i want chocolate icecream

So I'm sure you were victim to another political drama played out by the bloody Italian on 23rd March and completely forgot about the 75th year of the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh. If you remembered, mail me about what you did.
Only Star News and Aaj Tak mentioned something(I know because I have my news channels at a stretch from channels 11 - 20). I did it on one of those Saturdays when they aired absolutely the most boring stuff imaginable on the tube. Only Kaal was on for the millionth time and I'm a little tired of seeing John and the snake, however sexy that can get. The effect that lasts for a moment gets destroyed when Esha Deol shows up!

Anyway, I don't know why I'm so addicted to the television.
There are so many better things to do.
One option was to join the Hyderabad Film Club. They show these really exotic movies at Sarathi Studios from places like Kazhakhstan and Turkey. The films have apparently won many awards at film festivals whose names I can't pronounce/pronounce wrong. Everytime I see the listing in the newspaper about some Film Club event, I forget to kick myself for not joining. And so, I never did.
I could've have been part of the Bird Watcher's Society of India. Except there are no birds around here and they take us to a place 50 kms away from the center of the city and because Hyderabad is growing so fast, we'll be lucky if we spot a crow. For the record, I've never seen a crow in Hyderabad. That is, as long as you don't count the living, breathing ugly people who resemble crows. There are many of those.
There is a Society to Save Rocks as well. Let the children die of starvation. They care about the rocks. They organize 'rock walks' once every month. I haven't been to a single one and I don't see myself going gaga over rocks anyway. And if you're interested in protecting the rocks rather than giving slum kids some quality education, call 04023608253. (Call and you'll see it's for real!)
I could've been a member of the Corporate Club where they organize after-work parties at crowded clubs and treasure hunts and things like that, in the name of networking but it's only for people who work and I hardly qualify.
And ofcourse there's philately, a complicated name for stamp-collecting which seems to be the eternal favourite hobby. Followed by numismatics ofcourse. Philately can only be beaten by coin-collection. Heavier and hence perhaps, more valuable. I don't know. I can honestly say I don't care.
There are also ads these days about Ikebana classes. Apprently, Hyd is home to one of the 3 'grandmasters' in flower arrangement. I can't even imagine that as a hobby, much less a profession. A single gerbura will do just fine. Who cares about driftwood and how they can be used in arrangements?
Forget sports. Even Tai Chi is too vigorous for me. Watching Safin play shoots up my heart rate and that's enough exercise.

And then while I was getting very close to filing a petition against a well-known social organization for blatantly misusing the money it raises as funds, I discovered Bharat Uday Mission. BM is almost an obsession now. If you are one of those, "forget the rocks and the dogs"(we do not have a policy on animal welfare but trust me, if it's ever needed, I won't be the one drafting it), "let's do something for the country and it's people" kinds, then all you need to do is join me. I promise, you won't be disappointed.

And now, watching television comes a close second and then comes watching tv while having chocolate icecream and then, watching tv with the boyfriend while having chocolate icecream and then... okay,

Have a great weekend!

social awakening made easy

Over the last 4 months, Bharat Uday Mission(BM) Hyderabad has grown to be the biggest and most active chapter of BM. We started with 20 members out of whom exactly 5 turned up for the meeting. Before the next one, I called every single one of the rest and we had 16 members for our next one. 3 members whom I'd met at the first meeting and the 13 were people who were either friends from my previous social service initiatives or people who were curious to find out more about BM. Till date, I haven't met the missing 15 from the first meeting. We have many members who join us with that sudden "josh". "Oh.. Bhaaarat Udayy Mission.. That's a really great cause. We should be a part of it" and then they select the "No mail" option on our group! But then I met people who had so many wonderful insights and they're the ones who really made BM Hyderabad what it is.

We're planning to do a Village Development Project(VDP). We figured that our easiest entry point would obviously be primary education. We have the knowhow required to teach children. (It's not Artificial Neural Networks anyway!) All the other issues, women's empowerment(from literacy to menopause) or employment, are immensely important as well but need indepth knowledge which I fear we don't have. We didn't want to start from scratch. Ideally, all volunteers should participate in developmental projects. All members should be socially aware. But more often than not, in an organization such as ours, which is huge and has highly qualified members from diverging fields, there tend to be a lot of tangential ideas. One of the biggest obstacle is to sift through these suggestions that we get, use the best of them and form a strong foundation.

In Hyderabad, my vision is to ensure that BM works on 2 complementary paths.
One is obviously politically motivated. Even though that sounded like I am condoning the bad word that is "politics", I mean it in a very non-controversial sense. By the time we stand for elections we should have done enough ground work at the grassroot level. I want people to be empowered enough to refuse a Rs. 100 payoff from an MLA of an opposing party and choose to vote for us, simply becase they know that we will ensure a more positive future.
Another is the social work that is essential for an organization like ours to flourish. We have two options. Either we can start making parallel systems to bypass the current one or we can improve existing ones. For example, we can start new philanthropic educational institutions, put in personal capital and motivate children to join or we can use the existing Government schools, the infrastructure already available and make the Govt. accountable. But the problem with taking the 2nd option is that while we're fighting to secure Government funds and tring to eke out the corruption that exists at every level, many children will lose out on an opportunity at education. So, what we need to do instead of starting new schools is to adopt exisiting schools established by NGOs and other like-minded organizations and at the same time have members working on making the system and the people involved more responsible. This is just one of the paradox that I found. I'm sure that there are many more. We have a very complex Governmental mechanism. I tried to find out about the different initiviatives taken up for Women and Child Healthcare that the Govt. of India has. It took me no less than 7 and a half hours(obviously not at a stretch) to first find the exact department where I had to look for the information and then to find the exact information that I was looking for. And this was all online. Imagine, if I tried doing this on the field!
Politicians and bureaucrats have to deal with many more paradoxes such as the one I've mentioned. I don't want to give them too much credit because just the other day, they tried showcasing India's freedom by giving a very fine example. They televised a speech given by a fat MP(who looked like a goonda straight out of a Bollywood masala movie and who, I'm sure, got a lot of unaccounted money). He said, very proudly, that the country he lives in today is truly free for the simple reason that he, a class 5 drop out, could rise to the level of a Member of Parliament! He then enlisted every single plan he had for the upliftment of the minorities and got a standing ovation from the commissioned audiences.

Anyway, I'm sure we have a lot to learn. We will be governing a vibrant country and not just managing a company. I also find that I have to learn a lot about the issues faced by the people we intend to work for. So, I'm planning to take a course at CSIM http://www.csim.org/csimhyderabad.html I went there yesterday to find out the details. What amazes me about institutes like this is the fact that they've built very good models for NGOs and social change activists to work with. So, we won't have to start from scratch and ofcourse the networking opportunity will also be fantastic. I spoke with a couple of people about the VDP. Through our discussions, I found that the best way to make a project work, atleast at the initial stages, is to ensure that it's feasible. To make a VDP feasible, we need to identify a village that is accessible and by that, I mean, one which is less than 75 kms away. Since Hyderabad is growing at such a rapid rate, all we will find at the outskirts are the semi-urban localities, which have issues that are quite different than the urban or rural ones that are well-documented. And BM can work on these specific problems. In my experience, they will range from migration to the cities to havign specialized self-help groups in those areas. We can also introduce microfinance structures that will help solve a lot of socio-economic problems that I assume they face. We can make the Engineering and other institutions that are usually located in those areas resposible for the upliftment as part of their SUPW.

Another choice we have is to work as a support group. There are so many NGOs, NPOs, pressure groups etc. which need human resources. We can provide them with the volunteer services. We can also give them financial support, if required. We have doctors, teachers and many other members who can provide services for these organizations free of cost. We can also make NGO-specific software etc. There are a million ways to do it. All we need is the inclination, motivation and a little bit of determination to move that lazy ass.

Enough food for thought!

Hope you had a safe, colourful and happy....

an all new assurance(insured from being broken)

R thinks I exploit his personal life stories, exaggerate them a little, make fun of him and use it as crap entertainment on my blog. S believes I shouldn't kiss and tell. A wants some exclusive secrets between us(nothing that I'll admit on my blog)! K feels I don't praise her enough. So, to stop all these useless complaints and to control my obsession to make things absolutely crystal clear(on my blog and otherwise) and my total aversion to rumours, I promise not to talk about my love, my friends and family here. Atleast not in he said-she said-i said terms. :) Okay, no more clauses!

jaded and blah

Kav's board exams are going on. She had a million people wishing her luck and the arrogant fool that she is, she actually wrote a common "thanks y'all" post on her blog! :D
Sweetheart, you'll do well and trust me, all those people who think they'll beat you will fail in Geography and your Telugu paper(even though it won't be corrected by Ram Murthy), will be just as easy.
I don't remember working that hard. I don't remember anyone telling me, "you know last year the highest was 93.6% so you should get 94%" or "don't settle for the English prize. Only Maths and Science matter." All the snapshots I have now are related to playing cricket on the Primary field during the preparation holidays and doing Shares and Dividends in Math. I don't remember studying anything else. But I remember thinking that would be the last year I'd see him smile or watch him on the tennis court or listen to him explaining something to all his fans who thought he was God.
Two years later, he calls me and forgets to hang up.

I got my phone bill again today. I don't know why these Tata Indicom guys think they're so %&$^#*, listing every single STD call, with the number of hours and the exact time and the number of units(I didn't know they charged every 30 seconds) and the bloody amount for each call. So, my mom looked at these 5 pages which had the same number 50 times and asked me the same question for the 50th time. "So, who's number is this?" She knows. My dad knows. I know. Anyone who reads my blog or talks to me for more than 3 minutes knows. So, why the drama?
Pa, if you ever read this, smile and let it go. :)

I'm still waiting to see Taxi.no.9211 and Ghajini. Taxi got an amazing review from Masand. Watch his show on Friday nights(10:30 I think) on CNN-IBN. Will make time this weekend. I saw the Filmfare Awards last Sat. It was, as expected, a bloody farce. Black got all the tier 1 awards and Parineeta got the inconsequential ones. And as usual, there were the same crappily choreographed dance sequences with scantily clad actresses jumping around and making a mess of the whole thing. They also repeated the same commercial ads which ran about 53 minutes for every hour so now I know exactly how many chillis the girl who lost the bet on the SBI advert eats and how many kinds of white there really are. There's also the final season of Friends being aired on Star World. I know everyone must've already seen it and I know Ross and Rachel are back together 'cos she got off the plane(or whatever)! But it was so disappointing! It doesn't make you feel all mushy like the time when Monica asks Chandler to marry him or when Ross and Rachel kiss for the first time. It's really predictable. And they don't even kiss aesthetically. It's all kinda sloppy. Oh and American Idol is back for the 15th time and they haven't started doing the "and you will know who's made it, after a short break" thing yet. And Simon is his usual amazingly opinionated, obnoxious self. I don't know why I find that attractive!! :D The worst day to watch TV is Saturday. There usually isn't any good show. They air Bold and the Beautiful back to back so that's how painful it is and then there's a rerun of Rendezvous with Simi Garewal and she is such a "would you like some tea?" kinda woman that I want someone to choke her to death before next Friday. Then, Zee claims to get the latest movies and ends up showing films like 'Wah! Life ho tho Aisi'. I saw it from beginning to end and understood why the producers were in a hurry to sell their TV rights before people forget a movie by that name had actually released in theatres! Yeah, I have a lot of free time. But then if you've read all the crap I've written you do too.

So go finish that report you need to submit tomorrow and I'll do the same.