man liplock to be shown on screen when usually they frown upon even the mention of a kiss on screen. I wonder did they actually show it on screen. I watched this movie after downloading it off the Internet and perhaps that was the uncensored version. The version I watched did show a screenshot of the censor certificate so I guess it is true.
Back to the movie now. I thought the star cast did a reasonably good job. The story revolved around Pinu, played brilliantly by Vinay Pathak. The versatility of this actor is unmatched, for he can essay roles of comedy and tragedy equally well. Though I would add that this is not one of his best performances.
Kamlesh was decent, I thought he is an actor better suited for TV rather than movies. Gul Panag was good too; felt that she was made to look like an outsider in London. Her dress sense was uniquely Indian, something that you don’t find in Indian girls living abroad. I must add that I liked her character. The way she defines ‘imperfection’ is so true, especially about Britain.
And talking about Britain, how I can forget London, where I have lived for nearly 5 months. Some wonderful images of London can be seen in this movie – the Canary Wharf, the tube, London Eye, Thames, Piccadilly Circus and much more.
Never say Never is my message to the makers of this movie, for they can do better. Overall my impression of this movie is good, would give it 7/10.
I was reading Yahoo news yesterday and got to this news. Apparently people are dumb enough to believe that they can get a tan through their computer/laptop screens. The website itself is kind enough to give a serious and useful message but honestly, how can people be so stupid?
I remember years ago when the Internet craze had only just started I got a powerpoint presentation forwarded to me by a friend, which claimed that I needed to sit in front of my computer screen and it will click a photograph of mine. This was before the days when the webcam became popular. I wasn’t stupid enough to believe it but there were people who certainly believed that this was true! And now this website is making full use of people’s curiosity and stupid nature to have some harmless fun.
Enjoy!
Courtesy Boymongoose.
I am often left to wonder why Aditya Chopra makes such crappy movies. It seems he has little sense of what the masses want. The times of mushy and feel good movies are over. He should wake up from his dream world and stop making people think that he can take them away from reality, for it is reality that the people want to see and when they see it they appreciate it.
Let me get things straight. Rab Ne Banaa Di Jodi is awful. Enough said! Well, not quite enough said because there’s a lot to write about it here. You could almost see shades of Mohabbatein in it. Well no, not in the form of storyline, but yes indeed in the way they have designed the sets for the movie.
And why does Shah Rukh Khan have a fixation of doing roles younger than his age? Take a look at this pic on the right. This is SRK in the role of Surinder Sahni in this film. He looks 40ish who married a girl half his age. He looks like a simpleton who is just too timid to express his love for her. Every middle class office going man will identify with him in some way. So why does he transform himself into a college kid Raj? Because his new wife says that she cannot love him. He has to find a way to woo her.
So in comes Raj. Another SRK cliche’. The name sounds all too familiar, with SRK having used it in countless films before. We see him again in similar getup and hairdos as KKHH a decade back. The difference is, SRK was 10 years younger a decade back. At that time, he could easily essay a role of a college dude. Not quite so now. Even with all the funky makeover SRK gets in this film, he still looks 40ish. Moral of the story – you can be young at heart but you can’t be young on screen!
A word about the leading ady. Anushka Sharma is a new girl but I thought I’d seen her before. I thought she was on TV but my flatmate said that she may have done some commercials. That could be true. I am not sure about it. But seriously, she doesn’t look like a Punjabi kudi at all. You can dress her up like a Punjabi girl but she doesn’t have the looks of a Punjabi girl. And her dialogue delivery is weak. She needs improvement and it will happen in due course of time. My flatmate also remarked that she looked a little fat towards the end of the movie. I agree!
The music is average. I have little else to say about it.
And the storyline? Well, it is predictable. I was literally sleeping last night when I was watching it with my flatmates. How else can I describe an Aditya Chopra movie? It is full of cliche’s. The Shiamak Davar school of dance in a city like Amritsar looks too good to be true. And oh well, the city itself looks unbelievably modern. I guess thats the result of the sets that they had used (and probably overused) for shooting purposes. No, I’m not saying that Amritsar is a backward place, just that it looks unrealistically modern.
In a nutshell, Rab Ne Banaa Di Jodi is awful, simply awful!
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