Shocked !

Benazir Bhutto was just killed by a suicide bomber! Whew, its frightening & shocking!

*Update*

Not that i am a big fan of Benazir's or something. But the point that struck me was like - what kind of a place is today's pakistan - imagine like 17 crore people (thats like 170 million people) all running amok & bombing each other and stuff - whew !

I know a few pakistanis we do business with - they re the most well educated, uh, Shareef people ive met and i have excellent regards for them - I just wonder how much of a proportion of pakistan is like this - Can they somehow overcome this kind of scenario now ?

The same story in Bangladesh too - i remember my trip to Dhaka last year pretty vividly - large, well to do companies have like 14 foot walls topped with barbed wire and armed private guards - i mean - they fucken FEAR for their physical safety.

I have heard of people who lived for a long time in Punjab telling the same thing - I was once telling a bunch of them like this - Arre, who will be animal enough & Crazy enough to do stuff like this without thought ? I mean, if the guy just thinks for like 3 seconds - he will just stop doing such violent crap and get to work - but it appears that the answer is much more complicated than that - the fact is the i really havent met any of these Zeolot types.

Funny, i was reading 'The Kite Runner' the other night - i felt the same thing - i mean - where will our best laid plans go if theres sudden anarchy & Violence :)

Crazy shit, i cant imagine it happening in Madras ;)

We're blessed & fucken lucky, arent we ?

Bangkok > Dec 2007

Bangkok > Thailand

The 24 x 7 view from my Room window at my Hotel in Sukumvit :)

How the hell am i expected to concentrate on my work ? Im fucken trying though.

[ Im not too optimistic , because the pool has lights and i suspect is heated because i see a few of em at it even now (Like 6:45 pm Bkk time) ]

Sigh !

The Tag Game !

I wasnt sure if i wanted to spend 15 minutes on this. But the overwheming monotony of trying to write for 3 simultaneous brochures ready drove me to take a break.

So here goes:

Four things about me that you don't know:

(Nothing too dandy :) will be written here, u cant be too careful these days!)

-> I have been living on a fake birth certificate all my life. I was born 20 Nov 1984 - but my mom entered me in School when i was much too young and obtained a fake affidavit advancing my birth by 6 months. I have been the youngest person in my class from way back in school to up until college.I used to fucken get cheap kicks out of making older guys in Junior classes/college level call me Anna :)

-> I have a somewhat unexplained disorder with my reading. I read all my new books in one stroke - often ignoring pending work. I re-read books like crazy & read em real quick. It takes me about 2 hours to read, say. Kane & Abel or some Ken Follett. When at Home (in madurai where most of the books are) i read one novel a day - often just skimming through boring sections and complete the book before going to sleep that day.

- > I still take what 'pocket money' i want from my mom's purse everytime i go out. I havent ONCE, EVER - checked how much money i have in my bank account. [i track receivables, EEFC foreign currency accounts, Stock broker accounts everything at work but NEVER once my bank account - i might be penniless for all i know]. I carry my dad's credit card. People still call me a miser.

- > I once gave an about 30 min long speech on the 'Life & greatness of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru' back in Class II under floodlights, to an audience of over 500 people, won the first prize - all with my bloody fly undone. It took me the next 10 years to locate and destroy about a dozen copies of the incriminating photographic evidence. I tore them all up and flushed them down toilets :)

Four jobs I have had in my life:

1. Research assistant 04,05 (Unpaid)
2. Various odd jobs around our business now :) [Supposedly paid, but all i see is chidambaram getting his cut and the rest accounted on paper]

Four movies I've watched more than once:

1. Baasha
2. The Incredibles
3. LOTR 1 and 2
4. Munich

I used to watch like 2 movies a day back when in college. There have been several weeks where id been to Satyam more than 5 times.

Four Places I have lived:

1. Madurai
2. Madras

Four T.V. Shows that I watch:

-> Not a TV guy. Sports sometimes.

Four places I have been to:

1. London, Uk
2. Florence, Tuscany, Italy
3. Paris, France
4. Shanghai, China

Four People who email me:

I get emails in TONS (all connected to work). Very few personal emails.

Four favorite foods:

1. Sambhar anything.
2. Um, molagootal and vendikkai uppadan.
I am a bloody glutton, so the rest dont matter. I eat them all.

Four Places I would like to visit:

1. Brazil
2. Mexico
3. Some places in the Middle East i hope to go this year (Istanbul, Damascus & Amman)
4. Rajastan / Kashmir

Four friends to tag:

I CAN think of 4 ppl who i can tag. But il pass. (Hari, I beg u not to do this if ur reading this :)) becoz ul then write it like 3 miles long and il faint)

Four things I am looking forward to in the coming year:

1. Travelling,
2. Starting basic Chinese, Portuguese & Spanish
3. Complete a new CMS based website
4. Bring my BMI back down to tolerable levels.

Hey, i kinda like this tag game !

Timepass - Part II

Heres one very interesting post (atleast not the content, but more like in a general way)

The author 'Jedi' is another guy whose rss feeds pop up once in a while. Although not one of my more preferred haunts, his work, is sometimes very good.

http://onecrazeeworld.blogspot.com/2007/10/over-and-out.html

This time he writes a fairly verbose piece admitting that he is Gay, out & proud of the fact.

Apparently, hes reproduced an article he wrote for his college mag or something. There have been several gestures from friends, fellow bloggers - 'i m proud of you' ' i respect you more' etc.

This is got me thinking on several issues

- I havent ever met any openly 'gay' person (i put 'openly' on purpose) and or lesbians either, im pretty sure.

Sure we all have heard of the Elton Johns, Ian mckellens & Ellen Degeneres of the world - but never in the flesh - no real people i know admit to be openly homosexual.

I wonder how the stats look for others ! I mean like - if some1 is reading this post - can you think of 3 people you know (not point "Hey that guy who lives next door is, like, gay" - but KNOW the person) who are openly homosexual ?

- Ive heard of instances (hearsay, i have to admit) where lesbians are like bisexual - not openly homo - but like occasionally lesbian etc. But to be gay, im sure, one has to be like really 'oriented' that way !

- I consider myself pretty tolerant & modern / without attaching any credence to ones 'orientation' - but say, i meet Jedi in some party - without him knowing that i read his fucken blog once in a while - im sure to feel queasy - like - "hey, hes gay. thats strange"

I dunno if my kids will grow up in a world where there is a fucken check box titled 'orientation' in college entry forms or something !

Timepass

I've been following this girl's exploits online for a long time now (maybe a good year & a half). Shes just brilliant :)

I havent yet seen 1 boring piece on her blog yet !!

Go check her out: http://poomanam.blogspot.com/

Atta girl!