Twitter, Addiction and Me!

Facebook is the coolest thing on Internet… but only when Twitter is having some loading-glitch (that happens most of the times because of excess users traffic)! Twitter, as of now, is the most happening thing on Internet for lots and lots of people right now, including me. That goes without having to say that I’m addicted to it. I’m a teetotaler and acapnotic but the level of indulgence I exhibit on Twitter is out of my rationale. The last thing I was so addicted to was jaggery which helped me drill some of my finest molars.

For beginners who are new to Twitter (who are not a tweeples yet), let me tell you its time you roll on. I’m saying this because there is no other “invention” on Internet other than Twitter that has the power to bring personalities like Obama, Shah Rukh Khan, Oprah, Paulo Coelho and Queen Rania to a common platform (and thankfully, the list doesn’t end there) but because Twitter is not about these celebrities alone. It’s for all of us who ‘follow’ and get ‘followed’ and even ‘unfollow’ in some cases!

Twitter is in a commoner’s language, a mini-blogging site where a member can ‘tweet’ which means, type out any thing s/he wants, be it sentence or links of videos and songs, onto the 140 characters-limited-space! Now, this may sound crazy. Just 140 characters, that’s it. You dare to bring the powers, the famous faces of the world and then hand them just 140 characters limitation to express themselves. I guess, funny as it may sound but that’s precisely why Twitter is what it is today. It’s precise in its outlook and smooth in its real time functions that includes direct messaging, re-tweeting, uploading photos and so on.

As for me, Twitter has been a staple diet since 29th December 2008 when my dear friend Varun told me about it. Even today he regrets why he did that! That is so because he feels that Twitter has taken up my life and made me immobile (which is true if you consider that the only part of my body that had constant exercise since Dec’08 are my fingers!!). There are hardly people around me who like me being on Twitter as if it won’t function well without my presence on the timeline. I’ve faced severe repercussions in my office too where none other than my Manager himself blocked the site after he caught me tweeting to glory. But the addiction wasn’t to stop. It kept getting stronger and stronger.

Frankly speaking, the only reason I’m on Twitter is because of its spontaneity. Twitter provides me the opportunity to post any rubbish thoughts or quotes or website links or lyrics or verses or songs-I’m-listening-to or movies-I’m-watching blah blah blah. That’s one of the primal reasons why I adore Twitter. The other reason is the people I’ve befriended on it. They brighten me up (though my mom won’t agree!!). She says Twitter is for jobless or kaam-chors (lazy bones!!). My dad taunts me by saying, “How come you are never done with that application form?” referring to the 140-character-space box which I keep filling!

According to my brother, I was crazy to leave engineering amid my second year itself but was crazier to get hitched to Twitter. He even attributes my laziness and procrastinating endeavors to the “might” of Twitter! I used to be quite a regular blogger before I joined Twitter but now am reduced to chances of #FailWhale which means that Twitter is not loading up due to traffic and that’s what happened about half an hour ago or else this post wouldn’t have been possible!!

No matter what, Twitter is the way of the future and our present is just a bridge to that way so I believe we can cover it happily by tweeting from whatever source available, be it web or cellphone, as much as we like.

4 Idiots!

Recently I watched a much-anticipated movie that was mired in hype, had my favorite Aamir Khan in it and was helped by a credit-controversy. It would take an Idiot to not know what I’m talking about here!

3 Idiots was in one word what I call “wordless”….not because it was perfect (which it wasn’t!) but for the very same reason Sachin is still the heartthrob of our nation in spite of going on ducks and 90s quite a few times in his career. In that context, 3 Idiots was more than paisa-vasool. 3 Idiots was not only entertaining but even educative, something which Bollywood, in general, has been inept at for most of the time. This movie calls for a change in the way educational system is functioning. It sends a message to our educators to educate us but not at the cost of making a robotic idiots out of the students. It does so not by propaganda or long lectures but through black comedy and strong plot, thanks to Raju Hirani’s exemplary vision and screenplay. After all, this is the guy who made Gandhi cool among GenNext.

The movie was set against a strenuous engineering college (very much similar to Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone) with three students coming from different backgrounds played by Aamir, Madhavan and Sharman. Aamir played a 18 year old boy in this movie, and was excellent too. Madhavan did the narration using different tone for better grip of storyline. Very few actors in Hindi cinema today can smile and cry as genuinely as Sharman does. Not even Aamir can beat him when it comes to crying on screen. The “villainous” Professor part was superbly enacted by Boman Irani. Kareena Kapoor played a small but supportive role and proved that acting drunk is not as easy as being drunk!

But there is one person who needs to be mentioned here. In fact, I feel the name of the movie should have been 4 Idiots. The actor I’m talking about is Omi Vaidya. The name doesn’t ring a bell, isn’t it? That’s because we now know him by the name of “Chatur” who almost stole the show with his comic timing, perfect dialogue delivery and unprecedented accent. He was the only actor in the whole movie who stayed linear with his character, followed closely by Boman Irani.

Omi Vaidya is new to Bollywood but has done work in popular Western TV shows like CSI, The Office. Bones, and Arrested Development. Om “Chatur” Vaidya is more famous now. This fact is accentuated by the 150% rise in his popularity on STARmeter while Hollywood’s highest paid actor, Johnny Depp saw a 16% trough during the same period (courtesy IMDb). Colleges and school kids are repeating his hilarious dialogues and trying to lip-synch his accent. But that doesn’t undermine his acting credibility since Bollywood lacks true comical element since the days of Johnny Lever ebbed. Recently, he won awards for comic role hands down and will surely sweep the floor at coming award nights too.

I’d like to thank Omi Vaidya for this spectacular performance and also would want him to stay in Bollywood and experiment with different roles because Bollywood may be full of stars but is sadly dearth of true actors. Good luck to you, sir.

Welcoming 2010!

Goodbye Noughties. We’ll miss you. So 2010 is here. And I’m still left behind. I’ll be turning 24 in less than 5 months and I’ve still got no idea where the heck I’m heading. A year has ended but still nothing seems to change. Even today, I have no graduation degree, no valid academics except a token diploma in Electronics & Telecom which I loathe and I’m still neck-deep in my world cinema, music, knowledge, trivia, Twitter, Facebook and devil-knows-what-not!

And yes, my fingers. They are still dancing for me like they did last year too. Dance with the same spirit that Basanti did for Viru in Sholay. This may sound a bit strange but it’s true. My fingers. I do have a job. A transcriber’s job. A job enough for my needs. Had it not been for my fingers I wouldn’t have made it here, to this point where I’m blogging, posting and tweeting as per my wish. That’s what is helping me keep my head above my shoulder and avoid facepalms! But the dark side is its toll on my body. I’m a perpetual time criminal now. That means I hardly concur anything on time. I don’t even wear a watch for that sake!

I’m currently working as a business transcriber in one of the coolest company you’ll ever come across. Cool in the sense it hardly has any formality rules that plague most of the other companies. It doesn’t restrict people from wearing clothes or shoes of their choice nor bother with the kind of hairdos we prefer. I love it but am not sure for how long I’ll be loving it!!

So I want something new with this year like I often do in the month of January that eventually fades away with no remorse, as the year-train picks up speed. So that brings me to my first concern-- my career. I never wanted a career in the first place. I wished to live my life like a nomad and end it like a gypsy, full of color. That was what I dreamt of. I wanted to travel and I’m traveling too. The only problem is I’m not traveling enough. That’s a dream and like all dreams, my reality too has to stop by to stare at me sometimes.

It’s impossible to define time and how fast it runs on basis of the kind of life we live. Time is just a parameter to set things uniform in this fast skipping world. What matters is what you have done with the time available. Well, I don’t know of others, but for me, time hasn’t really existed. We exist, time doesn’t. That’s what I’ve believed and I hope to keep it the same this year too. I don’t need to mould myself to the concerns and securities of the society I live in where the crooked mental prison is build and then advertised so that you feel safe. I won’t give in to any such nonsense. At least I’ll try this year too.

Microscope on Terrorism

The word “terrorism” invokes fear and panic. It doesn’t stop there. Fear and panic is just the start-push button. What follows these two is what terrorism is all about. Terrorism has been a part of human society since time immemorial. It must have originated in the caves of Stone Age where bellicose, unruly chest-thumping men ruled the roost. Terrorism didn’t die as we progressed from one age to another. It just started adapting itself to the scenarios available be it any part of the world, as far as humans are concerned.

Animal kingdom is bereft of terrorism. I say so on the basis of the unwritten laws of nature that animals adhere to. Terrorism neither applies to a Cheetah nor a Springbok. They are just playing the game of survival and if lucky, get some food in the meantime. The dying Springbok has no contempt for its killer but it will try to run away as far as its breaths allow. Hatred has no place in animal kingdom.

We, the so-called intelligent creatures, have ingrained terrorism through the annals of human fallacies. Destructive and manipulative human activities like war, genocides, espionage, covert practices that affect a large number of people at a single time, has threads of terrorism embedded in it. The only difference is how we perceive this terrorism. Terrorism is not about flying a plane into steel towers or planting a human bomb in crowded marketplace. It could be generalized into finer perspective. For a school going child who is weak in mathematics, the idea of terrorism starts with his report card and ends with his parent’s reaction to it. Similarly, a stowaway youth can experience terrorism if he’s confronted with the ticket examiner. We don’t call them terrorism. We name it disciple or thereof, the lack of it. But to a human mind, any exaggerated fear or anxiety could be terrorism in its nascent form.

Then there is general terrorism. We all read news and learn about how this world functions. Though it may sound normal but we can’t escape the reach of terrorism at our own personal level, thanks to bhais/goons/mafias who *command* respect or simply the corrupt policeman who is no better than the former! These characters are evolution of unchecked abuse of power. Until and unless the hoi polloi join force against these dastardly terrorizing agents, the idea of eliminating terrorism would be just a jolly mirage. This was terrorism at the local level. Now, everyone can say aye to the fact that these are the real terrorizing elements in our society not the once-in-a-while news-maker terrorists who get open visa across the border or sea.

The most popular type of terrorism is nothing but a magnified version of above-mentioned kind. This variety of terrorism is played with full volume. The reason for its unabashed display of belligerence is due to the kind of money involved. These terrorists feel that their lives are worse at the cost of someone else’s prosperity. Poverty and unemployment are the deadly combination for these recruits. So, for them, the motivation has to come from something that is unison in its approach as poverty varies from person to person. The answer lies in undivided faith. Religion is the bogeyman for them with distorted poetic verses from religious book that help model their consequential behavior. It’s like a hopeless case of betrayal and impatient maneuver of a gullible person’s will.

So the solution to this terrorizing menace lies in understanding and making others acknowledge their ignorance. Education is the key. People can’t help themselves any better by taking up arms like the Naxalites and the Maoists are getting used to. Violent tendencies will make it worse. The idea of terrorism can be defeated solely on the basis of proper insemination and literacy. There will be lots of ‘Doubting Thomases’ who may argue that some of the biggest terrorist names have an engineering degree to their credit like Osama Bin Laden who coincidentally, is a civil engineer. These skeptics believe that education has nothing to do with terrorism and indoctrination takes the final brownie. But engineers-terrorist are deviants who had money to waste but the huge following they enjoy is of the illiterate, miserable and innocent masses. The focus must be shifted to those voiceless crowds who may go on to fill the employment form at a terrorist organization!

Now here’s where the media comes into play but sadly, in most cases, they execute a damaging role. They can do a lot better than they are doing right now since it’s the duty of the media vanguards to report the cause and consequences of terrorist displays. They focus just on the consequences. Causes are hardly addressed lest it create a sympathetic view towards the perpetrators. But how can we ever go to the nexus of the menace if we don’t address them.

Media can start their redemption by taking a step or two in this direction. The truth is that common public doesn’t trust anything and media is no different but when the foolproof mixture of fear and panic is consociated and continuously shown on TV and newspapers and broadcast on radio, at that moment, media wins over public’s trust. Now this trust is a matter of time. It has nothing to do with morality or righteousness. Media is the eternal fourth estate that has to preside over grievances and relay it to the concerned parties in power. But that’s not exactly what’s happening, as of late. Media has taken the relaying a too far. It has started designating its stamp of approvals on news that makes views and then sells it.

Being a common stupid person is easy but living his/her life is difficult so its time the common person stop acting stupid and lethargic and start working on his duties, rest will follow. Terrorism is a hot selling idea and it has to be seen in the same way we see any other menace like racism or fascism. There are hundreds of reasons why it shouldn’t be frame worked into something that it is not. Fear should not be encouraged and transparency is needed. After all, the Stone Age men invented terrorism and it’s our legacy that has to be discontinued for our future generations.

Pictures credit: Reuters

Motorycycle Memories...

I was supposed to update this blog as soon as we returned back home from our BIKE TRIP down South with our legs on either side of the wheels but laziness has its way with my mind.

Okay, at last, I’m here. It was a truly phenomenal journey and it was for three of us (including my colleagues, Tushar and Lawrence). We set out on this 4000 km road trip on 1st of December and returned home on evening of 15th December. Needless to say, hardly anyone from my family was approving of this endeavor and most wanted me to stay back and don’t even think of it. But thankfully, my Amma was in Manipal at that time so it was pretty easy convincing my dad!

Well, talking of this trip, statistics don’t count. 4000 km or 15 days on road or 5 states we touched, hardly matters. What matters is that we made 2009 memorable. We decided to do something and we did it. It was Tushar who masterminded everything from the roadmap we’ll be following to the halts we’ll be taking. We had just two bikes, as I don’t own a bike so I was pillion-seated most of the time with the camera and handycam in tow.

We crossed Maharashtra and stepped over to Karnataka through Solapur and then circled Karnataka around Bijapur, Badami, Hospet, Hampi and sticking in via Shimoga, Jog Falls and then stretching downwards toward Mangalore and Manipal. After this, we decided to sneak into Kerala and we vroomed till Kasargod, visiting two completely empty and beautiful beaches on the coast. After returning back to Manipal, we were to draw into Tamil Nadu so decided to catch NH-48 and reached Mysore, touching Hassan and Shravanabelagola (Gomateshwara) on the way.

After Mysore, it was upward climb of Chamundi Hills and Nilgiri Hills!! We then crossed the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border through Bandipura Forest (former lair of Veerappan!!)and reached Ooty and I have to admit it was a lame trip since the climate was too chilly for us and the ambiance was for hunky-dorky honeymoon couples, not for sunburned bike-runners. So we came back to our base, Manipal, suffering bad roads, rowdy truck drivers and reckless bus drivers.

Now the real road was waiting for us. NH-17. The road which I first saw in that movie, Dil Chahta Hai and fell in love with it. Its one of the finest roads in all of India and best suited for bikes. We invaded Goa and frolicked naked feet on beaches where foreigners seem so homely compared to our novelty. After Goa, it was ride home and we left Panjim City early morning and took the northward direction towards Panvel and rushed home safely with no casualty.

We took lots and lots of pics and videos too. It amounts to more than 17 GB on digital scale. But frankly speaking the moments we had on road were the real gems, the real souvenirs. There were kids waving hands to us from road side, farmers herding their cattles, womenfolk carrying water pots on their head, birds of different color and cry, hills and landforms unimaginable, good road, not that good road and bad road, bridges over rivers, endless trails of human faith, heaps of filth and garbage, surprised looks on youth thanks to our cruisers!

There was hardly any mis-happenstance. Everything was so cool and so fine in detail that it felt like a movie. This was the longest in recent times I guess when I was sans any Internet facility. No newspaper. By the way we were surprised to know that Telangana issue was burning while we were happy burning petrol.

All and all, I can say it was a job well done. The only crease was Lawry losing his cellphone and Tush, his glares! Other than that, I guess it was smooth. Oh, I almost forgot to say, I lost my nose out there on the road. Its still a bit burnt. But I am happy 2009 is leaving me on a happy note and I hope that 2010 brings with it more road trips, more traveling and less stagnancy for India is too huge a country to cover in one lifetime.

South Indian Motorcyle Trip...

I’ve been talking of traveling since I came to know that there was a world out there. So at last, I’m going to do that. Travel. And see for myself what exactly is on the road and beyond.

Like Prophet Mohammad said, “Don’t tell me how much you studied. Just tell me how much you traveled.” Well, I can’t actually tell any one how much studied because I don’t even have a degree to boast so I better stick to the traveling plan to avoid shame!

According to our plan, we will be leaving on bike early morning tomorrow (Tuesday, 1st December, 2009) from Sanpada, Navi-Mumbai and will endeavor to cover at least 3000 km on road straight towards Kerala’s northern district of Kasargod. This road trip will last for more than a fortnight and will definitely kill our backs. Hopefully, I won’t be riding the bike because my partners, Tushar and Lawry, won’t trust me with their bike thanks to my unreliable riding skills. So I guess I’ll be switching pillion-seats which I wish it to be an easier job!!!

Our plan is simple; we will stick to NH-9 and try to reach Solapur on our first day out. Then stay the night there and head towards Bagalkot and then towards Hampi, followed by Shimoga and Udupi and then towards the kissing edge of Karnataka and Kerala. We won’t enjoy Goa on our way down but will sneak in while coming back.

Tushar is the mastermind behind this trip and Lawry is the supporting “lever” behind the total plan and I’m definitely sitting “behind” these two geniuses! By the way, my Ma who is currently in Mangalore, is worried that we are starting the damn journey on Tuesday and she wants us to postpone the event but superstition hardly matters to us so sorry Amma!

I’m getting a lot of advice from people I meet be it real or internet-induced and all are saying, “It’s going to be tough!” It won’t be an easy job but I guess its time we took this decision because we all are bored of our monotony and need a punch or a kick or a crash or a screech to pinch us alive!

I’m allergic to sunlight like that Vampire from Twilight (Hahaha) so I guess I’ll be having a real rough time under sun. But after spending the last two years of my life working in a graveyard shift, it will be all worth it! And I sincerely hope my stupidity don’t kill me or anyone as its not their fault that they are my friends!!!

Marat's journey cut short!

I’m a huge tennis fan and to tell you the truth, my tennis begins with Federer and mostly ends with him. This may be true today but I was initiated into tennis by a player named Marat Safin.

I started watching tennis way back in 2003 and at that time there was no Federer legacy to follow. There was this Russian and to be more inquisitive, a Russian Muslim and he was happening with his macho swagger, pulled-back collars, careless yet powerful shots, emotive tennis, verbal altercations with chair umpires, mooning, thrashing of rackets and everything that Federer doesn’t relate to, at least, not as of now.

I remember “cultivating” my hair long after watching his long mane bunned up during Davis Cup which Russia won that same year.

Marat won two Grand Slams and one could guess this guy was going to add a lot of GS to his name. But he lost track somewhere in the middle and lost his focus, his ambitions and eventually the tennis he was building up. His anger on court was palpable but his continuance with it wasn’t. In simple words, he was an emotional wreck as someone who will break rackets at will. I don’t think anyone else comes close to him in racket-thrashing feat! He must have lost a lot of his earnings on penalties!

Yesterday he lost to Juan DelPo in 2nd round of Paris Masters, an event he has won thrice and Federer hasn’t even got one yet! But I guess he is happy to leave tennis and go back to lead a “tourless” life and watch movies (he is a huge cinephile like me!!!) where he doesn’t have to complain about the exorbitant price of food in England or be brutally honest about the way he felt of things around him. He never minced words like most sportspersons do.

I was happy when I came to know that Marat Safin was scheduled to participate in Mumbai Open in ’07 but pulled back due to some injury. But am glad today that he is leaving tennis for good. I hope he gets what he wants from life and even show up in Guest Box to cheer Dinara Safina because he never does that as most others do.

He will always be remember as the “quintessential underachiever” and he is leaving a bit too early at 29 though a bit too easy. Will surely miss you, Marat. Thank you for keeping us glued to that racket for we never knew what would happen to it!!!!!