Friday, 5 February 2010

Game, Set , Match...

As a kid, I always used to wonder why in a pack of cards, the Ace values more than a King. I mean, it always seemed illogical to me that why in should '1' have more significance than a king. I got my answer a couple of days back.

The word Ace comes from latin word 'As' which means 'a unit'. In earlier times, the ace had the least value. Then something happened. This something gave birth to the ideals of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. "Something" established the rule of the peasants over the ruling class. The ruled became the Ruler. This "Something" was The French Revolution of 1789.

Quoting Wikipedia "The lowest number card was changed to the highest card in the deck ostensibly to represent the victory of the common man over King Louis XVI(citation needed)"

A French Revelation indeed....:)

Thursday, 4 February 2010

The Idea of Indianness

It's a strange world out there. Somehow, everybody seems to be there for his/her personal gains, caring for nothing whatsoever. And still one person stands out.....Shahrukh Khan. I am not a huge admirer of Shahrukh Khan the actor or Shahrukh Khan the businessman. But I like this guy as a person. If not anything else, this man is at least honest. There might be some arrogance in this honesty but there is no hypocrisy for sure.

So it was nice to hear him say that he won't apologize to Bal Thackrey/ShivSena for backing Pakistani cricketers. What he said might be for his own motive, for his own gains as an owner of IPL team. But he refuses to back down from something he stands for fully aware of the fact that this could cost him and his upcoming movie heavily. At the same time one wonders, why are Marathi people not coming out in support for this man. Why can't we see actors like Ritesh Deshmukh, Nana Patekar voicing the same opinion as Sachin Tendulkar did a few days back??? Or probably they have sold the sense of National pride along with their souls.

And then we have people like Amitabh Bachchan. He might be a great actor but somehow I have lost all my respect for Amitabh Bachchan, the person. He does not seem to be affected by the plight of artists or his fellow actors in Mumbai. Instead he praises the biggest goonda who virtually rules Mumbai with an iron hand. He was only affected when Raj Thakrey was coming out all guns blazing against him. But since he is friends with probably the most influential family in Mumbai, he won't utter a word against them, even though they are doing almost similar to others what had been done against him a few months back by a relative of theirs. Probably...probably the fact that now he has lost his backing in Samajwadi Party (Amar Singh is now thrown out of party) has forced him to show the true colours of this "farmer". Seems like he himself is playing the role of Jai Malik(his son in Rann) in real life.

It's strange that the central government is not taking any strict actions against these goons. How long will they keep on running from such issues remains to be seen. Democracy does not mean letting loose people who are a threat to countrymen just because they have a backing of a minuscule percentage of population. It's amazing that a man(Manohar Joshi) who used to occupy an extremely prestigious position of Speaker in the Lok Sabha opines that Mumbai is only for the Marathis. How low can one stoop for petty gains???

I remember in my school days, we had a teacher who used to say that if our country follows what Bal Thackrey says, we would be on top of the world. Fortunately we didn't pay much attention to her (the fact that we didn't pay attention to anything else taught in school ever otherwise is a different story) I wonder if she thinks the same now.

Somehow all this was going to happen someday or the other. First we'll hate people of other religion, then of other state, then of other caste/community, then of various sections of the same caste and then we'll hate our neighbours. It's high time that we stop being patriotic only when it comes to cricket matches or publicly bashing Pakistan. We are bringing about nothing but our own downfall. Let's be Indians first and everything else later...Time to wake up fellow countrymen....All RISE

Monday, 4 January 2010

Fact for the Day 11

Execute the following steps.
1. Go to Google.
2. In the search bar type 'recursion' and press Enter.
3. Observe
4. If you don't understand, read the first comment on this post.
5. Enjoy :)

Wednesday, 30 December 2009

And We are back....

Ok...so the year 2009 is going and I am coming back to the world of blogginng....I am not saying that I was away or anything...but somehow the urge to write had gone...or for that matter the urge to do anything...I have stopped doing all the good (at least I thought so) things I used to do..for absolutely no reason at all... I have stopped blogging, reading, quizzing, chatting and what not...I haven't watched tv for quite some time, neither have I read newspaper....NO ..I haven't been busy at all..in fact my job is as cool as it can get giving me ample time to do whatever I want to ...somehow I have just stopped doing these things...and it's not good...
When I sit back and think about it, most of my fellow college bloggers have stopped blogging... I haven't read a post from Mayuri since ages, Chetna writes a couple of lines once in a month, Rohit's most posts are password protected; so for most of the lesser mortals like me, it is as good as nothing at all. Balanisisred is dead, nobody is concerned about Burinazarwaale, Pradyot last blogged in August, I can't even recall the address of Anuragi's blog, some other blogs I used to follow earlier (and are not in my blog list) are not as active either as they used to be some months back....Wonder what happened to all.... :(
There has been a new development though...Goutam has finally started penning down his thoughts here...I hope he doesn't stop.
New year starts tomorrow....I don't want anything new. Just want to be the old Aviral in this new year....

Happy New Year to all :)

Wednesday, 2 December 2009

Jerusalem by William Blake

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold;
Bring me my arrows of desire
Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariots of fire.

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

Thursday, 26 November 2009

Mujhe Pyar Hai Tumse

He he ...don't get any ideas from the title of the post. This is another song which I used to love. The song was sung by Pankaj Saraogi some 10-12 years back. I loved the song then, and I love the song now. The song also features Manav Gohil, who acted in some shitty soap operas and is the husband of Shweta Kwatra. The girl who plays the lead role in the song has a tooth missing and whenever she smiles, she tries to cover her face. (This is the actual reason why I am posting it here...he he )

Enjoy...:)

Sunday, 22 November 2009

Another List

I wrote my last post some 12 hours back and here I am writing again. Just writing for the heck of it since I don't have anything better to do. Was thinking about all the songs which I used to listen again and again. Here's a list of songs I was very crazy about, so much that sometimes one of them was the only song in my playlist and was played no less than 50-60 times in a day

1. Maahi Ve (Kal Ho Naa Ho)
2. O Humdum Suniyo Re (Saathiya)
3. Maahi Ve (Faakir Mantra)
4. Chandni Raatein (Partners in Rhyme)
5. Dil Jo bhi Kahey (Title song)
6. Kitni Der Tak (Delhi Heights)
7. Kabhi Kabhi Aditi (Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na)
8. Dhoom (Euphoria)
9. Dhani (Strings)
10. Mera Bichchra Yaar (Strings)
11. Phir Dekhiye (Rock On)

Kuchh Angrezi ke Nagme

1. It's my life (Bon Jovi)
2. Learning to Fly (Pink Floyd)
3. Drink Up me Hearties Yo ho(Pirates of Caribbean)
4. We Didn't Start the Fire (Billy Joel)
5. American Pie (Don Mclean)
6. The Man Who Sold The World (Nirvana)
7. Heaven (Bryan Adams)
8. Black or White (Michael Jackson)
9. Tubthumping (Chumbawamba)