Eating a humble pie

Roadies 6.0 winner is Nauman. Totally contradictory to my predictions about Palak winning the Roadies and becoming the first woman to win Roadies. Guess, MTV does truly believe in gender equality and let only the best man (read contestant) win. Literally. 

No Nostradamus, am I? 

New Afghani Law

Husbands can refuse to feed their wives if they refuse to have sex with them.
In a sense if you don't "feed" a man, he has a right not to feed you.
Now try faking that headache.

Jokes aside I am amazed at abilities of the Afghani religious lawmakers to become regressive. Just when you think they have peaked out in regressiveness, they surprise you with a gem like above.

M

M is the symbol for 1000 in Roman system. Finally, the hits on this blog has reached 1000 today. Mostly contributed by yours truly. But, want to THANK all of you who patiently read the posts and persevered in a hope to find an intelligently written piece (maybe some day) and in this hope kept returning to the blog and thereby contributing to the hits.

Roadies 6.0 - twist continues

The twist in the finals was fantastic. Could not have imagined that they will bring in three ousted roadies to compete for a place for the grand finale. However, I still stand by my last point in the earlier post. This time they will want to make a woman win the competition and considering Palak is the only woman contestant she has a better chance than both Nauman and Kiri.
How do we find out who won - wait and let the events unfold.

Roadies 6.0

My bets are on Palak to win Roadies 6.0. Why you might ask? Ask :-)

Too many coincidences to ignore.

1. Palak was one of the few who was selected to come back to Roadies after getting eliminated initially.
2. In the second last episode, the twist was very conveniently designed to keep Palak in the game when she was voted out.
3. Nauman had a change of heart in the last episode and he decided to take her to the final episode. Only god and love can bring about this change in a person and don't see signs of either here. How will he face Tamanna after this can become another reality show. MTV, hope you are reading this.
4. She is very entertaining, obnoxious but entertaining.
5. Little known fact - she featured in the movie Singh is Kingg in the song 'bhootani ke" as the bride. So she is already in Tinsel town and making her the winner will only give MTV more publicity.
6. Last but not the least, Roadies has not been won by any woman so far. This will give MTV an opportunity to set an example and make more in-roads in the women segment.

"Good Deed"

The 'rapists' in the Andheri rape case of a TISS students are feeling cheated. They were surprised when the girl filed a case. After all, they played gentlemen to the hilt. First, they offered themselves in a sexual act. They didn't charge a dime for this so called service. They bought drinks and that too by truck loads. They even rolled up a joint and volunteered to teach a novice in the art of smoking. Last but not the least, after gang raping, they get a contraceptive pill to avoid any unwanted pregnancy. If this is not gentlemanly behaviour then what is. 

As they say, no good deed should go unpunished. This shouldn't either. Jailing these guys will not be just. Castrating them after pouring hot wax on their testicles, yes, that would be fair. 

This is what all smokers and drinkers say.

Comic strip taken from Explosm site. They have some pretty cool comic strips there. URL is www.explosm.net

Shendi

First credit card fraud, now car fraud. Looks like my planets and stars are in really favorable positions and alignment.

I was recently a victim of a car fraud, executed with Swiss precision. A con job worthy of a movie. I was returning home last night and at a signal one guy pointed out that there were sparks coming from the car. I thought to myself, rather modestly, that with me inside the car sparks are bound to fly. Modesty aside, i took that guy as a nut case and drove a little further when another 'gentleman' pointed that there were sparks coming out of the bonnet.

Now modesty was totally aside. I parked the car to the side of the road to look into the bonnet and this gentleman who pointed it out also tagged along to see. I did not suspect anything and was feeling nice and warm inside the heart by the gesture of this good Samaritan. I parked the car, opened the bonnet and started the car. This gentleman the said that sparks were coming out so i got out to see it for myself. Lo and behold, there were sparks the size of bonfire coming out of the ignition plug. He said that I am lucky and had I driven at a speed above 40km/h the sparks would have ignited the petrol which was going into the engine and engine and car would have exploded. Just like Hindi movies, in high air. He then went in search of a mechanic and the mechanic said that I need to change the ignition plug. But he called it Alternator and said that it will cost me 6K. However, I learnt today that the thing is called ignition plug and costs around 1.2K.

The mechanic said that he just closed his garage but will do this favor to me by checking what is wrong. He checked, asked me to change the part, volunteered to get the part from his shop, gave me his owner's cell number to find out the prize and the owner said that since the garage is closed, he will send me the warranty card by courier next day.

How did I find out the scam? I decided to get the warranty card myself and when I went to that garage, found that no one by the mechanic or the owner's name worked there. The garage specialises in two wheeler servicing and not four wheeler and the owner of the garage, a nice lady, chuckled and said I was a victim of a elaborate scam. She called it Shendi, which in Mumbai means someone made a fool of you.
I have the cell number of the guy (probably a prepaid), do you think it's worth filing a complaint?
Consolation - atleast the car didn't blow.

Women have a much better time than men in this world. There are far more things forbidden to them - Oscar Wilde

Miss India

Like the new femina miss India collection from d'damas ad which is being aired on TV these days. Hats off to the ad agency guys who came up with this brilliant ad which makes a total mockery of the miss India contest and contestants. I think the intent of the ad was to promote the jewellery line and miss India contest but ended up making a huge mockery of the whole show.
On a different note, totally impressed by Ekta Choudhary. Her answer to the final question was mind blowing. Shows a sharp and sensitive mind. She was impressive from the 'get go' even though she fumbled a bit. Was rooting for her as she came across with a lot of personality and glad to note that she won. Wish, I had put my money on her as well. Would have made a bundle.

Affordable housing – 20th floor slums

India is moving towards affordable housing. Translation: developers will start building houses which will be in the sub 30 Lakhs per flat category. In smaller cities, typically tier II and III, this translates into, 1000-1300 sq ft, 2-3 BHK flats which are reasonably sized. However, in Tier I cities, specifically cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad this will translate into a 600-800 sq ft flats in the 1-2 BHK category. I like delaying getting into the main topic, just like the developers who like delaying the project after taking money from customers. To make it affordable developers will start squeezing the space out of the flats without changing the per sq ft rate. Their profit is important than a living space for an individual so the sizes will become small. Living room will look like a small bedroom, room will shrink to the size of a small bathroom, and bathrooms will shrink to the size of bathrooms found in Indian trains. So now a person will own a house in a plush apartment complex in a nice suburb in Mumbai but the living space in the house will not be enough for a family of four. Each building will have more than 6-8 flats per floor to maximize floor space. The dividing walls between the flats will be reduced from 8 inches thickness to 4 inches. That’s why the title. If you have been to a chawl in Mumbai, you will easily understand. This is how people in chawls and slums live. They are totally cramped, in each other’s spaces and without any privacy. In case you haven’t seen a chawl, suggest watch Vaastav for better understanding. You might feel like killing yourself after watching the movie but atleast you will die a knowledgeable person.

Advantages:

• No need for a TV as saas bahu episodes could be heard from each household. Thanks to the thin dividing walls.
• People will be in each other’s spaces. Just like married couples and every one knows how happy married couples are. Sukh dukh ke saathi. This will promote community bonding and harmony.
• Kaam waali bai will not have to search for multiple jobs in different locations. She will be able to work all day on one floor.
• BMCs dream of restricting usage to 45 litres per person can be realized as smaller house will require less water.
• Every person’s dream will be realized. Ek ghar ho sapno ka will not just be a catch phrase or a dream but will be a reality.
• Population will come under control. Earlier it was hum do humaare do. With space constraint it will become hum do humaare ek or better yet, hum do humaare rehane do.

Credit Card Fraud

You always hear about credit card frauds happening all over the world but never imagine that one day you might also become a victim. You will have one person in your group who will advice you against using the card online or using a credit card altogether due to such frauds. You would have brushed such fears as unwarranted and gone on using the card happily. I am one of those, who have always brushed away the thought of becoming a prey to credit card fraud, until today.

I am a proud contributor to the statistics about people whose credit card has been used fraudulently. Mine was online purchase of tickets for Delhi and god knows which other destinations. The perpetrator/s used the card to purchase flight tickets on two different airlines. In the second purchase they ( I am using plural as I believe there has to be more than one) cancelled the ticket immediately to get a credit note from the airline which can then be used at a later stage to book tickets.

Angry, irritated and indignant that something like this can still happen to you in this day and age of hi-tech security, enough fraud checks in place and more importantly the trust you place in your vendors to keep the sanctity of the credit card information. Extremely impressed with the ICICI credit card fraud detection department for promptly following up with me to confirm if I made the purchases or not and then taking appropriate action. This timely step will save the bank and yours truly a bundle as all the tickets have been cancelled and the credit note blocked.

Extremely pissed at the airlines that in-spite of repeated complaints, a case filed against them and won and many protests they continue to give a credit note to the customer in lieu of ticket cancellation than refund the money back to the customer. To avoid such frauds they have to start paying back the refund money to the customer. If this refund system was in place don't think anyone would have used the card online to buy flight tickets and then cancelled to get the credit note which can then be sold to some spurious travel agent who can use the note to make tickets for someone else. The criminals don't gain anything if they cancel the ticket as the money goes back to the cardholder. Not saying that this solution will put an end to frauds but will at-least result in one additional control in place to prevent frauds.
My entire family believes in 'cash is king' and I was the exception. I can see all of them now with the "listen to your family, told you so" expression.

Jab bhi hum unka naam lete hain
apne dil se inteqam lete hain
apni barbadiyon ke fasane main
apne dosto ka naam lete hain
unki galiyon mein ab basera nahi
khud ko yehi paigam dete hain