Author: manuscrypts

  • Guest appearances on my own blog

    Thats what it has come to, as the time between each post gets longer…once upon a time, it was a daily ritual…. but i cant bring myself to write something everyday just for the heck of writing it, i dont think i can be the ‘daily writing’ kinda guy anymore…the interim budget is likely to add more gloss to the ‘shining india’… inspite of everything, i still believe that the shine should happen in my mind, and not stare back at me each time a i pick a newspaper or watch television…..by the way, read this and this if you are interested in the topic
    i watched “LoC” and “Khakee”.. for the guys who said ‘whats that”, they are just two movies, extra special because the former has more than a dozen stars, and the latter has four…. judging by the number of “behen****” and “ma*******” in LoC , it is fair to say that the censor board has become more lenient, not a very ‘must see’ movie , if you discount the stars..but it did convey to me the kind of life a soldier leads, just so that me and my countrymen sleep in peace…..”
    khakee’ was good, trashed a whole lot of bollywood cliches, showed the characters as raw human beings, not even the ‘shades of grey’ that bollywood usually says it has now, but normal human beings….
    i am not a follower of Superbowl but this image certainly caught my attention :-)….intentional or not is still being debated, but what the hell, theres nothing called bad publicity!!Some kind soul needs to give me tips on my blog’s aesthetics, no cash here, only good publicity and loads of appreciation..hehe
    now, i know it isnt a burning question, but this is a good article on whether you have a journal or blog….will leave you with
    manuscrypts trivia
    will continue with three good quotes , first two by Einstein and the last by Gandhi
    “The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives. “
    “Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for insects as well as for the stars. Human beings, vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance. “
    “There is more to life than increasing its speed.”

  • So, how’s India Shining?

    hey, hey, hey, my first post for the new year, hope all of you guys had a blast….and have gotten rid of the hangovers!! i snored my way into new year, which is a ritual..cant be changed…. 🙂
    now, where cricket is concerned, india was certainly shining yesterday, felt very happy for the debutant rohan gavaskar…must be so difficult for the guy, to make a niche for himself in the game, with the shadow of sunil gavaskar looming over him perpetually. it takes solid guts to get into the field where his dad earned the title ‘little master’. there have been many instances where i thought the guy would make it into the playing eleven, only to be rejected in the end. sometimes, i felt the selectors shied away from him, coz they didnt want charges of bias leveled against them…nyways hope he does well…..and yes, i honestly feel like starting a forum to stop steve bucknor from refereeing India’s matches!!!!
    but the recent ads that are being aired on tv and splattered on print, look too much like a well orchestrated PR campaign, to ignite the patriotism in me… add to it the discussion forums, and the cartoons about the ‘shining’ and the ‘feel good factor’, and i see a lot of reasons why just some infrastructural and sector specific (read BPO, ITES, IT) booms dont actually make me feel that good… one simple example would be my state,no, not my personal state, hehe, but that of “god’s own country”- Kerala…. a hartal every 3 days, extortion mafias mushrooming, no self respecting IT company (yes, there is an infy, but thats an exception to the rule) willing to invest, and that, in the state that has the second highest literacy, and indeces and statistics, that could give the west a run for their money.. the rest of the country still has its share of foreigners getting raped, dowry deaths (i recently saw a very gruesome report on, i think ndtv, where an iron rod was pushed into a 4 year old girl’s genitals, while her mother was being tortured for more dowry), corrupt politicians who make the policy decisions for the country..so while i agree that india is gaining, i am not so sure of the shining bit!!
    this article is worth a read, on this topic.a couple of links that you guys should have a look at, one is the delhi bloggers meet photographs, for which i should be thanking simon and w-bug, hell, i havent yet asked them if it is ok to post it, guys, if theres a problem just post a message. the other link, is a total whacko, have a look at it, its totally out of the box, trust me.which brings me to
    manuscrypts trivia
    i have come across a few einstein quotes, so am gonna post them in small doses
    “The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books; a mysterious order it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. BUThe also says
    “Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking. ” 🙂

  • Is He dead?

    doing a lil bit of analysis to find the functional tendencies of the Almighty, if He were like a new age organisation, he should be having some sort of a customer feedback mechanism..either He hasnt got one, or it isnt functioning properly…. higher grounds of moral/spiritual thoughts aside, a large majority of people wouldnt be happy with what god gave them on their plate, and they cant be blamed….and who in hell (no pun intended) is the signing auhority these days on our fate, individual and combined….. who decides that most people, when they grow old, have to become vulnerable to the vagaries of their offspring or fate, or both?…. who decides that some new born infants have to be deprived of parentship?… who decides that people who love may not be loved?….who decides who is born rich and who is is born poor?…..who decides luck?….who decides that tears are necessary in life?….who decides that natural calamities have to take away what people slaved for and saved?….who decides the right time to die?…. who decides to make psychopaths and autistic people?…..who decides who should be a cat, dog, monkey etc. ?… who decides that people be born blind/deaf/dumb and not experience things people around them can (there could be an argument that they are lucky)…..who decides that life isnt fair?…who decides that man shouldnt know the purpose of his life?…..if i were part of a rebirth cycle, isnt it only fair that i know my account balance during each birth… if there was no rebirth, then why arent i given the place of someone i wish i were??…personally, on the whole, i am happy with the way my life is shaping up, but what about the less fortunate ones?since there is hardly any trace of fairness left in this world, i have to conclude that He is dead….. but manuscrypts trivia isnt
    check this out, its an interesting read, even if you arent part of the corporate scheme of things.

  • Ctrl+D

    readers complaining about the overdose of ‘taken’ in my recent posts will have to suffer just this once more…. just watched the last episode yesterday, with a certain feeling of ambivalence, because i wanted to see where it all led to, but didnt want the series to end.. cant blame me, it was good, and it has set a new benchmark for sci fi films to aspire to… i was looking for some stuff related to the series, and i found comments that were at both extremes, and that there were also lots of folks who felt the same as i did about the series….the good thing about it was, it didnt flood the screen with visual effects, nor did it try to make conclusions, it left you to think, and gave you some very good things to think about….. like the first of the matrix trilogy.. i have actually begun to think that all life could be part of some giant experiment, that we are all Ctrl D….lemme share some good lines from yesterday’s episode
    “Hope is the biggest lie, but its the best we have got, its what keeps us going….”
    “life, all life, is about asking questions, knowing that you might not get the answers…it is the desire to know what lies on top of the next hill, that keeps us going… so keep questioning, even though you know you may never get the answers….”
    and here’s
    manuscrypts trivia
    the lyrics of the song that the last episode ended with, dont know if it will touch anyone the same way, but still, its a beautiful song, as many ‘taken’ guys would agree…its my Emmylou Harris and is called
    Just before it gets dark
    Just before it gets dark
    When the lights still hangs in the sky
    The days not quite gone
    All its promises still in your eyes
    Between the time your mother calls
    And the time you put the ball away
    There’s a lifetime to be lived
    And a world where every dream is here to stay
    Just before the night comes
    And you run back to the safety of your world
    Just before it gets dark
    You can believe in every story ever told
    In those last precious moments
    There’s a beauty no one wants to give away
    Well, nothing lasts forever
    But those moments keep forever far away
    Just before it gets dark
    Before you grow
    Before you’re too old to pretend
    Just before it gets dark
    And you know your dreams will not come back again
    Hold on
    Hold on tight
    And I promise you baby it will all be alright
    I promise you baby it will all be alright

  • Bliss

    nope, i havent attained it yet, but i think there could be a way to it…..i dont know about the rest of humanity, so i have to speak subjectively…..i dont feel truly happy when i hear about the good fortunes of others, not that i am entirely ‘j’ about it, but theres always the feeling of ‘why couldnt it happen to me’… the converse of it being, when something bad happens to someone, with the major feeling of sympathy/grief etc, theres always the minor feeling of ‘thank god it didnt happen to me’…. this is not restricted to professional or competitional matters, but manifests itself even in personal situations….in my case, the only people who dont come under this cloud is my immediate family……….thankfully, maybe because of my own feelings, i am also not very expectant when it comes to receiving congrats or condolences, because i am always on the lookout for that ‘down’ look or smirk…hehe…but maybe, if we could all truly feel happy or sad for others, then we would be able to find relatively more bliss in this material world…meanwhile, think about this leaving you with
    manuscrypts trivia
    apologise to the non hindi speaking crowd, but this was too good not to post “log to jeete hain ummeed pe,par hamein to jeene ki bhi ummeed nahi”