My Nephew's Gold Medal

   My 2 year old nephew has done something that I could not manage to do in 26 years of my life. Wining a GOLD medal in a sporting event.

  It was his playgroup's sports day where kids from the same school but different branches had come. Guess it had kids from around 7 to 8 branches.

 I couldn't see it but my brother says he won the race by a distance. The way Usain Bolt wins in Olympics. Here are a few pics from the event.

 The man on the podium himself.On the 1st Position.

 Flaunting his GOLD Medal.

Awesome!!!
Cheers!

Revolution2020 and Chetan Bhagat

            I thought I may not be doing it soon but finally I did manage to read Chetan Bhagat's latest attempt to write. Revolution2020, the name of his latest book. Considering the fact that I stay in a city in USA with not a great Indian Population, getting a book by Chetan Bhagat would have been a challenge. Thanks to my roomie who suddenly felt the need to get the entire Chetan Bhagat pack from his latest visit to India. And no I will not be giving any spoiler alert cause I will not talk about the plot of the book more than what is mentioned on the cover page.
           
            So the book is his latest attempt at writing stories for a movie. I have no objections to that. Rather I love couple of his books but this time it was the lamest attempt he could make. I might go to the extent of saying that the story was in equal terms to the movie Bodyguard or any Ekta Kapoor serials. It is a story of three childhood friends. One girl, 2 guys. Both love the same girl. Both are heroes at the end but the path they take are very very different. I mean Come on how many movies have we seen with the same story and same ending. Right from beginning to end the movie..oops..book was entirely predictable and bland.

            It is a  fact that I am an avid reader and would normally complete a 300 page book within a span of 3 hours. It took me more than 3 days to finish this book. Somehow every other lame thing seemed more important than reading the book. Which for starters is not a good sign.If I go by stats, I did finish 'Five Point Someone' in 3 hours and '2states- the story of my marriage' in 4 hours'. In order to give an unbiased review of the book and not to forget that he does actually have awesome writing skills, I read '2 states' again before writing this blog.

          Compared to his set of books, I would rate this even below 'One night@call center' in which he had kinda screwed the end. Apart from a predictable boring story this book also did not have his uncanny knack of describing the heroine of the story.Or any scene of the story. If the reader cannot imagine the scene, it is a big failure of the author's skill ,according to me. The reason why Dan Brown or JK Rowling are so successful fiction writers cause of the way they describe the scenes.And this is really important for people who rate books more than the movies made from it. As long as we are into description of scenes or characters, I would like to recommend you all to read a book called 'Anything for you Maam' by Tushar Raheja. It has the story on the same lines as '2 states' ( and of-course it was published before '2 states') but unfortunately the author was not as renowned as Chetan Bhagat. The description of Characters in Tushar Raheja's book would make you fall in love with them.
 
          I guess Chetan Bhagat got more busy in answering the calls of the Murthys who asked for a better system in IITs. Well Mr Murthy was not wrong, we do need a better system in the IITs or our education system but more on this topic later. I do not want to get diverted from our main topic. Only if he would have given more thoughts on a better story than to use his reputation, we would have enjoyed the book more. And all this cause we do expect great books from you.

         I know that most English authors condemn Chetan Bhagat for his books which has a lot of grammatical mistakes but they do so for Dan Brown also. And trust me for a normal reader all that matters in the end is a good story. After coming up with classics like the '2 states' ( I just love the book cause I can connect so well with it) this book was really disappointing. Hope we get a better book next time. And sorry to say but no one would dare make a movie on this book.We all watch Ekta Kapoor serials in India.

Cheers!

Mumbaikar...Delhiites...

              Now this topic had to come. It was long due. Inspired by the famous 'Mumbaikar,Punekar, Nagpurkar' by P Deshpande and the fact the I am a true Mumbaikar whose born and brought up in the city of Mumbai but my Native is Delhi, I feel myself in a good position to write this. Also I just love talking on this topic. Something tells me I can write a book on this topic, so beware, this might be a lengthy blog.

            Before I start talking, Let me clear some facts. The blog is dedicated to the people of the 2 places and I will not talk or consider anything about politics or infrastructure of the 2 cities. Also when I mean Mumbaikar, I mean WE , the north Indians, South Indians, Gujaratis and Marathis and others who have stayed in this city for long enough to be domiciled as Maharashtrians (There is a difference between a Maharashtrian and a Marathi). Not the Raj Thackeray types but the true Mumbaikars who make the city of Mumbai and same logic applies to Delhiites.

             A person who stays in Mumbai and travels Delhi every year and has all his relatives from that place, I find HUGE differences among the 2 places. Mumbaikars are always busy.No matter what time of the day, what day of the year we are just always busy. On the other hand Delhiites are always free. They always have time for everything in the world. The most recent example was Anna's agitation where there was a low turnout in Mumbai.We are always in a hurry to either catch some train or do something. They are never in a hurry even if it means visiting someone on a deathbed. Ask a Mumbaikar , 'Whats the time?' and 8 out of 10 times he will get irritated that you have wasted his few minutes asking the question. On the other hand, ask a Delhiite for an address, and chances are he will accompany you to the place.The best part is even when they do not know the address, they will tell you something like this ' Yahan se teesra right le lo..Aage ek mandir hai, wahan pooch lena' ( Take the third right and you would find a temple. Ask the person there he can help). They would hardly say I don't know, on the other hand a Mumbaikar might say I don't know even if he knows. Both extremes.

               Time again is Money for Mumbaikars. We catch the same 8:42 AM train daily for years of our life. Then the connecting bus and reach office on time at 9:30. No one bothers wasting time. To the extent that a BEST (Bombay transport bus) Conductor threatens you with the fact that he will stop the bus if you have a verbal argument with him. He knows for sure all the other passengers will support him since they do not want to waste time by getting the bus stopped. Delhi on the other hand is the other extreme. I was travelling in a bus when he took the bus to the petrol station and declared that it will take 20 mins to fill gas. And I was surprised that all got down with no complaints and no hurry.I mean if it was Mumbai, we might have burned the bus for wasting 20 minutes.Speaking of Time,I recently had the luxury to attend a birthday party in Delhi and was invited at 7.00 PM. No one came before 9 PM. Mumbai on the other hand, the party hall is booked till 10 PM for a 7 PM party, so people come at 8 and leave by 9.

             Then again there is the attitude factor. Every Delhiite feels he owns the state. He will talk big and would always be pompous. The 'I can do this' and 'I can do that' types.Far far away from reality.I asked one of my friend here that why do they do that and he explained that it is a cycle. Today you are being a pompous person and people are listening, tomorrow it's his turn to be one and you will listen. Its mutual understanding.The same goes for salaries or earnings. Ask a Mumbaikar his salary and either he refuses to reveal it or will give a low approximate. Ask a Delhiite about it and he will add one zero on the right of the figure and mention it. I mean whom are you kidding man, We belong to the same industry we know the facts.My dad taught me this, that when you talk about finances with a Delhiite, subtract a zero from the right to get the true figure.

               That leads me to something that even Delhiites agree is a problem with them. Its something we call as 'Show-off'. A Mumbaikar would travel in a local train with a plastic bag that might have crores in it. A Delhiite earning in thousands might feel its below his dignity to travel in anything less than Honda City. He may not have the money to buy petrol but having a car is must. And this may not sync but I suddenly remembered that the word QUEUE does not exist in the dictionary of Delhiites. They get surprised to come to Mumbai and see Queues for everything. For a Delhiite, standing in a Queue is for losers.

               I can go On n ON on this Topic. Speak about both and I have hundreds of examples to give. But than I cannot give them all cause I feel I will publish a book on it. :-) So let me keep some for the book. I guess a good debate in the comments section should be expected. Provided Mumbaikars get the time to defend them and Delhiites feel the need to defend themselves to a software guy with no car (Bekaar).

Cheers!