Oye Billo chaman!

Saw Omkara last night, late show as usual. I'm amazed by the fact that people can take a story written many centuries ago and spin it into something that people in present times can understand. I loved Maqbool (also by the same director) based on Macbeth and this one is equally sharp. I drove through Uttar Pradesh last year and was able to experience first-hand the anarchy prevalent there.

I remember stopping at this dhaba one afternoon, somewhere between Kanpur and Lucknow. I was sitting at a table sipping chai when three or four jeeps bearing the Samajwadi Party flags drove up and about 20 odd dudes got out. Half of them were carrying rifles and they wore the standard kurta/jeans attire complete with the "gamcha",tilak and stubble. Then one guy, probably the boss, started talking on his cellphone. "Haan, hum pehelwan ko bol diye hain....agar nahi utha to uthva lenge....." Trust me, you do not want to be caught listening in on that conversation. I'd be dunked in my chai like a glucose biscuit. As expected they left without paying. I used to complain that things in Gujarat aren't good enough until I went to U.P. and Bihar. Take your average Delhi taxi driver and multiply him by 100 million. That's the cow-belt for you my friends.

Coming back to the movie, I'm really liking Shakespeare's dark side. Far better than the comedies. And when you bring back Iago as Langda Tyagi, man, what can I say! Superb! I love sinister characters......edgy, troubled, brilliant in a sick way. I haven''t read too much Shakespeare and I probably won't get around to doing so anytime soon, unless somebody re-writes it in more contemporary prose. Like I've just started reading the first book of Ashok Banker's version of the Ramayana....it's called The Prince of Ayodhya. Good stuff so far.

Non-stop rain here for 48 hours. Time to dust off the old "The End Is Near" sign. I've noticed rain is a regular topic in my posts. Maybe I'm British. The British did hang out in Saurashtra quite a bit you know. What the fuck am I typing???? Where's my chai?!?!

???????

O-kay. I found that I could access my blog about 15 minutes after I added the previous post. Wierd man. Oh well, at least I'm un-gagged and free to rant again...hehe.

JAI HIND! <-- feeble attempt to negate the possible consequence of recent outburst

"..............................."

That's right my friends, i've been gagged, by no less an entity than the Government of India! As of right now, my blog cannot be viewed by anyone from India or China (though I doubt the Chinese are lining up to read all this anyway........actually, neither is anyone in India) thanks to the govt's paranoia that blogs can be used to dissipate sensitive information and incite violence between communities.

BOMB, TERRORIST, AL QAEDA, OSAMA, DAWOOD, LASHKAR, RDX, LTTE, NAXALITE, ASSASINATE, ATTACK, BUSH, MASSAGE, MORON, PARLIAMENT, GRENADE, KILL

There, I said it.

Now I'll wait for the CBI, RAW, FBI, CIA and all the other acronymous agencies to come get me.

Note to Mr. Dayanidhi Maran, Union Minister, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India: Have you heard of a little something called email?

I knew we were trying to be like China but didn't think this is how it would happen. What's next, public stoning?

Tell everyone you know in India that they can still browse blogs by going to http://anonymouse.org/anonwww.html

Score so far:

Citizens 0
Stupid Politicians 1

168 hours

In the last one week.......

- Zidane turned into a bull and saw red (card), and consequently
- French bread was pounded by pasta
- Israel lost it and bombed everyone and their mother
- Mumbai took another one on the chin, and moved on to the next round
- ISRO screwed up a satellite launch (no pay-per-view for our lunghi-clad brethren for another year)
- I got engaged