Those were the best days of my life!

A copy of a blog post I came across on the net. Definitely worth a read. Makes a lotta sense, at least to me. Improvements in technology for the bad. :

Doordarshan : A balanced diet

Do you remember how special the ‘Sundays’ used to be when we were kids? Lets try to remember what we all used to see on Sundays…

The day used to begin with Rangoli … a program containing only songs..!! Songs for everyone… old ones for mom dad and the new ones for us. That used to be followed by morning news, then Mahabharat or Ramayan or Chanakya …. Or any other mythological or historical serial .. which whole family used to see together ..!! Then we used to have a cartoon film … just try to remember how eagerly we used to wait for it whole week ..!! He-man, jungle book, duck tales …!! Then ‘potliwale baba ki kahani’ ..!! Then we used to have a one hour program by National Geographic Society…. A science based program ! then it used to be the time for Indian music ‘National Integration for Spirit of Unity Concert’ ..!! Then again ‘Chaayaageet’ before lunch time. In the afternoon there used to be a ‘Pradeshik feature film’ where we used to get movies made in other state; basically non-hindi films.

But why to remember all these things when we don’t even see DD National nowadays..!!
If we try to analyse this schedule carefully we will realize one thing that Doordarshan was truly a balanced diet. Balanced diet for our brain, our mind..!! No matter how long one watches the same channel, everyone used to get something….. not only entertainment but also some knowledge…not only about our history but also about mythology, science, music, our culture and life and people of other states….!!

What has changed with facility of cable? We have so many new channels like star tv, star sports, espn, discovery, sony, setmax, zee, national geographic channel, travel and living, aaj-tak, ndtv 24x7, sun tv, HBO, Cartoon Network and many more…. Every channel is good in its own respect. Every channel is trying to give the best they can …. Every channel is trying to be best in this competition ….!! Can we see Doordarshan anywhere in this competition?

But what is the change that has occurred with so many channels? Grandfathers and dads keep on seeing news channels day and night, children stick to cartoon network, youth can’t leave HBO and grannies and moms can’t live without family dramas..!! Everyone is happy because everyone is getting what he/she needs ..!! Where’s is the problem then ..?

Let’s analyse one’s physical growth and try and relate it to the case above…….. There’s a child who likes ice-cream so it keeps on having ice-cream day and night…!! When it grows, it starts liking veg Manchurian … so it starts having veg Manchurian day and night ….for several years..!! Then it reaches the age when it develops the taste for fried rice …. Then what? …fried rice for several years …day and night …!! And thus the cycle continues with different dishes in same pattern…!! Now imagine that child…may be 30year old now…… what kind of physical growth we expect him to have? So now, we might say that if he would have got all the kind of food, he might have had a better health by now…!!

Won’t it happen with our brains also? 24 hour cartoon network for children, 24 hour movies for youth, 24 hour family dramas for ladies, 24hour news for oldies, everything 24hours unlimited…!! Now what kind of growth our brains are supposed to have?

What we have started loosing is ‘contol’ …!! Just because we have everything available 24hours we just don’t realize how much we have had …and what is lacking? Earlier even Doordarshan used to sleep during nights … but these 24hour program facility has literally disturbed our biological cycle…!! We just keep on watching HBO and may be at 2.30 or 4.00 am we realize that it’s a time to sleep ..!! Even if we watch the news channel, what we get is the same news repeated after one hour. And if we really try to think logically, what really happens every second that can be shown as news? And to be more logical, what difference does David Beckham-Victoria love affair makes in our lives? And just remember the amount importance does these news channels give it to …!! Earlier we used to wait for a week; that’s 24x7=168 hours for just a one hour cartoon and just try to remember how much we used to enjoy that one hour..! Same thing used to be with ‘The World This Week’..!! Now everything is made easy, just change the channel we get to see whatever we want..!! Is it good or bad ...that one has to analyse by himself, for himself …!! The idea behind this article is not to promote Doordarshan but the idea behind Doordarshan..!! Children know Harry Potter but they don’t know who was Arjun, Duryodhan, Raja Akbar ..!! Children know Michael Jackson, Madona but don’t know Pandit Bheemsen Joshi, Pandit Jasraaj…!! Children know Saint Valentine but don’t know Saint Gyaneshwar, Meerabai…!! Children know Teacher’s Day but don’t know Guru-pornima ..!! All these children which are going to be the youth of India after few years, what knowledge and what culture are they going to handover to our next generation?

If we try to analyse Doordarshan in comparison to other channels, we will realize that Doordarshan in loosing its audience mainly because of its appearance. The kind of graphics it has and the way it presents itself. The quality of programs may also be lacking somewhere but what how good those family dramas could be?

Just for a day do one experiment. Forget the attractive graphics of all the channels. Open the newspaper, read the schedule of all the channels and then prepare your own schedule for the day …. And do see to it that you do get the balanced diet and do enjoy your day watching TV…… exactly the way we used to enjoy our Sundays 10 years back …!!

Dreams............

I am not the one who gets dreams every now n then. One becoz I work at nights and two I don't know. This was a few days back. Got three dreams. I somehow have developed a habit to remember a few of my dreams. Don't ask me how ;) So in this hat trick of dreams, I remember that I die in the second one. All my dreams till date have been VERY weird to say the least. I remember one of them even now. I am standing in front of a snake pit and a snake bites me, on my BACK. No idea how that happened. lol! And I have a mole called 'Garuda macche'. Garuda the god eats snakes as first priority for food. So according to olden day beliefs, snakes are afraid of people who have this particular mole. I just don't have the nuts to test it. ROFL! Coming back to the hat trick of dreams, I don't remember the first one. The third one is actually unbelievable even in dreams! I am walking naked on this desert kinda place and vultures are preying on me and almost half of my body has no skin left. ugh......

'Sweet dreams' to all.

work?

It's been eight days of night shifts without an off, till date that is. Not sure when this is gonna end. Hopefully in the next few days. So there's this guy who stands in the corner of the four way signal diagonally opposite to my office. Stays there the whole night selling ciggies and tea for passers by and regulars who know the place to get ciggies at any time of the night. I used to visit him once in a while long long ago.Now that my current office is right in front, go n get ciggies whenever I run out of stock. Yesterday I went with two ppl from the team and generally were talking to the guy. He's got a prob with his right leg ( read handicapped ) which is just a nicer way of telling. This poor guy comes on a four wheeled TVS every night with two big flasks of tea and a whole bunch of ciggies of all kinda brands. Anyway, I asked him how come he doesn't stay after four in the morning nowadays, to which he replied with absolutely no shyness......"no saar, am leaving around four in the morning from the last one month. I got married so leave at four. Don't want to stay here the whole night and go at six in the morning". Two things, one is I am really happy he got married. Second, not a lot of ppl get what they want in life , the way they want it and when they want it. As the local police ppl trouble him if any guys are having a ciggie after buying it (duh! where do ya want us to smoke after buying them in the dead of the night neways!), it's something he fears. Anybody can easily understand the true meaning of 'fear' by seeing this poor soul's reaction. He gets all alert and asks ppl around to leave from there right away. It's something you need to experience, although not a pleasant one. I suddenly realized how lucky I am to have a body without any problems(sans the stent in the chest neways. lol!) and having a job (its night shift and in a kyaal center, so what!) which pays me enough to support my family and suffice my fetish for electronic gadgets. It's a very weird time when you see somebody like this guy. You feel sorry for him and at the same time you feel very happy for yourself and your family.

It's a SONY

Although I have been an avid supporter of SONY, I had decided not to buy another cell which is a sony ericcson. One word is the reason : Joystick. This is probably THE worst thing that sony could've done to their cell phones and I thought they would neva learn! Have had a J200, K610i, K700i till date. But my love was still the J200i(not sure about the model number though :D) just because it had a non rectangular shape, and keys were simple, battery back up was good and reception was purrfect. With the k7001, it was love at first ad. Bought it the day it was launched in india. Cost me a big hole in my pocket but I was a kid who was elated beyond any boundary of imagination! :"> Then after six months, the jog dial started acting up and till date I haven't found a perfect replacement for it. Anyway, so as my friend wanted a second fone, I had to get a new one as the k700i made it almost impossible to scroll. So I went to the nearest local dealer and looked around. Liked the L600, L700 but the fact that I wanted FM didn't favour the Motorola series. My budget was 3k. I didn't want to spend lavishly on some new gadget and blow up my li'l saved savings. So there was this new motorola basic model with FM with the price tag as 3k. It looked good enough but the listening volume wasn't good enough for me. With music blaring at full volume most of the times on my headphones, what do ya expect! Thus the shopping was a dud. Then my friends came by as we had planned for an hour or more of snooker before I had to leave for work. Boda said 'CC payment, buy what model you like dude'. I was tempted........oh boy was I tempted like hell. For the heck of it, went through the N series of Nokia models. Then decided 'no way, not another big budget fone fer moi!'. So then I saw some other models. Half n hour passed. NO NEW GADGET, DON"T BLOW YOUR MONEY etc..thoughts went outta the window flying away and ended up with :



Few review links :

http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/mobilephones/0,39051199,39097446p,00.htm

http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_w810-reviews-1402.php

har ghadi badal rahi hai..........

Har ghadi badal rahi hai roop zindagi.......
chaaon hai kabhi...kabhi hai dhoop zindagi........
har pal yahaan........jee bhar jeyo........
jo hai sama...........................kal ho na ho........

A film close to my heart, in more ways than one, literally.

S's sister's marriage

While listening to my playlist of songs, here I blabber bout the marriage of S's sis........

Here's a good piccy of S btw............HARHARHAR





First day was li'l work n lots of loafin around the marriage hall. Nothin much at all to blabber bout.
Second day was the actual day the marriage takes place. There's one pic where the sis is cryin her lungs out coz of all the emotions involved and her bro is laughing out big time thinking 'what et eez! girls!'. lol! That's a really funny pic. I just got tired of taking pics of the groom n bride. Almost everytime I click, one of 'em is lookin busy, talkin to ppl around, listening to the other etc. Just close to MI IV I tell ya! One pic was good enough for a frame. My knees actually started hurting as I ended up taking at least a couple of hundred pics within a span of three to four hours! That's not easy with all the angles u gotta lean, bend etc...no pun intended here. :D Yea, tis moi telling that line! ROFL!

Our gang of boyz found a room not occupied by anyone on the first floor of the marriage hall. Done.We were in. Got a new lock so that nobody can enter except our boyz. As almost everyone is obsessed with playin cards, so it started. Me not a fan of cards. So I just kept away as much as possible. Inside, we kinda came up with a 'code' for ppl knocking on the door. Coz if we let someone NOT supp to enter, it's gonna look bad with all the guys smoking (plain ciggies :D) and playin cards. The code word was gonna be the pwd for ppl to utter to enter. It was...........'Diamond Queen'. Can't recall who exactly came up with this, but it was soooper! As my cousin wasn't allowed to play (each guy 50 bucks was the bet till everyone who reaches 250 points is filtered one by one..) he was the official scorer. Boy, was he passionate bout keepin the scores or what now! He ditched ciggies n caapi coz he was afraid somebody might become the official scorer, not that there were many who werent playing..hehehe...So I had an idea. Told the videographer to capture a short vid of all the boyz playing cards, without lettin 'em know it's gonna happen. So took him to the first floor as the photo session was over and marriage was 'official' now. Told him to wait by the side of the door while I knocked.There were three cousin sisters of S standing in front of the room next to ours discussin god knows what (It actually acted as a make shift make up room, butt obv!) ...I knock. Mah cuz from inside with his phirangee accent 'Password puhleez'. Me 'Open the door dumbass, can't say the pwd now'. Cuz 'Please enter the password to login'.Me 'grrrrrrr.open up!'. Cuz 'Last chance to enter the pwd, else the system will get locked'. Me 'grrrrrrrr.......DIAMOND QUEEN! There, open!'. Door opens. Just a sec before I enter, glanced to the left. One gal outta the three was staring tryin to decipher what the hell was happening in our room. It was soooooooo embarassing! Then called the videographer n he took a vid. Then the boyz became innovative with the pwd. Mission Kashmir, Operation Diamond racket etc.. It was real fun fer sure!
Now it was night and time to hit the sack. One guy was feelin feverish. So took a walk with him to the medical shop after a heavy typical iyengari dinner. Belted big time.hehe..So this guy explains to the chemist 'Jaw pain, molar tooth pain, chin pain etc'. The guy at the counter said 'sir, I will give you two tabs. But these are ONLY temporary. Tomm morn first thing you should go to a doc. Mah friend said 'ok, will do that'. So he gives the two tabs n repeats the same line. friend says 'okkkk , will surely show to the doc tomm'. Gave him the money and when we turned away from the shop, the guy said 'what to do sir, nowadays even a mosquito bite can give you lotsa problems!'. I laughed loud and told mah friend 'dude, you have chicken guniya! ROFL!'. Thankfully it wasn't that. Come to think of it.........he still hasn't gone to the doc. :D

Last day was all bout work. Shift stuff from the marriage hall to one van which goes to the groom's place n shiftin stuff to another which was all the bride's stuff. An experience worth remembering fer sure.

Here's moi n S.

tis time.

Aaj ki taazaa khabar. Apun ne MCSE karne ka decide karliya, kya?

Ab above pe khabar . Apun ko wait karna maangta kya? kyun ke text books jo hain baahut caastly hai karke suna apun ne, kya! kutte kamine, main tera khoon peejaaonga! baaaaaaaaahut naainsaafi hai , kya!

yea, I could've put it in a more 'professional' way. I am gonna do MCSE.

Conv betn my n/w admin n moi :
me : 'dood, me thinkin of doin MCSE. have suggestions of where i should learn the stuff from? i dont wanna spend money on the "well known" institutes coz i dont think anybody knows enough to teach others to get through well enough'
admin : 'dont join any course man. You are techy enough. Just learn it on yer own. Am sure u will get through'
moi : 'Yea? so what do I need? two comps with RJ45 eh?'
admin : 'eggjatly, thats ALL you need to learn, apart from the fat textbook'
moi : 'hmm........okay. what do you think it is? MS or CCNA?'
admin : 'see, ccna is for the REAL techy geekos. not for you, not for me!'
moi : 'yea, I can see the guy next to you is one of those u just mentioned'
3rd guy : 'yenappa, nange kannada kotthu(mall guy, strugglin for words now!)
moi : 'its okay, its really okay. I totally understand ur frustration in not being able to use appropriate words. I get ur point. chill. put ur headfones back on now. tata'
admin : 'lol!'
moi : 'so............ccna?'
admin : 'ccna needs practical exposure. nopes. not recommended'
moi : 'hmm..........k. MS it is'
admin : "you know, its FASHIONABLE to hate MS.'
moi : 'agree I guess. its the IN thing, the YO thing to do. support 'open source''
admin: 'eggjatly. ppl think they are doing somethin good just by sayin 'open source is the future maaaaaaaaaaan'
me n admin: ROFL!

end of conv. he had to push a new build.

So..........MCSE or CCNA guys? whatcha think ?