Friday, March 31, 2006

Go, build that flyover, make Lata Mangeshkar take VRS, spare us her maasi's voice

This fight’s hit all the wrong rhyme, rhythm, note and metre: Mumbai Mirror (last heard, a newspaper) versus Lata Mangeshkar (once known as a great singer, and now known to oppose anything and flyovers flying past her house in Pedder Road). Mirror wasn’t the first one to carry a report about her objection to the flyover, so why did the veteran singer-turned-VRS-candidate object to it?

Lata says she never objected to the flyover (plain gibberish) and did not threaten to leave Mumbai for Sholapur, Kolhapur, Rampur, or Anyotherpur (none cares, anyway). The Mirror now says she did. And blah, and blah, and some more blah.

Take a break, ladies, and stop wasting newsprint. They come after hacking down valuable trees. Here's the piece anyway, if anyone cares an ant's backside.

http://www.mumbaimirror.com/nmirror/mmpaper.asp?sectid=1&articleid=33020062391357833020062394437

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

counting the ciggie butts at 2.16 am

It's a clear night.
Slightly, yummily, nice.
Just back from the balcony.
There isn't much to do at 2.16 am.
So I smoked another cigarrete, perhaps the fifteenth.
Or was it the seventh? Can't be sure about the numericals.
But I did count the cigeratte butts in the biggish 'ash-tray' they have here.
There were thirty-seven of them butts, but here's the if: I could have counted wrong.
Then again, I spent enough time to give it a second go, and recounted...only to stop at 37.
Do people smoke so much in office, or is it my imagination and acute sense solitary inanity?
Since I can't make this line longer than the previous one, it was time well spent. Well, almost.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

indian 'newsmakers' make me go ha ha hee hee hoo hoo

Indian ‘newsmakers’ never cease to amaze this Subject. Sample a couple of quotes from PTI stories (Ctrl C-ed and V-ed -- lowercased and all):

# Delhi Chief secretary s reghunathan called for a campaign to make capital the “most civilised, considerate and compassionate city” before the commonwealth games 2010 to be held here. “We have to bring in a tremendous change in the behavioural pattern of delhiites,” reghunathan said.

(The man, by the way, talking at some godknowswhat seminar organized by CII on March 22, and I almost fell off my chair reading the line. Is the man serious, is he joking, or is he seriously joking? Alas, that’s an answer only ‘civilised Delhiites’ can provide… after may be a few hundred years of metamorphosis)

# Dravid did not think that India had lost to a second-string England team which was without five key players. “They were always a competitive side. We were beaten by a better team,” he said.

(That, of course, is the Indian deewar. Pray, does he have any inkling how “better” that opposition would have been with those ‘five key players’. Does he realize he sounds like a 24-carat imbecile in his attempted attempt [no typo, this] to sound a true blue braveheart Aussie like his ‘guru Greg’, as the desi channels love to put it?)

Some more Dravidspeak:
# Dravid was not too critical at the way some of the batsmen threw away their wickets today, saying it happened under pressure. “I thought they chose the wrong option. But this happens under pressure,” he explained.

(And pray, when will ‘some of the batsmen’, who have played more Tests between them than the whole England team put together, ever learn to adapt to pressure? And how come the England bowlers did not buckle under that same pressure — even Shaun Udal, a 37-yr-old who in today’s cricketing parlance should play cricket with his kids in the kitchen garden in real pajamas but for some weird reason killing the Deewar’s men softly with his spin.)

Monday, March 13, 2006

game on, times now?

Finally, to stop sounding an 123-year-old cynical granddad with a bad cough, something good about a news channel: Times Now’s Faisal Sharief sounded good, spoke well, and presented the “historic” South Africa-Australia ODI even better. The fact that he’s an old sports hand and knows exactly what he is talking about came across pretty well, and his questions to the channel’s correspondent Dinesh Chopra in Mohali was pretty relevant. (Usually, what you expect is “Dinesh, tell us about the Indian/English team’s/fans’ reaction to SA’s historic victory?” or “how do you think the Indian team management/Sachin’s pet dog is looking at breaking the record 438?”, or some such inane query.

In contrast, CCN-IBN did just that inane stuff: asking fans and children in Delhi about their reaction (which stretched from “SA rocks, maan!” to “SA rocks, maan!”, with nothing in between, save for the odd “India can blast that”). Given their correspondent Nishant Arora’s repertoire and knowledge of the game (wonder if he knows chinaman from Mao), it’s good that they didn’t cut back to him following the match — at least not on the incredibly funny/irritating/take-your-pick Late Night Show, hosted by the equally funny/irritating/take-your-pick Vidya Shankar Aiyar, which I caught, ahem, late in the night.

NDTV… I don’t remember what they had. Ditto with Headlines Today. Reason? They gave me not the slightest reason to remember it after a good 20 hours or so.
And less said the better about the Hindi channels (please note: I have no linguistic bias besides the fact that they come across as abominable.)