One of the best cricket adverts I’ve seen lately. Nike makes a big impression on Indian TVC space. Watch out Adidas & Reebok!For more on cricket adverts this worldcup season, checkout my detailed post on DesiDabba.
Tags: Cricket | Nike | India | Commercials
I start as a contributor to Desi Dabba. My first post is already up there!
Check it out… it’s your one stop guide into Indian TV Industry.
Last march 8 (Women’sDay), we had a blog-a-thon that asked you to blog stories of street sexual harassment. It began with an announcement on this blog that was picked up by bloggers across India, and soon in different parts of the world. We shared stories we had never shared before, sometimes stories we thought we had long forgotten, stories that we had often wanted to bury. We read each other, we linked to each other and we linked back to the Blank Noise Project blog. We were touched by each other’s stories, moved by them, and, we like to imagine, drew strength and sustenance from the the long, cross-cultural chain of shared experiences. (more…)
Okay! I have been too lazy to post, lot of things happening too in life. Nikhil tried tagging me and then threatening as well, Phoenix cursed my Garfieldness — still i did not budge, and kept being lazy…. :D :D
But erimentha’s call woke me up, let’s help her by harassing her harassers:
I am gonna call these buggers, and if you do that too I’ll be thankful and I promise I’ll be super active on my blog. :D
Today I attended yet another Delhi Bloggers’ Meet. Now DBM’s have become an occasion for me to catch up with some fellow Delhi blogger turned good friends and also to meet and know new interesting people. And frankly speaking, my idea behind attending Bloggers’ Meet is very much having fun and meeting friends. Just that.
It’s only a welcome byproduct that you get to hear varied views about many things from other bloggers, some of which is fun, some of which is enlightening and some of which is sheer crap (and I am generally a big contributor to that crap part).
On my way to the venue - Cafe Turtle in Khan Market - I had picked up Ajay, who btw doesn’t believe in mixing business with pleasure, and when both of us entered the venue, Dan Husain, Ritu chugh aka junoesque, Sourabh and Madhavan were already there wondering where the other bloggers were? So we joined them and Madhavan lost no time in telling us that he was an observer from The U.N. and even without asking he added that he’s not planning on posing any threat to Shashi Tharoor’s candidature for Top post of U.N. Not that I really care about Shashi or The U.N., but I still was a little relieved hearing that ;-) Later Madhavan told us that he was there to make n meet friends, to understand what bloggers think about their relevance in the big bad world of media - which is also his actual field of work (and interest). Saurabh was comparitively quiet, but if Cricket is your religion, you got to checkout his blog deamonsdealer (which i first heard as womensdealer, and i was psyched!!!).
Now, a word about the venue. I had never been to Cafe Turtle before, but since I had heard good reviews about it - I had suggested it as a venue. In absence of any better alternative suggestion - we went ahead with this venue. As it turned out - Cafe Turtle is not a place to meet a large group. Since it was a hot n humid day today, we kept avoiding sitting in the open terrace till the time it became impossible to squeeze in more people on the just 2 small tables that we had. But thankfully the smaller place did not dampen the spirits. More bloggers kept coming in, and soon we were sitting in the open terrace, which could have felt very nice if only the weather was better.
Back to from where I left - Prasoon came in next. Harneet & Nikhil Pahwa followed by Twilight Fairy n Lazy Lump joined in as well. Lazy Lump has become a lil’ less lazy and has started blogging once again. Nikhil and I tried to float some conspiracy theories but since no one paid much attention to our crap, we backed off. Soon came in Uma aka Toinks along with hubby Sriram. Toinks happens to be one of the bloggers who first started blogging on rediffblogs. Sriram revealed to us that he started blogging to impress his girlfriend and soon after he married her, he gave up blogging. The purpose was served I guess :)
Amit Verma, Amit Gupta (1), Sanjukta, Snigdha, Amit Gupta (2) and Viral also joined in the fun. The noise levels were increasing, introductions were being held and all of a sudden the Waiter at Turtle introduced himself and requested us to place the order. Masala Chais, Black Coffee, Smoothies, Fresh Lime Soda along with Pita Bread, Pasta and Cake was ordered to make the discussion more delicious.
It was a pleasant surprise when another Blogger Couple, Deepan and Priya joined us as well. Deepan was depressed that he blogs on oh! so uncool blogspirit.com domain, which no one cares to block or ban.
Smiles were turning into laughters - all varieties of discussions right from recent blog censorship drama, to RTI act, to Movies, to Music, to books, to techie/geekie stuff, to new trends in blogging, to santa-banta jokes were being held. Time was flying and it was once again the waiter who made us realize that the Cafe was to close at 7.30 pm (another sad thing about Cafe Turtle). We had to leave that place, and the fun-filled discussions still continued on the pavement outside Cafe Turtle for a while. It was then that Mr. Better Late than Never, Rajshekhar showed up. He came only to say bye to many people who were leaving, while some of us (Twilight Fairy, Dan, Nikhil, Harneet, Amit Verma, Rajshekhar and me) moved to “Yellow Brick Road” at Ambassedor Hotel. It was perhaps a bad venue day for us, as YBR - though it had a nice American look - is not a value for money place. The food is very ordinary, not a place where I’ll visit again. However once again lot of fun filled conversations took place, another couple of hours later we all called it a day with big grins on our faces…
Joshua Newton who actually took initiative for this meet, and his friend Bobin James were also expected, but they unfortunately got stuck at work, and could not make it to the DBM.
In all 22 bloggers attended the meet, and I had a lot of fun. I am sure others felt the same.
Great Going! Delhi Bloggers.
Update 7/31: 1) Twilight Fairy’s account
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Tomorrow is yet another DBM, being organized by few other bloggers. It’s proving to be a super weekend for Delhi Bloggers. If time permits I can end up being there as well. Hail Blogging! :-)
Update: I did attend this one too :)
Technorati Tags: delhi bloggers | blogging | delhi
There is much of hulla gulla going on over the blocking of blogspot and many other blogsites. And as it often happens in such cases, rhetoric has once again taken precedence over sense. We have seen some very strong reactions from bloggers across India.
I am sure no blogger is happy about their blogs being blocked or about being unable to read others’ blogs. And it surely is frustrating. However we must put things in perspective before crying out loud….
Was the ban imposed to stop certain people/organizations with doubtful integrity from exchanging information via blogs ?
Now, if the answer to this question is Yes, then I’d say the we the bloggers should take a chill pill for a while. Though no one likes to be blocked, but this is least of the inconveniences we should not mind suffering, given the delicate nature of times we are going through as a nation.
The recent 7/11 ( or as per Indian/British convention, should we say 11/7 ? ) bombings have caused an red-alert situation at a national level. Everyday there are hoax calls threatening another bomb attack at one place or another. So it is understandable that in the larger interest of National Security, we the people of India might have to go through some inconvenience. Aren’t we already frisked at multiplexes, airports etc? The India Gate bomb hoax caused disrupted traffic and inconvenience to the people visiting India Gate, but that was necessary. Security forces can not take chances, just because people are inconvenienced.
So in that sense, if the idea behind blocking blogs was to stop terrorists/anti-national outfits from exchanging information via blogs, I do not mind at all if for a few days I am unable to blog. I think government can, in such a scenario, take a decision of temporarily blocking websites. Bloggers & blog readers in India after all form an extremely small percentage of over all population, and blogs are not a critical and mass means of providing information. Though the manner in which Government went about this decision is still questionable.
However if the answer to the question above is NO, then there are several more questions to be asked. As it has been reported widely in media, there were some 20 odd websites which government wanted to be blocked. Which in my opinion was a ridiculous step to be taken in today’s time and age. In such a case government has actually overstepped and violated our freedom to voice opinions, and our freedom to know what others opine. There are questions which need to be answered by Government and ISP’s and air needs to be cleared.
Both the government and/or ISP’s have shown their technical incompetence by thinking of blocking only a handful of blogging servers (like blogspot, typad) and leaving others (like wordpress, live journal, and many others). There are various ways of how these blocked sites could still be accessed. The lack of clarity, the clandestine approach and no clear cut statement from government till now only puts them on a slippery ground.
A group of Delhi Bloggers, of which I am also a member, has taken lead to put an end to various speculations being made in blogosphere about the whole issue in absence of any clear message from government so far, and Abby - another member of this group - has invoked an RTI petition. The motive is not to challenge and corner government but to understand government’s point of view (which unfortunately has not been communicated to the nation). Based on what comes out of this, if required, bloggers may as well think of challenging government decision. The media has also been highlighting this issue prominently and CNN IBN was supposed to cover reaction of Delhi Bloggers earlier today.
Hopefully the unanswered questions will be answered, till then let the sense prevail over rhetoric.
He comes out of his home and on the road he stares at girls, whistles at them, passes lewd remarks, in the bus he keeps his hand on the hand of unknown girls, purposefully stands in a way that all of his body touches theirs, and touches them without permission. Many times he crosses the limit and in crowded places he grabs or pinches breasts of ladies or other parts of their bodies.
He laughs these things off, he does this ‘just for fun’. “So what? I just had some fun with a girl; it’s not a rape or murder?”
At home, he has a mother, a wife, a sister and a daughter. Poor ladies, they don’t know that their own son/husband/brother/father, teases girls ‘for fun’ just like many men on road tease them. Every-single-day.
So are you victim, perpetrator or a mute spectator to eve teasing?
BlankNoiseProject is doing interventions tomorrow in 5 major cities of the country, against the evil of On-Street Sexual Harassment. Details Here.You don't want to be a mute spectator, do you?
"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- Albert Einstein.
Alec Smart said, "Is there any truth in the rumour that Kaavya Viswanathan has been appointed brand ambassador for Xerox?"
- Bachi Karkaria.
Plagiarised from TOI.
Duh! I am absolutely disappointed with myself. I am even considering giving up blogging now. I mean what’s the use, if no one finds it worthy.
And no I do not want to offend all (dude! this word 'all' sounds so BIG, i actually mean 'all of the few') my lovely readers who have tolerated me for a long time now, and they keep coming back to read me. But then you people are very nice.The responsibility of my dejection with blogging solely lies with this site. I mean how could they be so insensitive towards me? and how could all those Plagiarists break my heart as well? I swear I never did anything wrong to them, and still not a single soul copied/stole any damn word from my blog ever. The search of my blog on this site returns zero results. Even my old blog had no luck what so ever.
No one thinks I am good enough to be copied, no one loves me…. :'(
Though I am jealous of Anuradha and Shilpa, as they both have been blatantly plagiarised. However for some reason they dont find it exciting, and are complaining that they've been plagiarized. Perhaps just like its easy to donate millions for charity if you are Bill Gates, it's easy to get offended if you know that your blog contents were good enough to be copied/stolen.
But you know what? I wanna be as rich as Bill Gates, so that I can donate millions. And I wanna blog good enuf, so when some plagiarists steal my blog contents, I can get angry at them, swear at them, beat the hell out of them, use choicest of words for them and make them shit down their blogs.
Puhleeeez blog thieves, will you give me that chance to fullfill my this one dream? Puhleeez?
Technorati Tags: plagiarism blogging
I apologize for the abusive title of this post, but tell me haven’t you heard this statement before when you saw some people quarrelling on a railway station or bus stop? It sounds so weird and disturbingly funny, right? That a person starts abusing when he wants the other person to stop abusing him.
This human nature is precisely what I want to talk about today. This kind of nature is so much prevalent among us, and most of the people practice such nature, sometimes without even realizing it.
We’ve had the classic example of much talked and rioted about Danish Cartoons. The entire so called progressive world cried foul saying that this was an attack on freedom of expression, and they condemned the protests which were happening in some parts of the world. In other words they wanted their freedom of expression, but they were not ready to take any criticism of the cartoons, thus not willing to give the same freedom of expression to those who did not like cartoons. On the other hand protestors turned violent and rioted public property of their own country and killed people from their own country and community. How weird and stupid can we humans get?
How many times have we seen people condemning one religion for fundamentalism, and then in order to face the challenge of fundamentalism of that other religion, they turn towards fundamentalism of their religion.
Don’t we see how the rich and mighty countries of the first world are trying their best towards the noble cause of world peace only by threatening other countries of dire consequences if they did not agree?
I have seen many people who claim to be rational, and while they chide someone for being irrational they themselves become irrational. There are people who claim to be firm believers of the philosophy of Ayn Rand, and then they go around showing off that they’ve read all of her books.
Only today I was reading a blog, where someone wrote a comment saying that a blog is a personal space, and the owner has all the rights to write whatever he or she feels like. In the same breath this person continued that disabling comments on a blog post is undemocratic, and it should not be done. Now if my blog is ‘my space’, and I have all the rights to convey my thoughts through it, don’t I have all the rights to decide if I want someone to comment on it or not? Another funny thing i read there was about comment moderation being accepted but disabling comments being termed as wrong. Now in my opinion, disabling comments and moderation are almost similar. The only difference being that when u have comment moderation, you can choose only those comments which you like and leave the ones you dont, whereas while disabling comments altogether you skip both favorable as well as unfavorable comments. So what’s the big deal? Why so much fuss about moderation and/or disabling? and that too when you are supposedly in favor of freedom of expression on one’s blog.
If only we can learn to practice what we preach, the world would be a much better place.
~—~
I know this post was a bit on a heavier side, so I leave you with this piece of news which just came in:
15000 atheists in London rioted after a blank sheet of paper was found on a cartoonist’s desk!
via :-)
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