Coorg - Of all the trips why do we remember this the most

We decided to try out the B52 hangout at Jayanagar that Friday night with our dear friend Siddharth. We tried out some funky stuff out there and the chicks (although gender wise males) out there complained to the waiter about us. We sobered down with a fresh pint of our beloved Kingfisher and were deciding on what can salvage our otherwise mundane weekend. Somhow we arrived to the conclusion that we needed to head out and at around 11pm we decided that we would head out to Coorg. The minor technicality of not having any planned conveyance or a hotel booking at a very popular weekend destination was not something that we lords of the B52 world were bothered about. And thus it was decided that we will head out to the Bangalore bus depot at 6.am sharp and catch the very first bus heading in the direction of Coorg.

Come Saturday morning.
Frantic calls between the three musketeers at around 7am managed to get us to our favourite Udupi in Kormangala at around 7.30am since breakfast and more importantly food dominated our schedules. We just couldn't head out without bribing our digestive tracts. We reach the bus depot at a leisurely 9.ooam and lo and behold the first bus that would have taken us to coorg was suprisingly missing from its parking slot. Only after boarding the next bus at around 10.00am did we realise that the first one had probably left on time. Oh well this on was going to reach us to Coorg within the next 6-7hrs, the conductor promised. I don't call the reasons but we were nowhere near the destination around 4pm. ... 5pm... 6pm... Ah finally at around 7 we reached a bus stand that was supposed to be Coorg. Damn.. was this it?

We picked up the local tourist brochure that, scrambled from somewhere, and frantically started calling the hotels.. the lowest priced ones getting preference of course. No luck. Next were the guest houses.. No luck there too. Were we actually going to spend the night on the streets?

One last call. A home stay ... and bingo we got a room there or that's what we thought. The rickshaw left us at the gates of the PG.. far far away from civilization and we entered the house to meet the lady who ran the PG. So when she lead us to what looked like an unused garage shed we were a bit confused. There sat 4 beds and 2 "rooms" nothing else. There was a geyser she said. Great!!!

We decided we weren't gonna come back there the next day unless hell froze over... and did Satan have plans for us. The subsequent evening was the reception of a local politician's son... And of course all the good hotels were booked out. Of the handful of places there was just one left that had a room available... so we took it.

Enter into the room and something was amiss. Was it just us or was there an unbearable stench of ammonia in the air that evening? Four beds lay out there in the room and bath attached. God it stinked. But we were too tired to go out on the hunt again. And the lovely PG lady had supposedly had a tab larger than 2 rooms out here. So we decided to brave it out. I bet the #breaths/second had drastically dropped that night.

Oh finally it was the morning next. The morning gods demanded their darshan at the bathrooms. Open the bathroom door and we finally realized where the ammonia emanated from. Now what? Laughter and a fucked look filled the rooms. God did the few years we spent in the US turn us into the high-nosed, culturally confused, fake-accent speaking, pseduo americans? exactly like those that we just so hated? NO. Two of us braved our civilized upbringings and managed to clear our tracts out and have a bath. The remaining one though had tracts with ethics and they simply refused to cooperate in inhospitable conditions.

We managed to get the info that a bus left out to Bangalore in the late afternoon. We got our tickets and were hanging around the bus stand. Unfortunately we weren't done. The third guy now had to give his darshan to the morning gods that he so insultingly skipped this morning. Helter skelter we ran and managed to find a guest house that lent us their rooms for a few hours with a little discount.
Ah civilization at last... Clean bathrooms... we were blessed. Even the ones that didn't need to use the facilities did. Come evening we headed out to the bus stand and got on our way back to Bangalore.

The three musketeers have had many trips since then. Some had 5-star hotels and some had exotic locations. But of all of these this first one really stands out in our memories. We don't know why but we know that we will always have it in our hearts. Whereever we head we know we can brave the elements and overcome the odds. We proved we were 100% shudh DESI after all!

Karan Thapar is still interviewing... news gods please help us

Firstly it was purely by chance that I landed onto the "Devil's Advocate" programme on the telly. And lo and behold it was Karan Thapar interviewing Ambika Soni. I wont get into the content but the content of the content of the last 5 mins that I actually stomached to watch.

Karan asks one question... interrupts before Soni completes her answer. He rephrases the same question... again interrupts before she completes her answer. And this nuisance continues for the entire 5 mins, all this while he attempts to get an answer that he wanted to hear and not taking anything else in. In fact the very obvious eye rolling of the I&B minister was warranted for his childlike interview technique and she even went on to end the show stating that "you should change the format" of the show.

I have been bumping into Karan Thapar's interviews on the telly since quite sometime and I have to say the poor chap has only deteriorated with age.

Karan dude learn your basics.... an interviewer when asking a question needs to respect his interviewee and at the very least should listen and hear out his or her answer. If you can find faults with the answer or counter it with fact, do so. If there is backpeddling or display of uncertainty in the answers of your interviewee then sure, go in for the kill. But dude learn to listen. If you remember even the respected Mr. Jetmalani, who supposedly is your friend, nearly kicked you out of his house due to your distasteful interviewing technique. Some excerpts below - am suprised that complete sentences are attributed to Mr Jetmalani.. which Karan never allowed to happen

"Ram Jethmalani: Don’t expect me to calm down when you are crossing all limits of an interviewer."

"Ram Jethmalani: I am sorry, Karan. You are taking advantage of my hospitality. You are in my house that’s why I don’t want to tell you that. You are falling to low of every kind of standard of morals of an anchor and a television interviewer. You are taking advantage of the fact that you are in my house and that you are my guest. Otherwise, I would throw out somebody here."

And the ethical grandiosity of Karan

"Karan Thapar: Are you a man of character? Is this the behaviour of a man of character?

Ram Jethmalani: Please do not get into this kind of bullshit, this is not done. This is not the way of holding an interview."

What I can't understand is how totally incompetent people as yourself are around for so long man? Are we that starved for good media professionals? Or does just placing two fingers on your chin and holding a pen while questioning make you a superstar on the news circuit?

OK, now I don't want you to crib and say that I'm only being critical. I will also offer you suggestions on how to improve:-
Start with the Larry King Live show. Amanpour, The Doha debates (watch the arbitrators manage the debaters) and any of the anchors on the BBC News channel. Being an aggressive interviewer is good but being too aggressive and inattentive to your guest is disrespectful and makes for a pathetic interview- hasn't anyone ever told you this? god! please!

If you are as wise are your age you will take this constructive criticism and do something about it. If not I hope I stop being so unlucky while channel surfing.



PS. Knowing Karan's technique if he ever reads this I am sure he would have read half of the first sentence and then have posted a question on my comments section waiting for a reply, which again he wouldn't read beyond the first half of the first sentence and question me again... you get the picture...

IT's pun intended

The Income Tax department has consciously turned IT savvy. I received my annual statement from the good folks well before the deadline to file taxes this year. And that too via email. And now I receive confirmation that my returns, which were sent in via the Indian Postal Service, have reached their offices safely :)
Nice work guys.. finally some good use of technology. The last link left is removing the need to mail the return and then its 100% certified efiling only. Eagerly awaiting that... and yeah while you are at it... can you get the next tax code passed through the bureaucratic hurdles so that I can attempt to save some rokda ?

Compaq tv commercial

Seen the latest Compaq laptop commercials on the telly?

GuyA bumps into another guyB
Laptop falls
...[useless crap in between]
GuyA gives money to guyB
Laptop specs shown on tv with blabber with a low voice saying works after a fall
...........and ta..da... commercial over

Now what exactly was the point here? Was it supposed to cosmicly imply that the laptop was sturdy enough to handle the fall? Why not simply have a laptop playing a movie... falling down and continuing to play a movie ?
Which dumb ass made this commercial ? and were they actually paid for it ?

ps. wouldve put a link to the commerical on youtube but its so crappy i doubt the shameless ad team had the gaul to put it up there for the world to see.

Thing abt da man

You need to know how to work the system... for the system to work for you!

Time for the Congress party to delivery BIG TIME!!!

With a smashing victory in the general elections the people of India have given the Congress party a unique opportunity in this sordid era of coalition politics. With this majority the Congress has the opportunity to lead a stable and solid government in India for the next five years without having to succumb to the threats of its coalition partners.

By placing our trust in a single party the people have decided to give the Congress a chance to prove themselves worthy of this trust. Trust, which as we have seen over the past several elections has been very hard to garner and even more difficult to maintain.

I look forward to seeing Dr. Singh and his entourage earnestly taking up this responsibility, not merely as caretakers of the constitution but also attempting to herald a new era for Indian politics and India. Shaping laws that can bring to the people of India the rights that they deserve as citizens and to the country the prestige that it has rightfully earned by being a great global citizen.

Cheers Dr. Singh