Independence Day

August 15th : Independence day is being celebrated all over India. Since it is a national holiday, I am sitting at home doing nothing in particular when I decide to Blackle (Google with a black background that saves power with each search) Independence Day and related topics. Through all of the pages the concept of “being free from the influence of others” seems to come through.

Am I really independent? Am I free from the influence of others? Am I free? Well, when I start my day I have to brush my teeth and do my morning dailies. Right? I mean my dentist has told me if I don’t do that I will have bad breath, bacteria will eat into my tooth enamel and I’ll lose my teeth early in life. If I don’t have my bath then my mom told me that I’d develop body odour. I open my wardrobe and pull out my uniform since my company says that they wouldn’t like to discriminate between employees……And this is just the start of my day.

Ladies are free to choose what they want to wear but advised not to wear “revealing” or provocative clothes. Religious fanatics attack others on the flimsiest grounds. So we are “advised” not to provoke them by stating opinions. We are told not to make adverse comments against old people or the disabled. They are to be called the elderly and the gifted.

Yes we are free. Free to our opinions. That is as long as we keep them to ourselves. Free to move into any part of the country or other countries as long as we get the required travel documents and permissions. Free to drive whatever vehicle we wish to, as long as you have the license, insurance papers, pollution under control certificate, etc. Free to accumulate wealth, as long as we pay our income tax, wealth tax, service tax and other taxes.

Oh man. I feel so free on Independence Day that I think I’ll make the best use of my freedom to curl up in my blanket. [The other option of celebrating is out of the question since there is a ban on the sale of alcohol today] Happy Independence Day everyone.

Of counter and trackers

Some time back I decided to add a counter to my blog. I reached a site called Stat Counter . I am just over the moon with this site. The features that it offers are just amazing. I found out that if u type

lagae raho munna bhai

"Esop fable" grasshopper

naresh gupta ndtv video

ndtv tamasha political satire

"dinesh hinduja"

Into a google search, my blog shows up in the top ten hits. There are a few others keywords which were probably in the top ten then but don’t work now. As I explore this site I am amazed at all the services it offers me for FREE. I now know that I have a few hits from Latvia and USA. It is very very flattering to say the least.

The site also allows me to lookup the IP address of every visitor to my blog. It can also be configured to send a weekly report of page load activity to your email address. It also has features that would have a computer geek going bananas. The operating system the computers were running on, (Gotee, I know the number of times you have visited since the Linux OS could only be you :-P) , the screen resolution, which search engine sent me what traffic, the length of stay of each visitor, which part of the world each visitor came from etc.

“Where is the catch?” is the most common question. “Such services cost real money, you know”. Yes. I know. The answers to those questions can be found here. I very highly recommend the site.

Taslima Nasrin and the order of democracy?

Taslima Nasrin attacked during a press release for her “anti – Islamic” views. The scores of 24x7 news channels bring you first hand the visuals of this “breaking story”. Breaking is right. They seemed hell bent on breaking everything in site. To top it all they went on to interview the people who “stood up for what they believed in” and comments of “she deserved it” were emanating from the idiot box.

Hello! ‘Freedom of speech’ ring a bell anywhere?

“Yes”, the news channel seems to reply. That is why the John Doe got his 30 seconds (more like 30 minutes with all the reruns and multiple channels) of fame to explain his point of view.

Thank God for small mercies that they were at least arrested. But did the fact that three of them were MLA’s (Member of Legislative Assembly) surprise anyone or has it become so common place that it hardly roused a flicker of interest?

full story

Cash

Just got back from Adlabs after watching "Cash". I have one statement for it Waste of CASH

Story line is convoluted and crazy. Scenes are disjointed. Movie is mainly so-so stunts, catchy jingles and badly botched up skin show.

Director: Anubhav Sinha
Producer: Sohail Maklai
Cast: Ajay Devgan, Ritesh Deshmukh, Zayed Khan, Arjun Rampal, Esha Deol, Shamita Shetty, Diya Mirza
Music: Vishal Dadlani, Shekhar Ravjiani