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????
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
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
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.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Ferroequinologism
WAP4
Semaphore
BAMY
Co-Co
Catch Siding
Tigerface
Barbie DollBAMY
Co-Co
Catch Siding
Tigerface
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!
Sunday, August 24, 2008
My Phone is Better than iPhone
Genre: Technology
While the whole world goes gaga over the Apple iPhone, raving about its oh-so-sleek looks and innovative touchscreen interface, I decided to look at the other side of the coin and voila! the cat's out of the box! When compared to my current cellphone, the "feature-rich" iPhone loses out on hordes of features. And I am not even comparing the iPhone with some top-end hi-fi cellphone (I leave that to the dozens of "compare your stuff" websites)- my reference is my own good old mid-range Sony Ericsson k550i costing around Rs.7,000 only. And yet, my phone is better than iPhone.Here's why-
Starting with the most basic bloopers- the "super-cool" iPhone's camera does not have a video recording facility (my phone, and virtually all camera cellphones have it by default) nor does it have a digital zoom feature in it's camera. Also missing is a flashlight to take pics in the dark and there is no setting to adjust White Balance, Night mode, Brightness etc (ok, not a big deal, but my k550i has ALL these features!)
All you sms freaks out there- for some strange reason best known to Mr Steve Jobs, your iPhone does not allow you to forward an SMS! Nor does it segregate your messages into Folders like Drafts, Sent Messages and Saved Messages! (Needless to say, my phone has it all) Also, it does not tell you when your sms length overflows beyond the stipulated 160 characters (my phone does!). If you think all this is too troublesome and instead decide to call up your friends, be ready for another shocker- the iPhone does not have a Search function in the Address Book! So,all those who were raving over the so-cool touchscreen interface can keep on scrolling to their heart's content till they manage to find their desired contact from your Address Book! (Needless to say, my phone and even the basic thousand-bucks cellphones have this feature!)
The iPhone which is claimed to be the "coolest iPod" does not allow you to connect a portable Bluetooth headset to listen to music without interfering wires! What's more,even though the iPhone has Bluetooth, you cannot send images or music files to other cellphones via Bluetooth! (What the heck is the Bluetooth for then?) Not just this, the iPhone does not play videos if they are in any other format except Quick Time (my good old cell plays both 3gp and mp4!)
Ok, all this is about the peripheral functions. The main function of any cellphone is making and receiving calls and the iPhone fails miserably here too- there is no Voice Dialling, no facility to keep Personalised Ringtones for different callers and in fact, you can't even keep your mp3 songs as ringtones! (My k550i has ALL these facilities and moreover I can also keep Video Ringtones and even assign different display photos for different callers, let aside personalised ringtones!). The iPhone does not allow clubbing contacts to Caller Groups and when you select Call Forward, all calls get forwarded- there is no facility like Forward when busy, Forward when unreachable etc which is a default feature existing in my current phone as well as the one I had earlier!
Then, what does the iPhone have? Hype- lots and lots of it! And looking at the fact that it is sold at $199 (around Rs 8k), I may think of forgiving the makers for not including some of the features. But wait, is it really sold at Rs 8k? Not if you are in India!
Some super-greedy guys at Airtel and Vodafone decided to act smart and make the full use of the initial hype surrounding the iPhone and priced it at an astronomical Rs. 36,000 hoping that the gadget-loving Indian junta would go mad at the prospect of possessing an iPhone and flock in droves to grab it up the very first day, whatever be the price! But as always, the consumer turned out to be smarter than the seller. The result- compared to 70,000 iPhones sold in Japan on its launch day, Airtel recorded a sale of a grand 85 pieces of iPhone on Day 1!!! Someone gotta tell those guys at Airtel/Vodafone the story of The Goose That Laid Golden Eggs!
While the whole world goes gaga over the Apple iPhone, raving about its oh-so-sleek looks and innovative touchscreen interface, I decided to look at the other side of the coin and voila! the cat's out of the box! When compared to my current cellphone, the "feature-rich" iPhone loses out on hordes of features. And I am not even comparing the iPhone with some top-end hi-fi cellphone (I leave that to the dozens of "compare your stuff" websites)- my reference is my own good old mid-range Sony Ericsson k550i costing around Rs.7,000 only. And yet, my phone is better than iPhone.Here's why-
Starting with the most basic bloopers- the "super-cool" iPhone's camera does not have a video recording facility (my phone, and virtually all camera cellphones have it by default) nor does it have a digital zoom feature in it's camera. Also missing is a flashlight to take pics in the dark and there is no setting to adjust White Balance, Night mode, Brightness etc (ok, not a big deal, but my k550i has ALL these features!)
All you sms freaks out there- for some strange reason best known to Mr Steve Jobs, your iPhone does not allow you to forward an SMS! Nor does it segregate your messages into Folders like Drafts, Sent Messages and Saved Messages! (Needless to say, my phone has it all) Also, it does not tell you when your sms length overflows beyond the stipulated 160 characters (my phone does!). If you think all this is too troublesome and instead decide to call up your friends, be ready for another shocker- the iPhone does not have a Search function in the Address Book! So,all those who were raving over the so-cool touchscreen interface can keep on scrolling to their heart's content till they manage to find their desired contact from your Address Book! (Needless to say, my phone and even the basic thousand-bucks cellphones have this feature!)
The iPhone which is claimed to be the "coolest iPod" does not allow you to connect a portable Bluetooth headset to listen to music without interfering wires! What's more,even though the iPhone has Bluetooth, you cannot send images or music files to other cellphones via Bluetooth! (What the heck is the Bluetooth for then?) Not just this, the iPhone does not play videos if they are in any other format except Quick Time (my good old cell plays both 3gp and mp4!)
Ok, all this is about the peripheral functions. The main function of any cellphone is making and receiving calls and the iPhone fails miserably here too- there is no Voice Dialling, no facility to keep Personalised Ringtones for different callers and in fact, you can't even keep your mp3 songs as ringtones! (My k550i has ALL these facilities and moreover I can also keep Video Ringtones and even assign different display photos for different callers, let aside personalised ringtones!). The iPhone does not allow clubbing contacts to Caller Groups and when you select Call Forward, all calls get forwarded- there is no facility like Forward when busy, Forward when unreachable etc which is a default feature existing in my current phone as well as the one I had earlier!
Then, what does the iPhone have? Hype- lots and lots of it! And looking at the fact that it is sold at $199 (around Rs 8k), I may think of forgiving the makers for not including some of the features. But wait, is it really sold at Rs 8k? Not if you are in India!
Some super-greedy guys at Airtel and Vodafone decided to act smart and make the full use of the initial hype surrounding the iPhone and priced it at an astronomical Rs. 36,000 hoping that the gadget-loving Indian junta would go mad at the prospect of possessing an iPhone and flock in droves to grab it up the very first day, whatever be the price! But as always, the consumer turned out to be smarter than the seller. The result- compared to 70,000 iPhones sold in Japan on its launch day, Airtel recorded a sale of a grand 85 pieces of iPhone on Day 1!!! Someone gotta tell those guys at Airtel/Vodafone the story of The Goose That Laid Golden Eggs!
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My World...My Views by The Blue Indian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.