iJokes

My friend and I were discussing politics the other day. We were discussing the difference among Congress (I), Congress and Indian National Congress and among CPI, CPI(M) and CPM. Just then i asked him: If Congress(I) were founded by Steve Jobs, what would it be called. He was stunned. What the hell was i asking. He never bothered to even think why the hell was i asking that.

He had no clue (Good for me). So, i replied:

iCongress

And he was like - "Awww.."

He smirked at me - Don't tell this to the Presidency/JU Arts girls. They will bury you. I said they can't do that. If they come to do that, I'll tell them:


"Don't Bury, Be Happy"

Now, don't give me that look. I know it was bad. But couldn't help sharing it. [You would understand this if you know Bengali]

BTW, i am still awaiting your pet-peeves. The idea is that I'll collate them up for the larger group of readers. Do key in your pet-peeves here

Cheers!

Guest Blog Post: Alice In Wonderland - The Review

[Hey Guys!

I am a bit busy with my work these days to write something. So, you have a guest blog post from Tejaswy!

Cheers,
Prashant ]

This was one of the first books I read in my life and the one of which I have least memory of. After having a chat with my friend Raj, who happens to love reading books that are not related to engineering or academics, I realized that I should get back to reading and what better way to get back to reading than read the first book I ever read and of which I have no memory of.

Introduction

Alice in wonderland is a story of, as you all know, a girl who follows a talking white rabbit into a rabbit hole, and hence enters a wonderland where nothing makes sense to her 7 year old brain but she is still able to make sense of a lot of things that would normally not makes sense to grownups!

Did that sentence make sense?


For example

Drinking magic potions to grow small
Eating cakes to grow big
Sneezing babies turning into pigs
A mysteriously grinning and vanishing cat
Stopping and modifying time
And a Queen who’s answer to all the problems is “Chopping of heads”

The Story

Alice is depicted to be a typical English mem, who is polite, courteous and sometimes a bit too mature for her age. She is in a boring tea party with her elder sister when she spots a white rabbit who seems to be in a hurry to meet the Queen of Hearts. She follows him to a rabbit hole where she discovers she is too big for the door. She drinks a potion which reduces her size to the level of the door but only to realize that the keys were on top of the table. She eats a mushroom to grow big but apparently she eats too much of it and outgrows the room itself! After a lot of mixing and stirring she finally manages to get through the door to see the most beautiful garden ever.

There she meets a caterpillar, who is smoking a hookah (Talk about smoking being dangerous to health) who guides her to a “Mad”tea party where a Hatter and a Hare are having a tea party and they somehow manage to get Alice involved with her. She is challenged to a game of riddles with the Mad Hatter and the Hare with no clear evidence of who is making sense and who is not. After spending some time with them Alice loses her temper and storms out of the tea party calling the tea party “The stupidest tea party ever.” She keeps meeting Cheshire, the disappearing, grinning cat, who helps Alice out in bits and pieces and seems to be the only friend she has in the Wonderland


Soon after this she meets the Queen of the Wonderland who is incidentally the Queen of Hearts in a pack of cards, and all her guards are pack of cards.

Her favorite line happens to be

“Off with the head”
“Don’t be nervous, or I’ll have you executed”
“Give your evidence” said the Queen, or “I’ll have you executed”
“You are a poor Speaker, off with his head”


After losing a game of croquet with the queen , Alice is put on trail and the witness happens to be the hatter , a hare and the sleepy mouse. Alice eventually losses the case and is to be executed.

But in the nick of time she wakes up.

You have to think like a 7 year old when you are reading this book. You have to forget the fact that some things are impossible. It is a wonderful and a magical book (not that the book does magic itself but you get the idea).I think everyone should read the original book at least once in his/her life time and please be sure to read it to your kids.

Implications of Alice in Wonderland in today’s world

The story has become a metaphor in today’s world. It is used to describe one’s imagination/Imaginary world where not everything is perfect. It has been taken up by the medical community as a Syndrome termed as “Alice in Wonderland syndrome” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_in_Wonderland_syndrome

In the movie Matrix, Neo is asked to wake up by Trinity and asked to follow the white rabbit. Check the video here.

And here is when Morpheus offers the choice between the Red pill and the Blue pill and tell his about the Matrix wonderland. Check the video here.

In the movie The Resident Evil the protagonist is named Alice and the Antagonist Character, the Macro Computer, is named as The Red Queen.

Not to mention Tim Burtons latest movie called Alice in Wonderland with Johnny Depp playing as the Mad hatter. Check the trailer here


Cheers

Tejaswy

[Tejaswy blogs at www.tejaswy.com
About him: (in his own words) One of God’s own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.]

MJ-LOTD: Zakhm

This weekend i caught up with 'Zakhm'- a movie which was in my to-watch list. And what a movie it was! Amazing. It was made at a time when Mahesh Bhatt was still making movies sans Emraan Hashmi and sans the skin show. The story is amazing. The movie holds your attention from the starting till the end. Moving back and forth in time,the story reveals itself in small installments. The acting of all the actors was apt. The music (by M M Kreem) is very unconventional though it used the conventional singers like Kumar Sanu and Alka Yagnik. I had heard (and liked) 'Tum aaye toh aaya mujhe yaad' before. But song, 'Hum yahaa', is very good as well. The lyrics of all songs are very contextual and helps in taking the story forward.

MJ-LOTD is the mellifluous song, hum yahaan, composed by M M Kreem. M M Kreem, i guess, is one of the most under-rated music directors in the Bollywood. Probably, because he doesn't do too many 'main-stream' movie.

MJ-LOTD: Rakhi Ka Swayamvar - Hazaaron Mein Ek

A lot has been blogged about Rakhi, the host and the contenders. Has anyone even gotten a chance to look at the 'others'?

Imagine, if the potential groom's friends 'bhi hazaaron mein ek ho' [Translation: one in thousands]. To give you an idea, the two friends are 'unique' in 24038!

Refer to this video

Go to time around 1:10. And follow the sequence:

Rakhi: I want to ask you a question. But, before that, put your hand on your heart.
[The friends put their hands on the left side of their chest]
Rakhi: Don't put your hands on the microphone, put it on your heart
[and gestures them to put the hand on the other side]

Bingo. Rakhi has an eye. Now, i am not referring to her vigorous flapping of false eyelashes. What i mean is that she had some divine intervention and found that her suitor's friends were 'Dextrocardians'. So, she being what she is, caught the crime and asked 'the friends' to put their hands on their "heart" which, as hinted by her fingers, is on the right side!

If you are wondering, how are the cute friends unique in thousands (24038), refer to Wiki link on dextrocardia. As per Wiki, Dextrocardia is believed to occur in approximately 1 in 12,019 people.

If the friends of the groom are 'hazaaron mein ek' then wonder how the groom would be? And more so, how the bride would be?

Cheers!

My Pet Peeves

Everyone has his/her pet peeves - something which is not unacceptable but something which, kind of, annoys him. Here are a few of my pet peeves

Anyways. This really sounds i-also-English kinds. Have we ever read, in any of our text books, the word 'anyways'? The correct word, anyway, is 'anyway' – and surprisingly, everyone knows it – even those who use 'anyways' in every other sentence they speak. But still they use it - perhaps, to sound 'cool'. You think it's just 'no-problems' to use it?

Sarvanan: You know, radio was invented by Marconi
Swetha: No re. Radio was not invented by Marconi. It was invented by Tesla
Sarvanan: I told you na that I referred to Wiki and Wiki cannot be wrong re.
Swetha: Is it? I'll need your help in Googling, Sarvanan
Sarvanan: err...
Swetha: Will you help me na!

[Link to who-invented-radio dispute]

Sa re ga ma pa dha ni may be music to my ears but 're' and 'na' are definitely not. There is also the English-version of it. 'Na' maps to 'no'. “I told you no that the pani puri is not hyginic. Now see. You fell ill no”

No problem – This phrase may have become famous after Suzuki Samurai's ad. But this is something which people use so often when they don't intend to use it. “No problem” is not a replacement for “you are welcome”. While filing a complaint with a service provider, I got, kind of, annoyed when the customer service executive returned a 'no problem' for my 'thank you' . Does she mean it's not a problem for her to take my complaint? She should be, rather, sorry. I am sure she didn't mean the 'no-problem' in the literal sense and gave it as an obvious return for a 'thank you'.

'Only' is being used to mean 'hi' in Hindi – Like, 'maine hi use kaha jane ki liye' translates to 'i only asked her to go'. Now don't laugh after reading it twice. If you go back from 'i only asked her to go' to Hind you land up at 'maine use jane ki liye hi kaha' which is completely different from the original sentence!

Exclamation mark. This has become a subsitute for other punctuation marks like full stop and question mark. Unnecessary use of '!' doesn't make the writing more exclamatory. Neither does it shows that the writer is 'exclaiming'. Personally, it annoys me. I wish the word processors removed those unnecessary exclamation marks. Or the email solutions mark those emails with a dollop of exclamation marks as spam. BTW, even the smileys don't mean you are smiling. It's very annoying when you get something like - “You are fired! :)”

Another pet peeve of mine in my childhood days was the use of 'Teacher's Day' instead of 'Teachers' Day'. It was a different feeling altogether to see beautifully designed and decorated charts wishing 'Happy Teacher's Day'.

It's not that i am some language expert or that i don't make errors. I am sure i do. And you can find a host of them in this blog. But i guess everyone has a right to 'have' pet peeves :)

Do share your pet peeves with us and also if i happen to be using any of yours in my posts.

Cheers.

MJ-LOTD: Best Actor 2009

Fashion seems to be a milestone in Priyanka Chopra's career. Why not? After all the awards she won!

In this clip from the movie Fashion - go to time around 9:00 minutes.

Observe that even before Janet completes her flattery, flowery "You were fabulous" - our best actor jumps up - "really!"

This is called knowing what other person wants to say. I wouldn't call it bad timing. I'd call it prediction. Meghna Mathur (played by Priyanka) seemed to be just waiting for Janet to complete 'Fabulous' so that she can say "Really!"

Check out my review of 'Fashion' in case you haven't

Enjoy!

MJ-LOTD: The Rajanikanths

It's not that only Rajanikanth can do it. The Papaji is no less. Check papaji in action here.