Who is hoarding it… who is paying for it….

Got a chance to see a few BMC workers take down political hoardings. They then put the same in a vehicle which was already loaded with such more, which they seemed to have taken down from other places.

Political parties, Mandals and the likes, deface Mumbai with hoardings and then “conveniently” forget to take them down. And then BMC does the “job” of removing them.

But then was wondering of the expenses incurred in taking down these hoardings. Manpower, time involved, vehicle expenses etc. Does BMC actually take the charges from those who put up these hoardings? I hope so… but very seriously doubt the same. I doubt if all the hoardings are even paid for and official.

Why is the common man made to suffer by such defacement and also bear the expense of removing the same. After all BMC is not paying from its pocket but collecting it by way of taxes on the common man.

Why are such people allowed to go away with this… karre koi bhare koi…. who is hoarding it(and also reaping benefits from it).. who is paying for it !!!!

Happy New Year

Was not planning to blog about the movie. Seriously was not. But then took it up because of DV(SRK fan.. active on twitter only when SRK movies release).

The brother-sister-jija trio of Sajid-Farah-Sirish Kunder have already done lot of maa-behan of dimaag with their last few movies. Out of the three I believe Sajid and Shirish should stop making movies. Their idea of slap stick comedy makes them deserve slaps.

Farah is smart though… she knew a movie without SRK will lead her no way. So much so… that she “forgave” SRK for slapping her husband and decided to make a movie with him. Make a Happy New Year to be released on Diwali.

The timing of the movie, and the fact that there is nothing other to watch will make this movie earn. But then the question is .. Is the movie good?

I would suggest go and watch the movie. You can skip the first 30 mins. SRKs eight packs only make him look like a sadak chaap lookha. The introduction fight scene has got no relevance to the movie. The introduction of other other characters is irrelevant. Sonu Sood’s, Boman Irani, Vivaan Shah intros can be skipped. You can start watching the movie from Abhishek Bachchans “Nandu Bhide .. Dimaag main kide” introduction. And his comic timing in the movie is impeccable !! Deepika’s Mohini is one more reason to watch out for in this movie.

If SRK fans are looking out for his usual romantic self.. be in for a surprise.. because somewhere I felt he acted maturely.. the lovey dovey scenes between him and Deepika are more like one sided … from Mohini’s side than SRK’s Charlie.

The robbery plan is informed to the public beforehand, and every heist movie lover can predict that this plan is going to kaput. And Kaput it goes… but in a very entertaining way.. specially when Nandu Bhide undresses to claps in the theater.

People in the theater were even able to guess the “Charlie“ password .. but then not in a “oh this is so boring” … but avidly..

Frankly I did download the movie and see it again… but while doing so.. I fast forwarded directly to Abhisheks entry…and fast forwarded the “revenge” part. This movie deserved to be hardly 1.5 hours to be frank.

Indiawaale song might just become a regular like Chak De on 15th August, 26th Jan … but not as huge…

Overall watch the movie for Abhisheks Nandu Bhide… and yes Farah Khan is lucky that SRK said yes for the movie… because without him this movie would have been just another dimaag ki maa-behan from the trio !!

Guns and Roses

Daily reading in the news, on facebook, on whatsapp, on twitter, praises being heaped on our Army men for their great efforts in rescuing people stuck in Jammu Kashmir floods.

Our army men have been relentlessly working hard be it on the border or in Uttarakhand or Maoist areas.

But what bothers me is when they are accused of using harsh force while trying to control riots. Certain “intelligentsia” which is surprising quite in praising their efforts in the Jammu and Kashmir floods, go all out in blaming our brave army when they try to control riots. Those who have commented have smartly put their efforts across as “Duty”. Even during riots they are doing their duty of protecting the lives and properties of innocents who are being troubled because of stupid rioters. There they have to use their guns… and face brickbats instead of bouquets.

Never understood this double standard of our so called human rights activists.

Whatever the case, would like this opportunity to salute our brave hearts. They really deserve this .. and a lot more .. in terms of salaries, accommodations, retirement benefits… but they are not sitting in the parliament to have a “right” to huge packets… they are not sitting in the Air-conditioned cars and halls of power… but they are the first people to come forward and work hard for our country……

FB Photos

Yesterday as I prepared myself to click the Rakshabandhan photos of my 9 year old daughter tying Rakhi to her brothers, she warned me against posting them on FB !! “Click the photos if you want, but don’t post them on facebook” is what she said. My teenage son also supported her in the same.

Been thinking about it… the way we (I mean our generation) and our seniors are active on facebook, our kids are not very keen about it.

I get such warnings of not posting their snaps on facebook during every birthday party, outing, vacation.

Are they growing up to be unsocial? Nopes I don’t think so.

It is the ease of communication to the current generation which was not present during our time, which has made us so addicted to facebook.

For me the best part of facebook is getting an “Add friend” request from a long out- of-touch friend or relative. For me I get excited when out of the blue, thru one facebook friend I get in touch with another. When we were small, we did not have access to mobiles, whatsapp and other messengers, like todays kids. Most of us depended on keeping in touch with each other over phone calls, emails(at a later stage). Our elders were in touch with each other by writing letters… an art which I believe is missing in our generation.. let alone be present in our kids.

Communication and keeping in touch is far easier for the todays kids, then what we and our elders had.

Our kids will never know the fun of giving blank/crank calls thru landline numbers which were in our time very difficult to trace. Modern day  lovers, have direct access to each others mobile numbers.. they will never know the fun/excitement/fear of calling on the landline number, hoping that it wont be picked up by any other family member. Now they can directly call each other, message each other.

Just a few thoughts when I started thinking, am I overdoing it by posting snaps on facebook… but then I think our life was far far better…..

FAX it…

My office all in one printer conked off. So started researching around for which is good model currently. What struck me is the price difference of models with fax and without fax.

This started a thought process...how many faxes do we receive or send nowadays. I believe I get on an average 2-3 faxes per month and send hardly 2-3 in 4 months.

Scanned images in email have replaced faxes, which at one point of time were so important.

So it seems technology is slowing killing away one more technology which was a boon till a few years back.. FAX. Like typewriters in offices, guess its time to bid adieu to Fax machines too. No more saying FAX it … anymore…

P.S : I finally settled for an All in one without fax. Will handle the incomings by asking to email the docs ….

Disconnect to Connect

Am a self confessed Facebook, twitter, whatsapp addict. Have in the past many a times taken a break from Fb for a week or month…but have always come back.

Whatsapp is one addiction which was very easy to deaddict myself from. Whatsapp works on a the basic rule…you send one ..u receive many. So if you stop sending those jokes around… people will also stop sending the same to you.

So what remains was Facebook and twitter. Last week I had to move out at 1 pm from my office for some urgent work. In my rush, I forgot my mobile at the office. The ghost rings in my ear, the ghost vibrations in my pocket were so disturbing. Every now and then, I would put my hand in my pocket to remove my non existent mobile phone.

By evening however, I was beginning to enjoy my “disconnected” world. Spent some good time with the kids without the phone ringing or pinging out a notification, watched a movie without having to talk on the phone in between. Loved the evening. It was like those times when mobiles did not exist in the world.

Next day morning however was a shock. When I came back to the office, had 124 missed calls. Though a few were repeat calls from many… but still was shocked to realise how much time we spend in staying connected.

I made a decision then that I would disconnect my self to connect to the real world. Now daily my phone goes in Quite mode from 6 pm to morning 7 am. No phones calls, no social notifications, no emails. I do cheat on the social media part by going online, but a few of my friends keep reminding me of my decision… and trust me it actually helps me off it.

Now I am disconnected from virtual world…but connected to real world. I like it that way. Hope to keep it that way.

Ab ki baar ……

Exciting Day...had expected a victory for Modi...but this one surpasses all expectations!!!

Congress....Mayawati...Farooque Abdulla...Kapil Sibal....all shown their rightful value by WE THE PEOPLE.

They all had forgotten that we have elected them as our representatives to run the country. But the 'elected party' became 'ruling party'.

In which other country can u witness a bloodless overthrowing of a 'ruling party' by more than 50 crore voters.

This is the Power of the Largest Democracy!!

Salaam India.

Kar bhala…ho lafda

Got a visit from police today at home. I am here sitting in the office, my dad met them. Way back in 2005-06(cant even remember the year now), saw a biker dead on the road, his bike besides him. My dad, my brother, and myself were in our car. We called the police and informed them. The next day we read in the paper that he was a policeman, and a truck driver was arrested in a hit and run case.

Now we three have to go to the court as witness. Seriously!! After more than 7-8 yrs… out of the blue they want us to stand witness? And what witness…we did not witness the accident…we just saw the biker. We did what we thought is our duty and informed the police by calling 100. They took our statement on the day of the accident.

Now having second thoughts of whether one should help an accident victim or no. Now will have to take a day off from work and attend the court. Not sure if by attending on a single day will be the end of it, or will have to visit court on more dates. Salaam India.

Privacy?!!

My son happened to show me what all access we are giving to the mobile app of Facebook after we install it..out of the many permissions to it which are wrong...there are two permissions which has left me wondering if we are right in allowing Facebook to access our data.....

It can access our call data

It can access our SMS and mms data

Now why the hell should we allow facebook to access that!!!

In a way it has access to ur bank, credit card spends. Ur insurance policy, light bill, telephone bill details thru SMS received ..

Just why exactly does facebook need this data. It might claim that it uses it only to show us advts on our TImeline...but what if it looses control over the data, if it falls in wrong hands?

As if our mobile operators don't have access to our data...why are we allowing a third party access to the same?!?

Being connected is one thing...but at the cost of invading our privacy?!