Flight at your doorstep

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baazigar o baazigar

I was listening to songs from the 90's - baazigar main baazigar, chura ke dil mera, hum aapke hain kaun etc. These songs reminded me so much of my childhood days, leisure days spent in Delhi, Chennai etc. A pen sieve of the kind talked about in the Harry Potter series would have been useful.

I recently discovered spanish-guitar pieces. Fascinating! Do check them out.
I dont know how to share music on blogspot. I know there is a way of doing it, but just dont know how. Someone please enlighten me. I would love to put up few of my finds.

Really bad things happening in Bengal and worser things near Bihar. Its sad that some people's lives are of no value while a nobody's wedding is celebrated in media. Maybe this is what they call de-sensitisation. You either feed the public so much gore that they don't feel a thing when a village is massacred the next time or you feed them trivialities so that they don't stop to think whats relevant and what is not. The news did not bother me much. This is what I meant. Im also insensitive.

I'll get the chance to do a bit of Bharat bhraman in near future starting with Trichy next week. If things work out, Ill also visit Delhi sometime soon. I spent my formative teens there. Will be nice to see that city again :-)
For a girl who had the Chennai border as her boundary conditions, I seemed to have roamed around a lot - Kolkata (twice!), Bombay, Kharagpur, Ahmedabad. I havent seen Bangalore yet (hush hush), nor have I seen Ooty, Kodaikanal, Pondicherry which are the local tourist places. All in good time :-)

I have made n drafts of the chapters already. This will end someday soon. A little bit of patience is required but I seem to have exhausted my quota. A friend called this Hanuman's tail - very apt. Formal writing has corrupted my blog writing as well, blabbing doesn't have the free flow of the earlier days. And I end up being bad at both :-D

A couplet by me - Nosh farmaayiye :-D (pl say irshaad, koi to sune :-D)
kuch to alag ho, kuch to naya ho,
zindagi ka ek naya falsafaa bayaa ho

(Ill imagine the wah wahs :-D )

Chennai sangamam

A week long festival in Chennai called Chennai Sangamam starts from today. Apparently "over 400 cultural performances would be held in 60 schools, 20 colleges, public parks, malls, corporate offices and on streets without any entry fee"
This is a great idea as no entry fee ensures that every one will be able to enjoy the festivities. Some carnival spirit in Chennai in the next 6 days.
Well my only crib is that the participants have been practicing in our backyard and they continued their practice until 1.30 in the night yesterday with the loudspeakers ON. Beyond a point, music is more noise than pleasure. Awful. They could have stopped the din at a decent hour. 11 or 12 is what I would call decent.

A review or a comment?

Review of Kabul Express

Are we "bedding with a monster"? I still have reservations about the nuclear deal and it beats me why India appears so desperate for this. Im not knowledgeable about these things but the opinions floating around in the media are also not very optimistic about this. Instead why not revive our institutions. It is a known thing that much money is squandered away in government institutions and how inefficient, lazy and evil authorities are busy filling up their coffers and in preventing real hard workers do their job for the fear of them outshining. So the much revered establishments have now been reduced to white elephants. Why not clean out such parasites first instead of inviting more in the country?
One of my friend was saying that India needs something hard to wake up and inspire the kind of passion it had when it fought for its Independence. And I think her wish will be granted pretty soon if we do carry on with our association with the "monster". Isnt history supposed to be a teacher!
Anyway now I want to see this movie more than ever. Waiting for the last week of December :-D

Currently, Im reading the Count of Monte Cristo by A. Dumas. I had read an abridged version in my childhood and Im reading the unabridged version only now. A very gripping narrative and too good. I had read his Three Musketeers but not his Man in the iron mask, but have seen the movie.
I had heard that A Dumas used to employ writers to churn out stories for him. I dont how much truth is attached with this. But his stories are awesome.

Shocking

Man held for selling wife's kidney to meet liquor expenses

Jail for Imrana's FIL

I had talked about the Imrana case in my July 12,2k5 post
(I had a heated debate abt it with Noemaun then on this who is now a good friend and is not as rigid (maybe) as he was then :-D )

And this comes as good news
Jail for Imrana's father-in-law
And I dont know why the Human Rights ppl put up their arms when a death sentence is given! Like in the Afzal Guru case. These people dont hesitate a bit when they have to kill hundreds. Why not a death sentence to them! In fact I think a death sentence is too light for people who are truly guilty. Maybe the truly guilty part is under question here. But we cant keep giving benefit of doubts to people na! See if the court had given death sentence to Masood Azhar and company, Kandahar wouldnt have happened at all!
I dont know the ways of the world.
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Even taking a holiday cant be done with peace here. I have this small feeling that I could do wonders for my thesis in these 5 days if I stay here.
wat the heck chutti hai to chutti hai.
Au Revoir and have fun :-)

Watch what you speak

Tamil-speaking man sparks security alert

"... the man was speaking Tamil and some English in a conversation over his cellphone about a sporting rivalry when getting ready to board an American Airlines flight to Dallas' Fort Worth International Airport.

An off-duty airline employee heard the conversation and alerted the flight crew. ..

.. he will not speak a foreign language on his cellphone at an airport in the future"

:-D

9/11 and satyagraha

Much has been said about 9/11. Year after year the world over, this day is mourned. Because 5000 people died. Yes they didnt deserve to die. What happened should never have happened. But then as a consequence, millions elsewhere have died. Well life seems to be much cheaper everywhere else. I mourn 9/11 for the millions dead. In The Hindu, there were some really good articles on this occasion.

9/11: five years later - A reflective article on the pros and cons of 9/11.

The other 9/11 - This one pointed out the other significances of 9/11 - Gandhiji's Satyagraha, Swami Vivekananda's address in Chicago..

Hands off Lebanon - "It has to be realised that wars are not a deterrent to terrorism..."
A good article on the current state of affairs in that country.

No wonder I love The Hindu. :-)

week of hell...........

"ceasefire does not happen overnight.

it's not like you wake up one morning and the birds are singing and the sun is shining and you go to work like nothing ever happened.
.
.
there are cluster bombs everywhere. they dropped cluster bombs on us... there are so many that didn't explode... they are so so dangerous.
.
.
."

On Beirut Update.

Oil spill

'Damage is done' to Lebanon coast

I hope that there will be justice someday against these crimes against humanity and crimes against nature.

Successful elimination of 5 terrorists ?!

Human story behind the headlines

You must have seen the picture mentioned above. For me, this picture is a representative of the war in Lebanon. Its too depressing to be uploaded on this blog. :-(

Mumbai blasts

Varanasi - Delhi - Bombay. The intentions of the bombers seems to be to incite riots. They have been failing so far and so I get a feeling that they will only get more desperate. The intelligence agencies of our country have been very active. They already had prevented many more such with their raids but India is so vast that its difficult to take care of everything. All we can do is help them. Be alert and keep an eye open for unclaimed objects etc. I remember when after the '93 blasts, we were in Delhi and the city was on high alert. First thing we used to do after getting into a bus was check for suspicious objects under the seats etc. We were kids so the enthu was more. But its logical now to never relax our guard.
These terrorists are not humans.
I wonder how they would face their deaths. In our religion, we believe that when Angel Izrail takes our lives, his appearance is according to the sins we have committed. (Atleast thats what mom said to me :-D). The death is more painful to the worst sinner. Oh I wish their life is a living hell starting from now.
Our prayers with the survivors and the kith and kin of the dead..

Again about the reservation issue

Check out this article in The Hindu
Caste matters in the Indian media
Excerpts -

... As pro-reservation scholars such as Yogendra Yadav, Satish Deshpande, Purshottam Aggarwal, and others have argued, the United Progressive Alliance Government's current approach is not necessarily the best one. But by conducting a shrill campaign and encouraging forward caste students to launch an ill-conceived agitation, the media themselves foreclosed the possibility of a rational debate on what the best way of building an inclusive education system really is. ...