Fairies, Claymores and Bagpipes

[I wrote this for Zorro on Doughnuts]...

First post after being a member for...I don't even remember. It was going to be on Japanese pop/rock, but Yohan's post on The Arctic Monkey's and my recent hike around Scotland and RockNess 2007 made me change my mind.

I haven't been able to find copies of all these songs because many of them I just heard live or in pubs and buses across Scotland, but you can find most of them on www.radioblogclub.com, a rather remarkable site.

Unlike their Irish neighbours, Scottish musicians have never really made a big impact in the rock and roll world. Perhaps the best known names would be Franz Ferdinand and now, KT Tunstall (who actually went to college with Snow Patrol and our good friend, Duncan)... and if you really push it, the Young brothers from AC/DC who were half Scottish. It so turns out that the tiny nation of Scotland has churned out some pretty popular music, many of which sounds too American or British to make us think that they'd be of Scottish pedigree. After all, what would we expect Scottish music to sound like? Screaming cats and bagpipes? Well, here's a small sampling, make up your own mind...

First we have Snow Patrol, a band formed in University of Dundee where Duncan went to college. These guys are pretty much like any other american alternative band, but it's worth a listen to some of their stuff; "Run", "Chasing Cars", "Signal Fire", "You're All I Have" and "Spitting Games". You might have heard the first three songs in the disastrous Spiderman 3 movie.

Paolo Nutini is another up and coming musician with some smooth beats, semi-gruff voice, and catchy lyrics. Here are a few recommendations: "New Shoes", "Jenny Don't Be Hasty", and "Last Request".

I don't know if you remember an old jeans ad with the song "pressure, pressure, pressure", but that was The Zutons. They've done some great work with "Pressure Point", "Valerie", and "Oh Stacey". Although they supposedly formed in Liverpool, Duncan claims that they were initially led by 2 Glaswegians and a prat from Edinburgh.

Before our trip to Scotland, Pragyan and I were discussing what heavy rock bagpipes would sound like and the answer to our queries were the Peatbog Faeries - another group from Skye. I don't have any particular song to recommend but you can try, "Welcome to Dun Vegas", "Wacko King Hako", and "Scots on the Rocks".

If you want to know about the McGreggor massacre or some good old Scottish folk music, The Corries would be an appropriate choice. They do a lot of great traditional songs seeped in history and lore like "Portkey Kid", "Bonnie Prince Charlie" and other patriotic songs like "Flower of Scotland".

Another band with dubious origins, Alabama 3 was formed in Brixton, England, but again Duncan claims they're actually Scots, but as long as they make good music, it doesn't matter right? They're perhaps most famous for "Woke Up This Morning" which was used for the opening sequence for "The Sopranos". I'd also recommend, "Hello... I'm Johnny Cash", and "Peace in the Valley".

Box o' Bananas performed live at the King Haakon Pub in Kyle, Isle of Skye in Northern Scotland while we were there... it's hard to imagine this tiny island in the middle of nowhere have produced some of the biggest names in Scottish modern music and also hosts the annual Skye Music Festival. Coming back to the band, BoB combines a lot of traditional Scottish instruments [read: pipes] with high amp guitars and keyboards. They're great to listen to live, not to mention bloody funny. I couldn't find anything on www.radioblogclub.com, so good luck...

The first Aberfeldy song I heard was "Vegetarian Restaurant". To be honest I really haven't heard much from these guys, but I'm looking around for some more. Radioblogclub has a limited collection for these guys. Try "Tom Weir" and "Summer's Gone".

The Proclaimers are the quitessential Scottish band. The identical twins were voted "the most Scottish band" and are perhaps best known for their song "I'm Gonna Be [500 miles]"... you know, the one that goes, "and I will walk 500 miles, and I will walk 500 more..." These guys are from the little town of Fief just north of Edinburgh and people are suprised they haven't become British sellouts! You've probably already heard "Letter From America", "Sunshine on Leith" and "King of the Road".

Another Dundee Band, The View, has also produced some decent... although certain people seem to hate them. Also accused of being American sellouts, people have called them a cross between The Arctic Monkey's and The Proclaimers, and the worst new band! Make up your mind: "Wasted Little DJs", "Same Jeans", and "Face for the Radio".

Lastly I leave you with a surprise Isle of Skye master DJ: Mylo who along with KT Tunstall was probably the biggest hit of RockNess 2007. I'm sure there are many more great bands and musicians I've missed out, but these are all the guys I know about. Enjoy! Sorry I couldn't provide the songs, but they're all there on www.radioblogclub.com.

I'll write a normal post sometime soon. I wonder where everyone else has disappeared?

Half the time we're gone but we don't know where

So I graduated.

Now what?

Who are you?

I just realized that although it has been a while since we started conversing through this site, I have almost no idea who you all are. Might be a good idea if we all introduced ourselves to one another.

OK...since I brought this up...

Me - Pragyan Pradhan from Nepal, a student at Hamilton College, New York - currently chilling at LSE for a year - hopefully will get a BA degree in Math and Economics in 2008. Had wasted more than a year after high school doing nothing - now in a four year college - which means another year down the drain (compared to three-year colleges in Nepal). Plans after graduation - donno yet - will probably do something in business. What else...oh ya...I will be teaching Hindi next year with Maity. Now isn't that ironic? I have never had a single Hindi lesson in my lifetime.

Those days are gone...

Yesterday, a friend of mine said to me, 'How can you drink this? It's disgusting.'

Maity and I, with three others, decided to go to a pub in the afternoon yesterday. It had been a while since I went to a pub. Without any second thought, I asked for a double black label with ice. Priya decided to take a sip from my glass, and that was when she said that to me.

I had my beer days, followed my gin/vodka/rum and now I have switched to whiskey. I also used to say at one point in life, 'geez, whiskey is damn bitter'. May be I am getting old, or I am just getting tired of mixed drinks. I like whiskey. Whiskey is good. What do ladies' know about a gentleman's drink anyway (sincere apologies to exceptions)?

Poor Maity was warned by the bartender for drinking whiskey without an ID. I almost got into trouble for giving him the drink.

What's worse than going to an expensive theater in London and not liking the play at all? - Drinking tons of expensive alcohol at a London pub and not getting drunk even a bit.

Introducing...

Friar Mite D’Asia the Rurr

Frair D’Asia hails from the marshes of Klean-tun, although ancient tales hint of a youth spent in myriad lands. Apprenticed in the dark arts of Comsigh at Hymlton, he quickly rose to become an apostle of the High Church of Muk. D’Asia revels in the excretion of information and always carries with him a nameless tome of apocryphal knowledge. He also has the distinction of being the only one to tame one of the Akura beasts of Nippon and together perfect the ways of Speidlimit. In his time at Hamilton, he developed a life long hatred for the barbaric Cake and swore to destroy all their kin with his powerful Majik of Youman. We wish him good luck on his quest.

[With sincere apologies to Y'Jinn the Scribe.]

How Can I Tell You?

EDIT: When I first wrote the post, a lot of my friends actually had no idea what I was talking about. And it was around 2pm (US EST), mind you. Kind of reminds me of 9/11 when I was in school and no one had a clue till fairly late.

I mean, I agree with the comments that if you don't know anybody who was affected (either directly or indirectly), you are quite removed from the situation so it's silly to get upset. But only to a certain extent. (And I do know of two people who go to VT...they were high school acquaintances, the sort of people you only talk to in class. Both are fine.) What happened yesterday is upsetting. What happens all over the world every damn day is upsetting. I know I would be lying if I said I did not feel at least a little affected by ridiculously horrible events I read about or see on the news every day. In that slight moment when you read/hear about something, one must be feeling something. I mean, are we really going to kid ourselves and say we are completely unaffected? Things do not and should not have to happen to our person or people we know in order for us to feel something, even if only to impassion our own lives or to spark inspection of the environment around us.

Three universities and a few other primary and secondary schools had to close today because of bomb threats. Stupid copycat shit. I mean, VA Tech already had cops crawling all over the campus because of two bomb threats in the previous weeks leading up to Monday, a shooting that occurred on campus in August of last year (by someone unrelated to the campus), and the shooting in the dorm that morning, and still, it happened. I can't even imagine...

Yesterday, the Chicago Sun Times kept claiming sources said the shooter was a Chinese student on a visa from Shanghai. They must feel stupid now. Bet those fact checkers will be fired. Immediately after news spread that the shooter was Asian, the racist shit I heard about was disgusting. Just because of one lone psychotic Asian guy. What about the Columbine shooting? And the clock tower shooting at the University of Texas, the guy who killed 24 people in Killeen, Texas, or Manson, Bundy, Dahmer...need I say more? They were all white. What does that say? Racial profiling makes no sense. People are pathetic.

And this whole thing about how guns don't kill people, people kill people is just stupid. People on the news were arguing that if students were allowed to carry concealed weapons, the shooter could've been stopped. So ludicrous. First of all, what were the chances that someone in that building carried a gun? Second of all, enabling more teenagers/young adults to carry guns is the worst, most careless idea ever. If anything, there should be gun control that is strict as hell. If that Asian guy didn't have access to guns, he most likely would not have killed so many people. I mean, say if he had just a knife or something. People kill people. But people without guns kill less people.


Original post:
I don't believe any of you reading this are in the States (though please correct me if I'm wrong) so you may or may not have heard.

This morning, an Asian man opened fire on the Virginia Tech campus and killed over 30 people, including himself. Information is still coming in but what is known for certain is that there was a shooting in a dorm and then two hours later, the man went to a classroom on the other side of campus and shot the majority of the victims there. There has been no official confirmation on whether the guy was a student or what. However, rumor has it the guy was a student and snapped when he found out his girlfriend cheated on him. I got that from a friend who has a friend who has a lot of friends who attend VA Tech. If that is the motivation for this, it makes things that much worse because it's such a stupid, senseless thing to kill people over. But then again, what exactly is worth killing someone over?

Wax philosophical

As you may or may not know, Hamilton is pretty much a tundra. It's a school on a hill and it snows from sometime in October (usually) to the end of April. In fact, it's snowing quite hard right now as I type. That's an understatement, actually. It's more like a blizzard. Coincidentally, the accepted student open house is today. I wonder how many will decide not to come because of this.

I, for one, however, wish it would snow harder. Another snow day is more than fine by me. I need more time to write my (insert choice expletive here) thesis. It will be a pain to dig my car out of the snow later but I think it's worth it. Besides, I need the exercise.

What kind of f*ckery is this?

So I typed this fairly long post earlier but I stepped away for a bit, came back, and found that my browser hates me and ate my post. I'm too lazy to re-type it all so I will just write about something else.

When I was commenting in the previous post and was asked where I was from, it reminded me of the most frequent responses I'd get after I said "New Jersey."

Top 5:

5. North or South? (Representin' South Jerz! South Jersey > North Jersey)

4. Isn't that NYC's landfill? Haha (You've got it backwards, buddy! Though North Jersey does stink, what with all the factories up there.)

3. Ah, the Garden State. Why's it called that? (We've got a lot of farm land and generate a lot of flora and produce.)

2. Joisey??! Hahaha Where's your accent?? (There is no accent!)

DRUMROLL - And the number one response I get is...

1. *stare for a second* No, I mean really, where are you from? (Like it's impossible that I come from NJ! But really, if you want to ask me which ethnicity I am, just "grow some balls" and ask!)

I can say with 99.99% confidence that every time I get the #1 response, it has come from a white person. Don't mean to be racist but it's true. When I was younger, I would be clueless and just kept repeating myself until he/she elaborated with, "So were you born here?" And there's also: "Oh, NJ. So how long have you lived here (or there, depending on where I am)?" Unfortunately, I don't recall the exact age when I realized these were thinly veiled indicators of ignorance. Now, depending on how I'm asked, where I am, who I'm speaking to, and my mood, I give different answers. Sometimes I tell the truth, sometimes I make shit up and give some very random answers, and sometimes I would be a complete asshole and say "Earth" or something like it. It has become quite amusing, really, seeing people's responses to my ridiculous answers.

The title of this post is quite fitting. If you may not have noticed, all of my posts have titles that come from either a movie, song, and tv show, or may be a hackneyed quote/phrase. Anyway, this one is no different. It's a line from the lyrics in a song by Amy Winehouse, a British soul/jazz/r&b singer, called "Me & Mr. Jones." She says fuckery. How can you resist?

Amy Winehouse - Me & Mr. Jones

Amy Winehouse - You Know I'm No Good

EDIT: So Hamilton has this music festival type thing every year near the end of the school year called Mayday. I think this started in 2004. Anyway, last year, they brought The New Pornographers and some other people I can't remember. This year, they're bringing Asobi Seksu!!! I'm so excited!! (Well, actually, the headliner is Citizen Cope but I've never heard of him 'til now. Checked him out on myspace and I must admit I'm not a fan.) If you've never heard of Asobi Seksu, they're a shoegazing indie/pop rock band from NYC whose name means "playful sex" in Japanese. The lead singer, Yuki Chikudate, sings in both English and Japanese against a background of lush guitars to create this surreal, dreamy sound. It's hard to explain so you'll just have to listen to find out what I'm talking about.

Asobi Seksu - Thursday

Asobi Seksu - Lions and Tigers

To GWB fans!

no offense!









let's see what 2008 has in store for the world.

Savvy?

So I'm taking a Comparative Literature/English course called The Detective Story this semester. Yesterday, my professor mentioned an article he read online about a professor at MIT who coaches kids how to "ace" the new writing portion of the SAT and uses this to lend credence to his argument that standardized writing assessments are only harming students' writing abilities. It's quite disturbing, really.

Rumor has it that Johnny Depp will be in Sin City 2. Depp was originally slated to play Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro's role) but couldn't fit it into his schedule. This new role will supposedly be much more substantial. I, for one, am excited over this news. Johnny Depp can do no wrong. Well, aside from Secret Window, From Hell, The Astronaut's Wife...those are the only ones that pop out at the moment. Never watch those movies. If you have already, well, I feel your pain.

Maybe this song can help assuage that. I came across this song from Sneaky Sound System, an Australian band, on one of my bookmarked music blogs and fell in love with it. It's hella catchy/danceable, as in it's pretty much club music. If while listening to this song, not even one part of your body is impelled to move to the beat, then you are just no fun. Besides, this is not your regular crappy vocal overlapped with synth beats kind of dance song. It's more like a cross between The Sounds, Blondie, synth beats, and just a pinch of Kate Bush-like vocals. Give it a listen. ("You can think I'm wrong, but that's no reason to quit thinking." - House)

Sneaky Sound System - I Love It

Speaking of which, there's an all new House tonight. About damn time, I'd say. Here's another quality quote from the great philosopher, House: "Perseverance does not equal worthiness. Next time you want to get my attention, wear something fun. Low-riding jeans are hot."

“You Can’t Always Get What You Want!” [1]

There is a lot to talk about for this bored meeting.

First on the agenda is the induction of one Allison “Chouball” Chou into this blog. A few more names and we will be like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Let me tell you a bit about Chou. Never believe a word of what she says. Half the lies she says aren’t true. What else do you expect from a former employee of a sketchy New York tax firm? Her favoured drink is double vodka on the rocks with a dash of tangerine. She drives a space age Honda Civic and owns a DVD of “Miami Vice”. We look forward to hearing more of her apocryphal stories…

Jae, Amit, Shraddha, and Noah were visiting for the last couple of weeks. It was great fun. Noah and I went to watch Patrick Stewart as Prospero in a superb RSC production of “The Tempest”. All through the show, I was always expecting him to say, “Engage”, but it never came. Later Amit, Noah, and I went to watch Monty Python’s “Spamalot”. Although we had crappy seats, it was a very enjoyable show, but not in the same league as T. However, the best play I’ve seen in the West End is still “The Woman in Black”, which I went to watch twice, once with Kunj and once with Elena.

My Economics teacher is expecting a child in a couple of weeks. They’ve named her Helena, which brings me to the movie “DOA: Dead or Alive” – don’t watch it. We also got around to watching “300”. Quite an intense movie; lot’s of blood and gore but it’s not “Sin City”.

Jae and I went on a Beatles trip to Liverpool. It was an excellent trip, complete with singing along at a live performance (Paul Caspa) at the famous The Cavern Pub. Back in London we went down to Abbey Road and tried hard to duplicate the album cover, but we were too spazzed out to get it right!

St. Patrick’s Day was another experience. We went to watch the parade and the live performances at Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square and topped off the day with a couple of pints of Guinness at The Blue Posts pub. Which isn’t anything special since we got drunk ten nights in a row. We love our party hats.

Wimbledon was a very disappointing outing. Not only were we lost but it also started to rain and the construction kept us out of the grounds. The museum was cool with some stunning AV demos, but for six quid that’s the least you’d expect. All other pictures, at least the good ones are on Facebook.

My plans for Spain and Portugal went down the drain when I told the Finnish embassy to “F*ck off” and cancelled my visa. I can’t imagine why any one would want to go to Finland and on top of that they people at the embassy don’t want you to go either. Gets my vote for worst embassy in the world. I hate Finland. So I’m stuck here in London. Maybe I’ll still go to Morocco and Scotland, but as of now, I’m too pissed off to think straight.

To top things off we have the sad demise of the Indian Cricket Team. 'Tis a sad day when Ireland makes it past the league stage and India doesn't. I will not sulk, not even when Arsenal is beaten by Everton.

[1]: The Rolling Stones. Seems to capture our thoughts.

The World I Know

Yesterday, I was supposed to watch 300 but damn old man winter foiled my plans. The stupid groundhog was wrong. On Wednesday and Thursday, nice weather was had by all and it was in the 60's and 70's, respectively. The sun was out and if I had brought home some flip flops, I sure as hell would have busted them out and displayed my little piggies. But then Friday rolled around and in came the snow/sleet/freezing rain. I say the Hamilton weather followed me home. (A friend of mine retorted with, "Then you need to get your ass back up there.") Seeing as I am a newbie when it comes to driving, my mom forbade me from driving in the ridiculous weather.

Due to the fact that I could not drive, my friend had to pick up me and our other friend, who I was originally supposed to pick up. During this entire process, everyone and their moms were out and about on the roads. (Didn't people know that they shouldn't drive in such weather?!?!) Not only this, but everyone was driving so ridiculously slow, I don't think it could have even been considered driving. Surely it's safe to drive slowly and cautiously in bad weather, but the key word here is drive, as in move. By the time the third person in our little posse was in the car, we had approximately 10 minutes to make the movie in the theater that was at least 15 minutes away in normal conditions. Needless to say, we missed 300. But the extra time it took to get to the theater was not a waste. As the saying goes, it doesn't matter what you're doing but who you're with.

So yeah, we ended up watching The Namesake, which was the only movie we did not have to wait 1.5 - 2 hours to watch. The movie was a pretty solid story about culture, family, and discovery. That is, once you can get past the fact that Kumar ("What is that, five o's and two u's?"), I mean Kal Penn, is acting in a dramatic role.

During our long drive to the theater, a song came up on my friend's mix CD which made us all reminisce about the old days. Those who know me know I love the 90's. Everything was just better back then - the music, the movies, the tv shows, the attitudes of people in general, and etc. Unless my bias is due entirely to the fact that the 90's made up my childhood and thus, who I am and...I digress. Anyway, the song was the Cake cover of the notorious "I Will Survive" and, in my opinion, the greatest cover of any song I have ever heard. Cake truly made the song their own, what with the guitar riffs and almost lackadaisical vocals.

And because that song put me into a nostalgic mood, here are some of my favorite 90's songs/favorite songs of all time.

Cake - I Will Survive
Foo Fighters - Everlong
Collective Soul - Run
Better Than Ezra - At the Stars
Spacehog - In the Meantime
New Radicals - You Get What You Give
Ben Folds Five -Brick
Goldfinger - Here in Your Bedroom
Toad the Wet Sprocket - Come Down
Primitive Radio Gods - Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand

Just So Stories [1]

Last week, James Head and I entered into a little duologue similar to our duel of bad poetry in October 2005. This time each of us had 12 hours to respond. Here are the results so far. It's still going on and I'll put up the new ones if we come up with anything good.

James:

"So, what about that big, glowing, floating hat behind you?"

"Are you retarded?"

"Yes."

Maity:

So a baby walks into a topless bar, and is really confused. Then he puts his hat down and gets a drink. All the girls try to hook up with him. They coo, whine and serenade him with intelligent conversation. He puts down his scotch and says, "Sorry ladies, I don't speak retard", and walks away without his milk.

James:

So the milkman is going on his early morning route when he comes across Mrs. Macabee - who is in her front yard, in her nightgown, watering the petunias. The milkman is a little puzzled by this, since it's 4:30 in the morning and it's still dark out. He approaches Mrs. Macabee and says, "Exuse me. Mrs. Macabee? Your petunias are on fire." And she says,"Well that's why I'm watering them, asshole!"

Maity:

So Mr. Petunia hated his name. All his life he had been teased about flowers. "Wimp in the Wind" they sang for him. He traveled far and wide and sought a wise man to weed his thoughts.

"Why must I live with such a name?" he asked the wise man.

"Because you are a flower, my son."

The next day, Mr. Petunia shot himself.

James:

So they're shooting a scene for this movie at a local diner. It is supposed to be a fight scene between two men, but the second man is nowhere to be found. For three hours they wait, meanwhile they are constantly trying to reach him by phone but to no avail. Just when they are about to give up and leave, the makeup artist volunteers to play his part.

"I'll do it," she says "I know his entire part."

The director says, "But you're a woman. The part calls for a man. You don't even resemble him slightly!"

And she says, "Well you don't even resemble Danny Devito's dick!"

Maity:

So Danny DeVito is playing chess with the leader of his local motorbike gang - The Unsteady Serpents when his phone rings.

"That's my missus", he says, "she has a special vibrator."

"Aww phooey, you're just saying that", the leader replied.

"No, no, really, you do."

And they made love on the giant chessboard.

James:

So Gary Kasparov is playing Deep Blue when Deep Blue takes one of his pawns en passant. Being Russian, Kasparov tries to accuse Deep Blue of cheating.

"Confounded machine!" he cries "Somehow the Americans fixed it to cheat against me!"

Deep Blue says, "En passant - it's French, bitch, you wouldn't understand."

Kasparov drinks himself into a stupor and goes on a rampage, destroying six chessboards and a child's bicycle.

Maity:

So Tweedledee and Tweedledum were riding their tricycles down Le Rouge de Spassky when they smell Chinese food in the crisp night air of Champagne. Tn'T park their ride on the curb and walk into an old drinking house made entirely of used Dell computers. They had heard rumors that the maitre'd there spoke a Spanish that reeked with an odd New Zealand accent. Tn'T didn't really care though, tonight was not a night to give in to their explosive nature.

As they enter, the maitre'd walks over to them and asks "qué la voluntad usted tiene?"

Tweedledum just shakes his head.

Tweedledee glances up from the menu and says "I'll have the sex on toast, please. [2]"

James:

So a clown heard about this great dish called sex on toast from his colleagues Messrs. Dee and Dum, and is riding his bicycle to the diner where it is served. While rounding a corner his front tyre sinks into a huge pothole and the wheel shoots off, hitting a small child and killing him instantly. The clown is ejected head first over the handle bars and into an open manhole cover, but instead of making a clean entrance he hits every possible rung of the ladder going down, breaking all the bones in his body above the waist. He is rushed to the hospital but is pronounced dead shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, the mother of the dead child decides she cannot go on living and throws herself into oncoming traffic and dies.

Maity:

So in a hospital just outside Panhole City, a large man, clad in Samurai battle armour and a doctor's apron, walked into the waiting room carrying a large katana and a grave expression. The sword was soaked in blood and left a crimson trail as he walked through the room to a very worried looking couple at the far end. The couple looked at him questioningly and the samurai said, "I'm sorry ma'am but your clown died in surgery."

(To be continued... maybe)

[1] Nothing to do with Mr. Kipling at all.

[2] Consider it as a homage to Murmurlark.

At my signal, unleash Hell!

I may be of the female gender but I enjoy more than my share of action flicks. Most of the time, I just check my brain and semblance of feminism at the door. I mean, who doesn't enjoy a brainless movie about stuff blowing up; needless, exaggerated fights/deaths; and/or a hero who saves the day against impossible, mounting odds or honorably dies trying? I sure do.

Before the movie Sin City came out, I had never heard of it nor the comic book. All I knew after watching the trailers was that I HAD to watch this movie because a) it looked kick-ass and b) Clive Owen was in it. The same pretty much applies to 300. Epic fight scenes? Check. Good-looking guy(s) that most guys want to emulate and girls can squeal over? Check. (Gerard Butler)

And of course, there are always the critics of these action movies. Some said Sin City was too gory. Noted. But as they say, if you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen! If you can't handle the gore/violence, don't watch it. Plain and simple. I personally hate scary movies so I will never be caught dead watching one. Ever again, that is. I've learned my lesson. (Though I am not afraid of the so-called scary slasher movies which are not scary at all. I'm just scared of the weird, mess-with-your-head shit like IT and pretty much every Japanese horror movie, especially those with scary-looking little kids that make me never want to have kids of my own.) Critics of 300 have used excuses like the violence factor, the innane plot (hello, it's an action movie!), and the recently expoused excuse: it will provoke anger toward a certain peoples. I read an article saying that Iranians were in an uproar over the movie, which portrays Persians as "decadent, sexually flamboyant, and evil in contrast to the noble Greeks." Some even go so far as to say the movie is Hollywood's declaration of war against Iranians because it is insulting and promotes hatred towards Persians. First of all, I'm sure more than half the Americans who will actually go to watch 300 do not have the slightest inkling that Iran is in any way related to Persia. I bet many think it's a separate country and some may not have even heard of Persia. It's sad but probably true. Second of all, since when does an action movie, based on a comic no less, wholly and acurately represent a peoples? This whole thing is reminiscent of how Kazakhs were mad about the Borat movie. Movies are movies. They're one or a few people's take on something and is, oftentimes, a skewed version of reality or a total deviation from it. But above all, movies are for entertainment. People just need to get the sticks out of their asses.

End note: Anyone actually watch 300? I've heard it's been topping the box office and both good and bad reactions. Well, I'll be seeing it soon enough.

Have you any wool?

This is not a joke. I think this just may top Snakes on a Plane.

NOTICE OF REVOCATION OF INDEPENDENCE by John Cleese

To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up revocation in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up aluminium. Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour'; skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix ize will be replaced by the suffix ise. You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to re-spell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up vocabulary.

Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up interspersed. There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won't have to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents - Scottish dramas such as Taggart will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. While we're talking! about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is Devon. If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become shires, e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British sit-coms such as The Office, Men Behaving Badly or Red Dwarf will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen, but only after fully carrying out task #1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American football. There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American football is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays American football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2007. You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called rounders, which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.

7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called Indecisive Day.

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer, which should be served warm and flat. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all, it is lager. From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. The substances formerly known as American Beer will henceforth be referred to as Near-Frozen Knat's Urine, with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as Weak Near-Frozen Knat's Urine. This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in Pilsen, Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

13. From November 10th the UK will harmonise petrol (or Gasoline, as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2007) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon - get used to it).

14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

16. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation.

"Let the eagles soar. Shoot down the turkeys."

First Order Condition...

There was a boy called Peter, he hated remembering things, so he became creative.


But he remaied true to the truths of reality, refusing to accept the mumbo-jumbo of science.

Yet he always remembered the important things...

In his groove he knew the answers to impossible questions

But all this power drove him to madness... and an unfortunate end.

In his fond memory, each year, we award the Retard Hat prize.

Long live Peter.

Seriously??!

So a friend of mine just sent me this AMAZINGLY bizarre article about a woman who didn't even know she was pregnant until she was about to give birth because she was obese. So obese that her layers of fat covered up the baby kicking and whatnot. I am not kidding. Read about it here. I just had to share because really, how often do you read about something like this? Just crazy.

A Series of Unfortunate Events...

Ordinary day...Friday morning...usual classes...got up early in the morning...and I was walking to school - half asleep. Suddenly my eyes fell on a shiny piece of metal. 'Today sure has to be one lucky day...I found a 1 pound coin, and the weather is awesome too.'

Level 1 - Reached my first lecture...boring...fell asleep as usual...when I got up at the end of the lecture, the professor was staring at me. Who cares? Then I went to the next class...the teacher who never bothered to ask anyone a question in the past kept on picking on me (just me) the entire period. Even other classes seemed different. Societies and clubs that advertise on the main street of LSE also decided to stop my way with 'Join us for a trip to...', 'Awesome party tonight...full of hot girls...', etc, etc. Even the Christian missionaries decided to stop me twice, not once, asking me to join their Bible awareness or I-love-Jesus programs. It was then I realized something wasn't normal that day. Just like everybody else in this world, I started thinking that the free money I found that day was probably cursed.

Level 2 - In the middle of another of my lecture, I realized that I had an assignment due in about an hour. I thought if I hurried, I could finish it in time and hence, decided to go to LSE's famous Garrick cafe and do my work...reached there...grabbed a table...took my papers out and started writing. But the deluge of phone calls I kept on getting made me feel that there was actually some 'dark force' trying to prevent me from completing my work. Smart as I was, I decided to leave my phone on the table rather than keep it in my pocket and take it back out every ten seconds.

Level 3 - A Chinese couple decided to take a share of my table with an excuse that there wasn't any free table around. They sat down and started talking to each other at the top of their voices. To make it worse, they kept on switching places for some reason. I was simply going crazy. Then they decided to leave silently. I took a deep breath and thought I would finally be able to make full utilization of my remaining time. But my happiness was broken when a sheet of paper attached to a clipboard hindered my work. I turned around to see two European women asking me to donate some money for the 'Dumb & Deaf Organization'. I checked my wallet but realized that I had no money on me, except the coin I found that morning. I gave it to them and they left. They didn't even say a word during that whole process. Then later, when it was class time, I cleared up the table and as usual, double checked if I had left anything and walked out. After 10-15 steps, I realized that there was something missing...my phone!

Level 4 - Obviously, my phone got stolen...those Chinese did a really smart job - grabbed my phone while I was looking out of the window and then they left without a sound. The worse part was I wouldn't be able to identify them if I saw them again...as I had never bothered to look at them in such detail. I rushed to one of the phone booths - called my phone...the phone was switched off. Then I called Maity using my last coin I had with the hope to make several more calls using his phone after meeting him. I thought if nothing else, I would be able to call my network with that. Thanks to the classes we had, I met him after two hours. And he didn't have the network's number. So, I decided to go back home after dinner and call the network then. The shitty dinner and the rain while coming back couldn't add much to my misery. After some problems with the stupid automated phone call, I was finally able to bar calls to/from my phone.

The Ultimate - For two weeks, I was thinking how stupid I was and how skilled those Chinese were that day. But things changed when my monthly bill arrived. I was supposed to pay 35 pounds monthly...the bill showed 125. I realized that the phone had been used for all of the three hours it had after it was stolen. Those bastards were using it to make international calls for the entire period. With some research, I came to realize something that surprised me even further. It wasn't the Chinese but the freaking 'Dumb & Deaf Organization' women who did it. The calls were made to Romania. The whole attempt to use the clipboard as a shield, blocking my view, not saying a word and leaving the place as soon as they were done all made sense then. The worst part - my super-smart mind had made me cancel my insurance policy just a month before it was stolen. Thought it wouldn't be a smart idea to spend 10 pounds a month just on the insurance.

They weren't satisfied with the 200 pounds phone...they had to take full advantage of it. And, now I have to take the full burden of it.

They have taken the 'cursed' coin...and since they have it now...I might as well curse it further.
But what if they don't any more? Should I still curse it?

You're gonna die, clown!

Spoof of David Blaine.



This clip reminded me of Arrested Development. Such a great show.
Michael: So this is a magic trick, huh?
Gob: Illusion, Michael. A trick is something a whore does for money.

Regular Karma

Yesterday sucked.

I first found out that my planned trip to Spain, Portugal and Morocco were down the drain, because the earliest visa appointment date I could get was the 16th of April, when my trip was actually supposed to end. Not to mention I'm going to lose all my flight bookings... now there's a hundred quid well spent. And it was Holy Week too... For the first time I realised how much it sucked to have an Indian passport.

Later in the evening my friend called and since she too was depressed for her own reasons, we decided to watch a movie to cheer up... and I got ice-cream too!

"The Last King of Scotland" is undoubtedly one of the best "historical" movie I've seen since "Motorcycle Diaries". Forest Whitaker was brilliantly gruesome as Idi Amin. True, one might draw parallels to "Hotel Rwanda", but it's still a bloody good movie. Watch it. The movie was great but it was as much fun as playing with asbestos and did nothing to improve my mood.

Being a student of economics I'm waiting for the trade-off for my run of shit luck.

Is Anybody Home?!?!?!

The Departed won the Oscar for Best Picture. Seriously, WHAT THE F?!?!?! No words can express my anger right now. Just ridiculous.

Black Holes and Revelations

So I finally caught up with my friends from my previous post. They never got a chance to go back and it's too late now, obvs, but that's ok because karma is a bitch. Or, as Justin Timberlake would say, (No, not "I'm bringing sexy back." In fact, I wasn't even aware that it ever left!) "what goes around comes around."

Speaking of music...
If your life had a soundtrack, which songs would be on it? (Stole this from a friend's blog. What can I say, I'm a procrastinator.)

This would be mine~

Opening credits: Sleeping Lessons - The Shins
Waking up: Sleeping Lessons cont'd
Falling in love: Rebel Rebel - Seu Jorge / Samba de Bencao - Bebel Gilberto
Driving/roadtrip: All The Dark Horses - Trashcan Sinatras
Life's okay: Chicago - Sufjan Stevens
Regretting: These Days - Nico
Death scene: Unicornio - Cecilia Noel
Closing credits: Comforting Sounds - Mew / Shirt - Menomena

Who Da Man?

Hillary or Obama? With all the mudslinging, methinks, neither. Besides, I don't think the US is ready for a woman or a black president. So who do we have left? Giuliani? McCain?

Speaking of men, here's saying Happy Birthday, to President Robert Mugabe. May his inflation be with him. He is the man! What do you do when you want to spend $65,ooo on a birthday party when there's 1600% inflation and the country is on the verge of civil war? Simple, you make inflation illegal and you go on state-controlled TV and ask to be relected for another 6 year term to add to the glorious past 27 years. It works.

Who's excited about Britney's hair?

Meteors Becoming Crash Into Earth

So we become dinosaurs in 2036, eh? It's far away... we have better things to worry about right now... like Keynes said, "Who cares about the long run? In the long run, we're all dead."

The more news I read these days, the more I realise how little I actually know about what's going on in the Asian subcontinent, forget the world. These days I read the news with mixed feelings, I mean, it's depressing when a firebomb on a train is required to bring two governments at war to a working solution. And Mynamar extremists infiltrating the border at Kashmir... that's quite a long hike isn't it, just to get caught by border security forces?

Then when I'm about to lose all hope, you find that there is still good on earth... in Gupta's words "genuine" people - like the Prince of Bhutan.
I'm neither a Nepali citizen, nor do I believe that Nepal is a part of India, lest some people take it the wrong way. I am not an enemy of democracy. I am not an extremist. But to see the "suspended" king of Nepal defend his coup was perhaps the most shining example of "sticking to my beliefs" I have seen in recent time - a time when resolve is easily dissolved in a cup of warm milk. I don't care if the students and the "seven party democracy" believe the king was out of line... after all, people, in general, are stupid; and each day my excuse for the irrationalities in the world is strengthened.

Fighting in a sack

As you may know, Hamilton is in the middle of bumblefuck New York. And in places such as this, as a minority, you have to prepare yourself for certain things, from the stares to the much much worse. I'm not sure what could have prepared me for what happened to me and three of my friends last night, however.

Last night, me, C, K, and T (Chinese, Chinese, White, South African - this is important) were out and about, having a fun night that included dinner, engaging in "girl talk," and etc, etc. Before going back to campus, C had to get some alcohol so we went to Hannaford, this local supermarket. Now, we get the alcohol (and some other random stuff like ice cream) and head to a checkout line. By then it was around 8-9pm and there were maybe 2-3 other customers in the entire store. We place the stuff on the conveyor belt and, not surprisingly, she asks all us of for our IDs. We hand them over, no problem. The cashier waves this other lady over, who takes the IDs and then whips out a book full of pictures of various state IDs (never knew there was such a thing).

She goes through C's first, then gets to mine. She examines my ID so hard, I thought she would burn a hole in it with her damn eyes. She flips it over and over and then finally asks me how old I am. I respond, "22." Then, with some bitchy tone, she says, "Is this real?" I'm like, yeah, it's an old Jersey license. She proceeds to check my ID against the book's NJ license. From where I'm standing, I could CLEARLY see that my ID looked exactly like the picture. Granted, my license didn't have the fancy holograms and barcode like C's, but if it looks EXACTLY like the picture, what's the damn problem? After flipping it over a few more times, she finally proceeds to T's. She had a NY state license so that passed on rather smoothly. The lady hands those three back to the cashier. At this point, we're just like, FINALLY. It must have been over 5 minutes.

Now, as the lady is checking K's license, the cashier looks at C's license, then mine and then she has the AUDACITY to say something along the lines of, "Who's who? You two look the same." Then she backtracks and says, "Oh, wait, I can tell by your faces." And then she also proceeds to hand C my and T's licenses as she says to C, "Give these to the nice girl behind you." I'm close enough to reach for them (and do) but why would she say that? Was she implying C was being a bitch? If anything, I was the only bitchy one at this point because I will admit that I responded to the other lady in quite the bitchy tone.

Meanwhile, the other lady is STILL checking K's license. Then suddenly, she says, "I'm sorry, but we cannot accept this. It says under 21 on it." By this point, we're pretty damn annoyed. K walks over and says she is 21 and although it says "under 21," the birth date clearly shows that she's of age. The lady counters and says, "But it says under 21." (Seriously, does this bitch know simple math?) This goes back and forth until the lady finally makes this bullshit answer up and says that the store policy says that if the license says under 21, they can't sell it. K, surprisingly calmly, asks for the manager. The lady says she doesn't know who the manager is and that it's only the night manager. The cashier picks up the phone and calls for the manager. After a few minutes, he comes over in some ratty ass shirt, Hannaford cap, and a tiny ass nametag on said shirt was the only indicator of his position. He comes over and immediately, the lady says, "Hi, Bobby." (Don't know the manager my ass, bitch!) So K, the lady, and the manager are conferring over this damn situation. Slowly, the talking gets louder and K continues to defend her position, even going so far as to request to see this so-called store policy in writing. The manager has no fucking clue and continues to say that whatever the lady said is final and right. As K continues, both bitches are smirking at us. Not only that, but the cashier had the nerve to say in a bitchy tone, "Why don't you go to Price Chopper (another grocery store)." We continue to hassle but after being at this fucking checkout line for at least 30 minutes, we're just like fuck it, there is no point in arguing with the ignorant and dumb. In the end, we just left all the shit on the conveyor belt and left.

NEVER have I been subjected to such bullshit. I have dealt with miniscule moments of racism in my life but last night took the fucking cake. Seriously?? If you're gonna be racist, at least have the balls to deny selling us shit because three of us are minorities instead of pulling out some lame ass rule to hide behind against the white girl with a legit license!

K and T planned to go back there today at a different time to talk to a REAL manager. I haven't talked to them yet today but we'll see.

What Kind of an Indian Name is Jasmine?

Have to listen to this... why do people do this to themselves?

Huppy Budday Maggie

Here's wishing Fong-Wai Chan a wonderful birthday... May you spy hard.

For The Mother's Pride

It seems like I am the only remnant active member of this blog, but no matter, I shall continue to spew my genius on this site, albeit seldom. This sudden surge was sparked off by certain events: the new Hritik Roshan ad "Cock uthale, dhoom machale", sequel to the disastrous "Find me with cock", in the early 00s; the death of one of the legends of the animation industry, Joseph Barbera; the entire Mamta Banderjee-Singur-Tata episode etcetra etcetra. Not to mention India's first man and lady, the cute couple of Laloo and Rabri are off the hook after swindling the government of $2.8m. And what's the buzz about these days? Abhishek Bacchan angry about Hritik kissing Ash in Dhoom 2, now ain't that fitting. It seems like India has finally realized that sex sells. By the way, the new Motorolla flip phone ad has to be one of the best ads I've seen in recent times.

Well on a brighter note at least the Jessica Lall murder case is over with... yeah take that Ram Jethmalani! The Indian cricket team cruise to a 123 run win over the Proteus claiming our first win in South Africa... I didn't really care, watching Sreesanth dancing after hitting Nel for a six was worth my time. And the dada is back, silencing his critics with a gritty half century. Of course as one bong rises, another must fall, so we bid adieu to Jagmohan Dalmia. Of course, things haven't been so peachy for the Indian Hockey Team failing miserably at the Asian Games in Doha this year, looks like Gagan Ajeet Singh's two cell phone strategy wasn't so bright after all. By the way, anyone seen the video of "One Love" from the movie "Rakht" with Little B and Bips, good god, I don't know what to make of it - "...for the mother's pride"?. Brilliant like Guinness!

Oh, for the non-believers (read: Jae and Pragyan), the Kolkata Tornadoes were kicking ass in the IFA Shield till they were beaten by some second rate Chinese Club called Shenzen in a freak match... well sometimes the best can falter. The Deep Purple performance in Bangalore was great, but these guys look so old, none of that old spark that rock bands of the 70s had. I was afraid someone was going to have a heart attack on stage. These guys looked so fragile.

And the Buddhist chanting fad, wonder how long that will last? Yoga shoga, even pilates was fine, but Buddhist chanting, really? We only pick that up once the west has huh, just like everything else. Seriously, it's high-time we got over our inferiority complex and our post-colonial hangover.

This evening I went shopping in my local market. Apparently the police is going to demolish the entire joint and is moving everyone to a newly made concrete fish market. While I understand that this is probably a good thing in terms of hygiene and all those things we care about, I'm really going to miss tip-toeing my way through the various vendors, dodging the odd cart and coolie carrying a jhori of chicken. Who knows, in a few years this is probably going to be replaced by a Wal-Mart and Tesco - they've already started making cracks in the Indian grocery market scene. Woe the day when even in Kolkata, full blooded bongs will have to buy packaged fish. Heresy I say.

And then there was the trip to Amsterdam. The Last Samurai and other friends with Nepal and bright Northern Lights. For those who want to know, Absinth tastes like Pastis, not cool at all. Before I leave, I have to recount a rather interesting story. Another little adventure that took place on the eve of my departure from London.

A couple of nights before I left for Kolkata, I went to watch "The Woman in Black" with Elena. The play was excellent, although there were a bunch of school girls in the theater screaming at random moments... bimbos. Anyway, after the play I went to Elena's place and chilled over some wine and cheese. By the time I left it was rather late and the tube was no longer running. I asked Elena for directions and tried to navigate my way back to my part of town but got hopelessly lost. I asked a rickshaw-walla for directions but he just pointed me in the wrong direction... diplodocus. For a while I was worried, then I said, oh fuck it and just walked around...

So I was wandering about the streets of north London (Grover St. et al) when I met this really drunk girl at a bus station who claimed she knew the way to Kingsway and since she was in a good mood, she would show me the way. At first I insisted she just show me the way but she would not be swayed, so we went walking, singing (nah we didn't sing) and enjoying the night air although I was aware I'm supposed to talk to strangers. I wasn't even sure we were walking in the right direction. I don't think she knew which direction we were walking in at all.

Suddenly she says that she needs to pee. At my wits end I say ok there's a phone booth, use that I'll keep watch. She does that but then as she walks out of the booth she passes out. Now I don't know her name or where she lives. I only gather she's from UCL from her chic hat. so I try to slap her awake. Hey, wakey, wakey. A brown guy slapping a white woman in the middle of the night in a deserted street...something's gotta give.

Along comes a cop car. I shuddered. It was "thank you god" moment along with "I hope they don't shoot me" kind. Lucky for me they understood what was going on. Apparently there are a lot of drunk students scattered about London on a given Thursday night. They checked her creds and mine and gave us both a ride to our respective dorms. An interesting turn of events. A normal 40 minute walk turned into a 3 hour odyssey. I ended up reaching home at 4:30 or thereabouts.

Hope this keeps you all occupied for a while.

My Old School Prayer

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up by narrow walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way in the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.


Rabindranath Tagore.
(For some reason this has been making rounds on the internet with the wrong words...)

The World’s Worst Job

Playing an unnamed goon in a John Woo Hong Kong action flick has to be the worst job in the world. You have to wear a suit to work, the pay is terrible, no health benefits, and no pension plan - otherwise, I Bankers would be running to John Woo for a job, those blood suckers will do anything for a quick buck (and a chance to wear a suit). And things are not made any easier when Chow Yun-Fat never has to reload his gun and can use a 12 guage shotgun with surgical precision. I guess the only upside is that laundry costs are not too high since goons die off one shot to any part of the body.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if Rajnikanth, Chuck Norris, and Chow Yun-Fat faced off – end of the world? Do goons have nightmares about these people? Do they check for Van Damme under the bed when they go to bed at night? Questions such as these have kept me up since I watched The Killer, Hard Boiled, God of Gamblers, and the A Better Tomorrow trilogies.

Moreover, how does one become a goon? Do you just walk into a Triad office and hand in your resume? Do you need job experience or a degree from MSG [1]? After all for most of these goons, it looks like this is the first time they have held a gun/driven a motorbike/car/helicopter/tricycle/auto etc. Seriously, I cannot think of anything worse than being a goon in a John Woo movie, except for maybe lawyers (no offence Nisha).

[1] MSG: Ming School of Goons, Hong Kong – the main bad guys usually graduates of this place.

Sweet?

It is funny how people in London are used to spending two thirds of their day in super-congested compartments that they called ‘The Tube’. Cases of people falling ill during their ride on the train are not rare in existence. Some common explanations are the lack of ventilation and/or the person being sick before entering the train. Data and almost every single passenger would choose the former. After a long day of learning about countries from all around the globe at the World Travel Market organized in ExCel London (eastern end of London), I was heading back taking the usual, the Tube. Tiredness was what I could see in other passengers’ faces. All of them looked dead. The only means of entertainment were the sight of people making futile attempts to stay awake and the banging of the heads on the side glass by the seats. My journey was supposed to last for approximately 2 hours. Peak hour exacerbated this journey of mine by allowing a dozen 6.5 feet tall guys in the already full compartment in which I was struggling for some fresh oxygen. I was pushed to the side and could barely move. Few more people got on at the next station, among which there were two girls (17/18 yrs, normal looking, probably college girls). One of them was pushed to the pole I was hanging on to. After about a couple of minutes, I realized that her body was pressing against my hand. I felt awkward but couldn’t do much due to congestion. She was also holding on to the same pole. Soon after that, I felt someone trying to play with my fingers. It was her. I felt very uneasy and quickly withdrew my hand into my pocket. I was confused about how I should react. She then looked at me, smiled and then ended it with a polite ‘sorry’. No reaction from me again. The only thing that came into my mind was ‘Wow! That was unexpected’. Then things went back to the way it was supposed to be in a train chamber. I got lost thinking about nothing, looking outside the window. Slowly, the share of oxygen per passenger in each chamber started going up, after halts at several stations. More and more people started getting off the train. I was still standing by the door. Then it reached the station before the one I was supposed to get off at. The doors opened. Suddenly, I felt something warm on my chest. I quickly came back to senses to realize that it was somebody’s hand. It was the same girl. She looked at me, gave the same smile, said, ‘You are too sweet!’ and walked out. No reaction from me this time as well. To make the matter a little bit more interesting, I had my cousin sister sitting not very far away from me on the train witness the whole scene and later interrogate me about my intentions and thoughts. Again, no reaction from me.

I guess interesting things can happen in some of the most boring places as well.

If you were me, tell me how you would have reacted.

My Motto

White Socks

I hate it when trains are late. It is universal. All over the world, trains are always late. I do not like trains, but I like train stations. There is something surreal about train stations – a microcosm of modern society if you will. I enjoy sitting on a platform bench observing the world go past, entranced by the multitude of cacophonous sounds that echo around the high ceilings. Yes, I like train stations; trains are a different matter altogether.

The train I was on was scheduled to leave Napoli half an hour ago but it was still gleefully idling at the station like a fat boy in a Mark Twain novel. I was not pleased. I was stuck in a small compartment with Hann for company and the air conditioner was not running. I tried to make small talk with Hann but he seemed engrossed in the colorful complimentary magazines in the seat pocket. I don’t know what he was reading – it was in Italian, and neither of us spoke the language. I looked outside the graffiti stained window to wile my time and a glum silence filled the compartment…

Leaning my head against the wall, I was about to fall asleep when the sliding compartment door was violently pushed apart and a dirty little man with a large mustache and a navy blue knapsack walked in. He looked at us with leery eyes and snorted, and with a magical sleight of hand produced two packets and tossed one to each one of us. I caught the packet on my lap. It was a set of white socks. Bewildered, I looked up and caught Hann’s equally confused eyes looking at me. People usually don’t hand out sets of white socks.

“Socks.” The man said as if he had answered the question to life, universe, and everything else. We looked up at him.

He scratched his rough chin and sighed. “Ummm… twenty Euros.”

I look at Hann and he's busy inspecting the goods. I look down at my packet, not sure what to do, so I look at the stubby Italian expecting some sort of an explanation...

"For you only twenty Euros..."

I look at Hann. His ears were turning red. Suddenly Hann throws the packet of socks at the Italian and with a Fonz expression says, "Aieaaa, these are made in China man, my family probably made them, and you're trying to sell it to me?..."

The stubby Italian snatched the packet out of my hand and walked out with a solemn face. Once again the compartment lapsed into silence. I resumed my vigil on the platform, waiting to get to Rome.

Half Step Down

I just finished watching The Departed and I'm very disappointed. Leonardo DiCaprio was actually pretty good here but otherwise, the movie was lacking without even comparing it to Infernal Affairs, the original Hong Kong movie which is the basis for The Departed. There were plot holes left and right and Jack Nicholson and Matt Damon's characters were too one-dimensional. Not to mention some of the unncessary gore and sex. Do all American movies have to include such crap all the damn time? It didn't add anything to the freakin plot.

And don't even get me started on the ending. Ridiculous. I will not ruin the movie for those who haven't seen it and want to. Instead, I will rant more (with spoilers) in my own blog at some point. I haven't written there in forever.

Overall, I'm just sad that a lot of people will have no idea that The Departed is a remake. And even if they do, they will write off Infernal Affairs because it doesn't have a "happy" ending like The Departed and almost every other American movie even though it is such a better movie.

Procrastinate... just do it!

procrastinate...just do it!!!

Pictures of Scaffolding

I feel a faithless lover returning to my faithless love. It has been a long time since I've written anything on this blog. This sphere is slowly turning into a shallow grave. It appears that the spunk driving the intense blogging in its early stages have now given way to sporadic notes like these. Honestly though, can you really blame me?

Initially I was quite gung-ho about recording my Odyssey through Europe in these pages, but now I'm not so sure. But I'll start anyway and see how far it goes...

My journey seemed to be star-crossed from the beginning, what with Pragyan breaking his leg a few weeks before our plans finalised and my failure to obtain a British visa early enough to drop my bags off in London. Plus there was the theft of my wallet in NYC (I have a feeling the pickpocket responsible was a graduate of LSP...). Not to mention that I was now going to be travelling on my own... I was a little apprehensive.

However, one morning I called Hann, a recent Hamilton grad and asked, "Hey, I'm going to Europe, want to tag along?" Fortunately, and rather surprisingly Hann said, "yeah, sure why not." The rest they say is history, but I shall spell it out for you anyway...

This series is going to be broken into 21 parts, one for each city, I think.

Welcome to the Jungle!

So, it’s been 10 days in London and I can already see what my next 10 months are going to be like. As soon as I entered London (this is my first time, not counting the 24 hours I spent during the Red Alert season), the first impression I had of the place was ‘Man, this place is a killer…it is just too expensive’. Looking at the price tags, Maity and I cherish those days when we said ‘Man, New York is a killer…it is just too expensive’. Of course, we come from a place where we can have one of the best and filling meals for less than a dollar. The world runs on money. Maity and I have so much time now that we get into grave discussions wherever we sit. Our last lunch at an LSE restaurant had money as the big topic. The conclusion was obvious – money is great. Sometimes, I think about and laugh at how I used to react when I had to use the subway in NYC. ‘2 dollars???’ Hah, we now pay 3 full pounds for a ride.

The dorm we live in and Dunham at Hamilton must have had the same architect…coz they resemble each other perfectly – those long hallways with identical doors on both sides that make you go cuckoo every time you come in. Even the residents seem to behave in the same way. I hardly see anybody on the hallway whenever I go out of my room. The only difference between the two buildings is that this one is much bigger. It can accommodate up to 650 students.

This dorm is situated in the heart of the financial district of London. The very first time I walked out of the building I realized that it is not a good news for us at all. Every little thing is twice as expensive as what it costs in other parts of London. On top of that, there isn’t a single proper restaurant or even a convenience store nearby. Our last trip to a grocery store took 40 min of walking. Worse for me because I have been in bed for three full months and my foot is still not ready. I am not even in a state to walk for 15 straight minutes. The 25 min walk to LSE everyday is already a torture for me.

Nevertheless, London is a beautiful city and very diverse (less Latinos and more Indians and East Asians). Met Jin and Cindy yesterday and they seem to enjoy the calm sub-urban life of London with occasional visits to Central London. Neither Maity nor I know where the hell Priya is. We have seen her twice until now, and that’s it. Whenever I message her when she comes online, she says ‘be right back in 10 or 15’ and she disappears totally after that. All of them seem to be in a chilled-out mood in their own ways. I guess, so are we. I hope it will be the same until we leave this place.

Is It Any Wonder

So it seems we are facing a dip in posts for now. Maity is too busy enjoying his trip in Europe while Pragyan is too busy procrastinating or playing video games. I shouldn't talk, though, because I've been busy working/procrastinating as well. More importantly, I have no idea what to write. I'm in a funk, a dry spell and I can't get out of it. I cannot seem to write well for my classes either, which is never good. I'm like a superhero without any powers. My powers of writing and bullshitting are gone...whatever shall I do?

Any suggestions of what I should/could write about will be appreciated.

For now, I'll just leave you with a few random thoughts:

1. Snakes on a Plane didn't exactly match up to the hype. Figures. Too much expectation only results in disappointment.

2. The freshmen here are worse every year. Get off your damn high horses. You're freshmen, the bottom of the damn food chain. Deal with it. And if you hate it here, ok, that's fine, join the club. I was there. Hell, a shitload of us were. It may or may not get better but in the meantime, suck it up and shut the fuck up.

3. Facebook is going down the drain right now. If it really does open to all, I will consider closing my account. Seriously.

4. Grey's Anatomy premiere this coming Thursday. Who's excited?? I sure am. (I'm a loser, I know.)