Reading for the upcoming Tests/Interviews is the only time that I can brush up on my poor general knowledge. As I read on, I realize that there are so many interesting events going on.

1. AfPak situation: Obama is sending about 17, 000 troops to Afghanistan (in the next month, I guess.) And then about 4k later, for the elections. But what propels the Afghan crisis into a larger issue, which will be addressed at the NATO summit this weekend, is the Taliban-Pakistan relationship. The Taliban in Pakistan has already taken over the SWAT valley (NWFP region) and the tribal regions (FATA) as well.
But Pakistan has been brewing with internal conflicts as well. Its shaky government, threatening army and growing corruption have made it vulnerable to attacks.
Read more on it: http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13382077

2. Economic Recession: I know zilch about it, but I know that it is important cause It is affecting us and blah blah. What I fail to understand is that how knowing the name of the RBI chairperson or the Fed Reserve person is going to help us. (at least in interviews!)
I cant understand why nobody took notice of Roubini and Krugman. Roubini, in a recent interview, said that we should make sure that the recession is U-shaped and not L-shaped like Japan's. Japan is also facing gloom; its finance minister resigned and now it is registering huge losses, more than States.

3. Indian Elections: I cant fathom that every few years these politicians rise and fall, and have the nerves to get up again. The third front, the UPA and the NDA!..I think there should be another option as "not worth it."
These days the wrong people are making the headlines for the wrong reasons:
-Varun Gandhi, for his extremely communal speech.
-Sanjay Dutt, for being unable to stand for elections from Lucknow.
-I also noticed that George Fernandes is standing as an independent candidate from Muzzafarpur, cause he has been chucked out of JD (u)...(there are so many political parties!..its hard to remember where they began and where they have ended up.)

Movies galore

Watching : Sidney Lumet's Network

This weekend was spent in watching Oscar nominated movies...Watched Milk, and Reader. But also watched movies like The conversation by Francis Ford C. A brilliant take on privacy, secrecy and loneliness.
Watched Anchorman-legend of Ron burgundy....Just a fun watch...Funny as hell
Superbad - seemingly real teen comedy. Very funny..
And now I'm watching Network... Can think of so many ways to have creative programming.....
More on it later..back to watching the movie..
From an angry old man, venting out his frustrations and pointing out the hypocrisies of this generation, to a preacher man, lecturing masses on an assembly line production show.
We'll tell you any shit you wanna hear - Network

(reviews later..if i got the time :))

Watching the screen
Listening to: Gemini-hypnotised, Sade-no ordinary love, Sean kingston-take u there

Watched Dog Day Afternoon, Burn after reading and a few episodes of Byomkesh.
But more riveting than all of this was Lost, season 5, episode three. Time travel, subterfuge and meeting with the young Charles Widmore...ahhh...TV pleasure!

I used to love Byomkesh in my childhood and I think its an important component while I was growing. I used to get up in the morning at seven, (sometimes it was only saturday, then daily) to watch the Indian sleuth or satyanveshi, as he likes to be called. He was riveting, strong and handsome...apart from being clever. And Ajit, "mere saathi"...oofff....brilliant and just a bit short of being homosexual..Ajit never marries by the way and Byomkesh's wife is never a constant companion in his adventures. Anyway, I think I am relegating her to the shadows..

Burn After Reading is a through-and-through black humor movie. Coen brothers are good at being different from the run-of-the-mill types. John Malkovich and Geoge Clooney acted well, and so did the rest of the cast. A lot of anger/ire/humor is directed towards the government that ultimately doesn't learn anything from all its run ins..

Finally, Dog Day Afternoon is a brilliant movie about a real life bank robbery. (I seem to keep collecting brill movies...cant help it!), starring Al Pacino as Sonny. I love the movie's portrayal of media/journalism. As I am studying this at the moment, its criticism is all that I keep thinking of... The movie shows that journalism is just getting the story and that is all that I have learnt from the course as well. There's no in-depth analysis of why something happened...only in op-eds (which I consider are like 2-penny novels..anyone can write them or buy 'em).

I also realised that nothing beats Harry Potter fan fiction. Ever. (Yay for pairings and smut!)

Random Thoughts

Looking at: the pc screen!

Listening to: Script session in college


1. Have to edit a few stories tomorrow and I don't know how to be polite and still get the point across. It is so tough to tell any author that I don't understand what they've written or If they could re-structure a sentence. Not trying to be sweet, but nice. :(

2. Missing home! as usual..

3. Studying International issued daily is painful. Especially when you can't listen carefully, as you are busy making notes..(which I painfully and diligently do, because I am a stenographer! :P)

4. I am so excited that LOST is returning! Just dying to watch it....I wanna see Sawyer and lap up all his hotness....Kate and take in all the lies...Jack and watch him drink his tears...
.....Wonderful

5. I watched Fight Club a few days ago and I think I should read the book soon...If the movie was so powerful, ecstatic, wrenching and zapped me awake, imagine what the novel will do?!
I hail the writer (Chuck Palahniuk) and the director(David Fincher) !

"This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time"

" We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives."

Wonderful

Thoughts on Slumdog Millionare

Watched Slumdog millionaire last night.

I won't say it was an excellent movie, but it is definitely worth a watch. Its not an unpredictable story; but the way it is told, through past narratives from Jamal's life and travelogues charting north India and Mumbai, Slumdog becomes a fable of hardship and success. (very cheesy!)

The acting was good, the direction was little short of excellent, the music was remarkable.

Overall a good movie and the awards are well deserved.

Back to the grind

Back in Chennai, after a long stay in Delhi (with pauses of sadness in form of ill-health).
Spent five days in Nagapattinam, which is a Tsunami hit district in Tamil Nadu. We were covering stories there, like post Tsunami rehabilitation, NGOs, Self help groups, and education.
Was a good experience, but nothing like eye-opening or path-breaking!

Anyway,
Following are some good sites that are worth a watch:

http://abstrusegoose.com/
Funny graphics.

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/
Immediate news. Faster than PTI

http://www.india-seminar.com/
Seminar magazine's online version. Has good articles.

TWO DAYS TO GO

Listening to: Ennio Morricone soundtrack (just found it last week. Fistful of dollars is great)

I'm leaving in two days.
For home. Delhi seems a distant dream..but come tomorrow, and I will be there, in the cold, freezing and loving it.

5 days to Homecoming

its time to go home...finally...

Going home should be fantastic after staying in a place you aren't particularly fond of. Missing mom's food and touch, missing sister's silly behaviour, missing little bit of grannie nagging, missing the cold and the heat.

Delhi is home, a home that made me lazy and grumbly and maybe a bit of everything. But it is only through the knowledge of not being at home that, one can come to love it with all their heart. Missing home is hard jobb; but atleast you can look forward to being back home.

PS: Started seeing Entourage. It dulls the pain a bit.

A political Memory

Listening to : OLDER by George Michael
Waiting for: LOST!

Just browsing through the 1991 edition of Frontline, I came across the life of Rajeev Gandhi. Mostly pictures about his life, which were sadly preceded by the pictures of his death in the bomb blast.

Looking at the blast pictures, I was reminded of the very day. I reckon it was Sunday and very early morning. Woken up by loud shouts and the newspaper thrusted in my face, I saw the bold headlines (of Hindustan Times, I think) and bloody pictures of a body. I also remember a strong rush of feeling that passed me, even though I can't place the reason of it. I was about 6, I think. I can't imagine why such an event would trigger a feeling of any kind. Maybe I could conceptualize how important a Prime Minister was, or what it meant to be part of a country that lost its leader.

Even now when I looked at the gory and violent stricken pictures, I could feel the travesty and injustice. But that all changed when I saw the pictures that followed this story.

Rajeev Gandhi as a Prime Minister I can accept; but the fact that he is being remembered as a family man.. amidst a family, surrounded by his kids..makes him seem angelic and blameless. It will not make people forget that he was involved in Bofors. Or that his mother some years age had ordered the great emergency. Or what his brother did during the emergency... What benevolent images we create of our leaders when they pass.. A tainted memory, and a clean picture..people wish to colour the bad things that take place and remove it from their memory...escapism or putting it behind...its just distortion.

Economics is #%$^$ = non-understandable

An Op-ed piece on the global financial hurricane has put me in a dire crisis. It is difficult to fake knowledge about an event that you cannot understand nor predict. Its not just the US financial failure (which I understood partially), but also how the Indian market responded(which is my topic), unfortunately.

I have never been an economics student and have never expressed any interest in economics. AT ALL.

except, well, i gave a business exam for Reuters in September, which i cleared. Thank you, very much.

But other than that, I consider money to be a luxury, which when you possess, needs to be spent carefully and with strong intent. There is no theory behind it; there is no formuale. Its just simple. If you have little of it, save it with all your life. If you have a bit of it, spend some (I usually do with books and movies). There's no logic behind it.

Thinking too much about the crisis could lead to painful and tortuous actions like saving money instead of buying books. The term Indian liquidity and crunch were often used; which made me peculiarly hungry. The only benefit I got from reading the articles on credit crunch was that Indians are quite unaware of what's happening outside their pretty homes. A certain megalomania and narcissism has always protected us from civil action and I think that will pre vail for quite some time.

Sometimes, I think the crisis has been misrepresentated; but I'm sure Lehmans wouldn't think so.