Democracy???

Very soon the country will be gripped with election fever. The BJP and Congress will be at each others throats. We will be in for a grand spectacle. But yours trully will have to watch the entire comedy, for that is all i can do. Three months ago, my father (who stays in cochin) called me from chennai to appear at the Taluk office and get my voters ID card. I went and got my photo taken and was told to come in six weeks to pick up my card.

Sounded easy enough. But what ive come to learn of our government is nothing is as easy as it sounds. Sadly our government does not boast of an efficient delivery system. As a result my card was lost in the six week period. So when i finally approached the Taluk office (for which i had to make another journey from chennai), im told the card has not been issued and will take another two weeks. Very well, another two weeks was all right cause it was in synch with my pongal leave. Again i approached the office, and finally im told the card is lost (after having waited four hours in the room with no fans or water). What does one do when a 3 month wait followed by another four hours ends up with a lost card! How does one react. My fuse went off and i ended up yelling at the village officer, which as you all would have realised is only an exercise in futility.

My father explained yelling at the officer was a reason enough to get arrested. Lets try and understand this. The officer need take no accountability, he needs to assume no responsibility. All he needs to say is, theres nothing i can do sir. Its almost like they are paid to pass the buck. As it is our govt and its inefficiency is excused in the name of red tapism. Now we have people who will take no responsibility as well. Where does this leave all of us? Here is me on one side , who's trying to explain my fundamental right is being denied, my father on another who's trying to tell me the goverment works like this and we can't fight it, and the beaurocracy on the third that just cannot be beaten.

The last time i studied ethics, democracy was defined as govt for the people. Now heres what i want all of you to think.. What can we do? Should we fight? If so how can we? PLease pass the message. Lets see what we can possibly do..

PS: lets keep in mind the words of a man who has changed the course of international politics. YES WE CAN.

Women: Can't do with them, can't DO IT without them

The road to liberty is long ardous and often filled with trouble. But yet, men have taken this path despite the obvious comforts of inaction being more lucrative. For the immediate present inaction suits us fine, but yet there have been men who battled, who sacrificed and bled to be free.

Inspiring as that is, many of u would have nodded your heads as you read along. Some may even agree. But i assure u none, would have bothered to correct my grammar and say i should have generalised the sex. Why? Food for thought...

Chauvinism, is a word thrown about a good deal. What does it mean? My opinion is, it is a man's self defence mechanism. It is the little corner we all run into, when we are intimidated by short skirts, flashy cleavages and an electric smile. Dont get me wrong, im not a sexist, im not a misogyne, im just a voice that thousands of others want to voice. 

Every girl ive known has come with rules, they have an operations manual, a method od approach. John Gray in his magnamopus "Men are from mars..." talks about 101 ways to keep a woman happy. They come with little or no creativity. When was the last time your girl gave a pat on your back for a great comeback line, don't expect it guys, creativity and innovation is beyond their vistas. Their thought is limited to the tried and tested. This i find very annoyssome. No girl i know can claim to be trully spontaneous. What does this mean? Life will be spent on their lowly plains, so men make their first sacrifice. Lets keep score. After round one, Men:0 Women 1.

Sport fans will agree with me on this one, the final lap of the Brazillian grand prix and the last hour of the recent Sydney test were by far the highest tests of character. But those who have had girl friends will disagree.. Ever tried to explain not asking "How was your day?" or better yet try saying i'm out with my friends.. This i think is a better test of character. Cause women in general are of the notion that the world revolves around them. put my theory to test, you'd never hear a woman say my life is great. its always x is missing or y is not working. 

So what do we have here, women whine and they are ego centric. Bad news if ur carrying a dick. After round two, men have made another sacrifice. Score Men:0 Women 2.

Ever tried to explain to your friends what kind of car or what kinda juice u'd like!! thats easy. But try explaining what kinda girl u like.. Women are the biggest contradiction i know. What appears pleasing to the eye is never pleasing to the touch. Which makes life so much harder. Men think with their weiner most of the times. The other times they are thinking on its behalf. But women, with the heart and the brain and throw in the social prejudice, and voila you have a toxic cauldron. It would be so m uch easier if women thought straight out of their pussies, make life a lot simpler. Now this leaves a confused man, and a smirking woman.. Score Men 0 Women 3

HELP!! this is my favourite.Who can ever resist the image of a cute girl in pony tails and a red frock and ankle socks back pack and all crying cause someone knocked her ice cream down.  i'm sure all of us in high school have tried to help a girl when she slipped on the stairs or fell when she tried to catch the volleyball.. Honest mistake, every one does it. But lets think, ever helped a guy? Best i've done is stand back and laugh. NOt my fault or any of ours. We've just been programmed that way to attract women.. But when a girl screams help, we all turn into robin hoods. Which brings me to an oft repeated question. Do women need reservation. AS it is every one is falling head over heals to give them the edge, and on top of this there are certain fringe benefits, courtesy our constitution. When women are up in arms for equality why do they ask for reservation as well?? Contradiction!! My point being for some wierd manufacturing defect they posses an advantage over us, plus resevation.. Dosen't leave much for us does it? score after four rounds Men 0 women 4.

You have the scores, ill let u decide who wins, and who the victim is..

i dont have issues with women.. But i just think its unfair. i think women ought to be given a huge role in todays world.. But as long as they carry their submissive streak, they;ll have to keep battling.. im just hoping one day there'll be a girl who can voice her opinions about narendra modi, as well as sachins cover drive. who'll stand by what she believes in and not beg for trifles from the constitution. One day a girl may come along who wont enjoy confusing and ransacking men so much.. Till that day, my stand on women is: They are an accessory i can do without.

Hail Captain Dhoni!

Namaskaram

India faces many issues. A perennial one is that of its wicket keepers. It might well be my sheer ignorance but forgive me, i haven't seen a single keeper in the team last. Off memory i can count 5 keepers in the recent past, and i'm not even a keen follower of the game. They come, they are hyped, and they soon slip into the oblivion that is ranji.
Another issue we faced, The Double Edged sword that is the Indian Captaincy. One captain had issues with the erstwhile coach! he was, not so graciously shown the door, while another couldn't deal with the demons within, but he retained his place.
Around this period India unearthed MS Dhoni. He showed promise both behind and in front of the stumps. He was charismatic, daring and dare i say, dangerous with a bat in hand. This was a team that was transforming. With no Captain it didn't look promising.
All right enough of the foreplay, lets get to the good part. Dhoni was given captaincy. We all know, what ensued. The rest is not HISTORY. It was consistent hard work, and a whole lot of luck. For a change our national team did look like world beaters. And for the first time the team was showing the tenacity and flair (although only in glimpses) associated with the Aussies. Well, history didn't happen, we didn't run away with all the matches we played, but we were showing improvement.
What really impressed me, and generally the entire nation im sure is our crushing of the Aussies down under, in two matches in a best of three finals.. Lets give them the credit they deserve. That is literally the tennis equivalent of beating Federrer in Wimbledon on Center court in Straight Sets. Very very impressive. And From where i see things Dhoni was certainly the chief architect. First he dropped the senior citizens in the team(kudos to you). Then followed the show of faith in Gautam Gambir, and the icing was the introduction of Praveen Kumar. He swung us to glory the last two games. So a lot of credit to Dhoni. But this still isn't the purpose of the blog.
The real fete by our man was the 'shepherding' of the Super Kings team. Sans the Hayden, Hussey and Oram power play, the team looked very ordinary. And it took a strong captain, and a trusting one to show the team the way. Although the super kings were helped a great deal by the Failure of the Mumbai Indians to capitalize on their chance, the kings deserved their place in the finals (anyone who disagrees can take a hike, cause its my team, its the pride of Chennai, so screw u deranged narcissist). Once in semis it was certainly any teams game, and despite not being the best team in the league, we (with reference to the super kings) had a chnace of victory, and to be fair so did Punjab and Rajasthan (Come on, lets not kid around, Delhi without a firing sehwag is just not threatening).
A brilliant team effort in the semis, meant we were in the finals. I cant resist this, but i did hear a lot of, "CHENNAI SUCK" and the analyst gave no chance to Rajasthan at the start of the tournament, but here the final was being played between them. So #%@* u all.
I know we lost in the final, but we lost to a better team. No regrets there at all.This loss brought to light Captain Extraordinare (no, not Warne, we'll talk about that later).Out stepped Dhoni, he did not hang his shoulders, no cold handshakes, no pointing fingers, no blame game. and i quote him "We lost as a team". Now if thats not mature, what is? A lesser mortal could have shrugged shoulders and pointed at the poor bowling that cost us the game, but NO not Dhoni. It was collective. It was spontaneous and it was from the heart, and it was exactly what the team deserved.
Praise flowed in for our dear captain, and every other person who is an anybody in the field was talking about him, and so am i, WHY? because the man has earned it.
All things said and done, Dhoni rocks. I absolutely adore his every move (although i did disapprove of Miss Padukone, who am i to judge). The man is going places and taking team India and the Super Kings with him. Lets just hope this captain does not end up in a match fixing scandal or a suffer a string of defeats or run into a schizophrenic coach, or looses belief in himself. Heres praying we finally have a captain on par with Waugh or Beckenbaur, one who'll lead from the front.
Hail Captain Dhoni

How sad is the Indian Media?

Namaskaram. (Im an indian all the way an darn proud of it.. get used to it)
This is ma first attempt at blogging, i plead u will show patience and some amount of appreciation. No part of this blog i hope will bear a resemblance to the many other that float around. Any resemblance is merely co-incidental and is not an attempt of plagiarism.
Something that disturbed me a couple of days ago, wasw making headlines all over the country. This being the victory of Senator Obama over Senator Hilary something Clinton. This piece of news (albeit of great importance) made headlines, everywhere including here in India. Every News channel on the day of the final primary made it their mission to feed the indian audince with the oodles of crapp that was happening so many miles away. And it only got worse. With the news channels begining to analyse the elections and its many implications. And how the democrats if (and mind u its a big IF) in power would change the phase of the World.
Enough of this charade.. its about time they realised that we honestly DONT GIVE A SHIT, about wht happens in america. What difference does it make to me or you if Senator Obama beats the life outta Senator Clinton. and evenyually goes onto win the contest with Senator McCain or happens otherwise.. i dont see that affecting our mounting fuel prices drop. its just not fair. I really owe u an explanation on why all my drivel is even important.. well good morning gentle men ITS NOT. just like the race for the white is irrelevant to all of us, so is this blabbering of a deranged mind.
When the little girl from Delhi, AArushi was murdered, the media covered it like it was the next big thing after the Independence. Granted the issue is of importance to all of us, but describing in detail about the house the girl lived in, her vacations abroad, the sewers next to her home, man it was all a case of overkill.. i do sincerely hope that justice is served, but i also plead with the media to stop feeding this much nonsense and lace it with the label FLASH NEWS.
Recently ive notice that our dear bollywood likes to be in the headlines, be it for right, wrong or even down right irrelevant reasons. And who do they turn to in their time of need ?? Dont bother, Its one of the many 24\7 channels we have and they shamelessly feed it to us. I know sex and cinema are the biggest sellers presently, put them together and you have a blockbuster. And so it seems the Media has decided, show them celebs, throw in some sex and bring an element of crime into it, and whola we have a winner..
I never understood the term "War of the Khans", cause to me Aamir won hands down, nobody could even match up.. recently when the FLASH NEWS: WAR OF THE KHANS was flashed, i was genuinly curious.. But as law would have it, it turned out to be some childish game of one up manship between Aamir and Shah Rukh about some dog over a Blog and how neither bothered to respond.. Now im justified in bitching abou the media. Again i must say, WHO GIVES A DAMN..
You must have got my point by now.. The media need to get some substance.. and since they havce nothing now, anything would be an improvement..
Thank you all for ur beloved time..
Stan Avris