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Who are "these people"?

I recently had the chance to visit Pune on a short trip. Between gobfuls of sumptuous comfort food I caught up  with lots of family and friends. During these conversations one common theme started to emerge that I cant stop  thinking about. But before I go any further a quick tangent…. ….On this trip I threw caution to the wind and ate what could be the Mt Rushmore of desserts. Puran Poli,  Basundi, Jilbi (aka Jalebi) and Motichur Ladoo. That led me to the conclusion that this is the best lineup of  desserts in the world and they all come from a relatively small geographical region. You add stalwarts like  Shrikhand, Aamras and Kaju katli to this list and we have a true All Star team! I challenge any region in the  world to come up with a better line up. But anyway, enough about that. Everytime I engaged in a conversation and the subject veered even close to the Indian State of the Union there  would be this common theme; XYZ is great but ‘ these people ’ dont wa
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Soporific Saturday

Alas! Friday has arrived. The weekend is here. Yipeee!!!! ...These are the words that all my friends utter every friday of every week of every god damned month. If they dont meet me they make it a point to mail me their wretched cries of relief. "Crap" I say to myself "one more day to go for me before I can experience this relief". Ever since I have started working, this terrible curse has dogged me and as every saturday comes by I again start questioning the logic behind this saturday thing. Why in God's name would a person in S & M be working on a day when all his customers are busy doing nothing? Is it a way of saying that we are so bloody incompetent that we need to work one whole day more to keep our side of the deal? All management gurus, in all their ramblings will tell you that you need to be proactive, anticipate all the shit that you are likely to be in.....Fine ..that works...but there is only so much that even the best of businessmen can anticipa
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Lights........Camera.....Aaction!!!!!!

“Amitabh Bacchan, Sharmila Tagore and Sanjay Dutt” “Yeah right!! And we are the beatles” was our response when this guy narrated the list of people who would be visiting our house for the movie shoot. This was about June last year. We guys had a gala time pulling the guys legs and ridiculing the notion that our house would be the one selected for this shoot. Told all my friends and received more than the odd sarcastic sneer serving only to embolden my belief that it was no more than a trick being played to get us to sign up for this ‘circus’ (as it turned out in the end). We didn’t show any interest after that and neither were we being pestered for it. We had the art director come and pay a visit along with a rep. of the director. Still nothing moved along. They suggested that they would need to make some modification to our compound wall and we asked them shove it. That was the end of it as far as we were concerned. Then one fine day, a Friday, this fellow again came by the house wit
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The King of Screw-Ups? Not quite.

The cool gust of wind hit him flush on his face and awoke him from his reverie. The chill only made the pain worse. This time round however the wound wasnt external. He could deal with that. It was his Ego that had been hit and it hurt bad. There was only one thought on his mind as he sat there alone on that dark damp cool night his loneliness only compounded by the misery of the situation he found himself in. The last twenty minutes had just flown by. There was only though on his mind 'how could this have possibly happened'? It had all started so well just 24 hours ago. This was to be a very simple mission. He just had to go in exert some pressure, take care of a few little niggles and get out. There wasn't any fire fighting to be done this time. The Boss had told him just as the workday was getting over but there wasnt a problem. He had used his position to score good travel accomadations. The wind picked up again and alongwith it the pain
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Visa Power

A Declaration: I will not passs critique on any movie in this post. Now as me and a lot of my friends are all caught up in expressing our sorrow or alternatively our elation based on our geographical location since the skipper is leaving we have manged to fail to recognise the economic coup that the americans have managed to pull off here!!!! Credit must be given where its due. Now please bear with me here as I try and explain wht the hell I am talking bout. The americans make us cough up a lot of greens before we can land our respective hineys in the promiseland....all sorts of test fees, application fees and all the other overheads.... We are also made to pay a fee for visa application...so thereby they make a lot of money....so whats the big deal?? u ask...well here it is.. the CIA with its vast spy network spread all over the world manages to identify a "PIED PIPER", so to say, from every community. Unlike the fable however this piper belongs to the fairer sex
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a declaration: I will not pass critique on any movie in this one.... Now credit need to be given where it due. While we have been caught up in the all the grief or alternatively the elation depending on your geographic location we have somehow overlooked the revulotion in revenue generation that is about to sweep across the US of A. consider this..... The americans ask you to pay the following b4 u can get ur ass in their land..... 1. GRE fees 2. TOEFL fees. 3. Application fees. 4. Visa application fees just to name a few heads. add to that the overheads like courier charges, all sorts of fees that u gotta cough up to get all the necessary documentation. Heres the masterpiece though. The CIA through their large spy network ( I have met a few of their agents ) identify the "pied piper" , so to speak,of every community. Unlike the story though this pied piper is mostly of the other gender. Now they will persuade this piper girl to take her GRE, TOEFL ....so on
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Spider Crap

saw Spidey 2 last night. Throughout the movie kept feeling that suddenly the movie would change gear and turn into the fast pace kick-ass spidey flick that all of us were expecting and have grown accustomed to since we were kids. Still remember boring my parents to death singing the spidey theme over and over......... However this installment was quite uninspiring and except for a few good special effects wud have been utterly forgettable. Makes you wonder whether the law of diminishing returns applies to movies as well....how many times have we heard ppl saying " the first one was much better, man. They totally screwed up this one" Well our captain is on the verge of joining the 'back home gang' and man is she happy bout it. i am sure its managed to light up  everyone's faces.......those who are in the US that is......  
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Train Drain

Was in training all of last week. They were trying to turn me into a "Young Leader". When you go through these trainings that teach you about management, communication, teamwork all such related names for what the marwadi clan calls " common sense" u are given a lot of case studies to pour over about how some companies were brought bck from the brink of extinction. They make fascinating reading and you are left with two major thoughts: 1. The size of the goneds that these guys must be having to take the decisions that they did. 2. Is it really as easy as they make it out to be??? C'mon of course they must have gone through hell. What did they do when their strategies blew up?? u gotta be given a chance to know that....wht do u think??   Had gone for another movie last week. DEEWAR....i gotta say it was one awesome experience. How do u take a good cast, a decent story base and a lot ofmoney and turn it into utter crap.  I was feeling like a gynac who upon see
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