WTF Prize of the year goes to...

I cant detach myself from my actions, but can I detach myself from the action of people who make decisions which affect all of us? Is it also so, that these decision makers are put in this place, because, having years of experience and 'wisdom' over the years, are a better judge of what is the right thing to do?

So what happens if what they do.. happens to enter my WTF Moment of the Year! I mean, Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize?? I think this definitely re-defines comparison of improbable circumstances. I mean, the dude is in office for a really short period of time, and does mostly stuff to save the US economy. Makes a couple of speeches about peace and nuclear disarmament. And voila! Nobel Peace Prize. Peace Prize???

What life changing and history altering stuff has he done yet? So, what has this committee done? In their post explaining why they selected Obama, the Nobel committee state that... "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons."

Vision?? Lots of people have vision... some people even have visions (and not the future changing ones, but crazy out of this world visions). So what was extra-special about Obama? Was George W Bush so bad that the guy who came after him got a Nobel prize just for being a nicer guy?

Obama’s just got started. Why couldn’t they have waited a year or two, and given it to him after he got some results or actually made ifference.

The nominees for the peace prize had to be finalized by Feb 2009. So that means, our newest winner of the Peace prize was in office for about a couple of weeks before he was nominated for a lifetime achievement award. How awesome is that?

Well, I hope that they, in their 108 years of experience, got their choice right. I mean, who knows? We all diss them now and Obama actually does what he he’s been so eloquently speaking about. Then, these guys will look good, wouldn’t they?

So, is their collective wisdom really right?

The End of the World... Really? Not Again!

So the world comes to an end in 2012. Not because Nostradamus said it, although I guess you can never say, coz nobody really knows what he said. This time, it’s because of a whole bunch of dead people. According to some "experts", it’s all over for humanity in 2012 because that’s what the Mayans said. Umm… hang on, but wasn’t it just that their calendar reset or something like that and not that they predicted the end of the world. But convenient, don’t you think? Scream ‘the end is nigh’ and point your finger at a civilization that sort of wound up tens of thousands of years ago and can’t be held accountable if it doesn’t end. Of course, when I say wound up, its not like they were some association or part of a company which shut shop because everybody knows you cant just walk out of a civilization. Or can you? Atleast some recent finds suggest that. These Mayans just got tired of being a civilization and walked off in the middle of lunch on a Monday afternoon. (Not sure about the meal and the hour, but wouldn’t that have been a good time to give it up?) I think it’s a great idea. I am pretty tired of this current civilization myself. Maybe I could get up and just go wild... Anyway, do you know what happened to these ultra ‘civilized’ Mayans? They gave up their ‘barbaric’ ways, found some cool Spanish conquistadors, and they all lived somewhat happily ever after. Makes for a great movie, no? Oh wait! Mel Gibson did that already.

I think it’s a great idea for a civilization to hit F5 after sometime. Humans are among the few species that accumulate history. It’s a good thing, is what I’ve been told. Like Newton said about standing on the shoulders of others and stuff, it seems our whole culture is built on what others did before. So there! We need to keep building on a vast knowledgebase of stuff that happened before so that we can survive today. That’s why people keep referring to times gone by as the “good old days”! Back then, there wasn’t so much to learn. And how old people keep saying my memory is not as good as it was. Of course it’s not, gramps! You never had to remember so much. So in the new-age world of civilization refresh, after a little while, we’ll just reset, and re-invent everything again. This would give so many people so much more opportunities to discover, invent and create again.

But then there is already some new age wisdom. One of the new-age belief systems is called Mayanism. See, we refreshed the Mayans! So, they’re back. But are they good this time around? Well, Mayanism’s basic premise is that the ancient Maya understood aspects of the human experience and human consciousness that remain poorly understood in modern Western culture! So, Mayanists will be, like, really deep, man! In addition, as a New Age belief system, Mayanism scorns academic scholarship, giving preference to knowledge gained through revelation and prophesy and to traditional knowledge. (or what is imagined to be traditional knowledge) Right on! Stuff it to the Stuffed Shirts! Do the voodoo!

And they say that Indians can’t let go of superstitions and primitive beliefs. It begs to be said that some time down the line, when these beliefs catch up with the urban crowd in cities, we’re all going to go to the villages and ‘unlearn’ our progressive belief system!

But it won’t come to that. The world will end in a spectacular disaster of epic proportions in 2012. Roland Emmerich, the new seer who has seen the end of the world in so many different ways (aliens, global warming, godzilla etc) now will oversee John Cusack and Amanda Peet trying to save some of us during this global catastrophe! So book your place now! Atleast you’ll get to see the movie in 2009… and remember, like it says in the movie poster, You were warned! (right here on my blog, ofcourse!)

Here we go again

it happens everytime. I begin to write and then it petters out. There's no excuse I know but the mind is a weird thing. It gets excited, attempts to create, loses steam and then moves onto something else. So many times have I developed whole novels and movies in my head and then woosh... they disappear into nothingness... really, woosh! havent u had ideas that wooshed away? But mine, well, they dont just woosh and go away. They pop up at a later time just to fill me with a guilt and feeling of uselessness at not having done something about their earlier wooshing.

So here I am. Post my leap into marital bliss (light humor for the wife), I had cut down on my reading. So, it was quite refreshing to catch up on some as recently, I've had some free time (not doing much at work compared to couple of hectic months previously) on my hands. Using my free time constructively (not!), I have done lots of reading. Both official (boring) and unofficial. (ranging from "ho hum" to "oh so funny, snort, snort!") Mostly blogs and such, but I chanced upon some really humorous stuff. This really got to me. I felt the familiar urge to start again.

Its really not so much that I had topics to write on than the urge to just write something. I dont know if that counts as the proper reason to do something like that, but hey, any reason to get going is good enough.

So, here we go... again... may it rain... in spain... on the plain... down the drain... with a fervor to cause pain... umm.. woosh(ed by me)

U get the point.

Delhi - 6

I just saw Delhi 6 and I wanted to put in some words regarding the movie from my point of view. I read the initial set of reviews, and as usual there are some who liked it and some who didnt. I dont have a totally polarized opinion of the movie. It was good in parts with the first half being very engaging, and humorous. The second half, works hard to tie in a lot of the disjoint first half, and bring itself to a rather eventful climax. But the underlying issue that leads to this climax is a little weak, almost forced just to get the story to the end. Ofcourse, the way the movie got stretched at the end was a little too much, and it seems the Bachchans come as a package deal - If you get one, you get another one free! The music is awesome, and you need to see the video of masakali to really appreciate the song. On the other hand, not really. The songs dont take aaway from the movie, and are part of the flow, which is cool. Technically, and dialogue wise, the movie is pretty good. Sonam Kapoor is really good, and Abhishek I guess has done an ok sort of role. I am still a little confused if he's actually like that in real life, because he sure doesnt sound like he had an American accent. It was more like an Indian trying to speak English with a fake accent, like Salman Khan. All the others have done a pretty good job. So overall, I recommend people to watch the movie for the first half, and most of the second half. Its a little preachy, and unfortunately it preaches an oft repeated communal message. But I guess a reminder never hurt any one. The only downside to the movie is the extended post climax section dragging itself to the end of the movie. I would recommend and say its a one time watch.