Valentine on the TV?

Was talking to Ralph on Facebook chat... yeah yeah i Know, Valentine's Day and I'm on Facebook, SO SUE ME!
(p.s. for those of you who don't know... he's an eligible bachelor working in a leadership development programme and couple of years down the line should be a really really important guy)
Anyway, he started it by asking me what I was doing at home on Vday. Interesting query considering I asked the same of him. Quite an interesting reply he came up with... "hoping to meet my valentine online or on TV".
Told him to watch out else our beloved moral brigade would denounce his immoral ways and then go on to press for TVs and the internet to be turned off on Vday to 'protect' our culture.
p.s. Our champ is safe in Bangalore... where the moral brigade has said they will NOT protest in order to prevent embarassment to the state government. Rest of the state they will continue to protest (??!!)

Valentine's day and the days preceeding it....

14th February 2009

I had so much to blog about in the recent past but have never seemed able to find the time to write about any of that.

Since then there have been attacks on women for visiting pubs and desecrating our 'culture' as the moral brigade would like to have it put. Even the daughter of a politician in power was not spared the ignomy of being assaulted and verbally abused.
To counter them, there was a group called 'A Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women' formed which further started the now-famous "Pink Chaddi Campaign".
A further counter-counter group "The Pink Condom Campaign" has been started and the internet has already begun to get dirty with religion-based politics and slander.
The trouble makers from the SRS have now been taken into custody to prevent any trouble on V-Day, but it seems to be counter productive as if any of the members still out loose create trouble the moral brigade is bound to blame it on a rival political party trying to sully their image (like they even have one!)
A prominent political party associated with the moral brigade has gone to the extent of saying that a so-called-secular party in power was instigating the moral brigade and hence spoiling the name of his party (??!!)
Can things get any better in this blame game and "we-stand-to-save-the-culture-of-our-country-never-mind-that-education-and-development-takes-a-backseat" one-upmanship?

By the way, there is also another group on Facebook which calls itself "Kamasutra Day - A Truly Indian Cultural Event". They describe themselves as "In response to the Shri Ram Sena's clarion call that Indian culture is the only thing that Indians should celebrate, we have decided to declare the 1st of March as World Kamasutra Day."
A further clarification is added for those who wish to misconstrue this group: "NOTE: The celebration of Kamasutra Day is purely to get a message across. It is not, not a celebration of sex. And it will not be. If it happens, the whole purpose will be defeated.
People who want to celebrate sex please feel free to form a new group. Sorry, but there are people who feel strongly about KS Day not being misinterpreted."
The group seems to be growing in popularity with the membership now at 2100 and counting.

Oh yeah! Goa. The shiv sena group here needs to assert itself and be more prominent in the news or so they feel the need to do so. Else one fails to understand them addressing the press to ask couples to tone down their celebrations and keep the same in accordance with the Indian culture. Looks like they really want some attention... as recently when the screening of Slumdog Millionaire was taking place in Inox, they vandalised the multiplex and courted arrest. This, their unit president Upendra Gaonkar (who is this guy???), said was a "birthday gift" to their party supremo Bal Thackeray.
Aaaah! Why didn't they say so earlier? It's their party president's birthday and in order to show him that they are doing something keeping in accordance with the good ol' "shiv sena style" that they are well known for, they had to do SOMETHING...
so what do they choose? what else but VANDALISM of course!

I had gone with a group of friends on a drive to Netravali yesterday and we had a discussion on these recent events.

Decision arrived at: Group needs to be formed.
Name of the group: The "Beat-Up-Any-Sena-Member" Sena
Objective: You see any Sena member around you. Beat them up. Any.
Final Conclusion: We need to change the name of the group else we'll end up beating ourselves up.

Have a Happy Valentine's Day!

Me Birthday!!! 27 years of age!!!

Man!!!

3 calls to wish me for my birthday after midnight on 21st December 2008. 15 calls to wish me through the day and 47 scraps on Orkut for a Happy Birthday wish...

Fun eh?

A call from a certain buddy around noon and an 'enlightening' talk to his fiancee ... well I guess plans for dinner were set.

I couldn't have planned it better... Table at Martin's Corner, Mandar, Shamin, Alwyn (if the spelling is wrong blame Mandar, he gave me the spelling), Aditi and Vipul...

Couldn't have asked for a better Birthday. Martin's corner special, Tequilla shot (dance on the floor), Sex on the beach shot, B52 shot, (EVERYONE DANCE ON THE FLOOR), Kamikaze shot and another B52 shot.

Then Aditi didn't have her shot of the last B52 so I took it along with Vipul and voila! Add another B52 shot to my list!

Before the last B52 shots, ... A HAPPY BIRTHDAY SONG FOR ME!!! CAKE... (already cut!) and might I add ... just 3 candles! And Shamin lost no time in rubbing it in for the baby boy to notice that he was to be 3 years old!!!

Amazing gang... had a ball...

Drove home after all that. Sober enough to see my way through. Trust me I was.

To think I would have spent my time ... doing almost nothing...

I did what I loved... danced... was involved in sarcastic comments... and spent time with people who enjoyed the time spent...

Me thinks me gonna upload some pics real soon...

Yeah. Me would like that.




p.s. Me have been nominated as the guy with the sexiest name!!! Now how cool is that!!! Just wish that comment would have come from a gal who wasn't already committed huh?

(for those who think that was a joke, I HAVE WRITTEN PROOF!!!)

sarcasm et al??? [:P]

Lest we forget...

It was in the evening of 23rd July 2008, in the small town of Murmansk, Russia. Our ship had been in the port for a couple of days and I was out with the deck cadet exploring the town.

This memorial caught my eye. I was able to find a young man who was kind enough to try and explain that it was a war memorial. My lack of understanding of Russian was the culprit here.

What was most striking about the memorial was the fresh bouquet of flowers present. This, the young man could explain saying that there would always be someone who would place flowers on that memorial. It was their way of showing they cared and they remembered those who had fallen.

Cut back to today.
13th December.
Anniversary of the attack on the Parliament.

All 12 of our politicians turned up.

This, from a whole assembly of politicians who had just a couple of days ago been unified in their voice to state that they would not forget the fallen soldiers.

Or was that ONLY for the 26/11 fallen men?

Yeah. We remember our dead. Sure.