AmreekanDesi

Every once in a while somebody sends out an email to a mailing list that turns out  to span the entire office. Very often this results in a barrage of emails from people asking to be removed from this mailing list. Fun begins when the thread explodes with people asking others to refrain from ‘replying-to-all’, while ironically doing the same!

The joys of such exchanges can truly brighten up what may have been a boring day till then!

(Read the following email thread from bottom to top – the way email threads are meant to be read)

_____________________________________________
From: Hero no 1
Sent: 18 February 2010 4:02 PM
To: Hero no 1; Hero no 2; Hero no 3;  Hero no 4; Hero no 5; Hero no 6; Hero no 7; Hero no 8; Hero no 9; Hero no 10; Hero no 11; Hero no 12; Hero no 13; #India Office Admin
Subject: RE: Permission to use office gym

Thanks everybody for your responses. I was able to get access to the gym from the admin team
_____________________________________________
From: Hero no 13
Sent: 18 February 2010 1:41 PM
To: Hero no 1; Hero no 2; Hero no 3;  Hero no 4; Hero no 5; Hero no 6; Hero no 7; Hero no 8; Hero no 9; Hero no 10; Hero no 11; Hero no 12; #India Office Admin
Subject: RE: Permission to use office gym

Has everybody absolutely lost their mind?

Who cares about the stupid gym anyway? The treadmill doesnt even work.
_____________________________________________
From: Hero no 12
Sent: 18 February 2010 1:40 PM
To: Hero no 1; Hero no 2; Hero no 3;  Hero no 4; Hero no 5; Hero no 6; Hero no 7; Hero no 8; Hero no 9; Hero no 10; Hero no 11; #India Office Admin
Subject: RE: Permission to use office gym

It seems this is some game… Everyone replying please – “Please stop sending mail”

Better follow what you guys think best to stop this chain. Else many need to waste their time to read this and delete the spam.

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Welcome back to Amreekandesi! Subscribe to our RSS feed and get regular updates in your favorite feed reader.

Can you truly recreate a legend? Probably not. But you can certainly try!

Most of my generation grew up listening to that immortal classic Mile Sur Mera Tumhara back in the days of Doordarshan. That song/video will forever remain one of the most amazing memories of my childhood, never failing to give  me the goosebumps.

Zoom TV has gone ahead and tried to recreate the song. Phir Mile Sur, with a lot of new faces and a lot of new settings. It’s beautiful. Nothing that presents India in such amazing glory can not be beautiful.

There’s sportsmen, singers, and Bollywood personalities. Men and women of immense talent doing their thing against spellbinding backdrops. Pretty awesome.

The video opens with a piece by AR Rehman, followed by Big B, with the 26/11 ravaged Taj hotel in the background.

There’s Aamir, (again) shaping the country’s future with little kids. Salman has a touching bit miming out the segment with a group of children. Aishwarya gets her share of lip synching, and of course she has her husband in tow. (Do they ever appear without each other? Is this love, or is it some sort of imprisonment?). The ever improvising Siva Mani drumming away on water.

Here’s a little preview. The full video available here (16 minutes long)

More than 60 of India’s icons have lent their support to this initiative which has taken almost a year to create. It took more than 60 days of on-location shoot, across 15 cities of India, 30 days of post production, 22 of India’s biggest superstars, 18 of India’s best musicians, 13 of India’s best artists and singers, 15 of India’s most renowned icons to create this magnum opus. Each artist speaks of a cause and the video is shot at places which have historical value and significance. [link]

Phir Mile Sur is quite good, but Mile Sur Mera Tumhara [video] remains untouchable. Far beyond the reach of any remake, for its vision and the tremendous impact it had on the nation.

What do you think?

The latest Aamir Khan starrer 3 Idiots is being widely acclaimed as one of the best movies of recent times. I managed to catch a show last week, and came back impressed.

Not just impressed. I learnt a lot from the movie. What follows is ten important lessons in life that the movie taught me.

This is not a review. Millions have already been written so i wont go there. If you want a positive review try here, and here. If you want a bad one, check this out, and for a really nasty one, read here.

Ok. So back to the ten lessons i learnt from 3 Idiots.

Ageing can be stopped. There is after all, such a thing as the elixir of life. Obviously Aamir Khan has found it; there’s no way a 44 year old man can look so incredibly young all of a sudden. If only he shared some of that with Madhavan…

Or science has really made immense progress over the past years. They probably stole the face of a college kid and stuck it on Aamir’s.

Those tiny, baby scooters come in handy in medical emergencies. You can drive ahead of an ambulance clearing the way for it to pass, or if an ambulance isn’t available, just use the little bi-wheeler as one. As an added advantage, hospitals will let you drive the scooter right up to the operation theater so it works out quite nicely.

Poverty and illness may be touchy topics, but if tinted in sepia tones they become funny. All you need is a mom cribbing about the family’s pathetic financial condition in black and white, while the paralyzed dad lies in bed, and audiences will roll away in their seats. Some will ROFL, while some others may even ROFLMAO.

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My name is Kalpana. A weird incident happened earlier this week as i was going home after getting my hair done. I saw a car burning on the road, and i think there was someone inside.

I have seen a lot in my years on Delhi roads, but nothing comes close to this one. Not even the time when i saw four masked men forcibly push a young girl into their Honda Civic (nice car, but i wouldn’t be caught dead in one. Everybody seems to own one these days), but didn’t raise an alarm since i had to leave for the States that night, and didn’t want any complications.

It had been a long week. The husband had been making preparations for an upcoming business trip. I had been busy with the kids, the social circuit, and all the shaadis. Damn November. I attended 5 weddings Monday night and still ended up missing a couple.

Anyways…yesterday  the hubby had to go to get his UK visa stamped, and picked me up on the way back. As we were traveling on this busy South Delhi road, i noticed this car that had seemed to erupt in flames all of a sudden. I think there was a couple inside the car, and could see them struggling to get out of the car.

I saw the car behind them stop, and the man inside rushed to their rescue. He tried opening the door of the still burning car with little success. Then he started waving others to stop. Why, i wanted to ask him? You don’t care for your life, and want others too to get their hands burnt (awesome pun..eh? I am convent educated, you know) trying to save a stranger.

Besides, no good ever comes out of being a good Samaritan in these modern times. The police will harass you. You will have to make a million court visits. Anyway, nothing can change fate. If they were destined to be saved then they would have been saved. Why should i waste half an hour of my life over a meaningless cause?

Thankfully this car was in the left lane, or traffic would have gotten totally messed up. You know how Delhi traffic is….one car breaks down and the domino effect ripples down to all surrounding areas resulting in long jams. The honking. The cursing. The cutting in and out of traffic. I take utmost care to be a responsible car owner – my driver has strict instructions not to use the horn more than fifty times in an hour.

Back to the burning car. As we were passing the car, i noticed Mr Braveheart managed to pull the husband out of the car and was trying to help the woman. He didn’t seem to be getting anywhere, but only getting severely burnt himself. Meanwhile nobody else bothered to stop, though traffic had considerably slowed down. Who said Delhi doesn’t care? Everybody’s eyes were focused only on that single car. What’s so bad if people were sensible enough not to endanger their own lives and add to the already existing problems.

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Ram Kadam, the mustachioed warrior out to protect Marathi Asmita assaulted Samajwadi Party MLA Abu Azmi while the latter was taking his oath as member of the Maharashtra assembly. The reason was that Azmi refused to pay any heed to the MNS warning to all MLAs to take their oaths in Marathi, and proceeded in Hindi. (Watch Video)

(This same Ram Kadam had been arrested by the police a month ago during the assembly elections for fighting with them. Serves us right for electing goons into our assemblies.)

Later, four of the 13 MNS MLAs including Kadam were suspended from the assembly for four years, a move that critics say should have been stricter in the form of an expulsion. Now essentially their constituencies are going to be unrepresented for four years. Even after the suspension these people remain unrepentant and look at themselves are heroes out to protect their Maratha motherland.

Now people are holding Raj Thackeray responsible for all the nationalistic chauvinism being propagated by his party. I get the feeling that Raj Thackeray is merely showing us a mirror.

Raj Thackeray is in a sense a projection of India’s worst case scenario. Of an India gone all wrong in narrow minded regional glory. Of an India divided by language, religion, region, caste, gender, and what have you.

Raj Thackeray is in a sense a projection of India’s worst case scenario.

Raj Thackeray isn’t the only one who thinks the way he does. Obviously he has support from the people, or he wouldn’t get their votes into the assembly. And therein lies the problem. He is merely giving form to a very dangerous form of nationalism. Already, there is the much talked about north south divide, where the people from the southern states aren’t particularly fond of north indians, and the north Indians reciprocate the feeling through typecast terms and expressions. madrasi, anyone? Message boards on news sites provide ample examples of this attitude.

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I had always heard of the rush associated with the killing of wild animals, aka Hunting. I am happy to inform my dear readers that i have been experiencing the said rush these days thanks to a new found passion.

I have blood on my hands. Well, not right now. Not as i type. Wouldn’t want to stain the keyboard. Anyway, it isn’t even just blood. There’s some other gory stuff as well.

For those of you who have watched (and enjoyed, i daresay) the spectacle of that Discovery show called Man vs Wild where this brave guy catches fish with the bare hands and rips their head off for the protein, i have been doing some bare handed killing myself.

The best part is that the more i kill, the more there seem to be. Its like the akshay patra of Mahabharata, the bowl that was always full of food. Somewhere in China, maybe they fry and eat these beings but i dont think i am quite yet ready to eat a mosquito pakora.

(Swatted one just now as i stopped for a breath in between paras, Obama style. I got the sucker.)

Nothing beats the joy of finding a lonely fat (it’s most likely my blood in there) machchar, and swooping in for the kill like a vulture diving to pick up a rat from the ground. It’s not easy, and the amateurs will likely have a low success rate. It’ll take some practice before you can reach fire and forget levels of surety.

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Are you an Indian settled abroad thinking of coming back to India? Read on.

First the all important question. Why do you want to move to India? Seriously. Think again.  If you are coming back because you think India is this awesome place growing at a rapid pace where you would be able to enjoy all that life (and money) has to offer, then please reconsider your decision.

If you come expecting a thousand watt halogen lamp, the hopeful candle flickering in the wind might come as a disappointment.

NRI City – Greater Noida. “Bringing Singapore to India“

Return to India only if you have a very solid reason that will sustain you through the transition period (and beyond), during which you will crib about everything from the traffic, pollution, corruption, cows, buffaloes, and the silly speed bump outside your house. This reason could be work, family, emotions, a hidden treasure that you left under the tree on that plot near the house, the one that has been taken up by the newest unauthorized temple in town.

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Just came across the Google Doodle contest going on currently. As part of this competition, students in India from Standards 1 to 10 were invited to design a doodle for Google. The winning doodle will be displayed on the Google India homepage all day this Children’s day (14 November).

The theme for the competition is My India and through their designs these kids are supposed to tell us what India means to them. Over 4000 entries were submitted out of which the top 45 have been selected. Now it is open to the public to decide who is the best doodler.

Online voting is open from 21st of October 2009 to 31st of October 2009. Go cast your vote  for your favorite design.

There’s three categories: 1-3rd, 4-6th, and 7-10th standard. Teeny kids if you ask me, but the designs blew my mind. I am no artist  but damn, these kids are good.

Sample some of my favorites. This one is the creation of Vansh from 1st standard. (Yes, that’s some 5 years old!)

Jai Ho

My doodle depicts few of the endless contributions made by India to the world. India has never invaded any country in the past 10,00 years of history and taught the world non-violence and peace by Gandhiji. Aryabhatta invented zero. Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine. 2600 years ago Sushrutha, father of surgery conducted complicated operations. Pythagorean Theorem was first explained by Budhayana. Chess, snakes and ladders, art of navigation, etc originated in India. I wish that someday with my contributions, I’ll be able to occupy a space in somebody’s doodle as a person who contributed for this lovely country.

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