Tata.. Please Go to Gujarat

Genre: Current Affairs

As Ratan uncle finally says tata to Singur, one question that is on everybody's mind is - where will the Nano factory finally come up? As expected, almost half a dozen states are in the fray to attract Tata with Maharashtra and Gujarat being the forerunners.

I so much hope Tata does not make the mistake of moving to Maharashtra- not because I do not want development in Maharashtra but because the moment Tata goes to Maharashtra, Raj Thackerey and other similar-minded jerks will come out with outrageous demands such as reserving 80% jobs in the Nano factory for people from certain caste/creed/religion/place of birth, "order" Tatas to write टाटा नैनो only in Marathi on all cars and such other shitty crap and eventually force the closure of the factory to gather some cheap publicity. In short, all the reasons why Tata opted out of Bengal will come hounding back. It makes better business sense to rather shift to Gujarat- a state with industry-friendly government and enterprising people. Shift to Savli in Baroda district with Bombardier of Germany for company, shift to Mundra Port SEZ or shift to any of the other dozen-odd industrial centres in Gujarat but please dont shift to Maharashtra.

Now if only Ratan Tata reads my blog...

All Xs are Ys

Genre: Blabber

All politicians are corrupt.
All policemen are bribe-hungry.
All Hindi films are masala movies.
All English movies are dirty.
All bearded men are Muslims.
All Muslims are terrorists.
All states north of Maharashtra are UP-Bihar.
All people from UP-Bihar are bhaiyas.
All South Indians are Madrasis.
All Madrasis live on idli-dosa.
All guys looking for a gf are despos.
All girls who've had more than one bf are bitches.
All foreigners are Americans.
All Gulf countries are Dubai.
All veg food is ghaas-phoos.
All non veg food is mutton-machchi.
All IITians are nerds.
All SoBo residents are snobs.
All Gujjus eat only khaman-dhokla.
All outings involving a guy and a girl are dates.
All bloggers are wannabes vying for attention.

When will this stereotyping end????

Reliance Sucks!

Genre: Experiences

This is that month of the year when every Tom Dick and Bihari wanting to go to The Big A give their TOEFL tests and I am no exception to it. I took 21st September as my test date, long after most of my class buddies were done with it. I was forewarned by them that the Reliance test centre at Chembur sucks bigtime and that I should change my test centre even if that means paying an additional $50. But, I decided to go ahead with my original plan.

As I reached the Reliance World at Chembur at 8am, I was greeted by a lone sleepy employee sitting behind half-closed shutter of the shop. The reporting time was 8:30am and true to Indian standards, the process started only at 9am. Out of the 30 candidates present at the venue, 16 were accomodated in Lab 1 (which is the fancy name given to the standard cyber cafe there) and the remaining 14, myself included, were asked to wait.

This wait went on and on and on. After two hours we were told that there was a System Error and the Reliance engineers were trying to fix it. All through, the staff at the centre was busy chatting and giggling amongst themselves. Obviously this was adding salt to our wounds and by 12 noon, tempers rose and the staff came under the line of fire of the students with a healthy sardarji leading from the front. At this point, the staff decided to bail themselves out and suggested that we take a "30 minute lunch break" and return for the test.

This test centre happens to be in the most un-happening part of Mumbai and there was no food joint around. Finally, we (myself, a wannabe-rockstar type of dude, a bored-with-Indian-job guy and a pretty looking I-am-lost kind of girl - complete strangers but united by the ordeal) managed to find a Restaurant-cum-Bar that was obviously devoid of drunkards at this hour of the day who agreed to serve us some food. Returning to the centre, the situation had not improved. We once again gheraoed the Branch Manager lady who locked herself inside a Video Conferencing room to avoid further questioning. Finally, at 1pm, we were asked to register ourselves in a hurry and get ready for the test. In this chaos, the staff took a really ugly photo of mine in which I am looking darker than the darkest African and assigned me a computer terminal.

After the five hour wait, I was in no mental state to concentrate but I had no choice. I instructed the computer to start the test. At first go, it didn't. I realised that the mouse given to me was really stubborn and only if I hit it real hard, it would click. So, there I was- hitting the mouse button so hard that everyone around was staring at me. Finally the test began at 1.15pm. Thankfully, the first reading passage that appeared was titled "American Railroads". Thank God!! This interesting topic ensured that I got into the exam mood forgetting the earlier ordeal. I dont know what would have happened if the first passage would have been something on Black American History or Romanticism and Neo-classicism. (I encountered both these topics in Listening section).

The Reading, Listening and Speaking sections went off well but as soon as I began the Writing section, it was trouble again. The Space Bar on my keyboard just won't work and the idiots at Reliance World who had never bothered checking the keyboards earlier now decided to change my keyboard. The timer was running all this while and thanks to these idiots, I could start my essay writing only when 17 minutes 30 seconds were remaining out of the allotted 20. Nevertheless, I managed to complete writing my essay in time,so no damage done.

Finally, when I stepped out of the exam centre, I was barely in a position to talk or stand. I desperately looked around for a Feedback form where I could vent out all my anger, but the asses at Reliance are smart- they did not provide any Feedback form probably because they already knew whet "feedback" they would get!

Never had I expected that my TOEFL would end up being Test Of Endurance upto Frustrating Levels.

Friends For Life

I first thought of making this album on Orkut but that unfortunately does not give me the opportunity to give an Introductory Speech to the Album. So, here we go-

This Album is special to me because the people featured in it are special to me. They are the ones who have been with me through thick and thin, shared the joys and sorrows, trusted me and cared for me, unconditionally. If you find yourself in this album, consider yourself lucky to be one amongst the elite few. If not, there may be two reasons to it-
(i) You have been mean/self-centered or taken me for granted.
(ii) There is no good photo of yours which I can display.
Which of the above two reasons apply to you, you know best.

The inspiration for this album came from here-

एक दिन ज़िन्दगी ऐसे मुकाम पर पहुँच जाएगी
दोस्ती तो सिर्फ यादों में रह जाएगी
हर कप coffee याद दोस्तों की दिलाएगी
और हसते हसते फिर आँखें नाम हो जाएगी
Office के chamber में classroom नज़र आएगी
चाहते हुए भी proxy नहीं लग पाएगी
पैसा तो बहुत होगा पर उसे लुटाने की वजह ही खो जाएगी
जी ले खुलके इस पल को मेरे दोस्त...
क्यूंकि ज़िन्दगी इस पल को फिर से नहीं दोहराएगी.

FRIENDS FOREVER

Note: This list is not comprehensive. There will be regular additions and subtractions depending on prevalent circumstances.

Ferroequinologism

WAP4

Semaphore
BAMY
Co-Co
Catch Siding
Tigerface

Barbie Doll
WCAM1
3xx
SMB
Jumbo
AK Raj
MUed
DQ
Loop
Baldie
Turnout
PSR
OHE
1 in 37
Off-link
LHF

Confused?
Can you find out how ALL of the above words are related?

A word of caution: Ferroequinology is not for the weak-hearted!