Free association

I feel almost apologetic about the bombardment of posts this month.

So I'm just back from watching the movie Chak De. A quick review before I bring up the two points it brought to mind: Nice movie - rather well made, I thought. The girls were good, while SRK was annoying in the few scenes he had to give inspirational speeches, tolerable in the rest of the movie.

I'm not an SRK fan. Let's move on.

I was amazed that Aaj Tak agreed to give its name and be portrayed in such a manner. Aaj Tak is one of those channels I refuse to watch because the few times that I have found myself watching it, all i have seen is either the latest news from Bollywood, in which case I would rather go straight to Zoom, or very absurd things being reported with highly dramatic background music being played. However, from what I gather, Aaj Tak is also one of those channels which enjoys pretending it's a court and judging people based on little or no evidence. And you've got to hand it to them; it takes guts to go out and let yourself be portrayed in a manner you'd be stoopid not realize you're criticised for.

What was the other thing? Oh yes.

March 23, 2003 remains one of the most painful memories for me. My economics Board exam was three days away, but practically everyone in my batch had kept their books aside that day to watch the cricket World Cup final between India and Australia. Chak De totally ripped off the pattern for that World Cup in this match. Lost the first League match against Australia, come back with a bang to win every single match to follow, and meet up with Australia again in the finals. The only thing they didn't rip off was the goddamn conclusion of that match. Sheesh.

It's time.

Time's a funny thing.

You think an event is ages away, you have all the time in the world to prepare, and suddenly, before you quite realize what's happening, it's here.

Exams, deadlines, or just your kid brother going away to the other side of the world for college. You think there's a month left, but the month flits by so quickly it seems like a second.

Then you think it's just four months till your birthday comes, or till it's time for that dream vacation you've got planned, or till he comes back for the holidays. But time doesn't work that way. No sirree. Take it from me, those four months will seem like four years. Because time's just a funny old thing.

We did Time Perception in our practicals in first year of college you know.

"The family has five cars."

The Times of India always knows just which interesting trivia-l facts it should insert in its articles, dunnit?

Annoyed

You know, I am capable of surviving pretty much any illness you throw at me. I've got through bouts of pneumonia (in the middle of my second final exams *shudder*), bronchitis, sundry stomach illnesses, and typhoid. OK, so I nearly died of typhoid, but it wasn't as cool as you'd think it was, considering I was told I nearly died only about eight years after the incident. How boring.

Moving on now. So my point is, I am an exemplary patient. I can handle any kind of illness. Save one. The common cold. I hate catching a cold. It's annoying, and painful, and just downright irritating. My throat aches, I keep shivering, I keep sneezing four times in a row, and don't even get me started on how I get breathless if I try to move. And for some obscure reason, I invariably develop a craving for cold coke every freaking time.

And believe me, I've tried all the remedies there are. Steaming, gargling, dispirin in hot water, haldi milk - with or with a dash of saffron, you name it, I've tried it. Doesn't change a thing. Zilch.

I have a presentation in class tomorrow morning, which I chose to get preponed by three weeks. I'm warning you, if I'm not fit to go to university tomorrow, I am going to be one disgruntled person. More disgruntled than usual that is. So there.

Happy Independence Day!

Our National Anthem is supposed to be 52 seconds long, thank you very much.

Don't get me wrong. I admire A. R. Rahman tremendously. I think he's a brilliant music composer (although he has lost his touch in recent years). Rang De Basanti was one of the most brilliant movie soundtracks ever - I still get goosebumps when I hear Khoon Chala. And I loved what he did with Vande Mataram ten years ago.

But I do wish he'd left our National Anthem alone. The idea's great, and the kind of lineup of singers he's got is mindblowing (although, admittedly, I don't know enough about most of them). However, I happen to belong to that breed of people who like to stand up every time the Anthem is played, if not sing along. And it's really quite annoying to see these videos played on television every few minutes, in the middle of whichever weird show that I might be watching at the time.

*sigh* I tend to get emotional around Independence Day.

But take a look... what do you think?

How...

...is something like this even possible?!?

No kidding!

I am extremely impressed by this.

See, it doesn't take much to make a difference. It's just that more people need to get that into their brains.

I just hope this works out though.

[Link courtesy India Uncut]

Reading habits

Methinks the man speaketh sense.

I've never read Fear Street. I was into Sweet Valley at one point though - only Twins; tried one High, but by then I was already moving into my "Dear Lord, what's wrong with the world" mode anyway. I also read the Animorphs series; my brother and I made every effort to get as many of the 60-70 books there were in that damn series to understand what the devil was happening.

I was more into L.M. Alcott and L.M. Montgomery in my early teens; late teens brought Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer into my life. Then I came across M&Bs and my reading habits have gone for a six ever since. Sheesh.

This is my quickest and unplanned-est entry ever.

Who are you please?

My blog's going global.

My friend Ziggy is very fond of mentioning how I never appreciate anything. Well, I'm here to prove her wrong. I appreciate Statcounter a great deal. It tells me how many people are visiting my blog, how they got there, how many times they've visited it, where they're located, and even what browser they use. I've had visitors using various versions of MSIE and Firefox, as well people using Netscape (I had no idea that was still in existence - I started my journey on the World Wide Web using that some eight odd years ago), Safari and Opera (I had never even heard of these last two mentioned).

You can, incidentally, see how many visits my blog has had if you scroll down and look at the pretty pink counter near the bottom of the sidebar on the right.

So anyway, like I said, Statcounter also tells me how a particular visitor got to my blog. For instance, if someone comes through from the link in Ziggy's latest blog entry, the referring link would show her blog. Now, when it says "No referring link", it means (and I have read and re-read Statcounter's FAQ section to clarify this), it means that the visitor either typed in the address of my blog in the address bar, or has my blog saved in his/her Favourites/Bookmarks/whatever your browser happens to call them. Now, in recent months, I've been visited at irregular intervals by someone in Germany, who I like to call The German (yes, I know, I'm very creative - for all you know, it's a Russian who just happens to live in Germany). According to my source, The German tends to visit my blog either from Ziggy's profile or, since her latest entry, directly from her blog.

In recent weeks, however, people from all round the world have been visiting my blog, and all these visitors seem to have "No referring link". I've had visitors from different parts of the US, Canberra, Aukland, and Norway. And all of them seem to know the address to my blog. I do realize that this sudden influx could be due to the fact that I've been posting a bit in the Blogger groups, but not all - the dates don't add up. Also, since there have been returning visits I assume they've liked something in here to bring them back.

See, here's the deal. I have very low self-esteem. And I'm a very curious person. So if you like this place, tell me. Well, if you don't like it, tell me in that case too, but be nice about it, OK? Use constructive criticism, please? And if you don't want to tell me what you think about my Meandering thoughts, at least tell me who you are. I want to know!

I've been called a spy already. Don't go there.

Gandhi my father

Well. I've never been particularly fond of Mahatma Gandhi, and after seeing Gandhi my father, I like him even less. Extremely well-made movie though, with brilliant performances from the main protagonists.

I've always thought it's very unfair to the kids of parents who've done well in life to have such standards to live up to. I mean, I'm not just talking about the Harilal Gandhis of this world. But come on, think about it, having a father who's an IIM product doesn't exactly make life easy on the kids, especially if they can't live up to those standards. It's like Ron tells Harry, if you don't do well, you're compared unfavourably, and even if you do well, it's no big deal because it's been done before.

Gandhi had funny ears though.

Innovation!

I tell you, people are just getting smarter and smarter...