A blunder happened in recognizing and appreciating stalwarts and it happened by whom? No one knows.  Padma Shri is the fourth highest civilian award presented by the Government of India to recognize citizens in the field of Arts, education, Industry, Literature, science, sports and social life.

Frankly I have never kept a close watch on this year’s Padma Shri awards. what surprised me was the the list of people but from the news stories doing the rounds on the web, just came to know that a certain Hashmat Ullah Khan was never nominated for this prestigious award. He is a no one from the Arts except that he is a business person.

I have two questions here. Once, How did this goof up happened? Second, it should be the responsibility of the media to check back and ask questions on the veracity of such a thing. I leave the state and central government officers who recommended an award like this without even verifying credentials of people being honored for a while.

Not undermining Akshay Kumar, Helen and Aishwarya Rai contribution to Indian cinema but do they really deserve recognition of such stature? We just forgot that we performed well in the Olympics held last year and brought laurels in boxing and wrestling category. Don’t they deserve their pending dues?

Muntazer al-Zaidi is planning to seek asylum in the cooler pastures of Switzerland now. Well he can live in peace now and can even manage a better paying job at the UN. Zaidi who? I am very sure you guys have forgotten his name. But hey do you remember a guy who hurled  a ’size 10′ shoe at the outgoing American president George W Bush? Now you remembered. “Once settled in Geneva, the bachelor without children could “very well work as a journalist at the United Nations which has its European headquarters here”, said Mauro Poggia this young man’s lawyer.

That’s one story Mr Bush would not like to remember out of many which he did out of intention. The news is that Mr George W Bush is leaving Washington DC and perhaps plans to spend more time in Texas tomorrow onwards. By the time you start reading this piece, another historic kindly read expensive moment would be grabbing world attention on January 20^th. Barrack H Obama’s swearing in ceremony will grab eyeballs, TV crew, and many miles of print will be dedicated to this already iconic politician, like never before. R Issac Robert cautiously points,”the sad part is that he is yet to do something. Apart from laudable speeches what has he given till date?” Okay, I should come in those details a little later in this article. Firstly I would like to congratulate America’s first coloured president, for whom expectation of a better future for American becomes a huge promise to be kept.

Mr Obama is perhaps being labeled as a brand. The Obama industry has quite a good number of buyers and it sells well, till now, if I am not wrong. A brand, constituting T-shirt, mugs, commemorative coins to hand towels, and from bobbing-head dolls to glossy books, posters, sticker, railway engines, educational institutions and what’s more streets and cities as well. Yes you read it right, cities and streets, followed by junior schools. Delmar Boulevard criss crosses between the most racially divided pockets of St Louis, Missouri and some elderly men are planning to rename, which will, most probably not succeed. But, a long Island elementary school in Hampstead, NY recently changed its name from Ludlum to Barack Obama after their students raised a campaign, another school in Portland, Oregon is still thinking of doing so. The black Perry County, Alabama, went a step forward by declaring every second Monday of November as Barack Obama Day and a government holiday that day.

Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th president of the USA today which is likely to attract much more than 1.5 million people to Capitol Hill, only after Lyndon Johnson in 1965. Amidst a steep downturn in what can be said ‘The Great Depression of ‘32’ revisited in ‘08, Obama and his team should be spending close to $150 Million in celebrations. Undoubtedly the most costly carnival till date. He has his reasons to celebrate, let me break down his list to make it easy.

Can I assemble them in number? Let me please!

• One ton each of chocolate and cheese.
• One ton each of chocolate and cheese.
• About 1,500 cases of beer.
• Eight hundred pounds (363 kilograms) of bison.
• $40 million an estimated cost of the inaugural parade, balls, opening ceremonies, giant television screens on National Mall and other expenses for the Presidential Inaugural Committee.
• 432, total Presidential Inaugural Committee staff members.
• 240,000 free tickets have been distributed so far for the swearing-in ceremony.
• 58, law-enforcement and other agencies working on security.
• 8,000, District of Columbia police officers on duty
• 1,000, US Park Police officers on duty
• 550, Metro transit police on duty
• 10,000, National Guardsmen
• 20,000, passenger’s expected to take a ride today
• 2 million, inauguration subway maps Metro are already printed
• 10,000, charter buses expected to descend Washington DC
• 600, hotel rooms left in Washington.
• 90,000, unique internet hits that Destination D.C., the city’s tourism bureau, has received on its inauguration Web site.
• 13,000, military and civilian participants in the inaugural parade, including marching bands.
• 112, light bulbs replaced in lampposts on Pennsylvania Avenue parade route.
• 10, large screens broadcasting swearing-in on the National Mall.
• 1,000, vendors so far who have received licensed spots to sell wares around parade route and city streets.
• 15,000 to 18,000, volunteers helping Presidential Inaugural Committee around the city.
• 4,100, minimum number of portable toilets available to the public.
• 10, official inaugural balls.
• 12,000, eggs that chefs at the Willard InterContinental Hotel will use for meals from Jan. 17 through the inauguration.
• 10,000, square footage (930 square meters) of the swearing-in stage.
• 6, number of bicycle rickshaws D.C. Pedicab plans to operate.
• 5000 portable toilets
• What’s more, performers from LA are descending for this gala celebration, to name a few Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Garth Brooks, Bruce Springsteen, Bono, Cheryl Crow, Shakira, Stevie Wonder and Renee Fleming.

I would like to end this piece with Mr. George W Bush’s quote

“Most imports are from outside of the country”.

Thank You!

“All a gun does is focus an explosion in one direction. You have a class of young strong men and women and they want to give their lives to something. Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don’t need. Generations have been working in Jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they really don’t need.”

“We don’t have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression.’

Above is an excerpt from a novel I recently finished reading, ‘Fight Club’ by Chuck Palahniuk. I knew about the movie that was based on the book, starring Brad Pit and Edward Nortan, however I had not thought about reading it until a friend highly recommended it. It was in my ‘To read’ list for a long time, I guess almost two years, but It was not available in stores, finally found it in Reliance books and music store in Ambiance mall, Gurgaon.

On a side note – I always wonder how they estimate selling price of books? ‘Fight club’ a small novel around 270 pages is priced at Rs. 450. On the other hand J.K. Rowlings latest book ‘Tales of Beedle the Bard’ is merely a 100 page book is also priced at Rs. 495. Some big novels like Shantaram, Atlas shrugged and all are almost 1000 pagers and are available for Rs 300-400. Movie tickets are always priced same, regardless of who is starring in it, what the budget of the movie is etc, why are books priced differently? It is definitely not based on effort like we do in software, otherwise bigger books would  be priced more than smaller ones. It will be intresting to know, how they decide that this particular Novel will be sold at a certain price, Rs 495 to be precise, not 500, not 480 but Rs 495?

Coming back to Fight club - The protagonist in this books is anonymous. He hates his job, his life and has a severe case of insomnia. His doctor suggests that his insomnia problem is not a big deal and there could be worse things in life than insomnia, to prove this point his doctor advises the protagonist to attend a support group of people suffering with testicular cancer. He soon becomes addicted to attending such support groups of people who have terminal illness. In one such support group he meets another faker (not dying of any ailment and attends these groups for amusement) like himself, a woman by the name of Marla Singer.

Other than the protagonist and Marla the third and most important character in the novel is Tyler Durden. Shortly after meeting Marla, while vacationing on the Beach he meets Tyler Durden. He soon gets influenced by Tyler and his philosophy which is anti consumerism, anti establishment can be explained in his own words..

“Tyler says - Getting God’s attention for being bad was better than getting no attention at all.
Maybe because God’s hate is better than His indifference.
If you could be either God’s worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose?”

At one other instance he says

“We are the middle children of history, raised by television to believe that some day we will be millionaires and movie stars and rock stars, but we won’t. And we are just learning that fact. So don’t fuck with us.”

A wired sequence of events starts after he meets Tyler. Someone blows up his apartment with almost clinical precision, He has no place to stay so he requests Tyler if he could move into Tyler’s apartment. Tyler’s condition for allowing him to move into his apartment is that the protagonist needs to hit Tyler on his face, bare knuckled. Tyler hits him back. This is how the first Fight club starts. Fight club gets established with following rules.
1. You do not talk about fight club.
2. You DO NOT talk about fight club.
3. When someone says stop, goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over.
4. Only two guys to a fight.
5. One fight at a time.
6. No shirts or shoes.
7. Fights will go on as long as they have to.
8. If this is your first night at fight club, you have to fight.

Memberships of fight clubs starts growing exponentially and soon there are fight clubs all over America all operating under the same rules set by Tyler. Tyler later on take devoted volunteers from Fight club and start ‘Project Mayhem’. Members of Project Mayhem are involved in more destructive activities. Project Mayhem becomes a cult that is against modern civilization, they would rather have jungle everywhere, no roads, no electricity, no government, no laws. Laws of Project Mayhem are simple..
1. You do not ask questions.
2. You do not ask questions.
3. No excuses.
4. No lies.
5. You have to trust Tyler.

DON’T Read this para if you plan to read the book - Narrator becomes disillusioned with Fight club and Project Mayhem because of the destruction and the growing attacks on corporate establishments. Narrator wants to stop it but soon realizes that it cannot be stopped without killing Tyler. Tyler cannot be killed because Tyler is not a different person but his own different personality i.e. Him and Tyler share the same Body. While the Narrator is sleeping Tyler is awake and using hid body to grow Fight club and Project Mayhem.

Beyond the basic plot, which is quite thrilling, Fight Club is full of Anti Consumerism sentiment. For example at one point narrator says. “You Buy furniture. You tell yourself this is the last Sofa I will ever need in my life. Buye the sofa, then for couple of years you are satisfiedthat no matter what goes wrong, at least you got the sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. The perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you are trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.”

One take away from this book is - At fight club they don’t fight for money, they don’t fight each other, they fight everything they hate in life.

For those who are keen to know about Arundhati Roy’s book, God of Small Things, here is an interesting review:

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2009/01/13/232848.php

Looking at the enormous response to the Veranda Blog, a brilliant idea occurred to me. (All my ideas are brilliant ideas until proven otherwise!). It was almost like a Eureka moment! Just that I was not in a bath tub and I didn’t shout Eureka! Eureka!

What is the IDEA?
The idea is to have a blogging contest for everyone in the content team and anyone who wants to participate from the Tech team, SEO team and other supposedly useful people in the organization like PMs, Management team, etc… In short, anyone can participate.

What will you write about?
You can write about anything that you are passionate about, but you will have to get the topic approved by the judges. This is to ensure two things 1) there is no repetition of topic 2) We have an even enough criterion to judge. You might argue that it is almost like what Henry Ford once said – “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black. “ Well, there cannot be any argument about this because.. I am the one who gets to set the rules because I am the one who had the brilliant Idea.

Topic can be in following areas( These are just suggestions.):

1. Social media marketing
2. Content writing –Passion or ART or Job
3. Tips for writing tips etc
4. Content management systems Drupal Vs Joomla etc

Other rules -

1. All the blogs that you write will be published on Veda Blog
2. Judges will look at a) How interesting your topic is b) How comprehensively you have covered the topic c) Of course, grammar and other content writing principals will be looked at d) Copy pasting will immediately disqualify your blog entry. We will check it through copyscape. e) You blog post is interesting enough that we read it completely etc. f) Size DOES matter!
3. Judging criterion will also have your say in it i.e. everyone will be allowed to select their three blog posts (other than their own). Posts that get maximum votes as number 1 etc will be preferred by judges.
4. Last date for topic submission is Jan 21. Last date for Blog post submission will be announced on Jan 21st.
5. Judges are

• Harish ( Man with the brilliant idea gets to be the judge)
• Vikrant ( Friend of man with the brilliant idea/ He also has a choice of participating instead of judging)
• Piyush ( Man with the brilliant idea has many friends and he keeps all his friends happy, besides I know Piyush will never write a Blog post by the last date)

6.)    Prizes are

• Winners will be instantly famous
• 100% salary hike promised (read the fine print if you can find it..)
• Beyond this
  • First prize – Will be announced on Jan 21 - 2009
  • Second prize – Will be announced on Jan 21- 2009
  • Third prize – 2 Gold class tickets at PVR for movie of your choice (Gold class is only available at Select Citiwalk - Saket and Ambiance mall Gurgaon)

I could have announced this contest in fewer words but the idea of the contest is about creative writing, and I wanted to increase the word count also I didn’t want to sound boring. I am open to other ideas etc. You can comment on this post with any ideas that you have.

900 gone and still counting are official figures and media people are not allowed inside the Gaza strip. They have twisted rules of war where women, children, religious, medical and educational institutions should be spared. “Rules” are meant for convenience and this war has proved that. The amount of civilian and child casualty this 2 week of war has seen is enormous. More than 250 children have been killed and same numbers comprising of women.

It is amusing to me. They should halt violence as early as possible and try to stabilize the region. We have had enough. Israel has unleashed a flurry of future weapons on its poor neighbour left, right and centre. The pictures released by the IDF and independent photographs leaves heavy doze incentives and applaud to private Israeli as well as government weapon manufacturers. Although the Israeli army insists that they are using weapons prescribed by the UN at the same time refused to name the kind of lethal toxics used to neutralize petty militants. For example the IDF is using artillery fired white phosphorus used as smoke screen and should not be used in civilian area. My question is ‘are they fighting a superpower”? To make matters worse comes a comment from Major General Yoav Galant, the head of the army’s southern command, that the assault is a “once in a generation” opportunity to strike and “If we don’t do that we’ll be missing an historic opportunity” he was quoted as saying in the Israel based Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

There is more than one reason perhaps, why we should feel proud about Danny Boyle’s gritty and on-your-face portrayal of Bombay through his recently released film called ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. It has won four awards at the ‘Golden Globe’ ceremony held at LA. The film got recognized in all the four nominated divisions. Screenplay, original music score, direction and the best motion feature- Drama. Such is a hype that many believe that this film is going to give a tough competition at the Oscars.

The film is tribute to Mumbai, as the director says. It is a story of an Indian city which recently came under attack by gunmen last year. Location and setting, performers, the music composer, the story (based on Vikas Swarup’s Q & A) all have a common thread –India. Mumbai being home to the production of hindi films, it has always attracted attention by western filmmakers.

The film also perhaps has taken a clue of rise of the entertainment industry and the number of reality shows that is increasing by the day in India. Loosely based on dramatic events or non events for that matter in the main protagonist’s life post KBC is what it is. Kaun Banega Crorepati which is an original replica of popular British TV show Who wants to be a Millionaire?  The film also touches real estate mongers, red light business, gangster rivalry, songs and dance (archetype bollywood), action a masala film to cut it short. “Hard to believe an outsider can create such a clean film on us (Indians)” a colleague says.  The pirated versions of the film is out in the market and some of us have caught hold of it for sure, but I wish to watch it out in the big screen and enjoy desi Rahman. Keep up the good work and I would also like to give credits to Sukhwinder Singh and Irfan.

This tribute is to honor the memory of Akhilesh, who passed away last week. 

Little things about Akhilesh seep into our minds at this time, like his love for cricket and music and his sincerity to work. It’s hard to remember his deep calm demeanor and not be sad but it’s the best way to honor this man whose goodness leaves us with fond memories. 

During this hour of sadness, our prayers are with his mother, brother and sister. May Akhilesh’s soul rest in eternal peace. 

Interestingly, the first post of the ‘New’ Year is a sequel of one that was published in 2008 (Party Time). That post talked about festivity and how we have institutionalized it. Last night, people appeared all set to bring in the ‘New’ Year. This morning (rather afternoon), they woke up with a gift of 365 more days in their hands.

Relativity is something that is universally applicable. Thus, when we say ‘new,’ we are actually perceiving things in relation to the ‘old’ ones. Is that right?  So, what exactly were we celebrating on the 31st? ‘Party Time’ searched for reasons behind such celebrations. And, the comments had some really good answers. Now, I have one too .

Festivity is, definitely, not purposeless. All of us want to rejoice. However, we should have something to rejoice about. For the last moments of a year to be a gala, it is important that the period preceding them has been invested with sufficient energy. If we enrich each moment of a year with memories which we can cherish, every day becomes an occassion. The present of life becomes a New Year’s eve - when we have an opportunity to celebrate both the past and the future.