staying.cool

6, this time. right in the heart of delhi. so many dead, so many more injured.

and normal life continues. the ’spirit’ lives on, or something.

it will never end. we couldn’t care less. is this the final victory that the terrorists have aimed for ? an india that doesn’t care about her own ?

why would apple expect the iphone 3G with its unsurpassably (crappy) features:

Surprisingly, some of the niggling features that were missing in the iPhone 1.0 continue to be overlooked. There’s still no copy-paste functionality, no MMS sending, no Flash capabilities, no A2DP (stereo Bluetooth)… Yes, at Rs.31,000 and thereabouts, the iPhone dangles a hefty price tag…if you take your eyes off its $199 pricing in the US and judge the iPhone purely on the heft of what you’re acquiring in terms of a gizmo, perhaps the picture won’t look so disappointing after all. After all, when has Apple ever sold sundar, tikaoo maal that was sasta — especially in India? Woefully however, the carrier lock-in story for the handset continues… You won’t be able to swap Vodafone to Airtel to Idea willy-nilly –– or when you are travelling abroad, to Matrix to SingTel. You will have to stick to that very Voda/Airtel SIM you’ve plugged into iPhone even in your wanderlust. That, for a 31K phone, is a mite distressing.

to be so wanted in india ? the country where the N96 is to be launched early. seriously. you might as well ship them all back to the US and keep selling them to people who have close to no idea just how convergent a device a phone can be.

some of the more telling passages to me from a brilliant article about Liu Xiang, china’s great hope at Beijing 2008:

At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, China finished third in gold medals with 28, its most ever. But within this success, officials also saw a telling disparity: 21 of those medals came in table tennis, diving, badminton, weight lifting and gymnastics. China struggled in other sports, especially in swimming; other water sports like rowing; and track and field. At the time, these events offered 119 potential gold medals, yet China won only 1 in Sydney. Thus was born Project 119: a government program that has poured money into these sports in pursuit of a larger share of those medals (the total is now 122). New training centers were built. Foreign coaches were hired for water polo, synchronized swimming, canoeing and rowing, as well as for other events like field hockey, fencing, basketball and cycling. The program bore fruit in Athens, where China won 32 gold medals, second only to the United States.

..and even more interesting is the way they implemented ‘project 119′:

Doctors and coaches examined and tested his bone structure, concluding he would not grow tall enough to be an elite high jumper. This selection process, so Orwellian to Western sensibilities, is not unusual in Chinese sports schools. A system so intensely focused on producing Olympic champions regards X-rays and bone tests as practical tools to help project which kid among thousands might one day become a medalist.

we ? we have athletes who have to fund themselves for the olympics. who have to make do with substandard training and substandard coaches, coz the government will not provide enough for them to actually focus on something that they actually want to do.

who are all moved to goddamn cricket coz thats the only place where the money is. even if we do suck at that too.

Thanks, Rahul!

india has been victim to a blast roughly every 2 months for the last 2 years. the blasts are happening more frequently now, and more blasts have being threatened by those who have done it. in 2008 alone: rampur, u.p. - terrorist attack. jaipur, rajastan - 8 blasts in 12 minutes. bangalore, karnataka - 9 blasts in 14 minutes. ahmedabad, gujarat - 17 blasts. the word ‘blasts’ seems innocuous now.

as i write this post i keep checking the news sites as i write, dreading another news item. greatbong pretty much summarized it. we live in india with terror as a way of life. people praise the ’spirit’. the ‘resilience’. the ability for people to get up after an explosion and keep moving. live life as though nothing has happened. is it really worthy of praise? we talk over dinner, mention the fact that [city] is already back on its feet. we make statements with a quiet pride about how quickly people were back to work, back to running around their daily routine, back to life.

seriously?

we talk about how nothing has been done. how the system has not managed to get anything done for any of the victims. how none of the criminals have been caught. that this is why people have learnt to keep moving on from one blast to the next. we deride the lack of effort taken by the police, the politicians, the press, anyone. we say that we in india have no spine, we do not care enough, that we are not fit to do anything about anything. and then we continue eating and start discussing ‘the dark knight’. i do this all time, and every time i finish it hits me like a body blow.

soundarya rajnikanth believes

Animation abroad is considered as important as live action. For example, Shrek and Mission Impossible were appreciated and welcomed there. But this is not the case in India. I told myself, why don’t I make one? Someone has to take the initiative and do it.

m:i is animation ! i knew tom cruise was acting weird with the whole acting bit. then of course,

Appa is God to me. He is known for his style, mannerisms and gimmicks. If he could do so much in live action, imagine what he could do with animation? The sky is the limit. In Sultan too he does a lot of gimmicks.

hence, sultan: the warrior, written by rajnikanth, based on troy and gladiator, will go berserk at the box office.

according to this, the next adi-srk film to hit the marquee will have

The female lead will be a newcomer, to be chosen by a talent hunt competition

prepare for the madness, india. especially in terms of SMSes. here’s an idea. the first person to send 20000 SMSes to the pre-verified number(at rs. 5 an SMS only) shall be awarded the part.. by dint of having financed the film.

in fact, that sounds like an awesome idea for a film financing scheme 2000 SMSes in exchange for you appearing in the film for your requisite 2 minutes of fame. c’mon people. lets make this happen. all your dreams can come true !

this post was meant to be posted on the 25th of december, but can only be put up now.

for whatever reasons, this was written on monday (25th dec), was supposed to have been “published” on tuesday (26th dec), and is finally being put up nearly a week later. sometimes, its hard to differentiate between late and procrastinate. call me what you will.

i call me excited. happy. relieved.

i’m going home. again. after the longest gap that i’ve spent away from it. there was a chance this gap would have been even longer, but i’m glad that didn’t happen. i didn’t realize just how important, how epochal this trip was for me until i actually got into the plane and strapped on that seatbelt.

there are so many things that you end up missing about home. first, there is the chance to see the most important people in my life. its been a long, long time, and every passing photo only serves to remind me how much older people are getting while i am away. seeing these people was a fact of life that took some reminding. that a time could come when i would see them no more was never a question. and now i miss seeing them grow and age.