My friend baba says they go wherever there is public interest. They did it with WW-1, WW-2, Nam 1962/68, 9/11, now Iraq, Afpak is left. Anyways, I wanted to share final results about the Oscars, 2010. There were many first’s this time. War movie “The Hurt Locker” stole the thunder on Sunday by winning six of the film honours which includes the best movie and director. Kathryn Bigelow the director of “The Hurt” happens to be the first woman to win. Icing on the cake? The film also took credits for the best original screenplay, film editing, sound editing and mixing. It was all in the family, ex-family whatever you mean it. Ms Bigelow was at logger head with her ex-husband, James Cameron, whose Avatar was a hot favourite, before the final announcements at the Kodak theatre, LA.

Sandra Bullock gets an Oscar in the best actress category in a lead role for The Blind Side, she plays a motivational lady.

Jeff Bridges is the Best Actor of the world, he wins the Oscar in a leading role for “Crazy Heart”, Jeff plays a laidback country singer, whose life changes somehow after meeting someone.

Actor Christoph Waltz who plays a Nazi officer in Quentin Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds took home the best supporting actor.

African American actress Mo’Nique bagged the best supporting actress for role as an abusive mother for “Precious” based on novel Push, at the 82nd annual Academy Awards, Los Angeles.

Geoffrey Fletcher wins the Best Screenwriter award for film “Precious”

Balloon adventure “Up” of Disney Pixar won the best animated feature.

The Best Original Song for ‘Crazy Heart’ went to Ryan Birgham and T Bone Burnett

Logorama won the Best Short film.

Director Gregg Helvey’s short film “Kavi” lost to the New Tenant in the category of live action short.

Prudence music won the documentary short subject award.

The best make up Oscar award went to Star Trek.

The best costume award was bagged by Sandy Powell for “The Young Victoria”

Avatar finally for its due for outstanding art direction and Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg won the award for Outstanding Art Direction for “Avatar” and  Mauro Fiore won Best Cinematography Award. The sci-fi alien masala also won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, very true. I always felt Avatar was one of the 1980’s Dharmendra pot boiler, it had everything action, romance, comedy, drama.  Anyways, let us proceed. Micheal Giacchino won the Best Original Score Award for balloon adventure “Up” and the “Cove” won the Oscars in the Best Documentary Feature section.  The best foreign film went to Argentinean film “The Secret in their eyes” The movie is on a retired prosecutor.

” I dont know why I love her like I do
All the changes you put me through
Take my money, my cigarettes
I havent seen the worst of it yet
I wanna know that youll tell me
I love to stay” *

Kickstart lungs is the name of the condition you develop when a single hunk of two stroke machinery wont start. Life comes telescoping down the funnel spigot of fate’s drain and you are more than overwhelmed by the end. Buried, snowed under the absence of further possibilities. If it happens to you in a delhi summer, you get wet with sweat and your breath imitates a pair of leaky cloth bellows. Malviya nagar girls, mostly fair - the ones with heels on their chappals are distinctly uncool while the ones in flat chappals are mod. Things you can’t notice then but remember later.

Beer cans in my bag, the girl at the end of the road waiting. Market boys offer to push while making suggestions that i slug a beer there itself to replenish loss of body fluids - dosent get too far. Call the Coyote who tells me to tilt and kick. This after an hours attempts have run me argound like a beached whale. Thinking things like, ‘ah, milady will take care of the shambles the bike has made me, I get on and ride the thing (Stranger, they call it!)finally; hoping the breeze will dry my shirt out.

“I dont know why you treat me so bad
Think of all the things we could have had
Love is an ocean that I cant forget
My sweet sixteen I would never regret” *

Get from station to station like, to find milady engrossed in a movie. For some (obvious to yez-riders!!!) reason i don’t bother to ask which one it was. Hang around and face the cold wave moving from her face glued to the monitor towards me. I take it into the kitchen and get the beers and act like the leftover vegetables from yesterday’s weekly market.

“I dont know why I love you like I do
All the troubles you put me through
Sixteen candles there on my wall
And here am I the biggest fool of them all” *

After setting the poor girl up, can any man affect a cool and suave attitude when on the way the yezdi took an hour to start? I give up and offer this lil bit of advise:

Avoid dates when yr bike wouldn’t start along the way.
Maybe it’s the hand of fate, maybe it’s your clutch plates, in any case its a loosing fight that all of us who know what it feels like smile at the memories of the pain and understand that to own a y-bike is to take on a personal cross that you bear much to the cynosure of all around but the vital connection with the bike. I swear, its a rare yezdi owner who will leave the bike behind and continue.

“I wanna know that youll tell me
I love to stay
Take me to the river and drop me in the water
Dip me in the river, drop me in the water
Washing me down, washing me down.” *

After the long fight trying to start the bike, you get like Hemmingway’s Old Man and the Sea and you no longer want to leave behind what nearly killed you because even this has become part of you and your lifestory and regardless of the ugly bits of the experience, what ever it is- it is yours. It’s like a connection or a bond with something - anything, which takes you to the limits of yourself or depths and stays with you through it all. Can’t explain it too much, it all sounds ‘fishy.’ In case of Yezdis, I just call it the Union Mechanica. A mystical union between man and machine.

Peace and twin-pipe rule,
- arunesh
* Take me to the River (song lyrics) - Talking Heads (which i am fixiated by because adrian bellew plays this excrutiating solo in the studio version which reminds me of the sound made by a running seizure the yezdi happens)

This article first printed at http://yezdidiaries.blogspot.com/2008/06/kickstart-lungs-is-name-of-condition.html

Test Cricket

Let’s travel back to the glorious 1970s. Joel Garner, one-fourth of the fearsome West Indian pace battery is hurling the ‘cherry’ in full throttle to the Little Master, Sunil Gavaskar, on a deadly Barbados pitch. The result - Sunny went backfoot, and hit an impeccable cover drive for a boundary. The shot was met with a vociferous applause from the Barbados spectators and the West Indian players alike. Can we see this kind of behaviors in the shortest form of the game today? The answer is a resounding ‘no’. Test cricket was, is and will remain the pinnacle of cricket. It brings out the real character of the player. Old timers still say test cricket is what separates the men from the boys.

Test cricket is all about technique, skill and uncertainties, which sadly 20-20 cannot emulate. While much as been written about 20-20 cricket as the ‘new kid on the block’, the truth is far from what is being projected. Sure 20-20 is glamorous; more action packed than a Bruce Lee or a Tarantino flick, and is loaded with more cash and bling you can ever imagine. But does it have the soul, the essence of the longest version of the game? No, 20-20 is what I call the Bollywoodization of cricket with less of cricket and more of SRK or Mrs. Shetty.

Hashmi with Cheerleaders in T-20 Cricket

Personally speaking, I still prefer test match cricket. Think of the Ashes, or the India-Australia series, or the India-South Africa series, or the Basil D’ Olivera trophy. Can 20-20 come anywhere closer to the excitement generated by test cricket? Never in a million years. While test cricket is about tradition and grace, 20-20 is all ‘wham bam, thank you maam’. The IPL for one is destroying cricket in multiple ways and we see no end to this madness. Modi and his band of robbers are doing what they do best - destroying cricket and making millions. The auction for players in the IPL resembles the auction for slaves in the Roman Empire. And it isn’t just the auction! The cheerleaders, inept commentary and ‘expert opinions’ will make a true cricket lover switch off the TV in disgust. Move over soaps - the IPL is here and will give you a run for your money in disgustingly low standards (or lack thereof!) of television programming.

Where will you come across “DLF Maximums” for an over-boundary or Lalit Modi’s images every 30 secs? Nowhere! Yes, the IPL has changed cricket, its dynamics, but for the worst. True connoisseurs of cricket still consider test cricket to the ultimate form of the game. The IPL will continue to make millions and who knows we will have new teams like Meerut Marauders or Darjeeling Dynamos or Kochi Killers, all competing for ineptness and meaningless matches. Look what 20-20 has done to players like Binga, Freddie, or Bondie. They have retired from test cricket to ‘prolong’ their careers on other ‘versions’ of the game.

Long live test cricket. May the legacies of Bradman, Hobbs, or Hutton rule over the mediocre 20-20 ‘thought leaders’. After all, a Mozart symphony is always superior to a ghetto hip-hop number.

The pearly rays of the sun played on my eye lids and woke me up to a fine morning. It took only few steps towards the window pane to see and feel the difference. The air smelled earthy and the dry and drooping plants were now boasting of their new found youth. It was coming of the age; but yes in the reverse order.

Adjoining the plants were their new neighbors, slick, curly, twirling bougainvillea and spring weeds. They almost looked up to the tall trees, wishing to grow as tall someday. They gyrated with the smooth wind, letting their leafs dance to its tune;  like Cinderella with her prince charming.

The beetles with their polka dresses had come out too. The preying mantis had stopped praying as God had answered their adjuration. There was plenty around to have and see.

I could see from a far the Bee-Queen summoning her army of lecherous male bees, who were willing to die to have their chance. She was making the plans for their new hive. I could almost hear her say, ‘Sparta! Today we dine in our hive’. The eave dropping dropped only when I heard their spy swarming over me, keeping a watch on my gleaning eyes. I smiled anxiously and got the point. There was no need to fight with my stingy ‘la surveillante’. And while, the wind took the bee away, my eyes were booked by the over all verdure. It was green and beautiful all around.

Hammad

The sunshine doesn’t bother you on spring mornings. It pampers you. As flowers begin to blossom, so does your mood. As you walk on the lively grass, the surroundings become kaleidoscopic. Undoubtedly, mornings of this season breathe vibrancy.

Ankit

Can you hear the little sapling nudging its tiny head out of the ground to get the first glimpse of the season changing? The enchantment of spring inundates my senses with new life, with the new hope of new beginnings. The freshly minted sunshine thaws out the edges of despair and I am once again ensnared in the gossamer web of life.

Romila

Welcome Spring to my window sill,
To brighten my greens with colorful preens,
Don’t you know you are awaited?
For my greens long to smile, bloom and dance in the wind!
Early morning, I open my windows to beautiful vistas of open green meadows: fresh, dewy, gentle and soothing. Interspersed by colorful beds of tulips and roses, red, white, pink, yellow…, it is truly a sight to cherish! I venture out into this captivating beauty to touch the blooms, feel the breeze, watch the fluttering butterflies, listen to the humming birds, and treasure and capture this moment forever in my mind’s eye!

Raji

I step out of my house and take a deep breath. It is a fine spring morning, with flowers abloom, the sun bright and the fresh smell of jasmine. Rays of sunlight shimmer through the dew drops that slide down the blades of the lush green grass.

Priya

The colour is green and the English say it’s Autumn..
They say the king of seasons; I say it’s close to my heart.
They say harvest, I say, transition, change and freshness.
The birds are flitting and the flowers show off
The morning dew over the fresh new leaves has to give me a new found high.
Is it freezing there? No baby, it’s the Spring outside.

Palash

Spring Morning: Arise and Awaken Your Emotions
The advent of spring brings with it profuse colors and arouses a myriad of emotion.
Spring mornings, joyful and pleasant, are filled with hustle-bustle and commotion.
From the able-bodied young to the young-at-heart elderly, everyone wants to immerse themselves in the splendor of spring.
Be it meditating in the balcony or strolling in the park, spring is no wonder called the season of blooming.

Vidya

Spring Morning
A warm, yellow radiance gushes into the room and embraces every object within its reach as soon as the curtains are drawn. Twittering vibrance fills the ears and multi-colored blossoms greet the eyes. The earth has cast away its morose wintry blanket and welcomed the season of revival and happiness with open arms. The sense of luxury and plenitude in the air fills every heart….

Debolena

Spring Morning Greenery

Find me

Who I am?

Hint: I am Someone

Ans: Ofcourse, I am a living being and am someone but who?

Hint: I love beaches and a widely travelled person.

Ans: Okay, what else?

Hint: Mmm, I was conferred with a BIG award recently..

Ans: Okay, so? Every get’s that these days, the world is populated by awards now? What else go ahead..

Last Hint: I am not what I am..

Ans: Hmm, that’s interesting, does that mean you look old now?? or you do not do what you do?

Readers? Guess and Shoot…

President of the Federal Republic of Germany

Visit of the President of the Federal Republic of Germany to India

The President of the Federal Republic of Germany Horst Köhler arrives in India on 1st February for a six-day state visit and he covers three cities. The President will meet with top political leaders, hold discussions on the global financial crisis with the RBI Governor and meet also key industry representatives as well as Indian intellectuals.

The key objective of President Köhler’s visit is to open up new avenues for Germany and India to work together in developing a 21st-century world policy based on mutual cooperation. It is his first official visit to India that underlines the increasing importance of the strategic partnership between Germany and India. It is expected to further strengthen bilateral ties, including the forthcoming ‘Year of Germany in India 2011 – 2012’, which will showcase areas of mutual interest.

President Kohler will be in Delhi from 1st – 4th February.  President Köhler will then travel to India’s automobile hub Pune to tour the new Volkswagen plant in Chakan and the Indian environment and energy company Thermax. President Köhler concludes his India tour with a site visit to a watershed management project implemented under Indo-German development cooperation at Darewadi, Maharashtra.

‘India Visit

A brief about Mr. Horst Köhler who was elected as the ninth President of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2004. In 2008, he was re-elected for another four-year term. Earlier, from 2000 – 2004, he was Managing Director and Chairman of the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund.

I will carry out his visit and other info from this platform.

Glücklicher Aufenthalt – It means we wish you a happy stay.

Content source: German News, special thanks to Mr. Jens Urban

Here is a tribute to the most daring American ever : http://bit.ly/mlk-jr-day

on his 81st birthday

pyare baba nyare baba
features ke kashi, visuals ke kaaba

pacey baba desi baba
resto-bar bhi tum ho dhaba

sabse bada tum knowledge bank
paani of every think tank

kitne tode tumne laws
content team ke santa claus

chaahe lab par baat rahe ki
tum ko samajh na paate hum
par itna tum bhi samjho ki
PR na tumse karte kam

aaju baaju kishmish kaaju
badam akhrot ho ya pista
koi nahi hai team mein jisse
tumne na ho joda rishta

zindagi ki ye yezdi
phurr se daude, yahi hai dua
keep kicking the fire baba
jahan hai charms, waheen hai dhuaan

Cheers, we are entering in the last year of the 21st century, after today. I wish you a happy new century. A phone call from my residence made me think a little about this celebration. For your information (people who do not know) there is a lunar eclipse on the 31st December 2009. The earth will cast its shadow on the moon tonight prime–time (9:30 to 1 AM). Most of the Delhi clubs, restaurants and discotheques will be full and hic, spirits will be high.

But a word of caution comes from my mother, “son, during a lunar eclipse people should not eat anything.” I said, “What do I do now?” She says, “try and have your dinner before 9:30 and celebrate (if you want tomorrow).” There is no sound on the other side of the phone, Ma hung up. Our astronomers today can predict when such an event will occur, I read it’s 2018. This magnificent clockwork of the heavenly bodies have displayed signs of grandiose time to time, at the same time encouraged conservatism and superstitions throughout the globe.

Let me tell you some popular beliefs associated with lunar eclipses. Apart from the most common belief which is terrible that protracts that an eclipse of the sun or moon is associated with destruction and the end of the world. The world would have destroyed a million times by now, if that belief was true. There are some more….

• Pregnant woman should be careful and not touch her belly.
• Ancient Chinese call the eclipse as lunar yueshi (lunæ devoratio) and ascribe that to the plotting of a dragon. The Chinese believed that the dragon was eating the Moon. To scare away the dragon they will shoot cannons.
• The people of India still hide inside during the eclipses, because they believe the moon allows bad rays to hit earth.
• People in India break and bang pots and lot of other noises to keep evil forces at bay. The evil forces are taking away the moon, they believe.
• Some noises are still being made by various instruments in Persia and some parts of China.
• Some Americans believe that the sun and the moon are tired.
• The Indian credence is that a snake eats the sun and moon when they’re eclipsed.
• Eskimos will turn their utensils over to avoid them being contaminated.
• Some Hindus believes that a demon devours these heavenly bodies.
• Babylonians somehow believed that the Moon being hidden was a bad omen and some place in the world is doomed for sure.
• One of the extracts of bible says that when a moon turns red Apocalypse or catastrophe will come. (Genesis 1:14-19 DAY 4)

Cant say about mama, but I look forward to see this once-in-a-blue-moon event tonight. Join me if you want to be a part this awe-inspiring and wonderful heavenly enigma which we are about to witness. Happy new year, friends, see you next year.

Keep me rolling

Rolling on down them hills

Just keep me rolling

I’ve had my share of thrills

I don’t care who you are

Just go ahead or stay away

We don’t race strangers

I don’t care what you say

So go ahead and stare

Me and my bike, we’re outta time,

Moving memories in her engine.

Takes more than your motoring maturity

To understand that previous line

Meanwhile here’s a smile

Obviously you recognize the bike

Maybe your daddy had one

I simply earned mine

It didn’t stop me

Becoming a collector

Of a specific time

Average age increasing

Especially those of my kind

Well kid, I stick my chest out

In pride but all I can see

Is you sticking out your behind

Take it away; take it away

That’s all I can say.

Let’s meet in another five years

And count your parts that rot away

New things are hardly built to last

Unless you know the questions to ask

Another Yezdi will always come my way

But I’d keep just one and buy a Jawa any day

Look! I gotta admit it

I’ve got decades of my life

Now behind this handlebar

My pillion even became my wife

Still everyone wants me to buy a car

Here we go again, staring ahead

Through dust, traffic and rain

I will always defend what I love

Life is Gods maintenance bill

For the heart’s an engine we cannot kill

If you love your bike, it’ll last

Don’t forget; headlights and brakes don’t last

Not my will but Yezdi’s be done

Now excuse me, I gotta run.

— Arunesh