Happy new year.

Another year passed by. And so quickly, I still remember how sad my last new year’s eve was. (I’ve a history of horrid new year’s eves.) And this one’s no better. I’m forced to stay home, and watch crap on tv/do boring stuff online and cut a happy happy cake that I don’t even like. Well I’m not supposed to complain cos I should keep my parents happy, anyway…

This entire year was full of highs and lows. Ups and downs. It was overall a very satisfying and a landmark year for me in some ways. I hope it was the same for you too!

And now I’m giving away the prestigious “Niveditha awards” (ahem ahem!!!) for the best and the worsts of the year! *clap clap clap!*

Best movie(s): Rock on! And A wednesday. I’ve not yet seen Ghajini.
Worst movie: U me aur hum (and probably Yuvvraaj and some Wafaa whose promos I saw, it was horrrrid!!!)

Best actor: Hrithik Roshan for Jodha Akbar
Worst actor: Himesh for Karzzzzzz (not that I saw the movie, and for guessable reasons! )

Best actress: Priyanka Chopra for Dostana and Fashion
Worst actress: Priyanka Chopra again for love story 2050, Drona and God tussi Great ho

Best Song: Khwaja… (Even better than all the songs of Rock on!)
Worst Song: Tan tanananana tandoori nights! (Hey, I’m not picking on Himesh, he’s genuinely awful!)

Best national moment of the year: The three Olympic Medals.
Worst national moment of the year: The Mumbai blasts.

Best Hero of the year: ALL those who laid their lives down for the country.
Best Villian of the year: ALL those goddamn politicians!

List of people who made the country proud:

Aravind Adiga (for the booker prize)
Abhinav Bindra (for the gold medal)
Vijender Kumar and Sushil Kumar (for their bronzes)
The entire Indian cricket team (for playing some outstanding cricket at the right times, it was a spirit lifter)
All the martyrs, against all the terror attacks.
A.R.Rahman (for making it to the goldenn globe nominations)
Parvathy Omanakuttan (for being the runner up at Miss.World)
Most importantly…A lot of nameless, faceless people who are toilig their lives for our country.

Worst people of the year.
As I said each and every politician for being insensitive and opportunistic at all the wrong times and making the country go from bad to worse. A lot of credit to Vilasrao Deshmukh, Arjun Singh, Shivraj Patil, A.R.Antulay, Deve Gowda, Amar Singh… et al!

Anyway… Have a great new year ahead!!! Hope it brings you all happiness and success! Have fun! See ya next year!

Viva Experiences

One of the most dreadful experiences of college life, for anybody… Is Viva-Voce! It’s like the one experience that gives you nightmares and sucks the living daylights out of you! However well prepared you are, things will NEVER go right for you. There are different kinds of 3^rd Degree torture the examiner might put you through. And different things, that could make it worse for you. (Note: It can NEVER go well!)

The Lone Soldier!

When you’re forced to go alone or the extremely patient/sadistic examiner wants to fry you all alone. He stares at you in the face and tries to kill you with his looks and his incessant volley of questions, most of which you’ve probably never even heard of in your life! You’re grilled and of course he thinks you’ve no clue about the subject!

The nerd partner!

If your examiner is slightly soft and decides to call 2 people at a time. And your partner turns out to be the “Hermione Granger” who is bouncing up in her (it’s mostly female; guys aren’t capable of doing that!) chair  to answer all the questions. Well that doesn’t leave a lasting impression of you in front of the examiner, so there go the marks right down the drain!

The Stupid partner.

Don’t be so happy that you have the stupidest person in class as your viva partner! You’ll still screw up! That person’s knowledge is zero about the subject. And if you know a teensy weensy bit, the sum total of answers given are still very low, so not only is your partner getting flushed in the drain, he’s pulling you along too!

The “gumpnalli govinda” viva.

That literally translates into “lost in the crowd” You’ve gone with say 4 people, and that clearly shows, the examiner is BORED! And a bored examiner NEVER translates into more marks. The fact is if he doesn’t care about the viva, chances are he won’t give a rat’s tail for your marks either!

You’re roll no 1.

If you’re called first/voluntarily go in to give your viva first, the chances are you’ll be screwed the most. You’ll be the standard benchmark for the mark allotment for the rest of your batch. So he wants to know fully well about you!

It’s time to go home

This sort of examiner is in a hurry to go home, and asks you questions like “nimma uru yavadu” (which place are you from) and your entire viva marks depend on that. If you’re a localite and speak the local language (kannada here) chances are you score brownie points! Otherwise, the generally regionistic examiner, doesn’t care two hoots about you!

The I’m not asking questions examiner

He’ll make YOU do all the talking and ask your partner questions. Or he’ll make run errands for him or do him other favors (don’t get me wrong here) I don’t think people are so corrupt that he would take monetary favors, but general stuff like, let me use your laptop (I’ve seen this happen!) Or bring me this or write that for me etc…

Essentially every person would have been placed in one of the above categories. And heaved a sigh of relief when he got done with the viva!

One piece of advice though. NEVER go drunk for your viva (inspired by five point someone!) Trust me. You’ll be in a LOT of trouble!

A tale of two wednesdays

Have you seen the movie A wednesday? If you haven’t I suggest you go grab a DVD and watch it.

Why have I titled this post as “A tale of two wednesdays” you will understand only if you’ve seen the movie. Wednesda november 26th2008 was a catastrophe, with the terror attacks and mass murder like it was nobody’s business. What is the solution to all that? Can we also pull off a Wednesday in return to what they did to us? I think it’s completely possible. We as citizens should play an active role in changing the system.

After all, they’re taking the common man for granted. In the age where common man is the hero we can’t wait for Superman to come and save the day for us. All of know it’s fictional!

Now everybody is talking about what we can do. Nobody is sure what we can do. I’m sure none of  us can pull off a Naseerudin Shah! But there are steps. First of all, we should all stop talking about it and take some action.
Writing a blog about it is a good way to start off. If you’re influencing even 5 people trust me it’s a good start. There are other educated and sane minded people who are also starting a whole lot of initiatives. Take for instance, this one, it might take 5 minutes of your time but a small contribution to society.

The other thing that we as the youth of India can do is, participate in the peace rallies. A whole load of them are going on in every city. I really appreciate the effort and spirit of the people who initiate these events. I think we should also follow on their footsteps or at least go participate, and show are support and appreciation for them. I think this is a good way to send a notice to the passive government. If we don’t react and respond, then nobody will even care. And such events will only continue. We will just be subjected to more tyranny and it’ll be only because we’re pushovers.

I think awareness is important and we are empowered with facilities like the Internet and other communication devices and we should use them to help with the cause. If we as educated individuals fail to help, then nobody will. So take a step further and spread the good word. Because it’s high time we support and safeguard ourselves rather then leaving it to some dirty ol’ codgers who aren’t interested in anything but their own decietful money making schemes!