Little things that blow it

I work as a part-time bartender on match days and I enjoy it. For starters, I don't get paid to get drunk, like many of us might imagine. I get paid for pouring drinks and making cocktails which can be really fun. Even though it would look way too cool to do stuff like the ones down at TGIF do, its really an art and probably not my cuppa. 

Its an out of world experience to talk to fans after full time when their team has won and an equally enjoyable experience to make deal with their misery with a few more drinks. Sometimes you get a mouthful and sometimes a handful (of tips). But the worst part of this job is actually pouring all the good stuff down the drain. I flush atleast 10 litres of alcohol every 2 hours. A natural waste? Not for some. I've also binned hundreds of uneaten meat pies and all other  equally good stuff. With so much stress on cost cutting, it wouldn't hurt to look into this matter.  

Nevertheless, there is a lot one can learn from sportsmen. Sachin Tendulkar's down to earth attitude and his accomplishments have made me overwhelmed so much that at times I repent the fact that I didn't jump onto the Chinnaswamy stadium(1996) during the Indo-Pak match. There is no doubt that he is one of the best sportsmen ever and is surely going to be featured in the curriculum of almost all of the B-schools. Alongside Sachin will be Tiger Woods and the title would read "Two people who scored with their clubs, one made of willow and the other, lets say boning wood".

Then again, that is what management is all about. Common sense prevails anyways and it drives the bulk of any business. Just today, I heard about a story in which a guy who had saved and generated millions for a company was denied a promotion and evicted just because he wasn't academically qualified. That raises a question of degrees and superficial qualifications. "People can be trained to become successful people but self proclaimed successful  people cannot be trained with skills". Its a long disputable topic but the most of the companies actually opt for a piece of paper over the real grey matter.

Its actually a never ending process that begins in your childhood itself. Parents bragging about their kid knowing the capitals of 100+ countries. Later on its the marks and 95% is never enough and you always have to beat your neighbour or some "X" person. When you start looking for a job, the college and the degree come into the picture. Just when you finally get a job and get settled and feel happy that you have gotten away from the rat race, you realize that the you have started the same cycle with your kids. Guess Life Ishtene.

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Indian culture and the gaping hole

It has been an eventful week. Kinda surprised myself with that much productivity in exchange for around 6hrs of sleep everyday, which is atleast 50% short for my standards. Nevertheless, I feel happily depleted. 

A new week has started and as I munch on my corn flakes, I realize the change in me. I was never a fan of bread or flakes for that matter and used to eat anything but them. It used to my diet when I got sick and had kinda built up an aversion for them. Now I've better things to worry about, and a yummy breakfast doesn't even feature in the top ten. However, I wouldn't mind getting up to 12 Idlis or 4 Masala Dosas. Guess these dishes are gona take me for a ride in my dreams today along with the usual Princess Leia in her gold bikini.

I really love to interact with people from different cultures and try out new things especially with food. There is no doubt that Indian food is the best. I'm not being patriotic, but its a fact that every little place in India has its own specialty and delicacies. I can say it with 99% confidence that it is impossible for any Indian in his lifetime to let alone experience the culture, but try out all possible delicacies from every nook and corner of the country.

We as Indians have always been proud of our culture and equally hypocritical. People go ga ga over the fact that the young generation is becoming westernized. Do they crib when infrastructure is matching up? NO. Do they whine when huge advances are being made in terms of technology and medical care? NO. Do they have any qualms when the GDP is raising and the rupee is being appreciated? NO. If it wasn't for the westernization, we wouldn't be speaking English or playing cricket. We would have looked like a country with language skills like that of China and nutrition like that of Africa even though parts of the country are still like this.

So why am I accusing people of being hypocritical? For starters, people have developed the attitude of "When I do it, its right and when you do it, its wrong". It is ok for you to start drinking at 20 but not when your son does the same. For what we know, we ourselves are not aware of our culture. India is the land of KamaSutra and how many times have you heard any one of those self proclaimed gurus of culture talking about it in public. The funniest of them all is, as a teenager you are not even supposed to know anything about sex or even look at women, but are expected to do it and score a 10 on the wedding night. I really find it hard to understand the logic behind it. 


Our culture has also been to suppress the women and torture them when her hubby dies. It is ok for a guy to move on but when a girl does the same, she is branded as a slut. Female infanticide is our culture but are we really ready to do something about it? For no fault of the rape victim, she is the one bearing the brunt of the society and we hold up the rapists and even make them our leaders. Women are supposed to keep their mouths shut when they are raped by their husbands just because they have the 'married' tag attached.

We even talk about being racially abused abroad and not being treated equally. I believe we lost the right to say it long back. Whether it is Australia or US or UK, the students have been known to create a ruckus and behave as everything is at their disposal. "When in Rome, be a Roman". I'm not asking people to change but the least we can do is respect their culture and abide by their rules and norms.


When Richard Gere gave Shilpa Shetty a peck on stage, the media went berserk over the need for teaching the former about our culture, who gives a damn when Indians who go abroad rape the girls with their eyes by staring at them like they have never seen a chick before and pass utterly  offensive comments when they walk on the road. Hell, we lost that right to say anything when we couldn't do anything about the communal riots inside our country. We cant even stand the people from neighbouring states and the age old fights between people from North and South is the 2nd most talked about topic after cricket. It is ok for us to be racists among ourselves but it isn't when we are given a taste of our own medicine?

P.S : To end it on a happy note, I bow down to Sachin Tendulkar for his historical feat of 50 test centuries. Bring on the ODIs, u're next. Doing this at the world cup will be the fitting end to his career. 

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Hi, my name is Vikas and I'm an addict

It was back in the good old engineering days that it all started. The magic number of 15 in the internals was the only aim and to top it all up, there was always T4 to make up for it, if anything went wrong with the divine plan. 

It started with Prison Break and all the night long gaming was replaced by Scofield marathon. The break time talk was totally devoted to this and people actually started to shoo away others who had no idea about Bellick's belly and thus became self proclaimed members of league of extraordinary gentlemen. The Prison Break DVDs were so much in demand that at one point I felt that I might actually loose my exotica porn DVD market. But then again, it was just a passing phase and people came back to the daddy of all DVDs and this actually proves the first mover advantage.

A new competitor entered soon in the name of 24 and its advantage was that it already had 6 seasons. This took the battle of nature vs nurture to a totally different level. At some point, people had to get fed up of the concept of Jack Bauer can't die and even if he dies, he'll come back in the next season as a ghost. Even though the Naughty America series has a pretty much predictable ending, people actually get to see different people doing a lot more than real life Jack could ever think of doing in his lifetime.

During my final year, I got hooked onto Dexter and to be frank its 1st season and the most recent 4th season are the best ever. I try to put myself under house arrest after watching Dexter as the temptation to see blood is at its peak. If at all it becomes uncontrollable, for the man I am, I bring home a homeless person and chop him up into pieces. Nine pieces to be exact and dump him in the nearby pig farm. For more information on using pigs for this purpose, I suggest the movie Snatch.

If at all you believed everything about this blood thirsty nature of me, then I'm sure I have a great future as a story writer.

Two and a Half Men, Big Bang Theory followed soon after and the latter is on track to becoming one of the best sitcoms ever and I'll always have a special place for the former. It was only a matter of time when Dr.House entered my brains and started fiddling with them thus leading to aneurysms. To relieve myself of this, I watch any random episode of Friends and it never fails to assert the fact that old is gold. To give an example of how the world has changed over the past decade or so, Chandler in one the older episodes boasts about his lappy having features like 12MB RAM and 512MB hard disk. 

Its one of those simple things that tell us how technology has changed everything around us. I'm sure atleast half of the online population will have a stroke if Facebook or Twitter goes down just for a day. There is a funny South Park episode that actually depicts this scenario.

Nevertheless, I'm proud to confess my addiction for all the above mentioned series and probably many more to come. Have you?

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Cricket, Commentators and KP

The most awaited Ashes rivalry is back and does England look a better team or what. Pietersen has got his old touch back. Guess his antibodies act only against the Aussies. Its also good to see that India have finally, after months and months of research and consultancy and after BCCI outsourcing its brains to a some island in Fiji, finally decided that the future of the Indian cricket lies in playing against any other team other than Sri Lanka. Hope New Zealand isn't the new Sri Lanka.

With a new opponent comes new guests in the studio. Vengsarkar is actually making Amarnath, Arun Lal and even Arnold(Russel) look like Boycott, Greig and Jackman. Even 15 minutes of Vengsarkar might make you feel like blowing your brains out. When we all thought the era of bad players turned bad commentators ended with Aamir Sohail, the world got a taste of Russel Arnold who raised the bar to a totally different level. Infact the bar has gone so low that even the best limbo dancers are shying away from the challenge.

I've had my fair share of playing cricket and captaining a team as well. But its actually an understatement to see that Ponting's best day this year has been worse than my worst hungover day. The bowling attack looks the weakest it has ever been and the punter doesn't have Hayden to go and hide behind him. Guess he has also run out of bars to go and pick fights within. Surely his career is over and the only thing that can salvage his dying cause will be when he can finally set a record for getting through a test match on a single chewing gum. 

The tattooed Johnson was dropped after the selectors finally realized that he couldn't pitch anything even remotely close to the batsman's half. They should have probably realized this when he couldn't even get Ishant Sharma out who looks like someone wearing stilletoes and panty hoses while batting.

With all the mocking apart, India look great even with this 2nd choice team and McCullum needs to start playing those scoops to get back into the groove. Cook is dishing out centuries like fish and chips in a takeaway. Guess his purple patch for getting laid has started. While Pietersen looks like he can score another hundred with one hand tied behind his back, wouldn't it be great to see Warney back for an over, atleast in the commentary box?

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Remember Remember the Month of November

November, a month to remember and a month which did a bit of emotional atyachar. The 1st day of the month was when I graduated. The gowns, the hoods and finally a comfortable suit made it a bright day even though it started raining later on. Bar hopping on that night with a special guest from out of town turned out better than expected. I finally needed something to soak up the booze and while I was busy hogging, some people just couldn't keep their Guinness down and the pavements were painted black. I'm a huge fan of beer, even carry a beer belly to support my claim. I had tried Guinness long back and its one of the worst beers I've ever had and it served lover boy right for downing it and actually pretending to like it.

It was time for some 'V for Vendetta' on the 5th. Coincidentally, it was Diwali back home on the same day. The fireworks were truly fabulous and it was nice to see the kids on the street trying to scare people with their rockets. Reminded me of the time when I used to light rockets in my hand and also when I had once managed to T-off a canoodling couple in the corner of a park with a rocket.

After a truly memorable and fun filled week, it had already turned 7th. This meant that I had to say goodbye yet again, only this time I knew that it would be a million times harder than the last time. No surprises at the airport this time, and definitely no filmy scenes. Just the one time I wished it was true and to come home to see a totally unexpected surprise. Naaaah. Life is too cruel and these things just wont happen. I came back home to see a letter on my lappy which proved to be just too much for me to handle. It was lunch time and thank you Big Mac, you beefed up the rest of my day :-)

I've probably met the most interesting and insanely inspiring people this November. While I started blogging for a blogzine, I also had too much time on my hand. Came up with so many new dishes using almost the same recipe and all of them turned out to be del.ic.ous. Might well start a new blog dedicated to my culinary skills.  

It was 'happy birthday' time once again and I wasn't happy about it, not because it wasn't mine but it was the birthday that I missed the most. I personally had felt very bad for not making it a special day last time and did a lot of things this time just to see a smile on that face. Yet again, no filmy scenes and no surprises for me but there were quite a few from my side.

Off late, I've started to attend a lot of interviews. In one of the interviews, I found myself chatting with lookalikes of Charles Darwin and Justin Timberlake. I've actually started enjoying it as there are too many dishes on the table to eat. I still remember the time  when I wasn't considered even for a cleaner's job and few months later I found myself juggling with 3 jobs (actually 4) and had to decline one of them. Ha ha , screw you fellas. Still things aren't as glamorous as they appear to be but I surely hadn't expected anything like this when I was writing Pilot .

As if the weather was not already bad, just to make it even worse, the sky has started emitting dandruff flakes. Snow in November is very rare and the DST actually seems like the clock has been turned ahead by one month. It is expected to go down to -20°C in some parts of the country this week BBC weather report. Just the time when one can literally experience the phrase "freezing your ass off". Facebook was bombarded with "I love snow" statuses a couple of days back and I'm sure all of them would like to take their statuses back after having to walk around in 10 inch snow.

Nevertheless, this month has been a hot cookie to handle inspite of this cold weather. My moustache has also started to become thick as mentioned in November and Movember and guess I'm shooing away all the female species. Not that I enticed any in the first place, but even the dogs seem to run away after seeing me. 

Have a great November. See you in December.

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November and Movember

The winter has started to set in and the use of heaters look imminent. Even though everyone is just getting warmed up to the cold winter, tap water has become the biggest nemesis. As a result of washing my hands or dishes in this water, my hands literally stay stone cold throughout the day. 


Gone are those days when I could use my pick up line "Hi, How are you? Beware of my irresistibly warm hands". Then again, I was never good at this and always managed to dodge all the projectiles thrown at me in return for those kind of lines. I'm more like a Ross from Friends when it comes to pick up lines or starting conversations but would rather induce a Chandler like humor rather than Dinosaurs.

Its that time of the year when the day light saving really starts to sink in to your senses.  You start to wonder if the daylight is actually being saved or spent mercilessly. November is also the time when there are more leaves on the sidewalk than on the trees. The trees look like they are suffering from a receding hairline problem or male pattern baldness. January is probably the worst here when it gets dark by noon on gloomy days. Guess I have to blame my birthday for it. Boo hoo.

I love the winter for its foggy nights and fresh snowfall which gives me a reason to down a couple of extra drinks. But its quite depressing when 17:00 feels like 21:00 and the melting snow tests your figure skating skills. Not to mention the North winds blowing at 70mph which mercilessly torture your face. I vaguely mentioned this in 365 days of life on an island - part 1 .

I still remember last winter when I had lost sensation in my toes and the temperature went down to as low as -13°C in Glasgow. Felt like the winter was never going to end. In spite of such inhuman conditions, I've seen the girls here walking around in the skimpiest of the clothes. Not that I'm complaining but it just makes you wonder whether they are really from Venus. 


Gone are those days when men used to walk bare chested to strut their manliness in front of women clad in figure hugging dresses. The roles seem to have just reversed nowadays. The sight of guys parading in their skinny jeans and brushing the hair off from their faces is as disgusting as rubbing your face in faeces. Whatever happened to hairy men with unshaven faces and protruding paunches. Guess, I'm doing my bit to save the old generation. 

Its time for me to make some coffee, oh wait....think making it Irish will not only enhance the taste of coffee but also does justice to the weather. Well, the chill outside gives you more than a reason to keep yourself warm inside.    


P.S  - Thinking of growing a moustache to show my support for Movember in both November and December.

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The God, The Religion and The Ugly

The much awaited sequel to Godz-illa is finally here. For starters, I was cursed for writing such a long post and I can probably expect them to kick off again after this one. So where do I start from?Hmmm. Let me go back in time and begin with the chronological order of events. As requested, I'm going to start with 'The Big Bang Theory'. Before I move on, if you haven't watched this" Sheldon at his best ", then you are surely missing out on one of the most awfully obnoxious yet insanely funny on screen characters ever created.

Just had a chat with Stephen Hawking and that dude too is not sure how it all began. Even though I have read so many theories about how life began on earth and other theories on evolution, its probably safe to say that the truth may have been a combination of all those theories and all might have been right in their own way. The only reason we haven't been able to zero in on that one particular theory is because of the ego clashes between the brain damaged, bald (some very hairy) and erectile dis-functioned geniuses. While Newton had gone Apples over his theory, and Archimedes had turned into a streaker and Einstein was trying to relate his theory of relativity and stamp his authority on E=MC², none of them would have compromised on their theories. Lets face it, we are still trying to figure out what the hell is this light. Some say its a particle, some say its a wave and some say its the God trying to work like a torch. As far as the plants are concerned, they are just happy having  it for breakfast everyday.

If God has actually created all the living organisms on the earth, then why isn't anyone questioning the fact as to who created God? Assuming that it is true, has anyone wondered how Gods actually live in heaven. Frankly speaking, none of the stories in any of the religions talk about interaction with Gods of other religion. So I'm assuming that they live in separate countries like we do with a specific country alloted to a specific religion. I'm also assuming the fact that the Gods are not issued Passports or Visas to other countries as that would have them giving guest appearances in fables of other religions, which till now has been unheard of. The funny thing is we haven't heard any true stories of religion in the recent times. It stopped with Ramayan and Mahabharata for some and with the resurrection for others while some still believe that blowing up a country will give them a business class ticket to their god. If people put at least 10% of these efforts in impressing their partners and family instead of the intangible God, then their lives would become a living heaven naturally. Simple yet still people manage to complicate it and make their lives a living hell not only for themselves but also to the people around them.

Coming back to the topic, are all the people under a certain religion mapped to a single God? All my C/C++ coding friends out there could help me here figuring out the kinds of data structures that can be used :). Either ways, we have devised our own ways of converting to these religions. Growing of beard or wearing of an infamous cross belt combined with a change in place of worship will help you earn that coveted membership for one particular brand, oops sorry God. If thats the case then what happens to the stories and the belief that you had in your previous God? Do they get nullified as a result of shifting to another brand, oops sorry again God? All these can actually be related to the kind of brand loyalty that we see nowadays. Apple users curse Microsoft and vice versa and fanatics on both sides have found their Gods in Jobs and Gates respectively.

If you look at the concept of religion logically, it was just created to keep the mankind in check and to create a sense of division in the society. When man could not find reasoning for anything that happened on earth, he gave the credit to God. At one point, eclipses were thought of God's way of saying that he was throwing a temper tantrum as a result of not having regular bowel movements. At the end of the day, one has to accept the fact that it is we humans who are better evolved and we are intelligent enough to make our own future. We definitely don't need any soothsayers or god-men to guide us. It's actually disgusting to see people believing anyone who says he/she is a messenger of God. Have a look at this video "Baba's chicanery "which clearly shows how the god-man SaiBaba tricked millions of people. The truth is, he is gay and found extreme pleasure in cross dressing even from his childhood. Do your research and you'll find videos of that too. If not for the technology, a deception like this would not have come out and people would be still blind under the smoke of devotion. I can only imagine how people in the olden days could have been easily tricked in a similar way by glorified magicians and illusionists and people would have believed anything in the name of God. Incidents like these act as a catalyst in promoting a particular God and provide a lot of word of mouth advertising and viral marketing to any religion.

At the end of the day, we have to accept the fact that no God is going to prevent you from having a black out as a result of binge drinking or help you in cheating on your partner or save you from dying in an accident. We have the ability to make sensible decisions and our actions dictate our future. Use your brains in taking decisions instead of staring into a crystal ball or rolling a die. This way, at least you'll grow a pair in blaming yourself for any failures and not find comfort near a fluffy bunny by saying its the God's will. 

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Oh my tweety

"A little birdie told me". This line has been used over ages by gossip mongers and also as a conversation starter by many women in order dig into some intricate details about their friends. I have always wondered the origin of that phrase and couldn't get my head around birds actually spying into our private lives, filtering out the swill and flapping its wings around only the spiciest topics. It might be a grave coincidence that the phrase suits the current state of affairs better than ever. The little birdie of Twitter has suddenly become an integral part of our lives. People tell this birdie everything from taking a dump to planning a surprise proposal for their girlfriends/boyfriends. So for the first time in history, a bird has taken control over mankind and what looks more like a humming bird looks more powerful than a falcon or a vulture.

I personally couldn't understand the fun in changing status messages and posting updates of 140 characters. But like many things in life, Twitter has become an acquired taste and I have started to experience the power of tweeting. With more and more companies devoting a lot of resources into looking after the social media end of their business, effective use of twitter can not only serve as a channel in resolving customer related issues but can also boost their PR activities. I recently experienced a similar situation when my Virgin Media broadband went for a toss and the call centres were not responding and a simple tweet directed towards them attracted all the necessary attention prefixed with apologies. Twitter has also provided the celebs their own personal space amidst the soul sucking paparazzi. I have started following a few of them and have realized how dumb so many are in real life. If not for their celebrity status many of them would have probably had to resort to the 'girlfriend experience' rather than a girlfriend. 

I was very impressed with videos featuring @BarackObama in which he talks about thinking twice before posting anything. Very soon we might see safe social media classes replacing safe sex classes in schools. I also stumbled upon a software from Webroot which prevents users from logging into their social networking accounts when they are drunk. How cool is that? For more information on it, check this out http://tinyurl.com/2bcf9jh . I would like to sincerely warn everyone about the power of social media and in this case, twitter. Once tweeted, can only be retweeted and not untweeted. So, tweeting that you had a crazy rave party and woke up with an unknown guy might make you popular and increase the number of followers but the same can bite you in your crack when your clients end up cancelling a contract as a result of it. As this post was entirely dedicated to the overzealous birdie, I have decided to add a tweet button to all of my posts. 

I can also be followed @VikasGowda20.

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Time runs, break its legs

It feels like last week when I landed at the Bengaluru International Airport but I now find myself sitting on my couch in Glasgow and writing this post. It is so true that you cant keep a track of time when you are having a good time. In fact I was watching the myth busters recently and I wonder if they can actually test this myth about time. Atleast for me, it didn't seem like one. Before you even get some time to recall the events over the last month with a SAW like ending and soundtrack being played at the back of your end, you find yourself saying adios to all your loved ones.

I still remember the scenes from the terrace party just the 2nd day after I landed. I had hardly recovered from the jet lag which had got aggravated as a result of my nocturnally awake habits and the last thing I needed was a bad hangover. Lots of similar parties followed thereafter with the last one ending on a porky note. A month is too long a time for a guy like me to do a bit of shopping and too short a time to burn all the greasy fat gained as a result of succumbing to gluttony. I went high on meat over the month and ended it on a wild boar marathon. Sometimes this even reminded me of the movie Taxidermia.

Meeting people after a long time will lead to a lot of unexpected outcomes. Either you end up feeling better that you have not turned out to be as fat as them or realize that you are turning old as all your kiddo brothers and sisters have become taller than you. It actually reminded me of that so called awkward age during adolescence when you experienced a lot of things for the first time. I still remember the time when I had made a guy realize that he had 2 good friends in his right and left hand. Before you know it, you are out of that age it just seems like yesterday when you were loafing around in the teen age. I had come up with an axiom long back which stated "If you were to divide your lifespan into 4 equal parts, you realize that the 2nd part is the most important part of your life". The things that you do in this part influence your future and people find this sweet spot during their twentys. I'm currently in my mid 20s  and know that the honeymoon period is over and its now time to get down to business. With numerous ideas buzzing in my head, all it takes is one small idea to make it big and would love to read this post about 5 years later. 

P.S -- Watched The Social Network today evening. Like Like and Like

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The 'Bra' of Branding

A bra is an article of clothing that covers, supports and elevates the breasts.

Going by the definition, the 'bra' is an integral part of branding and metaphorically speaking does the same job of elevating the business as done by bra to the breasts. I'm definitely not going to include any images of Victoria's Secret for this post just to increase the traffic or flirt with my readers' hormones and stimulate the flow of natural juices. Even though I might have slightly done that by now, I'm sure you would have enjoyed fantasizing some voluptuous, busty bosoms. If you haven't done so, you can always use the 'qVik Search' on the top to treat yourself for some eye pleasing visuals.

Getting back to business, I honestly believe that broadminded women will be able to relate appropriately to this post. For convenience sake, whenever I use the term big breasts, you can relate them to the big businesses having a turnover in millions. Similarly small breasts can be associated with SMEs. Big is always not necessarily better. The super size option is not only unhealthy in McDs but also in real life. With big breasts come loads of added overheads and even though it might look great from outside, one really needs to talk to that person to understand their problems. Google offices and the salary might seem like an "opportunity which you want to grab with both hands", but you do not get to know about the 60+ hours of work that people are putting in every week so that you can type "How to pick up girls in a bar" and probably help you score. Just like a breast which looks at numerous aspects like shape(C,D), size(32,34,36), strap, color before its finds its suitor, every business needs a customized branding strategy to make it look better. While the core aspects of a business are taken care of by a different department, the department of brand management looks into numerous aspects like brand image, positioning, social media strategy, advertising and appeal created by the brand. Once all these factors are worked out properly, a customized branding strategy is adopted. If this goes wrong it can lead to a lot of adverse effects in the future like decreasing the rate of brand recognition and recall similar to a bad fitting bra leading to back aches and undesirable, unattractive outlooks with undesirable protrusions.

Some of the SMEs, at some point decide to become a player in a different market by increasing their size. Either through integrations or acquisitions or by increasing their capital, many firms take that big risk of going all out knowing that a failure will lead to a permanent dent to their image. Similarly, some of the women who are adipose challenged in their upper body and who are unhappy with this condition decide to take a vital step in order to entice a broader segment of the opposite sex. Some of the cosmetic surgeries might help them achieve the desired results but they forget the fact that big is not always better. This in turn leads to all the problems discusses previously. A considerable solution is using the push up or padded variants. The upside of this approach is that it projects the entity in an appealing manner and until one gets close to it, it is hard to actually estimate the value of the assets. Numerous firms have adopted this approach by projecting themselves as a player in the different league and have actually done well as a result of the right 'bra' used in branding.

This post was in a way dedicated to the problems faced by women which some of them find it tough to discuss even with their closest pals. Most importantly dedicated to the realization that the toughest problems have the simplest of solutions and one has to know where to look :P.

P.S - A lending ear is better that a staring eye.

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Movie Reviews - Endhiran

"Dude its Rajni, its A.R Rahman and its Shankar and it can't get better than this" was probably the buzz ever since the project of Endhiran aka Robot was announced long back. With tickets  for the movie being priced in thousands of rupees, true fanatics would even sell their kidneys to watch the movie on the first day. No doubt the graphics and animation were of great standard but what about the story and what about the Rajni factor?

With people generating a fetish for producing insanely high budget movies, once a producer decides to succumb to thins kind of BDSM, it's hard for him to pull out midway. Frankly speaking, the majority of the expenditure went into special effects which literally dragged the movie close to 3 hours. The attitude of the producer looked like, "Dude I've paid you a lot of money for these special effects and I'm gona have my penny's worth by filling the movie with all possible special effects to the last scene". Mr.Producer will probably have the widest grin on his face as he got back all 150 crores he spent within the first 2 weeks. 

For all those who are thinking of watching the movie, please wait for few more days when you can watch it on the small screen. For all those who have already watched it, I'm sure you wouldn't have been totally happy for the money you spent. For all those who have booked your tickets and are waiting to watch the movie, these are some of the things you have to be prepared for:

1> The metamorphosis of Ash from Miss World to Miss. Flabby Aunty.

2> Eye catching male breasts of Rajni.

3> Blatant product placement of numerous well known brands which scream out loud " I am the best, please buy me ".

4> Mosquitoes conversing in Tamil/Hindi/whichever language it is dubbed into.

5> Below par music and songs in which the great man tries too hard to dance.

6> Ash trying to ape Fergie with her skin tight leather pants which is a total failure, thanks to her married woman structure(also refer to 1>).

7> Amazing shots of Machu Picchu. Probably the 1st time this location is shown in Indian cinema and Mr.Producer has made sure that the whole song revolves around the same background to get the best out of the crew's travel expenses.

8> No typical Rajni style and dialogues. A newbie probably starts to wonder if all those Doom-Mongering yet highly possible statements about Rajni are actually true.

I'm sure many of the Rajni fans would probably disagree with all the above statements but then again, being a true fan isn't it your responsibility to expect the best and critique the rest? I personally felt that this was Shankar and Rajni's worst movie in terms of quality but probably the best in terms of commercial appeal. Hope someday in the future, before I take my last breath, I get to relive the aura of Rajni with a meager budget movie and a thought provoking story by Shankar.

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Life at a flyover junction

I have been very fascinated with the way the flyovers at Hebbal and Indiranagar have been constructed. They not only succeed in confusing a first timer but also meddle with their sense of direction. One either heads north to turn east or heads west and completes a loop to turn south thus making them a visual treat from Google maps but not before leading many people in the wrong way. The ones who planned both of them were very close in constructing a paradox or sending the vehicles to a state of limbo. When you are at crossroads, it is easy to see the path in front of you but when you are at this kind of a flyover junction, even though you eventually see your future path, it is the direction that you take that matters. You might want to trust your gut feeling and risk everything or take a leaf out of a wild stranger's book who made you read that book in the first place.

Everyone at some point in their lives go through this phase and I never thought it was going to happen to me so soon. One of these roads is of a career change in which even though I know which road I want to get on, deep down I know that I have to take some calculated risks. This loop also has small deviations in terms of the "salary slip" and "geographic location". Even though I have got on this road at least 150 times over the last 6 months and got off, I'm very sure the D-day to complete it is fast approaching. There is another route which threatens my existence in a particular country. My choice ahead is to either let the "visa power" run out or extend in asap thus jeopardizing my monthly quota in my savings for Nando's chicken and other censored worldly pleasures.

One of the most important roads in this junction is regarding companionship and its intricate details. Even though I would like to sound like a pessimist and say that I don't intend to exchange rings more than once in my lifetime and have also zeroed in on that unfortunate innocent creature, it actually gets more complicated than you can think. Suddenly movies like "Meet The Parents" and "Meet The Fockers" look more like a horror or in the best case, a thriller family drama rather than a funny comedy movie. Even though I can't imagine my dad to look or act anything like Dustin Hoffman, he has only started to remind me more of Don Vito Corleone. He recently made me an offer that I couldn't refuse and am only hoping for "Aal Izzz Well" at the end of it. One day you are a student with the only aim being to see the clock tick 10 so that you can just about make it to the cheaper morning show in a theater. The next day before you even realize what happened, you find yourself in a flyover junction with hundreds of vehicles honking and whistling past you with not much time to make your decision. Even though I know that the journey is going to be tough, I have made mine, have you? Do it before it is too late and at give your heart a chance to do all the thinking.

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Journey from GMT + 1:00 to GMT + 5:30

I woke up at around 9:00AM on Monday which was pretty early for my standards. It was a very gloomy day and as I got ready to do some last minute packing, I ended up packing the dude's brush instead of mine. Soon I was reminded of the fact that my toiletries kit contained this foreign object and had to return it to him before we ended up sharing germs. I reached the airport well before time and I had a big bag to check in followed by a small cabin bag and a laptop bag. One of those average looking females employed by Emirates were stubborn on not letting me carry 2 bags inside their so called ultra modern flight. My flirting skills too didn't help me much and I realized that those days were long gone and I was getting old. I had to make some adjustments urgently and ended up somehow shoving my laptop bag into the check-in bag. I luckily took out the camera from the bag, just in case (my bad memory came good on those one off occasions).

It was a 7 hour journey to Dubai and I was travelling alone. Luckily I met my old friend Jack Daniels on the way and he kept me entertained for the rest of the journey. He in fact entertained me so much that I actually don't remember anything after the first 20 minutes of Iron man 2. But after this, I decided to give a call to my old buddy, Budweiser and little did I know that him and Jack were not on good terms. Bud got a bit too jealous of Jack and it ended up in me visiting the 2 feet by 2 feet toilet many times. None of these 2 guys helped me in getting any sleep and I tried to kill time by peeking into my neighbour's screen. By the time I realized that I was watching a boring family drama, it was time to land. 

The huge Dubai airport was very crowded and I was standing in the queue for my security check. I tried to catch a glimpse of a guy few feet in front of me who looked the owner of CSK. After somehow convincing myself that it was not him, I looked back to see the almost all the stars of CSK at the back of the line. Even though all of them were wearing those flashy yellow t-shirts, Raina stood out in the crowd. He was not only wearing a purple t-shirt on top of the yellow one but also had flip flops which were of fluorescent green and yellow in color. There was no doubt that Raina had become the adopted son of Chennai. As I finished my security check, I was waiting for these players to finish theirs, so that I could say "ssssup". Surprisingly none of these players were in demand and people hardly took notice of them. All of these players were in a hurry and I caught hold of the adopted son for a snap. MSD looked as cool as ever, and his pretty wife started nagging that it was getting late as soon as me and another guy caught him for a snap. I did a dumb mistake of calling Mr.Cricket as David, and the guy got very irritated and left and thus I missed a golden opportunity. Vijay not only had a spring in his stride while walking but also looked like a guy having a spring in his neck. It was very easy to see that he was still on a high after so many awards and would have probably started flying all over the airport if not for the ever smiling Balaji trying to hold him to ground level. All of these guys were moving around in pairs and holding hands. Dhoni with his obvious  price catch buying some X-Box games, Raina with Tyagi (who was as tall as Venkatesh Prasad), feeling Vijay with smiling Balaji and Jakati with the world cup hero Joginder. As I hopped from store to store to do some duty free shopping, I spotted Badrinath buying toys for someone. The guy was friendly to talk to and had a small chat with him. 

As I boarded my next flight to Bengaluru, It reminded me of a NTSE lecturer who taught Geography ( it would be great if someone reminded me his name). All those hours that were gained last year while travelling to Glasgow, I started to lose them now as I was making my way back. One of the best parts about the journey was I got to see the gradual changes in the color over the horizon that take place during a sunrise. I was lucky enough to see this phenomenon which can be observed at only that altitude. Even though I took a lot of pics of this nature's beauty, none of them did any justice to it and unfortunately I did not have a SLR to make it look better than it was. 

It was nice to hear the chirping of birds inside the Bengaluru airport and I was finally happy to experience some really warm weather. I woke up very early today at 6:00AM and thought I'll kill some time till the breakfast gets ready. I now head off to stuff my tummy with some ರೊಟ್ಟಿ and ಎಣ್ಣೆಗಾಯಿ as I leave this post in all you readers' mercy.

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Bengaluru Beckons

Its been more than a year since I left India and very soon I'l make my way back to where it all began. With just over 12 hours to go for my flight, this will probably be my last post for sometime. I'm constantly following the weather in Bengaluru and hoping to land in the airport without having to walk in knee deep water. It has started to get very chilly here and guess will be a nice change of weather.

I'm going to miss the Scottish accent and the Scottish food for sometime, and will definitely miss seeing drunkards singing and cursing on the road after any Celtic/Rangers match. But then again what the hell, I'l be going to a place where I can speak a lot of ಕನ್ನಡ and feast on lots of delicious dishes. The kitchen department in my house is already making all the necessary arrangements and I can't wait to eat some ಮುದ್ಹೆ. Haze, J-Cubez, Couch, Empire, Al-Bek, BBQ Nation are some of my primary targets along with the psycho who sells ಬಜ್ಜಿ near my house. I'm all excited about meeting the people who have tolerated me for these many years and cant wait to get pampered over the next month. If at all things do not go as planned, or go better than expected and if I'm sober, I'l be posting very soon. Till then, अलविदा  to Glasgow and to all my readers.

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Mind Molestation

I have been reading a lot of different versions of the abbreviated term CWG and all of them are right in their own way. I can totally understand the outrage against the organizers, the planning committee and the country on the whole. The British media has come out strongly exposing the lapse in preparations and basic infrastructure. The Delhi CWG mess up has currently taken up the pole position in the top stories listed on even the BBC website. I can imagine news channels back home like Times Now, Headlines Today and the most disgusting of them all, TV9 covering this issue for at least 23 hours in a day. To be frank this is the kind of news that the media tends to hunt for like a bloodhound. But when such a news is actually served on a platter with an option to "eat all you want", the situation looks more messed up than it actually is. I still remember a day when TV9 ran the news of a stray dog biting a man for the whole day. Can it get more lame than that? Doesn't it raise the question of credibility and the quality of a news channel? Or does it also imply that we derive pleasure in not only watching something as worthless as this but also in bitching about it being played over and over and over with a caption of breaking news?

The media has always been criticized for being irresponsible. Lets face the facts. One needs money to run a channel or newspaper and the funding for which is provided by the wealthy politicians, celebrities and businessmen. At the end of the day, media ends up being run by money. So people with money have the power to manipulate the news that comes out. So, if one channel run by political party  X says that a dog bit a man, its rival channel run by a  political party Y says that the man bit the dog, speaking of which Man Bites Dog(1992) is an amazing movie, not for the fainthearted though. So the media is actually used to boost their PR activities using the news as a medium. So to summarize, the grief of the common man is used as a medium to boost a party's image in an intention to ultimately get on the good books of the common man. To quote another such example, the recent attempt to burn Quran by a Pastor in Florida was classic example of a highly renowned channel like CNN lowering its standards. If such an incident had not been covered at all, it would have not encouraged any unwanted publicity. Things people do to be on TV...Uffff. If anyone from any of the famous news channels are reading this, I'm planning to use the pages of Mein Kamph as toilet paper next week. Would surely appreciate some airtime but I have to do this before zee Germans get here. The quality of news has stooped so low that news channels are nowadays running special programmes on all the different reality shows in that country, giving viewers of the summary of events that happened in that week. Very soon we might even see special news reports summarizing the attire and the hot quotient of the newsreaders inviting viewers to vote for their favorite one.

Have you ever watched something on a news channel for an hour and felt like you wasted that whole hour? Well, its called as mind molestation and in the extreme cases might lead to mind "the act of having sex"ing. The media thrives on its ability to carry out such hideous crimes, show the grief of the public after molesting them and gets to walk away with a rise in TRP and revenue. Why wouldn't someone want to get involved in such a business? After all you will be the puppet master, but in this case you get an added added advantage of having control over the mental state of your puppets. Ultimately, we end up eating whatever is fed by media and our thinking will be influenced by the channels that we favor. Gone are those days of having old men and fully covered women reading out news. I guess the only upside of this is one gets to see young female newsreaders with provoking necklines and their insatiable thirst to talk about bikini clad Bollywood heroines making you fantasize about some girl on girl action. You have been mind molested yet again. 

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365 days of life on an island - part 1

If you are caught off guard by time and do not notice the duration of the events happening around you, its time to take a look down the memory lane. People usually refer to this phenomenon as time flying even though I feel it should be referred to as time running. But then again, its me who is saying; who gives a damn? Its been a year so soon and I still remember all those parties just before I left India  even though I was almost knocked out in all of them. This post is dedicated to all those who have been a part of my life over the past 365 days. 

Day 1: In spite of gulping down 3 pegs of Red Label and 2 cans of Carling, I couldn't sleep on the plane and after watching a couple of movies, it was time to land and pass through numerous checks at Terminal 5 in Heathrow. I practically didn't realize that I had passed through immigration even after 3 days. The next scene resembled a movie in which I was running to gate 1 to catch my flight to Glasgow and made it with just under a minute left to close the doors. I sat down still gasping for breath and I heard the pilot saying "This flight has been delayed for an hour due to technical difficulties. Sorry for the inconvenience". Oh crappppppppp. Nevertheless, I finally reached Glasgow and was greeted with rain. Little that I realize that it was a sign of things to come.

Day 5: First day in Strathclyde and attending a class after more than a year. Felt great to see a lot of new faces. Little did I know that there were some unique characters and one very irritating homo sapien in there. I still pity the dude who realized this only recently. 

Day 6: After days and days of house hunting, finally moved into a house and actually a very beautiful house. I was more excited about the KFC and the McD in front of my house than civic amenities.

Day 15: All the emergency supplies had got exhausted and it was time to get down to some real cooking. But wait, it had got late to go to college and had to make a run to the class. Being a person who is always on time, I find it weird to have 100 odd eyes gazing at me as if I was tricked into confessing something like Tom Crusie  makes Jack Nicholson into blurting out the secret in the movie A Few Good Men(1992). However some do it on purpose for grabbing attention and the faking it girl managed to do it everyday to attract the attention of the opposite sex. Well that trick never worked and in the best case, repelled the male species away from her zone of existence.

Day 25: The leaves had started to wither away and the incessant rains had made commuting very discomforting. It literally used to rain everyday and the presence of strong winds not only made the life more difficult but brutally murdered my umbrellas. The deadlines for assignments had started approaching and it was time to slog day and night. Managed to call a few friends and family members that day and exhausted the credit on my calling card.

Day 85: I walked into the kitchen to make some breakfast and when I looked outside, I saw that the weather was very gloomy and it was raining as usual. No wait, there is something unusual about the rain and it looks white. Oh wowwww, it was the first time I had seen a snowfall and was very excited. I ran out out of the house bare footed to have some snow flakes on my tongue. After getting back to my senses, I realized that my feet had gone too cold and had to run back into the house. The next 2 days saw almost everyone posting pics about the first snowfall and it was a beautiful sight in the beginning.

Day 99: Back after a trip to London. Thanks to Mr & Mrs Spoke for the great hospitality and taking us students around in the city that houses murky water Thames. To quote a dialogue from one of my favorites movies, Snatch "Yes London. You know, fish, chips, cup of tea, bad food, worse weather, Mary-fucking-Poppins, London". Well I couldn't find a more apt description of the city even though I could add 1 more adjective, insanely expensive.

Day 102: It was happy new year time and I woke up from a bad hangover from the previous night's new year party. But then again, I didn't have any other better work to do and so went back to sleep to avoid the hangover. Being a person who always tries new remedies for hangover, I realized that sleeping again was not a remedy and instead a big mistake. I have tried everything from coffee, green tea, curd rice, banana milk shake, drinking litres of water, working out to all the desi remedies including a crazy thought of even jerking off (oh boy, it just feels like a bomb exploding in the head, please don't try it). But trust me none of them work and the only way to avoid hangover is "to stay drunk".

A new year calls for a new post. With some of my readers asking me to make my posts shorter, I'm taking their suggestions and ending this here. However, the story is just 1/3rd over and still a long way to go. I will try to complete it before I head back to India next week. Chronicles of the land of Kama Sutra and drunken revelations are some of the posts that you can look out for in the near future.

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Do you smell what I'm cooking?

Its been almost a year since I left India and boarded a very congested and uncomfortable British Airways flight to Glasgow. The anniversary special will be covered in a different post before I make a short trip back to  ನಮ್ಮ  ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು . My bags were packed with all the wanted an unwanted kitchen utensils and all possible cooking ingredients and other powders of different colors and smells. Even today, I recognize them only by their colors and not by the actual ingredients in them.

I still remember the hype that was given to cooking before I left. I was taught and made to execute some of the basic dishes as a test and failing in it only meant that I couldn't survive here. In fact a lot of hype has been given to cooking in our culture and potential brides are supposed to have this prerequisite or a so called qualification or competency listed on their CVs when the grooms come for a one on one (Well this "one on one" is actually done with the elders' supervision with everyone anxiously waiting for the outcome and is often the one that happens on the first visit and not on the first night :D). Even though it is now getting tempting to deviate from the topic, I shall pull myself back onto the right track. 

Survival of the fittest is probably the best phrase to use and one has to learn to cook or cook up a good story not to cook, either way has to end up cooking to survive in this open world. I have seen a lot of updates on FaceBook and on the prehistoric social networking site we all used to use called as Orkut, regarding updates by wives cooking dishes for their hubbies. Even though I totally respect the love and the sweetness behind those gestures, I have now realized that cooking is probably one of the most enjoyable and easiest things to do. I wouldn't want to sound like a person blowing his own trumpet but these are some of the dishes that I have involved in over the past year.

Vegetable Sambar

Rasam

ಕಾಲು ಸಾರು

Chilli Mushroom

Mushroom curry 

Chilli Paneer

Panner Butter Masala

Veg Dopiaza

Kadai Vegetables 

Puliyogre

Raajma 

Channa Batoora/Poori

Kofta

Dosa Chutney

Lime Rice

Upma

Jeera  Rice

Capsicum Rice

Egg Fried Rice

Numerous ಪಲ್ಲ್ಯ s involving all sorts of vegetables

Palak Paneer

Aloo Palak

Veg Biriyani

Egg Biriyani

Egg Curry

Pasta

Spaghetti

Chilli Chicken

Chicken Curry

Lamb Curry

Beef Curry

Beef Olathiyathu

Butter Chicken

Kadai Chicken

Red Chicken

Hyderabadi Chicken

Pudina Chicken

Coriander Chicken

Chicken Chops

Methi Chicken

Kheema balls curry

Chicken Biriyani (2 variations)

Lamb Biriyani

Fish Fry

Butter Chicken

I might have probably missed out on some but these are the ones that spring to my mind. Even though I used to get help from Silent while cooking some of the dishes, at the end of the day I turned out to be just fine. I feel cooking is a great stress buster as well and if at all you hate someone, call them home and serve them a dish with 10 chillies and when they run to the toilet, make sure you have not only removed the toilet paper but also the flush tank doesn't work. I can guarantee you that a revenge like this will be very smelly and I advise you to keep a room freshener by your side.

People who have eaten my dishes can second me on the fact that I'm really a very good cook. Even though I have cooked all of the ones mentioned previously, I call every one of my dishes as "Yummy dish". It is not only because it is yummy but also if it is not, it will still be yummy. For all those wannabe brides or newly married girls, cooking is actually easier than "faking it" in the bed and for all those who have already tried it , well you do know what I'm talking about. For all those cooking virgins, you have no idea what you are missing out on and I sincerely suggest you to take it up even if it is just as a hobby. From Gordon Ramsay to Sanjeev Kapoor and from vah-chef to the roadside chatwalas, men have always been the best chefs and if at all you want to prove your manhood to your wifes/girlfriends/boyfriends, try cooking them a tasty aromatic dish of your choice and let me know of its outcome :).

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