Vaccum

That's the feeling you normally get when you suddenly shift your lifestyle. Away from the carefree bachelor days in Oulu to having to take care of your two kids :-). Well honestly life would never be fun if it remains static, so here am slipping into a parent role again with some discomfort but with a smile on my face remembering all the fun i had in Oulu. Cricket at 8 at night, Vodkas till 5 in the morning, cigarettes on weekends, weekends all week long, cards till you fall asleep, pool till they close.. all this..

One more chapter of life lovingly stored in some corner of my mind. You know things would never be same again.. but then you don't want them to remain same. Happy, crazy memories. I never lived that real bachelors life when you had time, you had money and you didn't have responsibilities.. Life has ways to even things out.. every now and then i live my bachelors days.. though at the cost of wives troubles.. She takes care of the kids.. i me :).

Being a nostalgic kind of guy.. i thought maybe list down some of the things as they come to my mind.

Waiting for weekend to come from Monday morning.. drinking so much so that you want to sleep with the fishes.. umm sorry shoes. Sledging the rookies(Read Ramprasad and Ulhas ) at pool and serious status meetings on Fantasy leagues TP's till the uninterested guys(Read Shyam) ears bled. In depth discussions on all the Nonsense with highly intellectual individuals(Read Mahentesh and Ankit). Bullying the juniors (Read Suman). High quality intellectual discussions on Women and their anatomies..(Read and Ignore this) .

Well all the guys with me.. all of the were at least 5 years junior.. but i guess we did pretty well being buddies.

Here is to starting another unknown chapter in my life..

Cheers!!!

Flying

I went Skydiving yesterday. A two day introductory theory and some practice and then given a choice of Friday or Thursday Dive, I chose Thursday to be the D-day.

Trust me there is nothing scarier in this world then to feel the initial thrust of the wind in your face, 1000 M above ground staring directly at it below, when the jump master initially opens the door and tells you Maine(GO in Finnish). Oh sorry.. there is something scarier, after the door is open you are supposed to hold the wing support, walk down the wheel cover to the far end of the wing, slowly get down the wheel cover.. hanging to the wing support rod.. look up and let go.

Once you let go its not scary, coz you mind freezes.. so you don't have any thoughts till your feel the jerk of the parachute opening and it stopping your free fall. I guess i had my 3 seconds of Nirvana. No thoughts and blank mind.

Thats why they teach you in the training to count out loud.. hundred one, hundred two, hundred three.. hundred four.. hundred five. So that you know that at 1000 M and in 5 secs if the chute doesn't open by the static line you have to start the emergency procedures (Which means by the way to jettison the primary canopy and open the reserve one) Heaven knows and i was pretty close to it so he saw it that i was so blank that i didn't even fu*king count. If the primary canopy wouldn't have opened i don't know i would have had the presence to start the reserve procedure. But i guess the sport is pretty safe. My instructor has 1300 Jumps and he needed only once the emergency procedure and that too when he was trying to do some complex maneuvers. But i have to be so unlucky as to it happen to me for the first jump i guess i would have taken that. But i am pretty sure that 9/10, i wouldn't have been able to take emergency procedures in time.

Thats why they failed me in my Pilot aptitude test when i went for selection in Air Force. I guess some things are best left to people who are meant to do it.

My ground radio guy told me i was pretty good at controlling the canopy once it was open and I was able to bring it properly to landing grounds and i landed pretty near to the designated spot.. in a ditch. Oh.. i forgot to apply the flare (sky diving jargon for Brake :-) ) and landed hard. My right ankle is still sprained.

But it was an experience of lifetime and i lived it in 5 mins. A hell a lot of high when you let go.. There is option for a second free jump available too, but i guess i have had enough and am letting that go. Let it remain a once in lifetime thing.

One thing a guy like me with loads of inferiority complex has to do crazy things like thing from time to time to keep proving points.. to himself and others.. My ego tripped and am at peace for sometime.

Settlers Of Oulu (Tongue firmly in cheeks)

I’m sitting before my TV, on the edge of the chair, approximately 15 feet away for it. The TV Samsung shows IPL Kolkotta Vs Delhi encounter being played far away from me by still at such a breathtaking pace. A frenctic atmostphere, wicket falling and and hyper excited jannat ka rehnewaala (owner of the bunglow called heavens), as my mother calls it. Ammi, Ira and Junaid are by my side and we are in the middle of one of our favourite game ‘IPL KKR Vs DD’. Shahrukh is making me lick my wounds and I am feeling a tinge of zealousness every now and then. How much more can I take this?

Now, before you jump to any conclusions let me add that Shahrukh is the name of the guy who beat me to FF award for best actor with his DDLJ to my Rangeela. And before you jump to any further conclusions let me add that I had nothing to do but defame him every now and then. In fact Shahrukh is the actor who came after me in this industry and went a long way ahead. When I started this blog it came with the intention of self promotion and taking malicious potshots and distaste full comments on my competitors and their dogs! Apparently Shahrukh (the actor) was shooting for a lot of commercials(and earning a lot of money) in this industry for last few years, and from that very day my caretakers and chamchaas could not get me single commercial even as a duplicate of Shahrukh. What are the chances of me replacing Shahrukh as a top brand name!!!

Some of my friends claim that I started this blog just because of the dog... umm Shahrukh. I would have to be a serious fan of Shahrukh’s to want to do that. Your guess…

All I can say is I’m waiting for him to come over and start saying few things about me as well so that its dirty and muddy on both sides. Why the hell he is always so composed when responding to my provocations..

Getting back to the match, it’s a terrible game.. Shaharukh is winning again. You must not support KKR if you are fond of me.

All in all I am having a great time with my mom and kids here in my favorite place on earth, Panchgani. I think Kiran and I must have done something wrong in our life to be condemned with this place and watch Shahrukh hogging all the lime lite on TV doing all his over the top antics. Damn it i even tried to buy a second rated ICL team to somehow compete.. but then i decided for better.. I'll do what i do best.. rake up another few controversy ahead of my Home production "Jaane Tu".

After letting out all this muck and poison, my heart seems to be healing of the jealousy , slowly but surely.

Catching up on films, saw Mela last night which I liked.

Incidentally Panchgani is a favorite with actors. Now that’s something I am going to learn as soon as I finish with the Ghajini shoot.

Well Shahrukh is once again begging for my jealousy and criticism, so let me get back to him. He is jumping and hyper acting too much, making me go in fumes. I think I needs a bath. “Hell boy, hell.”

Back to India

Been a while, actually i lost to laziness this time. Mind it its such a strong emotion.. even stronger then revenge as most people would feel. In laziness you have got nothing to do.. it takes care of itself.

I would be flying back to India for good this month end.

Andrew Symonds said this after being hit for 17 in the last over by Warne " Twenty20 is a great for the game but not so good for ego". Well of last few days i have been feeling the same about onsite. Its great for sometime, to earn money, visit new places, have fun in general but then you are always endangering you ego. Why??

The clients or foreigners are not the best people to ask for feedback to. It not always encouraging. I got mine which was pretty average and its been hurting for a while. Even average guys are pretty much discouraged by an average feedback. I think the feedback should always be taken by our Moms and we might just get that Ego to trip over. Others just hurt when they are being honest :-). On the same note feedback should never be taken by a wife, especially when you have kept her away in India for 6 Months while you were having fun onsite and she was taking care of the kids. Well i guess that deserves a 0/6. I have not been doing well in life of late in general.

And now in blogs too i am having elite company. Amitabh Bachhan has started blogging and i admit he is blogging well. Aamir has been infrequent now a days.. but he also blogs well. I guess celebrities make their blogs a platform for self defence, justification and preservation. I was specially sad at Aamir when he tried to justify his stand on participating in Olympic torch run by giving altruist reasons when all what was to it was Coca Cola.

IPL looks like it is exceeding expectations. The games are getting competitive and even though some teams are falling far behind you sometime feel the need to support an underdog. I have chosen Punjab 11 just for the fact because it has the prettiest owner. Nothing to do with regional loyalty, all all that MNS crap. Honestly Royal Challengers screwed up their team selection and so did Mumbai Indians.. I mean common who would have Wasim Jaffer as opener in a 20-20 when he is considered slow in Tests. The Mumbai team somehow also chose to have in it group a couple of very old, very expensive, some very physical players :-). But i guess Shreesanth got his desert and he seems to be asking for more.

More later..

Go for Quotas

Although Hinduism doesn't advocates it directly, the so called upper casts Hindus have been abusing the basic human rights of the so called lower cast Hindus.

These lower casts have been divided into Scheduled Casts, Schedules Tribes and Other Backward Casts. The recent SC judgement allows for the the reservations for 26% OBC in various educational institutes. As expected the first statements from the Upper Casts student and people have been guided by Survival Instincts. The self defence and survival mechanism has brought them to immediately call foul, the judgments. As usual their arguments have centered around primarily:


1) Talent and ability should be the only criteria
2) Poor and Underprivileged are even in Upper Casts.


Lets take it one by one.


First the so called talent and ability that they so grandly call should be the only criteria is nothing but another name for opportunity and head start that certain people have got. How come it is always that a Doctors son at most times end up becoming a doctor, for an engineers son it is almost expected that he will clear the grades to be an engineer. Same with actors, politicians, armed forces personals etc. No stats are needed, you just have to look around and we see that this phenomenon has become such a fact of lives that we have started ignoring it. What does it proves? Certainly their aren't any genes that makes you a capable doctor or an actor or an engineer. Its just that these so called second generations were fortunate enough to be brought up in an environment where excelling at the trade is easy. Our Indian society has been built in such a way that passing trades to next generation is just a formality. There in no way, that a doctors son has a higher ability because he has passed the entrance exams in a higher grade then others. Its just because he had been FORTUNATE ENOUGH to have been brought up in a household which has given him a distinct advantage in terms of passing the exams and choosing a career.


So far so good, no one has any objections of a son following his father footsteps for good. The problem is that if it remains so that a cobblers son will always have to be a cobbler and a fisherman's son will always end up being a fisherman. What if they want to change to other professions. What if they want to move up the ladder. There is no talent involved here. A fisherman's son will have to work 100 times harder to achieve the same kind of marks, ranking or standing in an exams that have been so far the playgrounds of the privileged. And then they talk about equal opportunity and test of abilities. A fisherman's son scoring 40% is equal to 80% scored by a doctors son in a Medical Entrance.


Lets give this doctors son a project. Take 10 years and try and become a bigger star then Abhishek Bachhan or Aamir khan in Film Industry. See how difficult it. See how the head start and a privilege matters. Off course there will always be a Shahrukh Khan in every field where a person comes from no where and hits the invisible walls so hard that he breaks in no matter what. But then these SRK' s are so few what about the others. What about the other such's in other fields.


The biggest problem with this world has been the top 5% of the population has been holding 80% of the resources. And when someone tries to do something about it they cry thief. Why the hell is no one ready to share. Why there always have to be few under your feet for you to rise up. Why do we always end up saying "Let them have cakes then" when people are dying of starvation. Does anyone have moral courage to go and look at how people are living just to make their basic needs met. How they are queuing up hours in a line to get their kerosene or where a father has to choose between having her daughter out of the school or his son because he can't meet the expenses of both. We want to fight an equal battle with these guys!!!

We have to admit that equal opportunity comes from equal grounds. If you have people from unequal standing competing for same resource you can never call for best ability trail.

Now to the second point:

Yes agreed, there are underprivileged in upper casts as well. This has been a call going around for god knows how many years but can somebody actually point out to someone from this category. I have not seen many examples of this. Yeah some families from upper cast are poor, but poor for them does not mean choosing between education for children or going without food for days. Just go and see poverty and tribal and backwards in villages. So even if there are some really underprivileged in the upper casts who also needs help, but using this argument to block the greater good is nothing but using their shoulder to fire you shots.

Recently PM of Australia apologised for all the wrongs that's have been committed by Whites on the aboriginals (Though they worded it such so that there are no financial consequences). But isn't it time for us to accept our responsibilities and the responsibilities of our ancestors for all the wrongs they have committed. After all we are also enjoying the fruits of all the goods that they have left for us.

Look Beyond.. Maybe we can help build a better world.. Maybe if i sacrifice my sons seat in an IIT to an OBC for a lesser college, it would help reducing gaps within. Can't we walk slow for a while so that we can walk together after some time.

After the break

The break was because i was at home enjoying my family and another week of a hangover when back in Oulu. Well this time it was not as bad.

Speaking of a hangover just imagine how it would be when you mix tequila and beer and vodka and whiskey and rum on strawberry. Don't DO it. It was done by professionals who don't know why they are having a bump on their head and bruises on their arms the next morning.

Well we are far into spring. Their still light at 8:30. And it snowed in London yesterday. We are screwing up this earth i tell you. forget about your kids and grandkids, prey that it is still livable till the end of your life.

Humans have always been creatures who destroy the place they live in, and have developed an intelligence of denial or instinct of self denial that they aren't doing it. They refuse the accpt thaat a sheet of Antarctica that broke up yesterday was their deeds and would do any damn thing in this world to ensure that they money for the next installment for their 2.5 crore house is payed in time lest they have to sell their fully loaded Tata Safari for that. Take my words your kids are not going to enjoy that house you have so lovingly bought and toiled your backside off. They wouldn't have enough drinking water to survive and the AC in the house would rot of the lack of energy that we have already used up.

Oh how do i long for days when the fathers used to teach their kids the right way to plant the mango seed or the grandma's used clean the wicks of the lamps that will be lit up at night for another round tales from Ramayana.

The romantics at heart are just born in this world to suffer and long for the past...

Music

Sunday morning, after a rather heavy night.. head still dizzy, maybe a hangover. You have still not brushed your teeth or washed your face. Yeah a cup of tea from Shyam was wonderful, a usual Finnish spring morning(-5 C). Cloud cover, that will aid a perfect swing balling if it would have been Lords, maybe on a first day pitch 150 all out kind of weather. And here you are sitting there, Generous tuning 20 Euro Chinese Guitar which i have screwed up. And here he goes..

"Pretty Women, walking down the streets". Just him and his guitar and we had a trance suddenly everything felt good, life seemed worth it and not a word is spoken when he delivers three melodies one after the other. Just him and the untuned guitar.

That's the power of music. Its ability to affect your brain so fast and so positively. Amongst all this noise, music is a gift e have found for ourselves. And the wonderful and beautiful of all art forms. Its special because unlike other arts it doesn't imitate nature, its special because it so natural that even babies who don't know colors and words respond to music. Instead of copying nature as other arts, it adds to it.

Its a mans return gift to gods whereever they maybe.