Golmaal Hain...

With my ex and to-be managers struggling to get me the right portfolio, and mom out for vacation and me being home alone,I have enuff time to hit the blog and post almost everyday. So here goes one more..... One of my curious frenz visited my profile on blogger.com and she was asking me why I wrote "Comfortable Confused" only, in About me-section ??(That reminds me of Abhi's post where he wrote how desis have nothing to write abt in their profiles ;) ) True!! So when it comes to writing about me, OMG there are so many things to write about...I see how superlative I am at times... ;) Jokes apart,the first thing that comes to my mind in support of my "CC" comment is : I always wanted to be a journo and had an inclination towards english literature. I was into all kind of competitions in school :Public Speaking, Creative Writing,Debates,Essays,Story-recitation,Story-Appreciation etc. and my English teacher always believed I will make it to be a good author or journalist someday. But I took up science (PCM) in school and studied biology alongside as my family is about education,doctors,defence personnels and all, they never wanted their daughter to move around with a JHOLA on her shoulder..lol..thts how Indian presumed Journos to be...Anyways, I scored great marks in English and headed for an Eng Hons. from DU.I saw my frenz going for engg entrances and got carried away, I knew my dad always wanted me to b an engineer so I joined engg entrance classes and after a year made it to a private college in UP.(We will come to that story later). I gave in and thought I will study IT as that was all i cud score in(Is what I thought) but, I got Electrical branch to study(I had no contacts to get that fixed to IT), so I studied EE and passed college with a decent score and got a job in a Technical Support firm at college. I quit my job after 4 months and switched to IT major Satyam and then the rest is history... The more I think, the more I feel if you ask me, abt me ..I wud say read on....and thats all about me!! A wannabe journo turned a wannabe IT engineer turned an Electical engineer turned a techincal support executive turned a software engineer turned a Postgraduate in Journalism turned an IT book author turned an IT Newsletter Editor turned an IT Specialist turned a Blogger....and still a wannabe journo...life comes full circle :) Coz it was never about IT and the truth is I never had a technical bent of mind!!! And here I am absolutely comfortably confused...coz I ended up being someone I never wanted to be and I still want to be what i wanted to be...but am still not able to be what i wanted to be (Money talks!! and so does my job)...lol Golmaal hain bhai!! Sab golmaal hain!!

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Plan of Action...

This post is in continuation with my post on Jaipur bomb blasts and in answer to my dear friend Abhinav's comment. I realised that I have been doing nothing but cribbing about what happened,loopholes and blah blah....but I did not give any suggestions/solutions from my side... Thanks to him I got my wake-up call. :) In a way I was trying to avoid being foolish while presenting my suggestions....thats how everyone saves their skin...Abhi, its a day of self-realization for me...all credit to you.. I personally think if we stress upon few vital factors we can achieve a level of security in the country.

• Corruption : Rings bells in my ears!! but it is the core reason for the terrorism we are facing in India. I think we can do away with the frequency of attacks if we keep a check on it. Bribery for inflirtation,cross-border illegal immigration,fake ids,passports,driving licenses and all other proofs for being an Indian resident is the most prevelent reason which comes in picture whenevr a terror strike hits India.
• Security: Yet again, Money rules!! 3 months back a TOI reporter got access to the secured areas of IGI Airport in Delhi after bribing for few thousands. He worked there for 2 months shooting all the important security points. Security at the airports is for namesake. I have been travelling in and out of India frequently and I see that most of the times the cops dont even bother to stamp the bags, forget about making sure that I am travelling safe. I think we need to work strongly on our security in all areas. More alert cops (Wish the govt starts paying them well and they get some motivation and appreciation in their field of work) will definitely avert such tragedies.
• Poverty - If we could work on it in the right direction. I am not an economics student to comment on that but with the inflation rates soaring and the poverty increasing each day, I wonder why people wud not kill other for money?
• Alertness - CCTVs, Constant ID checks, Stringent laws are few measures that can make our country more alert towards such attacks.
• A Unified Approach : Central agencies tell State Agencies and they sleep over it.That is what we have been witnessing for long. There has to be a channelisation of the information in a secured manner so that right people have the information and they can act thereon and a feedback should be taken. What happens now is they convey the info and dont even bother to check back if the people acted on it and no one questions them until something happens.
• I agree that religion does not bear the fruits for terrorism but offlate a lot of Madrasas are promoting terrorism in the name of Jehad. Why we dont have a check on them? Why are we losing our educated countrymen to a bane like terrorism.

The numbers will increase but ofcourse We, the people can suggest but the concerned people have to implement the right-plan to restrict the losses we have borne at the hands of terrorism.

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IPL- What works for it??

"With the Preitys and SRKs of bollywood jumping into the cricket business, we have a lot of commercial movie-masala to look forward to..." - is what I read few days back. Well the author was not wrong abt it, we have for sure seen a lots of drama on and off-field. I quit watching cricket after my grand-mom's death as she was really fond of cricket and we used to watch all matches together....I switched to soccer instead( Thanks to Sunny).But living in a house which has a majority of men, I had to give-in. IPL was another reason, I came back to cricket from soccer. And well with no good movies coming up during IPL season ( who needs movies anyways, all masala is there), I decided to stick to IPL. Being the hard-core punjabi that I am, I am cheering for KINGS XI PUNJAB...ofcourse, I always have a soft corner for the underdogs. So far I am quite elated with my team's performance in IPL... IPL sure is a hit this season for a series of reasons :

• The WOW factor : SRK,Preity,Juhi Chawla,Akki,Katrina Kaif,Hrithik,Ness Wadia,Mukesh Ambani,Vijay Mallya and a lot of star power pulled-in by SRK camp.
• Who gets to see the bollywood biggies Live craving for attention and appreciation for teams everyday?? :)
• Cheerleaders, you bet.
• Short and Sweet ( The SMS generation that we are)
• The fast-paced aggressive display of the cricketing skills..
• Who can snatch the credit away from "THE SLAPGATE CONTROVERSY"- For those who came in late. Bhajji slapped Sreesanth after Mumbai lost to Mohali.
• SRK Dug-out controversy
• Vijay Mallaya firing CEO of his team(RCB)Charu Sharma and lashing out against Rahul Dravid( although the team came out in his support)
• Who can forget the infamous call for a third-umpire consideration from Saurav(SRK's team) for a catch.
• And ofcourse Viru was nto far behind when he insisted for the same in one of the matches.
• The action and drama when Duckworth/Lewis rule played spoilsport for the overconfident teams. :) remember KKR recently??
• Not to forget, the Jadoo ki Jhappis that Preity has been generously distributing ,after each win to her team-mates and being photographed doing that adding to awkwardness...(When will the Indian media grow up??)

I may have missed on something for sure....Last but not the least, how about Rajasthan Royals, no one expected them to fly so high. I believe they are the most inexpensive team also....

As I end my post, the IBN site says that there is another controversy" Two cheerleaders from London were allegedly asked to leave the Mohali ground by event management company, Wizcraft, because they had a darker skin colour."

IPL is getting spicier and more controversy-ridden. Hope it does not take the real thing away from IPL...On that note me signing off, have a KKR and Rajasthan Royals match to catch up....See ya guys!! ;)

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Wake-up call....Have you woken up yet??

Yet another bomb blast in India, and the political parties swing into action with the same old blame-game theory...Nobody is interested in tracing down the culprits(as it seems) and taking appropriate measures to strengthen the security of our country. I understand, terrorism and terrorists are everywhere but I strongly believe in the lessons I have learnt thru my dad. Ironically he hardly told me anything directly, I usually overheard him talking to someone and picked up his thoughts and tried my best to infuse them in my life. Dad once told my 6 yr old cousin," if you put a strong face holding hands together, the person who plans to harm your family will think twice before attacking you".I agree. Do you stop fighting back coz the enemy is stronger?? ah! I dont think so... I think why not we shun them so hard that they think twice before harming us...Someday they WILL give up on this madness in the name of religion.... Rather than cribbing about how strong,intelligent and omni-present the enemy is, we can take up the task in hand and take some hard core steps to control the situations that have killed many innocents all across the country. I really wonder( no offence meant here), who suffers at the end : The common man...the WE in the YOU that we carry with us... :( There is no Hindu and no muslim in the dead...they are all humans who had their families,jobs and dreams just like all of us...As it happens always, in Jaipur too, muslims came forward to help Hindus and viceversa. I personally feel these religious debates are politically motivated and the common man does not even bother to think about religion when it comes to his countrymen and people. A religion does not define a man, a man defines his religion. Its the man involved and not the religion involved who is the cuplrit. I feel pity for the people who believe that one's religion teaches him to kill innocent men,kids and women. Everytime such news hit the newspapers, the columnists come with examples of compassion and resilience of people in India. Gimme a break!! Enuff resilience...enuff tolerance....why cant we just stand up and say, "Once and for all, We are not going to tolerate it anymore". Why dont we just stop giving resilience and tolerance for an excuse and take charge and safeguard ourselves. High-time the government comes up with a PLAN OF ACTION. I heard about a federal agency coming up, my question is why was it not there and what is it with ATS,IB and RAW and even state intelligence agencies. Why come up with a new agency, why not re-visit our loopholes and make up for it right there with the teams that have the sheer experience that is required. I am not as intelligent as the people who sit at the top and take decisions but as a patriotic citizen of this country, who has always looked up to the National Flag with pride and ownership, it seems absolutely pointless when an IG,police comes up and says," We did not take the securirty threat information seriously". Damn, you have a convoy shielding you, why wud you? This shows how careless our system is, We cannot blame someone else for runing our peace and harmony...Nopes we cannot...Until we realise that WE(the system) are responsible for what happens to us.. I hope the government and security agencies wake-up to this call and stop giving childish interviews blaming one another for the mishaps....We shud join hands and safeguard what belongs to us....I am sure the common man will support all the measures, in case there are any taken. Let us stop the WHODUNNIT game and "whoz fault is it"- thing?? We are no soft-targets....let us prove we are indeed not soft...we welcome love with open arms and we know how to give it back to them.... P.S. Me not too gud with political stuff but cannot stop my emotional side talking...My sympathies with the pople who suffer at the hands of the fallacies on the system's part.

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Grow up kid!! Therez more to life...

I strongly believe in the term " Survival Instinct" now. I donno from where does it originate as per science and theories floating around, but my experience says it is somewhere within me, within you...Infact, within all of us. Its like that dormant volcano thing we read in the school geography books which comes into action under the mysterious of circumstances. You ask me when I discovered my Survival Instincts. I would say the faintest I remember is when I fought back being kidnapped at the New Delhi Platform, I was in Class 5. I was this nervous kid suffering from a great deal of inferiority complex(thanks to the weirdest of experiences I have had in my childhood) and for someone like me to fight back was quiet an achievement. All I remember is I bit that guy hard on his hand until he bled to release myself from his tight hold. I escaped. :) and sooner I realised ahum! Gal, u can survive... :) This was just a beginning and there have been many instances where SI came in picture and went away. I am a person who believes in appreciation of small as well big achievements coz dad once told me that no achievement is big or small : an achievement is an achievement and it shud be celebrated. I have celebrated my first lonesome trip to delhi when I lost my way to North Campus, I almost cried out of panic and then I was like lets go and lets see!! I almost saw all parts of delhi that day and finally made it to college though 4 hours late. ;) Credit goes to SI again, it came from nowhere and pushed me to go ahead and explore with confidence.I came back home and told my dad about how I lost my way and blah blah, expecting some sympathy for the poor soul that I was. I was shocked when he told me, "That calls for a glass of lassi, today you learnt there are 4 other ways too to reach your college than the one you already know of". I was so angry about that, I was like Lassi!! Grrr....Gimme something I can bang my head on...he he...I did not realise what he tried to say and when I look back to several such incidents I feel how rightful he has been in making me learn the way he has, coz if it was not for him I wud not be the person I am today( I mean you guys already know of my HK escapades and more of such incidents where I stood ground for myself). There have been many more such big and small achievements where I discovered and re-discovered myself and that makes me feel special.. :) So when people come to me and say they think they are failures, life is screwing them bad...etc. I tell them everyone of us is special. I mean if I had lost my way that day, I would not have gained confidence to travel alone and explore..Isnt it?? That made me special as I can do what almost 50% of women in India cant do even now. Makes you wonder how can I say that? You just need to catch up with the papers and you will know there exists a world beyond IT,the 21st century woman and dipping economy, where a woman is still scared to gather courage to do what she wants to do. So why do we spend time, self-analyzing and finding faults in us and in life...Why dont we just say? Life is trying to be funny instead of saying it is screwing me bad and laugh it off!! Trust me...life is trying to be funny with me these days...my bhai is nt well...mom was hospitalised for chest pain...me had a car run over my right leg....my dog was hospitalised few weeks back...i m on bed right now nursing a muscle-pull in my neck....my boss told me she gives a damn about my personal life no matter how hard I worked for the organization....and what am I doing?? he he ...I am planning the menu for lunch...coz I am not God and well God has no plans to hand over his responsibilities to me in near future :)I know I am far better than the women who cannot even utter a word they want to and better than the baby girls that are drowned at birth to avoid social-discrimination by the family. I always tell myself, my parents gave me this life to make the most of it...So why not let my Survival Instincts take over and lets face the world as who I am and shine through. So the next time, I meet someone who has a lot to crib about life, I would say...Grow up kid!! therez more to life than you see... The other best alternative is what I usually do to Dear God, everytime he makes me fall, I just get up and look up at the sky...and say, "well ok..now how do you plan to pay for this??"... he he. Coz I believe he makes up for what he takes away....so most of the hard work is done by him not me...as everytime he kicks me hard, he knows I am gonna bug him badly till he get it all right on the track...so as dad says, " Tension leney ka nahi, deney ka"... P.S. Aloo-Matar on the menu...any takers?? ;)

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