Preity

Preity's wallpaper has to be the most awesome one in my entire collection of over a year. I have around 10 of hers but the last one...the one that prompted me to write this post has to be the best. Black and white(I love these) and capturing all her innocence and naughtiness at the same time this one just makes me yearn for Preity.

I know I do sound like a school kid with a crush but with Preity it's perfectly acceptable I think. She's always been my favourite and no matter what anyone says she's the best. I have watched all her movies, almost all, even K.Jo movies just because she's there. (Talking of K.Jo movie - KANK, I agree with Saxena when he says the movie premise is flawed...why in the world would anyone want to cheat on Preity??)

Ness Wadia is one lucky bastard!!!

Resume

Ah, finally relief!! The deadline was reached last night and that should be the end of resume headaches unless there are a truckload of companies that want us to fill their own forms. No God let's please not have anything like that...it's just too painful.

When they said 4 weeks to develop your resume I scoffed and said what the hell how much time does it take. Now that it is finally over, I know. Ten versions and lots of snipping and cutting later I know what "growth of resume" means.

Resumes are good and bad. Good because they let you know yourself more. It does involve a lot of soul searching and memory scratching and one does get to recollect a lot of good times all over again. It's bad however cause after a time you get sick of achievements and wish for the simplicity of things. Because of its competitive nature and the fact that one has to make an impression in under 20 seconds, everything suddenly gets hyped up. Action verbs - that's the key even though there might be no action at all. You claim credit for everything that has possibly happened and there is general aggrandizement. By then resumes become verbose and sickly like saccharine sweetness. Things are cramped because you have too many things to write from and can't choose what to leave out else you decide to increase font size and liberally add spaces because you have not much to write about (all in the name of better readability as in my case :)) And believe me the more you think about your resume the more points you will remember, infinite corrections to be made and it's like the proof reading will never end. Frankly, the best way to write a resume is to catch hold of 15-20 resumes from the previous year similar to your profile and just cut, copy and paste.

And then there's beloved html to drive us all crazy. Mine got done thanks to Zubin's fundaes and Surd jugaadofying some old resumes. After that it was just cut, copy, paste (Cut, copy, paste - every IITians mantra that mostly never fails). To make things more complicated resume headers keep changing every few hours right up to the last day. So you never know whether you have written too much or too little. Anyways am done with it so relieved. It's now the placement nom's headache of checking every single resume. Am I glad I am not one - so many resumes...yechhh!!! (But then again resumes make interesting reading especially when you know the guy has made a mountain of a mole hill)

Anyways one last comment they should just stick to one pagers for non tech and 2 pagers for tech. It will at least cut down on the unnecessary faff that people write especially about their positions of responsibility and academic projects. The tech guys can mention all the projects they want in the two pagers. That way everyone should be happy.

But now I no longer am bothered (hopefully) though I still have to work on making my academic projects and internships real for the interviews. Oh what a pain...

My Foot

This has to be the height of freak accidents - falling off the bed to injure your feet when attempting to switch off the alarm. My soles buckled and here I am writhing in agony :( Sometimes I am glad I am not fatter...my soles would have been fractured(if they already aren't) if more body weight had fallen on them.

Nah I am talking arbit crap to relieve myself of the pain. For now I am going to sit like The Bride and talk to my toes and my feet and wiggle them to get some semblance of walking restored.

Couldn't go down to see the race - an awesome one it was I heard, heavy rains Hamilton wins, Alonso out, DC 4th. Shall see it on LAN hopefully.

What useless distractions these freak injuries. Throw everything out of sync...and now the resume world beckons.

Ram - Who's he?

We had been hit last week by a raging controversy over the Sethu Samudram project and like all controversies this one too will die down - it already has become less important than the issue of the next Indian captain. But at the root of this controversy there is a greater issue and many more questions.

The entire Sethu Samudram Project can be looked in two ways. The very basic question that started it all off was whether or not the project would be sustainable - economically, ecologically and on a minor note destruction of history and faith. This led the Govt. of India to file an affidavit in the Supreme Court not only denying the fact that the bridge was man made (i.e. by Ram) but questioned the very existence of Ram which triggered off the whole controversy.

There is no doubt at all that India today is a minority appeasing country with a highly accommodating (maybe spineless/why should I be bothered?) majority. Be it caste or religion in India it is the minority that yields votes and hence wields power. A paradox - but India has forever been a land of paradoxes. Still on rare occasions that dormant majority raises its head and this time, like in the case of OBC reservations, the Govt. has gone too far. No matter what, never push a community's goodness and faith too far. The modern Hindu may not know the Ramayana, may not visit temples, may not even believe in God but still Ram is a part of his history & his faith. To question the identity of the individual on whom countless festivals are celebrated, people named and whose name was the last word on the lips of India's greatest secularist - Gandhi is nothing short of blasphemy. You may be agnostic or an atheist but don't you dare deny the God of 800 million Indians. Scientific proofs are fine till one extent but one doesn't have to prove one's faith and Indians need no science to prove the existence of our Ram. In fact, as Barkha Dutt wrote in her column in HT, the modern Indian is quite comfortable co-existing with both faith and science.

Talking of the media, the coverage and editorials of this issue has been quite fairly dealt with. The Govt. surely deserves all the stick it is getting for trying to push forward such a baseless argument. The Dravidian establishment in the south is still adamant that the Govt. go ahead with the project just to spite the country's Hindus and their faith. Even if the project is given the green signal there are still many options to be looked at. There are multiple paths possible so the question arises as to why this one which would hurt the faith of so many people be chosen. There are alternatives and so if the Govt. still chooses to pursue its line of science over faith, can it not humour the sentiments of these 800 million Indians? Would it have acted in the same manner if the faith in question were Islam or Christianity?

Right now the Govt. is busy passing the buck trying to anoint a sacrificial goat but in the future whatever decisions they make, they better consider the sentiments of the majority. They would do well to remember the saying 'Let sleeping dogs lie'. You just don't want to push the country into turmoil because no matter what no entity can deny us our Ram, our faith and our illustrious culture and history. The world is realizing the glory of the same, it's time we learned to value our past.

Ferrarigate

The FIA is back to playing Ferrari International Assistance. They make decisions based on God knows what logic. There are a couple of questions that seriously beg to be asked - first of all is McLaren guilty and if so is the punishment appropriate to the crime.

They say McLaren knew of everything in the Ferrari car and strategy and some degree of sporting advantage may have been gained though it may not be possible to quantify it. Did McLaren ever make use of the Ferrari data - is any component planned for Ferrari being used by McLaren and the answer would be No. Even in a race like the Aus GP where Stepney supposedly told Coughlan that Kimi would pit lap 18 what advantage did McLaren gain? Kimi in fact went on to win the race. So whatever knowledge, if any, was possesed by McLaren was never used. In fact the mails between the McLaren drivers and Coughlan was revealed to the FIA by none other than Ron Dennis. Why would a guy who knew his team had committed a crime give what the FIA now considers incriminating evidence? McLaren gained no competitive advantage at all because it never used the information. Intent to commit a crime does not deserve punishment in any court around the world so even if de la Rosa did want to try out the simulator and the tyre gas, he never did. But the FIA decides otherwise and questions if he has the right to take such decisions!! What it admits could very well have been made by observing the Ferrari(the aero package) it says in the context is a crime. Most of the evidence that the FIA states is more or less circumstantial and very iffy as the official press release of the WMSC states.

So the question now is do you punish McLaren for having the info or for using it. The latter is discarded so only the former remains. Even in the case of the former, let's remember that it was Stepney who came forward to volunteer information - McLaren planted no mole in Ferrari and no monetary payment, job or any other benefit was offered to Stepney. Stepney and Coughlan were in fact job hunting and on the circumstantial basis that FIA concludes guilt it is very much possible that they would have told the other teams about the information they possessed and maybe even samples of the info. So that would make all the other teams also guilty wouldn't it since McLaren are being punished for knowing info. These kind of things happening in Formula 1 are not new and who would not want to listen to info about your rival being offered for free. Again this information exchange was very much limited to Coughlan, it wasn't treated as an in-house detailed study of how to scuttle Ferrari's chances. It is not McLaren's fault is it that Massa couldn't overtake Hamilton - a rookie at Malaysia?

So even if McLaren are guilty of knowledge shouldn't the fine be appropriate? To strip McLaren of all constructors points and an additional $100 mn fine is absurd. Are they just being punished because it's Ferrari at the other end? Ferrari has forever been arm twisting and allying with the FIA and it seems a symbiotic relationship. When Alonso is held over in the pits delaying Hamilton McLaren lose constructor points but when Ferrari give team orders no penalty is dealt. McLaren are fined for a untested gear box but what about Ferrari's illegal car in Australia? If we are to believe Coughlan and Stepney for such a big crime sure they wouldn't be lying about small things like that? So can we expect punishment on that? No why should we after all doesn't Max Mosley want Ferrari's support for the new concord agreement?

In the end it's just an unsporting decision by the FIA taken clearly to support a rat of a team that doesn't have the balls to win a championship on track. But no matter what they do they can't beat McLaren on track. Ask Ferrari for the results of psychological warfare at Monza. McLaren will just come back stronger - be it the remaining races this season or the next season.

Introduction

What's the need for this blog? Well nothing that I can actually think of. Even how well I keep my blog running is going to be an issue considering I have very little or no time with all my work and lukha.

But still just to satisfy my ego that I am letting my opinions be known to the whole world(the www rather) it's good. Like they say whatever you feel let it out...so this is my outlet for anything and everything that happens in the world (most likely will not involve me in any way)

And before I proceed any further I shall make this unabashedly clear that this blog is all about my views - so they will mostly be biased and more often than not, not objective. So if you are looking for a clear lay down of the facts with a clear analysis you probably are at the wrong site. Also the length of my blog may vary on how much time I have to write my views in...could be anything from a line to several paras. So no consistency in that either.

So why should you read my blog? I dunno...maybe if u want to pick a bone with me over a topic, maybe you just want a different perspective or you are just plain bored. Whatever!!