Evangelising your blog

a nice blog by Guy Kawasaki on evangelising one's blog.

Of fat aunties and hungry children...

"I've had enough!! Me going and scolding that aunty", cooed my sister with nostrils flaring up n looking visibly angry. Next thing i see she does goes over to yalk to the aunty and then is picking up stuff from the floor.

So, incase u guys are wondering weather this post is like one of those movies where the cool stuff happens in the beginning n rest of the movie is spent retracing how it reached that point. Well, the answer is yes, it is one of those posts.

Flashback:-

So my sis n i are travelling comfortably on the metro when in walks an aunty with a small kid (abt 1 or 2 yrs old) with her. Delhi Metro is awesome...it's clean n pretty comfortable and although it stops almost every 2 kms...still it's a nice ride. It is the kind of public transport system this city was crying out for.

Now one thing i have noticed travelling on the Metro is how Indian middle aged women are badly outta shape. I mean no disrespect or discounting the fact that indians have a tendency to put on weight but it's like they are being subjected to gravitational fields in 10 different directions n the poor'ol bodies can't quite decide where to go. So one after the other aunties with bloated bodies walk in. So if ur comfortably sitting in a seat the ladies stand near u giving sinister looks or at times even ask you to 'thoda shift ho jao. Unfortunately, that 'thoda' is not quite a little bit n by the time they have wedged themselves between the coupla poor souls sitting on that seat the souls are clinging on by the tip of their finger nails with more than half the ass mid-air!!

Point is that the ladies (n Marvin, i may add) should gear up and get in shape to avoid inconvenience to themselves n other people. Also, this tendency in India of people piling next to each other in public transport/queues inspite of there being some space avilable. It violates personal space and is frankly disgusting.

Anyways, so the aunty n the kid have settled down n the woman thinks it's time to give the baby something to eat. She decides to feed him Kurkure of all things in this world. Now that's straight from the bestselling "The Good Guide For Parents". First of all she tears the packet open n throws some part of the cover down on the floor. My sister, who till now has been in semi-commatose mode n ignoring my presence all together suddenly wakes up nand has that
troubled expression on her face. Now, if she does have a mind there was definatley something on it!! The kid, surprisingly does not apreciate the Kurkure treat he is having n seems thirsty and half of the stuff is falling down anyways. Just then a man walks past and unintentionally steps on a poor kukura smashing it and further dirting the floor. So the sibling rises and goes onto have chat with the aunty.

Well, she didn't quite scold her...but asked her not to feed the baby and spread crap around n then proceeded to pick up the cover. It just amazes me how ppl here have a tendency...almost habitually complusive to spread crap around. And these are perfeclty well to do educated people. The hypocricy of it all is that the same junta will keep their own homes really clean n be proud of it!! It just gets to me the high ground we Indians take at times - we so civilised n our rivers are so pure and blah blah....but we don't think twice about throwing away crap all over our filthy cities n towns. Agreed we don't see too many trash cans around the place or the sanitation department is not the best in Delhi but that makes us even more responsible in keeping our city clean.

I myself don't walk up ppl spreading garbage around n tell them off....but if we don't spread it ourselves this place won't be half the garbage dump it currently is.

Worldspace - The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Got my own Worldspace, thanks to people @ Siemens (who were way too contended by the stuff that plays on Delhi FM Channels)

Spent an hour, fixing the thing.
It needs to be oriented towards the SE directions. And sadly I can't see the Singapore from my balcony. So now there's a big 6 feet pole hanging horizontally from my window with the worldspace antenna on one end ;-)

The Good Part –

• Dedicated channels for Classic Rock, Alternate, Jazz, Country, Chart toppers, Classical etc. etc. (Punjabi, Bengali, Art of Living Channels also included)
• No ads, No chattering RJs, Superb Sound Quality

The Bad Part –

• No Intelligent Display (The songs will play on-and-on and you won’t be able to get any details about the songs)
• Still haven’t heard all the CDs, Cassettes, downloads that I have, talk about listening to new stuff.
• Could have been great if they had a portable receiver which you can carry anywhere like your iPod. But since it’s a satellite radio service, wanting something like this is near impossible.

The Ugly Part –

• The radio set provided by Worldspace (BPL Diva) *ucks (as pointed out by zz9 – thou shall not suck). It can only store 10 channels. No speakers. Bad Display.
• Wiring cumbersome (Imagine a wire coming from the window to your table, in case the table is diagonally opposite to the window)

In all, a good buy if you love MUSIC*. But in case you prefer Himesh Reshamiya and their ilk’s, stick to your daily dose of Red FM, Radio Mirchi and Radiocities of the world.

* Music can have different meaning for different people.

Damn You Bertie!
For putting this chatterbox of a blog in withdrawal mode with your recent retire-me-I'm-done posts
The posts have dried up worse than Delhi's taps ( cudnt find a better/worse comparison :( )
As have the comments...
To me it seems this blog is ready for cabinet...er...member reshuffle mode v1.0. It has reached a certain maturity level of idiocy...and can be expanded with a reasonable risk to accomodate new wierdos.
So try finding people around you with the zest for pouring out their unwanted-in-the-outer-world-thoughts...and resusciating this dying blog.

To blog or not to blog !!

Mostly Harmless is a rather interesting lil spec in blogosphere. Being one of the founding members makes me happy about it. That said my lack of contributions or should i say offerings at the temple of 'Random Whacky Chat', lately is not gud at all. But hey!! that's me. I rarely finish anything i start. I usually begin with great gusto only for enthu to peter out. I mean even preparing for CAT or the GD/PI, i eased up towards the end. So even if i am going to a decent institute i know that i definately didn't put in the sufficient amount of hardwork needed to crack the big ones (A,B or C).

So, Marvin n i decide one day to start a blog (sometime in early December). Those who knopw us wouldn't have been even a teeny-weeny bit surprised that the blog n it's feel was inspired loosely by D.Adams n PG Wodehouse. Ahem...well actually we stole the name of their book n characters. Like i mentioned earlier it was started out to be this wacky place where we could air n share any of our stupid, silly n non-sensical thoughts. Yeh there are plenty of them in our heads. Then ofcourse, the loony group was increased by including other nutty pals. Infact now one of the things i do everyday in the morning is to visit Mostly Harmless. Inspite of the rate of new posts being as fast as a lazy n sleepy tortoise, it's become a sorta habit. N boy has this place evolved....it's seen gud times, spats, patch ups, theories, primers to theories, poems, serious discussions and the works. What such a place needed was a collection of crazy'ol nicombpoops.

As the following Murphy's law indicates:
"The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet."

TaDa....so you have :-

- Blah : straight talkin dude. Never shy to call a real fart a fart....he brings some sembelance of order to the crazy randomness over here. Infact he along with ZZ9 are the lungs of this blog, however polluted and full of holy smoke those lungs are.

- ZZ9 : writes insightful & funny enteries and also the one with the biggest female fan following. Definately the most regular...thank heavens i sent him an invite. His posts gen bring a smile to my face weather its coz he messed it up big time with a super-dupah, ultra rich chic or imagining him wearing a turban on top of that silly grin he wears all the while.

- Madmita : ah....well moody, wonderfully weird n at times awesome writer with a penchant for inflicting temporary disorientation to readers n fellow bloggers. As if what was being said on this blog wasn't crappy enough and covered the entire space dimension of this universe, she brings in a time variable. Posts with a mind of their own....they are there one day...only to decide ah well...we're bored with these geysers n then disappear.

- Marvin : me pal is just too busy to write. Knowing Marvin, the workaholic that he is its not surprising. He's like the non-preforming assets (haha MBA jargon already) a company holds. Soo c'mon u disgusting piece of crap...move those fat lazy fingers and type away. Btw, Delhi ka trip bana yaar !!

So this is the story of this blog, where ppl share joys, sad thoughts, fustrations, general observations, social commentary n stuff....only its all mostly harmless.

High vs. Higher

Those who were high -


And those who were not -


Moral of the Story -

Dope not only makes you high, but also saner

Yo baby Yo baby Yo baby Yo!

Statutory warning: this post is a follow-up on the last post by Blatherer...if u just hated it ur in for some more...But before I begin...whats's with the rest of you? I knw ur life ain't s hep as mine/blathy's, but no post in >20 days is way too much.

Here goes nothin::

• There were 21 ppl in the trip. 21 distinct minds, plus some ppl whose asses had thier own minds. So we're talking of approx 35 distinct minds here, most ones not so clean.
• Girls gone so high that they can rattle on for 48 hrs, and abuse each other in a language that'll put sailors to shame...is not such a fun idea, not any more.
• When you stand on the edge of a cliff 2 stories high, about to leap down, you can't stop shivering. And it ain't the cold. Still you take the next step. Blame it upon a rush of blood to the head...
  
• When the holes ur meant to "make the shitty deposit" into start to overflow, it's time to leave the camp ASAP.
• When ur high...really high...singing suddenly comes to u so naturally, esp if you sing real bad. And then u keep urging/pushing/abusing the poor guitarist to match upto Hendrix and churn out tunes for you to blare on.
• Punjabi jats are slightly better than east-delhi-businessmen-ki-bigdi-aulad
• When ur in front of 10 camp-tents each lit by its own laltain, the moonlight caressing the entire beach, the bonfire heat warming you up, the river-breeze on ur face, on a picture perfect night, AND ur high...is when you realise wht being high means.
• When a pony-tailed, chinki instructor teaches you the raft-motto (incidentally the title of this post), no matter how exhausted you are after a rapid well-negotiated, you still blare your heart out with rest of the group, much to the delight of other rafters.
  

The last 48hrs have been a heady mix of anger, bliss, frustration, excitement, chaos, exhaustion, spirituality....Now I'm slowly breaking through the daylight...

Holy Smoke

Exactly 48 hours ago I got off the raft.
Paddling continuously for 20KM had taken its toll. I was so hungry that I didn't even bother to look for spoon and started eating off my hand (Soon realized, though, that I was the only person doing so)

Jottings from the trip -

- Was supposed to start at 8:30. Reached meeting place at 8:30. Played games on Rajat's PS, watched some new videos and finally started at 9:30.
- For around 1.5 hours wondered around Noida just to realize that the road we finally reached could have been reached in 15 mins .
- Out of the 21 odd people travelling in the bus, I knew only 6-7. So, was ready to face a lot of weird people.
- The odd shape of the Bus seats won't let me sleep. Took turns to sleep on seat meant for two .
- Were a good 25km away from the final destination when the bus driver announced that he won't move an inch forward.
- After a light breakfast and a small drive to Marine Drive, started off on raft with 11 other guys.
- Rapids have strange nomenclature. Eg. Good Morning, Black Money, Three Blind Mice, Roller Coaster.
- Getting inside the raft on your own (while you are in water) is not only tough but impossible.
- Jumping from a height of 10 meters into the Ganges is scary enough to let fart pass by your's.
- There are people who act stupid when sober and sober when drunk.
- Sadhus actually asked us not to smoke ganja.
- Although there's a big hole at the bottom of a Chillam, the grass won't pass through. It'll remain stuck at the upper half of the chillam
- Nearly killed a guy (who was just relaxing by the river) when a rock (the size of my palm) hit him on his neck. Obviously, thrown by me.
- The guys in the bus maybe thinking that we are big time junkies who can't do without their daily dose.
- In just 60 hours, I left my seat, travelled 250kms away, did white water rafting and all the crazy things mentioned above and am back at my seat :-O