More Gurdas Mann

o paudi parakh laiye pair nu jis paudi te dhariye..
(test the step before you trust it with your foot)

Bekadraan di laggi nalon tutti changi hai..
( it is much better to let go of a relationship with someone who is not grateful to have you in his/her life)

These lines play in the head very often.. esp the first... look before you leap.. and test before you trust :-)

That is what i love about his songs.. one line that will make a LOT of sense...

More Gurdas Mann coming up, or River My Guru, whatever one can lay hands on!

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The National Girl Child Day

Viola!! The Times of India inform(s) me that today is the National Day of the Girl Child.
And what has the girl child done to deserve a day all to herself? Umm..lets see..

• Foeticide
• Infanticide
• Lack of basic nutrition
• Lack of education opportunities
• More manual labor than men in some communities
• Dowry
• Honor killing
• In some communities, the girl is the primary bread winner
• Eve Teasing
• Childhood(or otherwise) sexual abuse
• "Sanskar"
• "Adjustment" (the same adjustment that Neha did on New Years day)
• ...

On the National Day of the Girl Child, which, among the list on top, would u like to knock off the life of a girl child? My personal favorite, is "sanskaar" , followed by "adjustment". Whats urs?

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3 Idiots - Film Review

Personally, i felt a HUGE sense of loss after watching the film. I have missed out on something really important in life - my parents NEVER forced me to choose a stream of education, or anything else for that matter. Was i unduly lucky, or is the film an exagerration? Methinks its a bit of both.

First, the summary of the review - its a 2 out of 5 stars film. Am sorry, but the backsides of random college students, or multiple top shots on potty do not make good enough entertainment for me. Dropping pants might be part of saying Hi at the Imperial College, but am sure the director could have thot of another gesture without taking anything away from the film. Also, whats with the ridiculous delivery scene? I mean.. seriously!!!

The overall feel of the film is:
A. All Indian parents force their children to study engineering or medicine. thats not true. Not true at all. I mean, even Pia's sister is not a doc, for god's sake!
B. All student suicides are because of the "pressure from the system". The issue is a lot more complicated than that. Parents and "the system" are not the only , or even the main culprits. How come some children are able to cope and some others are not? There cannot be any one sided answer to these questions, and the film takes sides without even explaining the whole issue.
C. It is more important to enjoy your education. If you like what you do, you will automatically excel. Not true. The converse is also not true - just because you do something really well is not reason enough for you to want to do it. But the overall point is well taken.
D. The principal is a caricature. I do not know of any such principal, and can safely say that such principals, even though they might exist, are not the norm. It is not nice or kind to promote such a caricature, imho.

Basically, I am confused. Is the film about entertainment, or is it about a message? Or is it about plain nostalgia about college?

If it is about entertainment, i really did outgrow the chaddi based entertainment a long time ago and should be excused.
If it is about a message, the message can be argued really hard. Not enough time goes into exploring the various dimensions of the message.
If it is about pure nostalgia about college days, sure, that one is spot on. One did laugh a lot during the film, and, except for the parts about the Mona Singh delivery (am yet to get over that one) and the Sharman Joshi suicide attempt, the editing was pretty slick and kept u glued for what happens next.

The music, though a hit at the moment, is not exactly memorable and except for the "Give me some sunshine.." song, none of the other lyrics even register for a more than 4 week period recall.

Kareena has done much better work - this is not one of her benchmark performances, or even looks.

The lighting in the film is really weird - whats the point of that blue flicker in most shots of the film - i mean, why? Or maybe it was just our screen, but one came back with a solid headache from all that flickering.

And finally - Aamir, Madhavan, and Sharman. there is only one line to contribute - Sharman, as an actor, was severely under used in this film. This is a film for which his casting is perfect. And he has done his work really well.

Will i see it again? No. Is a one time watch recommended? Sure. Especially if you want to relive your college humour again.

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2 more logic puzzles

The first is a sitter. The second was slightly more difficult to make. Tell me what you think.

I: Neighborhood.
On Cobbler Street, 4 people live in different colored houses. Each of them has exactly one pet and exactly one car. From the clues given below, see if you can figure out what goes where.
1. Smith loves walking his pet dog every morning, and he stops by at Hannah's for a coffee afterwards.
2. The yellow house has a chevy in the garage and Charlie, the owner, often talks of selling it.
3. The owner of the Audi has a really tiny pet.
4. The red house has a ford in the garage.
5. The owner of the white house has a goldfish for a pet.
6. The cat is the most aggressive pet on the block, though she is pretty agreeable when Beth's rat stops by.
7. Smith drives a Ford to work, and his neighbor drives a Ferrari.
9 The owner of the brown house does not own a Ferrari.

II: Round Table Conference.
8 people have to be seated at a round banquet table. The seats are number 1-8. For this teaser, 5 is opposite 1, 6 is opposite 2 and so on. Likewise, "next to" means one of the neighboring seats only. i.e., 8 is next to 1 and 7.

A and H are the only French speaking people on the table. They need to be seated together.
B and F should sit opposite each other.
C, F, and G all know Russian, but don't necessarily need to sit next to each other. In fact, G wants to sit next to someone who knows French.
D is English and insists on sitting next to at least one other English speaking person, and pat opposite the good looking H.
E is the only other English speaker in the group, but he wants to sit next to someone who knows Russian.
G agrees to sit next to F only on condition that the other side must have a French speaker.
C does not sit next to either of them.
C however, agrees to sit next to B, who is the only Bavarian in the group.
A will not sit next to a Russian or an English speaker.

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If you have 5 minutes...

What does one do with an empty day? Thank God for the opportunity and sit back with Coke and some phenomenal reads. Here they are, each one of them worth a read, but if u have time for just one, it would be this one (don't miss it) :
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126258063197814415.html#articleTabs%3Darticle
Prof Madhukar Shukla on An Invisible Revolution in India.

Here are the others:
http://www.hrbartender.com/2010/employee/opinion-surveys/ - Super for its simple, brief and spot on presentation.

And i loved this article for its one liners. Samples below the link:

http://www.bretlsimmons.com/2009-08/engagement-soup/

"Want to know if a tree is healthy? Look at the leaves and the fruit. These are indicators of the health of the tree. Just because we give our tree lots of fertilizer, water, and sunlight does NOT mean it is healthy. These are all very smart things to do, but they do not guarantee health, and the only way to evaluate health is to examine the tree and not its environment."

" correlation is not the same as causality. " - aah, the no of times one has banged one's head on that one point.

Appy reading, while moi moves on to the next link...

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