Its raining crap

So here goes my first crappy contribution to the ‘whirl’ of advertising and marketing. When you think back at any given day, the no. of products that you have used is no less than maybe 1000. This is my count. Experts put it at 3000. From getting up to your Rado alarm clock (ok whatever alarm clock) to your Nokia phone on which you double check the time and see whether somebody tried disturbing you while you were asleep. On your trudge to the bathroom to take your first pee of the day, you push down your Jockey boxers. Later you’d use a Dettol handwash to do away with the accidental pee drops on your hand and also think that your Nivea facewash might pull you up from the slumber. You open the door and pull in the Hindusthan Times…the heading stares at you…”INDIA OUT OF WORLD CUP”… You think “poor Pepsi…”..and therefore Coke. You open the newspaper and there is a deluge of notice ads, appointment ads, classifieds, stupid ads, offer ads, all fighting for attention… I am sure you’d cover ...

So the hot season has set in. It is very usual to hear people say… "bahut garmi hai…hai na". (isn’t it very hot?). People do this realty checks very frequently even to strangers. At the suburban railway station, you could see a commuter after wiping swaet away from his brows and neck with his hanky and smile at with one of his ‘realty checks’. It’s not just about this season. You could find it during rains, during winter, at a traffic jam…during whatever. I dunno why people do it…but it is very hilarious when people do it…because the only response you can give is to agree with him most of the times…if not always. Options I could think of are … “is it..? I don’t think so” or telling him back “ya it is…so?” I have found another expression of these realty checks…usually it happens when women / girls meet children…meaning say below 3 years…Almost all of them say… “chee nooo..its chooo cute” I haven’t heard many people say especially when they see a kid for the f...

You are reading this article. That is coincidence. No. This one is not crappy… There is this small theory about life that I have assimilated after a lot of introspection over the past, maybe 5-6 years. I do not know whether I can lay claim to this because I have sometimes seen similarities in what others feel about life. So here goes, I call it the THEORY OF CO-INCIDENCE . To start with, let me present some situations for you… Think of the person who you met last. Or better, one who you spoke to last… Just think back and try to gather when you met him / her for the first time. (to be effective don’t think of your parents or siblings…at least not yet) Could you think back a few minutes before that, and then start constructing a ‘what-if’ situation if in case you haven’t met him/her. If you are going around with someone, can you think of a situation wherein you haven’t met him/her? Can you think of a situation where you missed the train that you actually got into? Ima...

So are we racist or not? Finally I had to bow down to the debate. Despite my best efforts I can’t help being a ‘me-too’. The raging debate over are ‘others’ more racist? Thanks to Shilpa Shetty, Big Brother and of course the media. I think it is really a question of the mind. I am sure all us feel racism…in office for the “not-so-georgraphically” inclined, I’m a Madrasi. At the entrance of a plush hotel, I am scorned at because of my dressing. Hindus abuse Muslims and vice versa…all of us swear at each other at the slightest instigation. (Fair skin vs colored skin debate has given rise to a multi crore industry) So, I think the question is on expressing this racism. My theory is similar to yours. We abuse, reprimand, fight, swear, kill, shout etc. as an act of defiance…an expression of anguish or frustration at being shaken from a comfort zone. An even simpler cause could be someone questioning our thoughts, beliefs etc. All these make us do things that we don’t want...

Couldn't believe that the media is devoting so much column centimeters and airtime to comment on Sanjay Dutt's Bombay blast trial verdicts. I don’t want to spend time again to speak about it. But was that worth a 'national importance' certificate? Or was it the media's fetish with celebrity reporting? Another burning national issue is the performance of the Indian Cricket team and Sourav Ganguly’s come back. Obscene amount of columns are dedicated to it. The only sports news that the news channels think worthy of reporting are views of retired/thrown out cricketers on how to improve the present state of affairs. Without realizing of course that if they had practiced what they preach now, probably things would have been better…if not now, atleast then! We Indian’s are terrible sportsmen. I think history would prove it. There might be glimpses of triumphs, but altogether we are mediocre, if not below-average in sports. Our national interest in cricket is virtu...

By the second post, I fear I am donning the mantle of a media basher – ‘media watchdog’ as some would put. Recently the Indian news channels and newspapers were bursting with reports of Brangelina’s “arrogant” security guards swearing at a motley crowd as “bloody Indians” at their shoot-location of “A Mighty heart”. Now were the crowd at “Anjuman-i-Islam school” (the shoot location) unruly? Yes. I would think so from my experience of have attended numerous functions and been witness to numerous occassions when a celebrity / s has made an appearance. Leave alone the crowd, the media – especially the press photographers and the camera-men sometimes exhibit the most uncouth behaviour in their enthusiasm to get the best angles and expressions. If some one behaves in an unacceptable manner, then you have a reason to get upset. How one shows this is very unpredictable. I wonder how anyone would think of a politically correct ‘expletive’ in such situations. That the Brangelina ...

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