Gossipmongers Inc.

This morning when I was reading The Hindu I came across a statement in an article which was quite disturbing. It was a comment made by the Deputy Commissioner of Melbourne Kieran Walshe regarding the recent spate of assaults on Indian students in Australia. Amid speculations about the attacks being racial and the Indian High Commissioner to Australia Sujatha Singh stating that racism was a factor in some of the incidents, Walshe in a press statement said that the attacks are not racist crimes but just "opportunist activity". To quote his exact words: "We [Australians] think they[Indians] are vulnerable, we don't think it's racial, we think they are a weak target." My jaws simply dropped at walshe's notion of racism. Isn't it a racial stereotype to think of another race [read Indians] as "weak" and therefore, an easy prey to "opportunist activities" or to be taken as easy targets for such crimes. This is what I would call as "race selective crime" whereby you single out one race because you perceive them to be weak and make them a target. The belief that some races are superior to others  is the basic definition of racism that any dictionary will give. The foundation of such a notion as to think of Indians as weak arises from the very fact that they [read white Australians] consider themselves as superior racially/physically. And it does not require a rocket scientist to figure that out from Walshe's stupid statement. You don't even have to be trained in POCO to even understand what happened in the last couple of weeks in Australia is nothing but a racist crime. Australia over the past few years have been trying to revamp its image as a tolerant, anti-racist nation with the nation's Prime Minister offering a formal apology to Australia's stolen generation. However, these recent incidents and what Australia is trying to maintain as just an opportunist crime by trying to deny the racial angle is a testament in itself to the hidden truths of racism in Australia. 

I like it when I go for a ride but not when I taken for one!
I despise autowallahs and the fact that I have to depend on them...
I hate the fact that sometimes i am so desperate i have to give in to their unreasonable demands...
Oh I could go on for ever but I think you guys know what I mean...
Phew! That feels better... you too can air your grievances against that barbaric tribe and believe me you will feel better...

I was looking up "gossip" on the internet and our trusted source Wikipedia has a lot on it... I especially found the possible functions of gossip interesting especially since they make gossip out to be a productive activity to a large extent... This should interest Amitendu especially...

Gossip can serve to:

• normalise and reinforce moral boundaries in a speech-community
• foster and build a sense of community with shared interests and information
• build structures of social accountability
• further mutual social grooming (like many other uses of language, only more so)
• provide a mating tool that allows (for example) women to mutually identify socially desirable men and compare notes on which men are better than others.
• be used as a form of passive aggression, as a tool to isolate and harm others
• provide a peer-to-peer mechanism for disseminating information in organizations

Lemme know what you think about these....

These days my job entails writing product descriptions cakes, chocolates and any other food item apart from the cliched and boring newsletters I write every two hours. What I actually do is: I have to look up the ingredients of the particular product, go through the method of preparation and try and understand the USP (the term we use here) of the product! What else can understand cakes and chocolates better than your own salivary glands! It is a crazy thing to be doing. Staring into my computer screen, all day long I admire the beautifully decorated Cheesecakes, truffles and more chocolates!
Let's say... Peccan Truffle Cheesecake! This sinful cake is a chocolate fudge cheesecake baked in New York style! Coated with a thin layer of chocolate Ganache (ganache in French is cushion! Here chocolate ganache is the chocolate topping which is prepared with hot semi-sweet chocolate with loads of cream!) on which is a spread of Graham cracker crust with crushed peccans! This is not all! The cake is topped with pecan pralines! Now Pecan Pralines is pecan dropped in a creamy mixture of milk marshmallows, vanilla extracts, butter and sugar! How sinful can it get? By the time I finished reading the description myself I find my salivary gland revolting in manners I have never come across all my life! And this information has to be written with a marketing pitch (which I will never figure out how?). All I have understood about food is that I love it and love experimenting with it!
Nevertheless, I tell myself, "It is not the time to drool over it... If you want to go home early and eat your simple rice, dal and salad. Get the work done early!" Then I have to move on... Drool your heart out but keep your mind on work! Many a times I thought of going back stopping by Baker's Inn and grabbing a bite of their hot chocolate fudge with lots of cream for the topping but it never happens... Either i am in a hurry to reach home or I am so tired to get down and argue with another auto-wallah to drive me home in a reasonable rate!
Thankfully, I thought, the torture is over. The trauma of having to look at good food and eat vegetable biryani in real is just inexplicable! I have done around 30 such descriptions in the last two days!
BUT, this was not all, I was told today in the morning that I have some other assignments related to CHOCOLATES! (Smriti are you reading this?) And I have to write descriptions for that as well... I am at it again! Drooling, slavering, looking forward to the weekend where I am hoping to induldge myself to a hot chocolate fudge cheesecake all alone!

While I was on an assignment, Amul sent me a message... "Sanjee, Full House2 is suppose to be out by July (or August) know?" My instant reaction to that was "What? You didn't tell me about it! You knew it all the way and you did not tell me about it!" Then the first thing I did was google Full House! By now it has become a routine to google names of Korean movies and series whenever I get spare time (am not alone in this addiction, many of my friends does the same!). The search result showed "Famous korean serial Full House season 2 in the making!"
This was it! I called Smriti (she was already in Lucknow), screamed out to Shilpa, who was in the drawing room, messaged (online) Avinandan to share the good news with Tali! I was glad.
The best thing about Korean movies and serials is that most of these serials are refreshing. Most have very predictable storyline and are not as complex as that of the Hollywood movies BUT the treatment is something which you just cannot ignore!
I started watching Korean serials and movies four years back. The first movie I watched was Classic. I just fell in love with the cinematography! It is emotionally engaging though some would say its slow. The firefly scene, the scene where the guy pretends he is not blind and the girl discovers it, the shots in the rain and the difference between the two generations and yet the similarities between the two are some of the scenes that leaves a lasting impression on your mind. The characters are well developed and the story just touches your heart! It is very simple and very authentic in its presentation. After this I have watch a hundred more movies and serials. With Sassy Girl and Full House being my all time favourite...
Coming to Full House, I was told that, in Mizoram, people were going crazy about this new Korean serial where Rain is the male lead. I had seen Rain a few times on ShowBiz Extra on Arirang TV and had thought "wow! what a girlie one." But much later did I realise that he is so charming in his own way. Sawm, Kimi, Babie and Sangi pestered me to watch the last two episodes of the serial (they just had those two episodes!). I just loved it... and the rest is history!
Full House is now the most talked about topic when it comes to anything Korean! We can just go on and on about the movie and we always have lots to talk about and more. Some of my friends have watched it for a record 25 times and some are eager to beat that (they should tell us why 25 or 30 times!). For me Full House is one of those soul lifting, feel good serials which you don't get tired of. I just love it for all the stupidity (no offense) and beauty of the love story of the kiddish couple! The characters make an impression... You just cant stop yourself but hate Hyewon, fall in love with Rain and Min Hyuk, you feel sorry for poor Han ji Eun! Even the minor characters are very well rounded. But the best part in the serial is the humor. You laugh your heart out throughout the 16 episodes and fall in love with the characters!
Really, everytime I watch this serial I think everyone should watch this serial once in their lifetime. And mind you, please do not carry your Theory books along with you. It just spoils the fun.
Anyway, I am hoping and keeping my fingers crossed that the second season would be as good as the first...

These are some websites on Korean Movies and Drama-
http://asian-movie-drama.blogspot.com/2007/12/top-10-highest-rated-korean-drama.html
http://asiaenglish.visitkorea.or.kr/ena/HA/HA_EN_7_2_1.jsp

Avinandan and I ate at Wonton, Gachibowli on Saturday (09.05.09) totally disgusted with the idea of entering that torture chamber we call 'Kitchen' and cooking our dinner for that evening. It was my first trip to Wonton's Gachibowli branch. It looks rather small from the outside but it is not as crammed up inside as it looks. The seating arrangement has been done properly so it is not at all conjusted. The ambience is soothing but slightly looks fake. We were greeted at the door by a lanky receptionist with a weird accent which left me wondering for a few seconds whether he spoke to me in some foreign language. A bit dazed I managed to utter that we need a table for two. We were seated promptly. After taking my seat, I started to look around and found men in white shirts and black pants with black waist aprons wrapped around their waists walking all over the place rather awkwardly. I thought Penguins would look better in their shoes. After a thorough examination of the menu we decided to order Hong Kong noodles, sweet and sour prawns and mutton in hot vegetable sauce. I managed to call a rather funny looking man who came to take our orders. All this time I was praying hard that there would be someone who can speak in English. He turned out to be no different from the receptionist. So it left me wondering whether there was a Wonton accent because both sounded the same. Everything seemed to be going on well when we found to our utter dismay that the management had made a mistake and had given us S&S Veg instead of Prawns. But since we had helped ourselves to some of it we decided to just go ahead with it. We informed them and asked them to make sure that the changes are made on our bill. After the sumptuous meal which was followed by litchi with ice-cream as dessert, we were baffled to find that the bill didn't turn out to be that much. However, as we left the place both of us agreed that the food was good but the service was pathetic.
Wonton, no doubt, has quality stuff on their menu which by many standards is affordable and doesn't seem to put a hole on your wallet. However, what makes a food joint worth the money is its service as well. Service leaves an impression on our minds to such an extent that it somehow influences us on how we eventually rate their food. Wonton gets a big zero and thumbs down for service. First, the fact that we didn't realise that there was a mistake with our order was because the waiter who brought the food mumbled something and left in a hurry before we could even dare to ask him to repeat what he had managed to mumble. Secondly, they took so much time to go back, talk to the staff in the kitchen and get back to us by which time we were in no mood to wait for them to bring us the prawns; the order itself took so much time. Thirdly, they didn't even apologise thinking of which the tip that we left behind seems too generous. Fourthly, the cutleries on our table were missing. When our food was being served the waiter grabbed the cutleries from an empty table next to ours and handed it to us. When we wiped the cutleries with the tissue, the white tissues just turned black. The cutleries were terribly dirty! Now, when I come to think of it it was indeed a wanton place. The waiters lacked training and discipline, and they managed to show it off wantonly. But thankfully they were not playing any fake Chinese music which would have been a double turn off.

The recent general elections have been quite a starry "tamasha", thanks to our incurable obessesion with Bollywood celebs. Years ago, Amitabh Bachchan had made a bigger fool of himself by jumping into politics than he probably did by donnig that hedious costume in "Jhoom Barabar Jhoom"; his legacy continues in the spectacularly disastrous (non-)performances of jobless actors like Govinda and Sanjay Dutt. However, what is more disturbing than these actors' presumption to represent people whose lives they have nothing in common with is the inordinate amount of publicity that the popular media give these stars. In fact, this is part of a larger cultural trend that involves highlighting a few famous and glamorous personalities rather than issues that concern the not-so-glamorous lives of ordinary folk. Be it film stars or the Next-Gen dynasty kids, it's only a few easily recognizable names that now command public attention, while the rather too familiar and painfully mundane realities of the lives of the masses are relegated to the background. Not surprisingly, pictures of Bollywood stars, fashionably attired in their pristine white chiffons and branded sunglasses and carefully guarded from the "aam janta" by their bodyguards, claim an inordinate amount of newspaper space. And while our film stars pose for photographs as they stand in the queue to cast their glamorous votes, our media experts and political analyists have profound discussions about Rahul baba's next little step towards the Prime Ministerial pram that has been waiting for him since he was half an embryo! So long as the glitter of these stars in the sky continues to fascinate us, we needn't look around at the darkness around us on earth. Or do we?