CITI never sleeps, it SPAMS!

On how CITIbank India, sent me a Welcome email and on requesting them to unsubscibe me from their e-mails, responded with more spam.

The Beginning:
I discover that I am a Citibank customer! and that I have also been registered for some CitiAlert service. All this without my knowledge or consent. (I had a citibank card long long long long  ago, I guess it must’ve been 4 years at least, since i stopped using that card. I remember not renewing that card when it got expired.) This is the mail I received:

‘Not Winning’ is called ‘Losing’ and not a ‘Draw’

Staying awake till 3.30 am for two consecutive days only to see a winnable test match ending up in a draw, is not a good feeling. And you feel even worse when you see that the captain of your team is not sad for not being able to win the match, instead he is busy patting his and his team's back for staging a comeback in the game. Ass.

Lack of strategic leadership and pathetic pace(?) attack of Indian bowlers, is solely responsible for not being able to pull up a victory which was very much there to be grabbed. I am in a highly depressing and cribbing mode, and can blurt out a lot more about last night's loss (yes, i call it a loss – not a draw). But I'd rather encourage you to read Gaurav's blog, as he is feeling the same pain and anguish as I am, and every word on his post echoes my own feelings.

Though I always believe that the playing 11 are to be utilized in best possible way to win the match, and any excuses for some players not being in the team are stupid – but this time I felt that Irfan Pathan and/or Bhajji's experienced presence, however outta form or low on confidence they might be, would have certainly made a difference, specially with a drained out VRV Singh taking ages just to reach his bowling mark and a visibly trembling Shreesanth.  

In continuation with the subject of my last post, the ICC is totally silent on Lara's inappropriate behavior on the ground yesterday. It's only a guess how ICC would have reacted if it was an Indian player who was at fault.

Update : 8th June'06

As I had suspected towards the end of my post, ICC has actually gone ahead and fined Sehwag 20% of match fee for excessive appealing, however Lara remains untouched for his dramatic and unsportsman like behaviour. Siddhartha at Cricinfo has very rightly pointed out the double standards of ICC. This, I suppose is the right time for BCCI to flex it's muscle and stand by the team, but would they?

Tags: | cricket | test cricket | indian cricket | International cricket council | BCCI

Bizarre!!!

It's around 2.30 AM in India. I am up watching the 4th days play of 1st Cricket test between India and West Indies, and quiet pleased with the way India are conducting itself – for the first time during the entire tour so far.

151st over of India's second innings in being bowled. Mohammed is the bowler, and Kaif is facing him. First ball, Kaif tucks the ball to take a comfortable single. This brings Dhoni on strike now. Dhoni has already completed his half century in just 47 balls with 4 fours and 3 sixes. He is in devastating mood, and he sends next three balls of Mohammed out of the ropes for massive sixes. Bryan Lara has a look on his face, which is worried but is also acknowledging the sheer power and brilliance of Dhoni's game. Mohammed delivers his next ball, and Dhoni sends even this one packing out of the grounds… but wait the ball just makes it to the ropes and there is Ganga waiting for the ball. He catches the ball cleanly but no one's sure if he touched the rope while doing so. Umpires go to third umpire, and third umpire says he cant help as the replays are inconclusive. The decision needs to be made by the ground umpires. The ground umpires talk to the fielder, the fielding captain and consults third umpire. They just fall short of discussing with the viewers in the ground, and probably conducting a snap SMS poll on the TV.  After ages of discussions ground umpires finally decide to give benefit of doubt to the batsman.

But wait – drama is not over yet. Even as the field umpires indicate Dhoni to continue, Lara who is quiet agitated by this time, walks up to the umpires to protest and asks them to take word of the fielder. More surprise! Umpires who have already taken a decision, easily get influenced and decide to discuss again, with third umpire and with the batsman. (oh! why don't they discuss with viewers, silly!) They are not taking a frikkin decision but trying to reach a compromise… In a while Lara reaches out to the Indian batsmen and perhaps asks them to take fielders' word. It's a stupid drama being played out there, instead of decisions being made, people are trying to persuade one of the parties to give in.
Dravid, who has been watching all the drama from pavillion, and is visibly upset with this, decides to decalre the innings. In a while it also becomes known that Dhoni finally agreed to the pleas of umpires and Lara, and gave his consent for being declared out.

Ha!

Even after the days' play is over, and it's 3.30 am in India, I am not asleep. Today’s  unprecedented event has enlightened me, and shown me the path on which Cricket should go. Two initial thoughts that come to my mind are:

1) Going forward, we should have voting on the field – decisions should be taken in a purely democratic manner.

2) Captains should be given 5 minutes of extra time, every time there is an appeal, to try and influence/persuade the umpires and/or the players of opposing team so as to reach a mutually acceptable decision.

Think about these, Cricket is after all a gentlemen's game.

—–

Update:

Siddharth at CricInfo gives out the exact details.
Pratyush has video clippings of the incident.
Sakshi mentions how Lara crumbled under Dhoni's pressure.
worma @ Cricket 24×7 is pondering between the official and unofficial aspects of the drama.
Tags: | cricket | test cricket | indian cricket |

Who are you?

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?

Terrorists in Uniform

Yes, I am talking about the Police force in India. Though every state has it's own Police Department, and they function independently – there is something which is very common among the police forces of various states of India. It's corruption, it's being a puppet of politicians, it's being Terrorists in Uniform.

I know I can be accused of Generalizing here. But what else can you say when you see that a group of students protesting against Reservation policy of government, are beaten up brutally by the police force? Are we living in a free democratic country? I hear that the students were dealt that way because they were obstructing traffic. Okay, I agree that obstructing traffic is totally wrong, but is this the way you treat a peaceful protest march? And what about those VIP's who obstruct the traffic every time they travel on the road? and what about those various political rallies which see the entire city coming to a stand still, and what about those rowdy rally supporters and party activists who think they own the entire city's infrastructure and go on destroying public property and mistreating (even beating up) common public on roads/trains/buses, just because they think that this is the way to exercise there right to protest? What does the Police do then?

Come to me… right here right now.

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

bhench*d, gaali mat de…

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 :-)

Life is Beautiful!

A few days back I changed my apartment, and as usual finding a new apartment was a daunting and boring task. The house search had it’s own adventurous moments and I did not have any new place to shift till two days before my shifting deadline. There were moments when I though that I may even have to live on footpath for a few days..

Even my bachelorhood, which is my most prized and celebrated possession, was questioned and sometimes I felt like being a bachelor is a crime in this country. Yes! there were house owners who were no less than Angels sent by God till the time they did not know that I was a bachelor. As soon as i gave them the news that I am a bachelor and I plan to stay alone in the apartment, their reaction was same as that of a person who has just got up after a steamy ‘unprotected’ one night stand only to discover that their partner was HIV positive.

What I have below are reactions of some of my dear one’s when i told them about the problems i was facing while looking for a new house.

**~~** 

Me to a friend: Dude! let me know if you come to know of any house which i can rent. It’s slightly urgent.
Friend: Hey! wait!! i guess there is a house next to me which is lying vacant. let me get back to you with details, and then we can go over to check out the place, lets try it out.
Me: that’d be so great dude. lemme know.

**~~**

Me to my Dad: I just have one more week left to look for a new house. I donno how’ll i find one so soon given that I am too busy at work as well.
Dad: Don’t worry son everything will be fine. In fact I was thinking that I’ll buy you a apartment in Delhi itself, this way you’ll never have to face this problem again.
Me: Daaaad!!!! :) ….. (and I was speechless)

**~~**

Me to a lovely friend from Jaipur: Y’know I think I am gonna be living on footpath very soon, coz time is running out and i’ve not yet finalized a thing.
Lovely friend from Jaipur: don’t even say that Amit. I am sure you’ll find one. It might sound impractical but if i have my way, I’ll make you stay here at my place for sometime and your office in Gurgaon is hardly 2 hrs drive from Jaipur which is the same time you’ll take to travel from Noida to your office. :)
Me: you are such a sweetheart dear. I’d have loved to do that if that was really possible. but thanks anyway.

**~~**

Me to a new chick in my life: Gosh! I am so pissed off, i’ve spent my entire saturday searching for a new house, but no success.
New chick in my life: Hey sweetie, take it easy. everything will be fine. btw – why don’t you move to my apartment, my flat mate is anyway moving out as she’s taken up a job at Bangalore. If you don’t mind we can live together, and this will give us more time together.
Me: What! You mean!! Are you saying!!! OMG!!!! :D

Isn’t my life beautiful? it truly is, my wonderful readers. But then you need to look at the other (read ‘real’) side of life as well. Read on to know what actually transpired:

**~~**

Me to a friend: Dude! let me know if you come to know of any house which i can rent. It’s slightly urgent.
Friend: Why don’t you go to a property dealer, you should be able to find some house.
Me: That’s a terrific idea, Dude. What would i do if you were not around….. Grrrrr.. ofcourse i have enuf mind to contact a broker you dumbass, what makes you think i’ve not done that already.

**~~**

Me to my Dad: I just have one more week left to look for a new house. I donno how’ll i find one so soon given that I am too busy at work as well.
Dad: Son, why is it that you always wake up at the eleventh hour? when will you be mature enough to take things seriously and plan ahead of time?
Me: Dad! :(  …. (and I was speechless)

**~~**

Me to a lovely friend from Jaipur: Y’know I think I am gonna be living on footpath very soon, coz time is running out and i’ve not yet finalized a thing.
Lovely friend from Jaipur: That’s cool isn’t it. you can as well take up cleaning cars parked on roadside and make some additional money ;-))
Me: You are such a sweetheart dear. I am honored to have a friend as thoughtful as you.  :-|

**~~**

Me to a new chick in my life: Gosh! I am so pissed off, i’ve spent my entire saturday searching for a new house, but no success.
New chick in my life: What? you can’t be serious. I’ve invited some of my old friends for a get together at your place next week, and you are telling me that you won’t have that house with you anymore.
Me: What? You mean?? Are you saying??? OMG???? :((

So now you know, don’t you?

Life is beautiful.