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So, it is that time of the year again. The concept of a Blog Day post is to make available to the general public, other blogs that the said blogger might have come upon and thinks that these are worthy of being read by the majority that seems to be unaware of their presence.
Based on this premise, I have been thinking about my choices in these past few weeks. Here they are. (more…)

Disclaimer: Now that one knows how people react to a single guy’s pronouncements about women, in fact the barest mention of the word “gal”, one feels compelled to issue a disclaimer. Here it is - No Telugu speaking living being was harmed during the making of this blog post. Neither does this blogger have a hidden agenda nor it is the flavor of the season to poke fun on such people. However, being a single guy, one felt a need to drive away all the misconceptions that have been propogated and hence this post. We do hope that this post has some rhyme and if so, all kudos go to Art and Paul. So there. Stop seeing any hidden meanings behind the post. Oh wait, there was at least one and that was DEFINITELY not what you thought it was.

Once there was a Gulty gaal,
She used words like �whee� and all.
Ask, she did, about other gult chamiyas,
Answer, we did, without any guilt and bias.

Then it started, the pulling of limbs,
Scared away the occasional crumbs.
Our admirers came from near and far,
Thought �Oh dear, so near and yet so far�.

Our likeness was hunted for,
A single one was accounted for.
When pointed, it was, to every boy and gal,
Laughed at, it was, from here to hell.

Our celluloid taste tossed and sullied,
Like ellipsoidal shreds and then buried.
Our acknowledged industriousness,
was then mistaken for bull & nonsense.

Our music, our dance and fine language,
(Windy one time, windy two time)
was treated just like some smelly garbage.
(Windy one time, windy two time).

Soon start we did, to talk in rhyme,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
Set out we did, walking erect and tall
Try we did, to explain to one and all

Hear Hear, all ye hear,
Chamiya log from far and near.
Punjy, Bong, Tam, Mal and Gult,
But no single gal is yet exempt.

Call me up sometime,
Let�s meet up all the time,
Let�s look at the moon, and at the sun
Till that you�ve done, you�ll miss all the fun.

Lest you assume, we are not mad
Lest you decide, the chamiya�s not bad.
In the cloud, she surely sounds silly,
But ask the crowd, she really is funny.

…. the basic premise of this blog i.e., that I am no Superman, has not changed at all and as I mentioned then, you can still call me Superman-ian if you want to. What’s happened gradually these past few years is that this blog has become a part of my daily life, so much that my much lamented trait of forgetting birthdays has expanded to include this blog as well. Hence let me go ahead as usual and issue a note of belated (third) birthday greetings to this blog.

One more happening of note also went past unnoticed by me. This post is my 301st post. It was perhaps fitting that my 300th post was also the first one to be featured on Desipundit. This past year was eventful in a lot of respects, but I don’t think I am anywhere close to leaving my little cubbyhole in cyberspace.

Now, we turned three a couple of days ago. Apparently the time between the second and third birthday is called the terrible twos. I did not know that last year, but along those same lines, this coming year could be called the trashy threes. Now with 300 published posts, Blogger seems to hit some growing pangs. But that’s for another post for which some knowledgable minds would have to be consulted. So, at least till then, one shall continue churning out the trash that one so cleverly disguises as regular programming. All those of you who come here to get your fix of trash, do come back for more. And yah, for those of you who are wondering, that is *my* trash can.

Desicritics.org is now live. When asked for an introductory post, I scrambled to find something suitable to write about, but realized I was not going to make it at all. But then I chanced upon what is probably one of the earliest “bloggable” materials that I had written. It is probably even my first effort, but I seem to remember a round-up of the VB series (all that i can remember is that one BC Lara won the man of the series) that I wrote. Can’t find that particular one anywhere.

So anyways, I put it up on the site, though it does not exactly go with the composition of the community and the its aims. The editors were kind enough to ignore this aspect and post it as it is. Anyways, this first post is up here now. And I am cross-posting here (at least a small excerpt) too.

Coming soon… Desicritics.org, a new community aspiring to be a leading source of online news and opinion with a South Asian focus. I was invited to contribute and I ardently hope that I can meet expectations with a post every now and then. I am still deciding upon the nature of my contribution, but it does promise to be a challenge that I hope to be match up to, adequately .

Act I

Time: The afternoon of 18th of December, 2005
Location: An apartment in Jersey City
Key Protagonist: The hero
Background prop: Abhishek Bachchan grooving in that wannabe “Right here, Right now” video in some random desi cable channel playing on the 30″ Sony Vega
Scene: The hero watches the video with interest, and suddenly notices the gorgeous Pri’nka Chops and the funky rhythm from those hip hop fakers, Vishal and Shekhar.

*Cut*

Act II

Time: The next two weeks
(*1st note to cameraman: Do rapid cuts to show passage of time. This unit cannot afford an editor*)
Location: Everywhere - in a car, in the office, in the living room, in the kitchen, in the bedroom and in the shower
(* 2nd note to cameraman: Please focus on upper torso face only. This is a family picture and will not be available in MMS video format*)

Scene: The hero is listening to both versions of the “Right here Right now” number everyday on car stereo, lap top and on his desktop. One particular instance the song is played 6 times in a row before the hero figures out that that in the groovy hip hop version, Abi Jr. throws “heys” at “playah” Ritesh D, Big Pop (Big B???) Pri’nka Chops and Chuckmaster Sippy too. The hero is afflicted with a bad attack of ear worms in the process.

(*1st note to sound guy: Add jarring background noise at this point*)
(*2nd note to cameraman: Alternate the camera between focus and out of focus modes*)

*Cut*

Act III

Time: Late morning on the 3rd of January 2006
Location: The comments section of a well known blog
Scene: Still affected by the earworm, the hero leaves a Season’s Greeting in response to the aforementioned blogger’s New Year post.

Seasons Greetings….
*windy windy one time*
Have a wonderful year ahead!!
*windy windy two times*

*Cut*

Act IV
Time: Late night on the 4th of January 2006
Location: The comments section of the same blog

Scene 1: The blogger replies to the comment from our hero enquiring if his was a PJ and if so, could he please explain.

*Cut*

Scene 2: Hero replies thus:
[*Insert random blogger here, preferably played by someone capable of being the high priestess of templates and the kookiest character in the known blogosphere and beyond*]:

Right here right now,
hai kushi ka sama;
(Windy windy one time)
Right here right now,
ho gayi swarg jahaan,
(Windy windy two times)

*Cut*

Scene 3: Above mentioned blogger while “holding tummy and laughing away to glory” corrects our hero thus,

Right here right now
Hai khushi ka samaa
(Wind your body one time ..)
Right here right now
Hum hai is pal jahaan
(Wind your body two time ..)
Bhool jaao, muskuraao
Reh na jaaye baat baaki

*Cut*

Scene 4: Flashback to three years previously….. Hero sitting in front of a desktop (in his erstwhile role as a researcher in the intense field of production planning) doing his best imitation of Alka Yagnik (??) in a crowded research lab.

Mujhse mohabat ka ikrar karta,
kash koi ladka mujhe pyaar karta…
kash koi ladka mujhe pyaar karta;

(*Insert canned laughter as screen fades*)

(*Insert handwritten note that reads “The beginning….”)

*Shoot Wrap*

[Disclaimer: Names, characters, places, and incidents featured in/on this post are either the product of the blogger's imagination (well somewhat) or used fictitiously (somewhat again). Any resemblence to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric intent, is coincidental (God promise!).]

In response to a threatening email (lol…) from a fellow quizzer, the Three Hi-Fives to IMDb.com quiz that I posted on October 18, has been updated with answers. I have no excuse for being late.

Oh well, that takes care of the “update to five” part in the title. Now for the six.

In Thamizh, Aaru refers to the number 6. Saw it last night and found several interesting references in the movie. For one, I found that whenever the camera panned over sections of the slum with the rail tracks in the background of the frame, a train seemed to be going past the slum. This seemed to be in every single scene. I don’t know if that was intentional, but if it was, I can give them a 9/10 for effort. Before you ask me, how did I notice such details and whether I do this for all movies, I have to add that, overall Aaru = Bore-u!

Which means that about 15 to 20 minutes into the movie, I was watching for such things such as the badges on the Ford SUVs used in the movie. And for trains in the frame.

But I noticed one reference, which deserves a post by itself, however unintentional it might have been. Probably tonight.

When does a blog become a part of MSM? Or how do you differentiate between a blog and news portal? My definition of a blog is this - A blog is a webpage maintained by a individual or a group solely to disperse information related to the interests of the blogger(s) without any supervision of any sort. The blogger is both the financier, contributor and the editor of the information propagated through the blog.

But today, I read of a “blog portal that will be funded by investor’s money”(via Kaps), my thoughts raced to this same definition from above. The entrepreneur has been throwing around terms like “revenue model” and sources close to the venture say that companies like Pepsi and Motorola are going to be sponsors. So what makes this “blog portal” different from, say, a portal like the online edition of TOI? TOI has a revenue model as well and a number of different companies advertise on there as well. If charging anywhere between 50 paise and a rupee for every click on their ads would make this new venture a “blog portal”, then what is the USP over any other blog that subscribes to Google’s Adsense?

But what is even more glaring is the byline for the blog: …. is the foremost blog representing the thoughts, aspirations, feeling and experiences of Indian youth. Most of the content is written by those in the 16-25 age group, with professional editors mentoring them to ensure professional quality material.

While the emphasis in the above text is mine, I am starting to wonder where the concept of blogs ends and MSM begins? When a similar case (i.e., blurring of boundaries) happens with any other subject, that would be taken as a positive, i.e. an attempt to bridge a gap, but when blogs seem to be the perfect antithesis to MSM, this seems to be a “I too” (grammatical error totally intentional) attempt by whoever is behind this attempt. And this thought comes to mind solely because of the presence of “professional editors” in this exercise. If the focus is to mentor future journos, then a un-monitored blog would be a perfect way to set them on that path! But this attempt seems to be something else. Is this the attempt of a tech-illiterate businessman to earn some money without ever knowing what he is dealing with?

It’s finally official! Starting soon, I will be posting from time to time on here too. Thanks to Amit for the invite.

After this happened sometime ago, this was born in the last couple of days. All the best guys. Maybe me think of something to tell you too. Well, as long as one of us is not a psychopath - a la Darna Mana Hai. Okie, that was a poor joke, but a joke by any count.