Wednesday, December 31, 2008

A Not So Happy New Year

2009 has started. I am writing my first post of the year. And being the eternal pessimist that I am, I will start by a not so optimistic post :(


I am dreading 2009.I don' want to go to 2009. Personally, 2008 was one of the worst years of my life but still I don't want to start the new year. I wish time could stop. I have so many things going on at present and things are going to get even more difficult in the coming year. It sounds like an escapist's thoughts but I cannot help it.Small, small incidents keep happening which make me feel like a loser.


My college will end in 2009. I also do not want that :( Everyone will go different ways. I will have to start my life afresh. I take a lot of time to adapt. I am happy that my friends will reach great heights but I am sad for myself that I could never catch up with them. And the people I do not like at all, well I don't want to talk about them. People would change. After 2-3 years, everyone will start getting married!!!! Life would never be the same :(


But as Khaled Hosseini says in Kite Runner-Zendagi Migzara, life goes on. I don't make new year resolutions but have some ideas to do in 2009.


1. Watch movies, learn from them, understand them, learn about the different aspects like cinematography, and review them and be a good film critic. In 2008, I watched so few films- Jodhaa Akbar, Rock On!!, Jaane tu ya jaane na.. being some of them where as in 2007 I had watched so so many movies more.


2. Read, read, read, read and more read. I have to read more of my favourite author Salman Rushdie :) I also have to read more of books on philosophy other than Ayn Rand. I have to start reading non fiction also. I have to read more classics. I have to read more famous books like One Hundred years of Solitude, LOTR, Hitch hiker's and more.......


3. Try to blog more often.Write more of book reviews.


4. Improve my boring and dull personality, do something creative like learning tap dance or playing flute or learning some folk songs.


5. Give more time to my journalistic ambitions(yeah! you can laugh at that ), write views to newspaper editors, meet Vir Sanghvi- my idol :)


6. Buy new clothes.


7. Try different foods.








The Legacy of 2008

The year 2008 will be remembered as one of the worst years that we have had to face. The legacy of 2008 will not be something that we wish to be proud of. Here is a look of 2008's the good, the bad and the ugly.
1. India gets a historic nuclear deal after so much brouhaha and that shameful Cash for votes scandal, finally ending years of nuclear apartheid.
2. Democracy wins. The historic elections in J&K, Sheila Dikshit's third term as CM of Delhi, BJP's first govt. in a south Indian state proved India's strong democratic credentials.
3. Barack Obama, definitely the face of the year and a man to watch out for.
4. Abhinav Bindra's gold, Vijender Kumar and Sushil Kumar's bronze, V.Anand winning world championship in Bonn, India's cricketing histrionics, Sachin Tendulkar, IPL, Saina Nehwal, MC Marykom made 2008 one of the finest years of India sports.Not to forget, the removal of KPS Gill as Hockey chairman.
5. The Sensex fell from 21000 to 8000, people losing crores.
6. Inflation reached record highs, oil touching 147$ a barrel in July, making life more difficult.
7. The decoupling theory finally busted, economy in a slowdown phase, world economy in recession, fear of job losses still remains, exporters losing out. Forecasts show 2009 to be even more worse.
8. The fall of capitalism, iconic institutions such as Lehmann Brothers, Bear Sterns, Meryll Lynch, AIG went bust. The word SUBPRIME became etched in our minds. Bailouts, housing bubble, Keynes, meltdown, depression, recession, unemployment....
9. The year of Terror- Bangalore, Surat, Ahemdabad, Jaipur, Malegaon, Delhi, Aiazawal, Assam and finally 26/11 Mumbai. India is clamouring for change. A start has been made by citizens. Hope something happens and the 'Non- State' actors are controlled. Pakistan has to act.
10. Communal politics and divisive agenda threatened the idea of India- the brutal assault against Christians in Kandhamal, that scumbag Raj Thackeray's attack against North Indians, politics over the Batla House encounter, Amarnath land transfer, Malegaon blasts and the use of the word 'Hindu' terror or 'Islamic' terror, Antulay's shocking remarks over Karkare's death shamed India. Terrorism has no religion.Period.
11. The terrible floods in Bihar exposed the preparedness in face of disasters.
12. Internationally, the Maoist's win in Nepal, end of military rule in Pakistan, Sheikh Hasina's victory in Bangladesh, end of Gayoom's regime in Maldives show some signs of improvement in India's hostile neighbourhood. Israel's brutal assault on Gaza continues unabated.
Hope 2009 brings happiness to India and the world.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Sad.Bloodied.Unbowed by Vir Sanghvi

A must read article for all of us.
Source: Hindutsan Times, December 26,2008.
Has life returned to normal in Bombay? I asked myself this question last Sunday when I attended a function to mark the re-opening of the Taj Mahal Hotel.
Many of us who went to Taj were surprised to see that it was back in business: we had been told to wait several months for things to return to normal. So, we weren’t sure what to expect: would sections of the lobby be cordoned off as the builders worked to repair the damage? What about the Shamiana where grenades had been flung? Was it true that the MF Husain painting that hung over the reception desk had been damaged?
In the event, all of us were stunned. The Taj seemed as complete and as timeless as before. If you did not know that terrorists had taken control of the hotel for three nights, then you would not have noticed anything amiss.

I went to the Zodiac Grill, where guests spent an uneasy night as gunshots resounded around the building. It looked exactly the same. The lobby was just as it had always been. The poolside was as tranquil as in the old days. The Shamiana had been so perfectly restored that you could not imagine that grenades had exploded and that a brave manager had been murdered on the premises. I wandered to the old wing. The ground floor was a classy as ever. I went all the way to Joy Shoes where it was business as usual.

Then, of course, the function began and it all came flooding back. The Taj’s Vice Chairman R K Krishna Kumar spoke movingly and brilliantly of the sacrifices made by those caught up in the carnage. Priests from five different religions mourned the dead. By the time all the employees who had been on duty that night paraded through the lobby, there was not a dry eye in the house.

As the tears flowed, we realised that everything was not really back to normal. The first floor of the old wing was damaged. The fifth and sixth floors would have to be completely redone. The Golden Dragon and the Harbour Bar were closed — perhaps for a very long time. And as I spoke to the Taj staff, many of whom I have known for decades, it was clear that nobody had really got over 26/11. I didn’t know what to say to Karambir Kang, one of the true heroes of today’s Bombay. But I spoke to Hemant Oberoi who had lost five of his chefs. I talked to the bellboys who had ducked for cover as the firing began. I asked an old waiter at the Shamiana about the events of the night.

“It was the worst day of my life, sir” he said sadly. “Why do you want me to talk about it?”
Yes, I know. The Taj is not a metaphor for Bombay. VT Station means much more to most of the city’s residents. And South Bombay emotion has been given a bad name by the twits and twats who appeared on TV to recommend carpet-bombing and non-payment of taxes as solutions to our problems.

So I should be wary of reading too much into an afternoon at one of the world's greatest luxury hotels. But, political correctness be damned: there was something about the Taj function that seemed to me to epitomise the state of Bombay nearly a month after the attacks.

On the outside, things seemed to be returning to normal. The gleam, the sparkle and oh yes, the spirit, were all back. But no smiles reached the eyes. There was no joy that was not tinged with sorrow. Each time you hugged a friend, you felt grateful that he was still there. And every time you looked around at this greatest of all Indian cities, you felt both proud and indescribably sad.
It’s fashionable now to rubbish ‘the spirit of Bombay’.

But, you know what? It’s all too perceptible, all too visible, and all too evident.
The spirit of Bombay lies not in the mindless patter of page three people as they slip into designer dresses two sizes too small for them, dye their hair blonde and talk about privatising the police force. Nor does it lie in some magic desire in all our hearts to overcome every adversity.
The truth is, we hate adversity. We hate the terrorism that never seems to end. We hate the loss of life. We hate the floods that submerged North Bombay three years ago. We hate the incompetence and ineptitude of those who are supposed to administer our city. And we hate the constant struggle that life sometimes seems to have become.

The spirit of Bombay is not about adventure and challenge.
It’s about bouncing back; about survival.
No Indian city can take so much adversity, so much misfortune, so much mayhem, so much chaos, so much terror and so much governmental ineptitude and still hold its head high. We don’t bounce back because we enjoy being down. We wish to God that we never sink that far again.
We bounce back because we can.
That’s the spirit of Bombay. It’s a spirit of survival, of resilience, of never-say-die.
And that’s what I saw in the Taj that afternoon. And all over Bombay that weekend.
We are sad. We are bloodied.
But we are unbowed.
And yet, just because we can bounce back, that doesn’t mean that they can keep knocking us down. We need now to ensure that the lessons of 26/11 are never forgotten; that we take the steps we need to protect our city and our lives.
It’s not, as the TV talk shows would have it, a simple or one-way process. It’s no good raving and ranting; foolish to add up how much we pay in taxes and demand some bania-like equivalence in government services; and silly to pretend that what happened to us is unprecedented when we know that other Indians share our problems and our concerns.
Each person who loves Bombay will have his or her own take on what we've learnt in the month after the tragedy. This is mine:
First of all, we need to celebrate the diversity and unity of Bombay. In an era when Bal Thackeray calls for more Hindu terrorists and his juvenile delinquent nephew sends his goondas to beat up Biharis, it is sometimes difficult to remember that Bombay’s claim to fame used to be its cosmopolitanism.
The most re-assuring aspect of the way we reacted to the attacks was the manner in which we clung to our cosmopolitan spirit and found unity in our diversity.
The police asked the army to patrol communally sensitive areas fearing that Hindu would attack Muslim homes. The foreign press went on and on about how the attacks would damage India's already fragile communal balance.
In fact nothing happened.
We saw the attack for what it was: mindless terror by mindless Pakistani jehadis.
It had nothing to do with India’s Hindus or India’s Muslims. The terrorists killed both as well as Christians and Jews, and Sikhs and people from every community.
Terror has no religion.
The response to the attack should also show up our latest Marathi Mouse. Just as the Maharashtrian Hemant Karkare died fighting the terrorists so did the Malayali Sandeep Unnikrishnan and the North Indian Gajendra Singh. The head of the Bombay police is a Muslim and the head of the NSG is a Bengali.
This is a country built by Indians; not by Maharashtrians, Gujaratis, Malayalis or whatever. And not by Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs etc.
Bombay has always epitomised that great truth. And perhaps the only good thing to come out of this tragedy is that we were able to tell the world that in our city, our unity comes from diversity.
The smell of fear can sometimes become a stench. I’m not going to be very popular for saying this but the sad truth is that the stench of fear turned some of Bombay’s C-list celebrities into televisual morons; terrible advertisements for our great city.
It’s all very well to blame TV channels for inviting Simi Garewal, other small-time actresses, self-aggrandising ad-men, pompous midgets, and has-beens in ill-fitting toupees to comment on events in the city. But that is also the reality of Bombay. We’ve become a city that worships pointless celebrity, where people are famous only for being famous, where those who talk sense are marginalised by those who hog the limelight, and where appearances count for more than substance.
I know that these people do not represent my Bombay and I cringed each time one of them opened his or her mouth on TV to hold forth on how India should be run or how the fact that terror had come to South Bombay demonstrated that democracy had failed.
Their bombast and their anger came from fear. Their arguments came from their own tiny little minds.
But the fact is that we have allowed these people to become the faces of Bombay; allowed the media to portray the city as a vapid metropolis full of glamorous folks who imagine that they are living in Manhattan.
When times were good, we never complained that these people turned up on channel after channel representing Bombay’s interests. Can we complain now just because they’ve embarrassed us when times are bad?
In the month after the Bombay attacks, I was in four or five different towns and cities. And each time I heard the morons being rolled out on TV, I wanted to hide under the sofa: there was such a complete disconnect between these jokers and the rest of India. They came off as self-obsessed and trapped in some state-less bubble.
Bombay has always had a complicated relationship with India and indeed with the rest of Maharashtra. We are no less patriotic than any other city — in fact, sometimes I think we are more patriotic than most.
But we always feel like the one member of a family that does so much for all of the others and never gets his or her fair share in return. Maharashtra survives on Bombay’s revenues. Yet its politicians see the city as nothing more than a golden goose. They raid it for the golden eggs but never care enough to do anything for it.
So it is with India. Bombay should be our country’s advertisement for itself. But if you were to add up the kind of money that has been spent on Delhi over the last three decades and compare it to the amount the Centre has spent on Bombay you would realise why Delhi has broad roads, clean colonies and a fly-over at every corner. Delhi is India’s showpiece — at least from a governmental perspective. Bombay is merely the city that pays for everything.
Outside of Bombay, people do not realise how the citizens of this, India’s largest and most cosmopolitan city, resent the way we are treated. We are happy to do our bit for Maharashtra or for India. But deep in our hearts, we feel that we’ve never got our due.
When the attacks occurred, this deep-rooted resentment came tumbling out. The prevailing sentiment was: look we give so much for India and get so little in return. We don’t mind that you can’t be bothered to fix our infrastructure. But can’t you, at the very least, protect our lives?
That feeling came out the wrong way, alas. It emerged as anger against state politicians. Both Vilas Rao Deshmukh and RR Patil were seen as representatives of a Maharashtra political structure that ignored Bombay's interests.
And it turned up again as the crass threat to refuse to pay our taxes until the Centre guaranteed the safety of our families and children.
Both responses were wrong. I think Vilas Rao was unfairly targeted. And we made many enemies in the rest of India when we arrogantly declared that we would not pay taxes. We forgot that without politicians there can be no democracy. And when this was pointed out, the morons who went on TV blustered: oh, let the army take over then!
In the process, we misrepresented our case and lost the sympathy of much of India. We did not really mean that we would not pay taxes or vote.
What we meant was this: when are you guys going to give Bombay its fair share of attention and resources?
It was — and is — a valid question.
But because we asked it so badly, we abandoned the moral high ground and came off as spoilt children.
So, what now? Well, let’s stop being so angry and so frightened. Other Indian cities have lived with terror as indeed have we. The 1993 bombings targeted South Bombay just as much as the suburbs. Global cities have learnt to cope — for all of the 1970s and the 1980s, London was regularly bombed by the IRA.
So let’s be realistic. This is not the first terror attack. And it probably won't be the last.
But we will cope. Great cities always do. And given the choice between the 26/11 attacks and the 1993 riots, I would pick terror over massacres. In communal riots, your neighbours came and burnt your house. Your life is uprooted, your family dies, your daughter is raped and things are never the same again. The people who lost everything in the Bombay riots are still suffering.
So, yes, 26/11 was terrible. But a riot is worse. We can guard against Pakistani gunmen. But it’s much more difficult to guard against the hatred within a society.
So by all means demand accountability from politicians; create hell when you see them interfering with the police force; ask for an infrastructure that works; demand the security that is our due; and make it clear that Bombay has had enough.But don’t forget why Bombay is Bombay. Never forget what makes us a great city.
Our city was ceded by the Portuguese to the British. It was built by Gujaratis, Parsis, Muslims and Maharashtrians. Its film industry was revitalised by Punjabis, many of them refugees after Partition. Its education has been enriched by Christians. And each day, five hundred families from all over India make their way to the city of dreams.
That’s what Bombay is about. It is a city where all things are possible. Where the hierarchies of the rest of the India do not operate and genuine advancement is relatively easy. Where the world never seems more than a quick step away.
And where nobody is a Muslim, a Hindu, a Maharashtrian, a Punjabi or whatever.
Where we are all Indians.
Lose that dream of a cosmopolitan city of opportunity, allow the politicians to divide us and let third-rate socialites become our spokesmen, and we lose the city’s soul.
We lose the dream.
And eventually we will lose Bombay.
So, never mind the blame game. The answer must come from within.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Pankaj Film Awards 2008 :)

The year 2008 is going to end and it has been a bad year for the Hindi film industry.So it is time for Film Awards 2008 by Pankaj, the famous film critic( I know kuch zyada gaya!! ).Some might not agree by my choice which people say is *yawn*. Some awards I may not remember and have no idea.

Best Actor
Naseerudin Shah- A Wednesday

Best Actress
Priyanka Chopra- Fashion and Dostana

Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Arjun Rampal for his brilliant portrayal of Joe Mascerhanas in Rock On!!

Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Bipasha Basu- Bachna Ae Haseeno
Kangana Ranaut- Fashion

Best Debut Male
Farhan Akhtar- Rock On!!
Rajeev Khandelwal-Aamir
No, I did not like Imraan Khan in Jane tu ya jaane na..

Best Debut Female
Mughda Godse- Fashion, the best choice among Mughda, Jannat girl, Karzzzz girl and Haale-e-dil girl. Still have not seen Anoushka Sharma in Rab ne.. and Asin Thotukumal in Ghajini :(

Pankaj's Special critic award for Best Actor
Amitabh Bacchhan- The Last Lear
Anupam Kher- A Wednesday

Pankaj's special critic award for Best Actress
Shahana Goswami- Rock On!! ( Remember Debbie!!)
Ratna Pathak Shah- Jane tu ya jaane na- A small role excellently played.
Shabana Azmi- Sorry Bhai!

Pankaj's special award for Best Social Satire
Welcome to Sajjanpur- Shyam Benegal

Best performance in a Comic Role
Abhisek Bacchan, Kirron Kher and Sushmita Mukherjee -Dostana

Best Music
The Genius A.R.Rehman for Jodhaa Akbar, Yuvraaj and Jane tu ya jane na.

Best Lyrics
Javed Akhtar- Socha hai (Rock On!!),Meri Laundry ka ek Bill( Rock On!!) and Yeh Tymhari meri baatein( Again, Rock On!!).

Best Story
A Wednesday

Best Choreography
Raju Khan- Azeem-o-Shaan Shehenshah (Jodhaa Akbar)

Best Background Score
Amit Trivedi- Aamir

And the most awaited awards....

Best Director
Many many contenders.
Neeraj Pandey- A Wednesday
Abhishek Kapoor- Rock On!!
Dibakar Bannerjee- Oye Lucky Lucky Oye!
Ashutosh Gowarikar- Jodhaa Akbar
Nishikant Kamat- Mumbai Meri Jaan
Raj Kumar Gupta- Aamir

Finally, Best Film
A Wednesday.
Jodhaa Akbar.I will be a bit partial here :)

P.S.- I do not remember playback singers.
P.P.S.- And the Razzies for worst films of the year
Tashan( Vijay Krishna Acharya you gave us Dhoom and Dhoom2, what were you thinking?)
Drona
Love Story 2050
Yuvvraaj
Bombay to Bangkok. Nagesh, Aashayein should be a hit:)

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Dichotomy of Irony

I have changed my blogspot to Dichotomy Of Irony. I loved my old one Inheritance Of Loss but thought to change it, just like that. :)

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

2008 : A Watershed Election


Today was the last phase of the elections in J&K. The seven phase poll was successfully completed today. The election of 2002 was a historic election being absolutley free and fair. But the elction of 2008 is a watershed moment. The turnout is huge. People rejecting calls of the separatists' boycott especially those of the Hurriyat. But to call this as acceptance of India would also be too far fetched. The people have voted for the local issues,for development and for peace. The harsh weather conditions also did not dampen the spirit of the people. After the needless controversy of the Amarnath land row, many thought that elections was not really a good idea. The Mumbai terror attacks also brought attention. Moreover, the militants also did not spread violence and create panic among the people. In all the seven phases, the turnout has been excellent according to past experiences. The people of J&K have had enough. India has also committed excesses in Kashmir. This should be taken as an opportunity by New Delhi to bring Jammu and Kashmir into the political process and to make amends. Let the people live in peace. Waiting for results on Sunday.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

End of an Era



Well, as we know Chanda Kochhar has been appointed the next CEO of ICICI Bank, India's largest private sector bank. She takes charge from Mr. K. V. Kamath, one of the most respected faces in the banking sector, which is definitely an end of an era.This also marks another prominent woman in the banking industry along with Naina Lal Kidwai and Meera Samuel.The next year is going to be very very tough for all of us when the effects of recession actually start to seep in. She has a tough job ahead. Wishing her all the best.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Book Review :Q & A



Remember Harshvardhan Nawathe? The guy who won one crore rupees on Kaun Banega Crorepati and instanly became a celebrity. The book Q & A by debutante author Vikas Swarup talks about another person who won five billion rupees on Who Will Win a Billion but the person did not become a household sensation, instead he was arrested and accused of cheating because he is an illiterate poor waiter and how could and illiterate eighteen year old know the answers to such questions. That is the premise of Q & A. The protagonist Ram Mohammad Thomas ( yeah! this is his name) is rescued by a lawyer to whom he explains that he did not cheat but just got plain lucky and he knew the answers as each of the question had something or the other related to his real life experiences. Then he narrates his story and explains how each question is related to his life. The book is an easy read, the plot is fast paced though illogical at times and it is more like a movie script. The narrative tells us how he was adopted by a christian priest, orphaned again, sent to a juvenile home, picked up by a gangster, how he worked at various places as a servant to an Australian Diplomat ,an aging actress Neelima Kumari, a contract killer and finally as a waiter. There are numerous typical Bollywood potboiler sequences and connotations like the tragedy queen Neelima Kumari (resembles Meena Kumari), the lucky coin (ala Sholay), Armaan Ali (looks like a gay Salman Khan), adultery, friendship, betting, cricket, train dacoity, prostitution, sexual abuse, poverty, love and even black magic voodoo! The epilogue is touching. It also shows us the dark side of India which is not 'Shining'. The poverty of slums in Dharavi, the lives of always-taken-for-granted-and-assumed-as-theives servants and the ills of child labour and their sexual exploitation.The timeline of events were not sequential which sometimes were confusing. The book drags a bit towards the end. Still, the book throws numerous surprises and I ended up having a smile on my face. The book has already been made into a movie Slumdog Millionaire by David Boyle and is making waves everywhere. A.R.Rehman's music score has been nominated for Golden Globe for the film and there is a huge possibilty that it could even win an Oscar. The book is not great but not bad either.I found it better than the Booker Prize Winner The White Tiger.A good effort by a first time writer. Read it :)

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Randomness

Well, I am back. Its ages since I wrote here. Was too busy the last month :( So much has happened in the last month that I wanted to write but couldn't spare much time. So I will randomly write what has been happening.

OBAMA is the President of the USA. It was a historic moment. By choosing a black man as their President, America proves why it is the greatest democracy in the world. His speech after winning is one of the best speeches I have ever heard and specially the line where he said 'We are the not just a collection of red states and blue states but we are the United States of America'. It makes me wonder whether we can have our very own Obama. No, I am not talking about Mayawati! I always believed that America is a deeply deeply racist society and the 'Bradley' effect would come into play and thought John McCain would win but it was the economy that brought down McCain otherwise Obama's margin of victory would not be that big. Lets hope the world becomes a less bellicose place.

26/11 made us all really really scared. The sight of watching a live war on TV with gunshots and live encounters made us aware how insecure we are. More than angry, I feel sad. Innocent lives were lost and we could do nothing. Any noise just makes me scared. We cant sleep at night. A fear psychosis has crept on our minds.What will happen to two year old Mosche? Hemant Karkare, Vijay Salaskar, Sandeep Unnikrishnan, Sabina Sehgal Saikia, the Jewish Rabbi and his wife Rizka and hundreds and hundreds of other people were massacred by those bloody terrorists. The shocking response of India's polity made all of us shameful. Whether it was the Congress, the BJP, the Left how could politicians behave like this. The Kerala CM's remarks that 'not even a dog would look at Sandeep's place', R.R. Patil saying 'Bade shehero me aise chote hadse hote rehte hain' ( Mr. Patil I seriously wish you were in the Parliament on 13 Dec and then we could say the same thing back to you!), Modi's shameless opportunism by announcing an award of a crore rupees for Hemant Karkare who till the other day he accused of acting under his 'Congress' bosses, Naqvi's lipstick remark, Vilasrao's terror tour with Ram Gopal Verma, the senseless Narayan Rane shocked us all and we wonder what are they made of.
And the media. There has been criticism of media while covering the ghastly attacks. But they were only doing their job and all of them did fine. By blocking news channels, rumour mongering would take place and that would even be more dangerous. Information is required. But smses like stop paying taxes, bomb Pakistan, etc, are ill conceived measures. If we stop paying taxes, who will pay the NSG who have done a brilliant job. We have to realise that India and Pakistan are nuclear armed states. Any error in judgement could wipe off Delhi or Karachi in seconds. The best solution is to use America to pressurise the Pakistan Army and maintain peace and strengthen the civilian government in Pakistan. Hope these attacks are a wake up call for our society.
The Assembly elections took place in Delhi.I voted for the Congress though I am no Congress fan but I perceive it to be the lesser evil among the current breed of politicians. I am anti-BJP . There is no alternative except the Congress, though a no-vote would be a better choice.
CAT exam went by. Mine was bad. I did well in Quant and English but screwed DI totally. No chance at all and am not even hoping against hope for a call. Looks I will have to wait many years more. Sob Sob :(
I read 'The White Tiger' by Aravind Adiga which won the Booker this year. It is about the 'suffering' India or people form the 'Darkness' and how there is a huge disconnect between the rich and the poor in India.It is not a great book though and 'Sea of Poppies' by Amitav Ghosh would have been a better choice. And now I am reading 'Q & A' by Vikas Swarup, the book on which the movie 'Slumdog Millionaire' is based, which is making waves in the West now.
Would try to post reagularly from now:)