Once Upon A Time

Abhishek Das is dead.

6-FEB-09

He was a student of St. Xavier's College, Kolkata, in the second year of B.Sc. Computer Science Honours. I didn't know him very well.

I do not wish to elaborate. If you have an insatiable urge to know more, go here.

It is so easy, so very simple, to say "may he rest in peace". A generic phrase for A Generic Death (that is what it is for most of us) - just another statistic for the highways.

Soon, we shall all forget, and Abhishek will not touch our lives again, save in memory.

I cannot offer him much, for he no longer needs the things we can give him.

Auf Wiedersehen,

Abhishek Das

Mumbai Mayhem

No more words. Truth. Just simple truth.

1. The NSG commandos have captured and interrogated a terrorist from the Taj.
2. He has revealed his name, the names of many of the others involved, as well as their objectives.
3. All of the terrorists were Pakistani nationals, with two possibly holding British passports.
4. They came from Karachi.
5. They were planning to reduce the Taj and the Oberoi to rubble in a 9/11 style set of blasts (multiple references to 9/11 were there in the confession)
6. The boat they came in was actually an Indian boat which had been seized by Pakistani Marine Police (unconfirmed, but the Pakistani Marine Police has been refusing to return seized Indian fishing boats and trawlers for the last 12 months - if the boat was really one of these, then one must suspect that these attacks were in the planning stage even then)
7. They had orders to "kill till the last breath", and enough ammunition to obey those orders.
8. The explosives they carried were not the only ones they had access to : more had been shipped in earlier.
9. All of them had received extensive training in using firearms.
10. Their target was the Indian economy, and they aimed to destroy the country's symbols of prosperity, and reduce international trust in the country.

On top of all this, the Government of Pakistan is being exceptionally cagey. It is obvious that the American and British Governments will not agree to the fact that current Democracy in Pakistan (for the most part) is tacitly supporting the terrorists attacking India, because well.. "How can it be ! Its Democracy !" .

It is a democracy The American and British Governments helped set up - and now, if it turns out that it is aiding and abetting terrorists, they will lose face ( its a matter of Pride, you see - what matter the lives of a hundred stupid Indians when the very pride of the Queen, God bless Her Soul, is on the Line ?). And, currently, they are simply in a state of childish denial -" I helped make this, so it can't possibly be bad". Sadly, Countries, unlike Children, cannot afford to be juvenile.

The lashkar-e-toiba leader gave speeches in public in Pakistan without fear of attack ( you see, even thought the Lashkar is a banned group, they have renamed themselves the Jama'at-ud-Da'wah, and the banning of this new(!) group is apparently held up by red tape, and as the fellow speaking said that he was the leader of the jama'at, and not the lashkar, they didn't want to arrest him).

The Pakistani Foreign Minister, when interviewed by Prannoy Roy, put forth a slew of badly constructed lies ( I mean, if you're going to lie and misdirect and be generally disingenuous, you might as well try to do it well). The Pakistani Government has gone on a U-turn, after saying that they will send the ISI chief to India - they have decided not to (maybe his double isn't ready yet, or his cover story still has a few patches which require a few more people to be killed before it is watertight). The Pakistani foreign minister interview with Prannoy Roy.

On Terror

The recent attacks in Mumbai have resulted in a massive furore over the sheer level of incompetence shown by the police and the intelligence division. I find these accusations foolish, and a complete waste of time. India is an incredibly diverse country with a massive, massive population, and its almost impossible to keep track of your own children, let alone unknown vigilantes.

The blasts that are now taking place all over the country are a disgrace to whatever religion these "terrorists" claim to follow - in this matter, I have a bone to pick with the BBC; they keep talking about "Islamic militants" and "Hindu militants". They are no longer Muslim or Hindu - they are militants using the names of these religions to hurt, maim and willfully destroy lives, so I request that the BBC calls them "terrorists", and just that.

I, sadly, have little knowledge of Islam; but even I know that one has to win the Greater Jihad before one can fight the lesser jihad. And even I know that fighting and hurting people in the name of religion , is definitely "lesser".

I am a Hindu, and as far as "Hindu terrorism" is concerned, I find that phrase to be an impossible one. Hinduism is not so much a religion as a mindset : a soulset would be nearer the truth, but utterly incomprehensible to most. Hinduism has no doctrines, no laws, no concept of heresy, no chains at all. It believes that every religion is correct, and that "swadharmanishtha" - belief in one's own faith is among the most respectable of virtues (ie., ceteris paribus, a devout christian is more respectable than a not-so-devout Hindu).

You do not need to go to a temple to be a Hindu. You need not perform rituals. You can eat beef. You can live, you can die, but the one thing a Hindu is expected to do is this : the right thing. A true Hindu cannot hate, for he or she would believe that everything is god - even the one they hate is but a manifestation of god.

I find it quite ridiculous that "Hindu terrorism" is taken seriously. They are either Hindu, or terrorists : they cannot be both. I could speak on for hours about various old incidents (Babri, etc.) - and there are many stories to tell, about how there was really not much tension at all, until some "leaders" turned up and stirred the mob, and the mob did as mobs do : mobbed.

It had nothing to do with Hinduism or Islam - Imagine an orator speaking to a group of uneducated British Christians, all farmers and clerks and what we so easily generalise as "common men". Imagine this orator telling them that a hedonism-based club bas been built over the birthplace of Jesus Christ. Now imagine that this mob is directly in front of this site, mysteriously armed (these are "common men and women").. do you want to imagine ?

We must not allow these events to sow mistrust within us, for that is the objective of these "terrorists" - unlike attacks elsewhere, where fear is the objective, these attacks in India have a different target : our trust. We live in India, a country where one almost always has people from three different religions within earshot.

These attacks are aimed at our bonds : to make us lose the trust which allows all of us to live in harmony : and we cannot afford to lose that peace, because then, there will be war, and this war will never end, because trust, once broken, is difficult to reforge.

Difficult. And I'm lazy, and I'll finish by B.Sc. in some time; so here's a little note : I would prefer it if my elders left me a world to live in, as opposed to a battleground. I would like to be able to worry about having to choose between specializing in AI or IT, rather than worrying about what religion the fellow sitting across me follows. I would like to live.

Hmm. Personally, looking at your track record, my dear elders, "leaders" and politicians.. I dont' think most of us will have a chance to do so.

Oh well. Its nice to be immortal like me. Too bad it only lasts until I die.

*praying for absinthe

Debayan Gupta

Expanding and collapsing divs, And the common cold

This page uses css, and a little bit of js to create clickable expanding and collapsing divs : link.

I am suffering from an attack by the evil rhinovirus, and my exams are on Thursday. Boo hoo.

On a (considerably) brighter note, I spent the last few hours reading badly drawn cartoons. I have no idea why I am feeling so elated about it.

My neighbours are deconstructing their house again - fourteen workers and a "rajmistri" breaking and building things; by sunset, my house looks like Pompeii, only with a thicker layer of dust. This, combined with the fact that I am horribly (and when I say horribly, I mean _horribly_ ) allergic to dust, means that I am constantly on the verge of arson.

Madness is not like gravity, its like having only Ctrl+Alt+Del buttons..

Building built.. now for the bill

Long time no blog. I've been quite busy these last few months, with exams and whatnot. However, here's some good news : I've built a new website for the SXCSU ( St. Xavier's College Students' Union) link.

Its not very good ( because they're using a background image, and insisted I use frames*), but I've built some interesting code into the page, and you're welcome to use any and all code on the site. 

I came up against some problems with colours and linking (because the mainpage has a background, and none of inner pages do ), and had to use a bit of code to solve it - just go to any deeper page to see it, say here : link.

One of the main problems I had was cross-browser integration, and DOCTYPE s. I mean, its very irritating when I have to use jS just to build a marquee ! I do understand W3C's point, though, and I am currently building a page using CSS ( and HTML 4.01 strict). I'll put up a version of that page soon enough, and I'll build an empty version so that people can use the code for their own pages.

I will be putting up some of the nicer codes I've come across, and various ways to create all kinds of nice effects, as well as a list of good web pages providing info about this kind of stuff : what amazes me is that there are so many pages with so much data, but no helpful information whatsoever. For example, the current version of the sxcsu runs better in quirks mode ! If I put in a doctype, it prevents me from resizing the frame, and generally wreaks havoc on the entire system.

I included a css navigation bar with progressive enhancement using jS, so that it checks if top=self, and if so, doesn't hide a navigation bar on the top of the page, with a link to the home page. This means that each page has a link to the mainpage, allowing users and bots some path to follow.

I included a similar code on the mainpage as well, with links to all my important pages, but I've included a 'pop out of frame' code.. so it never really displays it, but its good for bots.

Adios !

Dowedzenia !

Auf Weidersehen !

Nomoskar !

Nikal jao mere nazron ke samne se !

Bye,

Deabayan Gupta

* frames - and I quote "when we click, the whole page must not reload, but only a smaller window inside the page, which will contain another webpage"; I suppose I could have used the OBJECT tag, but what the heck -  it has the same problem with navigation.

How to embed background music in googlepages

A lot of people have been asking me about this - which is no surprise, seeing as the popular "solution" to this seems to be to publish the page, save it, edit the code, upload as a file, and link to this file. This means that your ability to edit the page is at par with the competence of the Kolkata Municipality.

So here's the easy way

First, upload or find the URL of the music file that you wish to play in the background.

Once you've uploaded your music file - pulp.mid in this case, just paste the following code into your page. (Just go to the right bottom corner of the screen and click on 'edit html' : once there, just paste the code.)




(Click on the image if it is unreadable - I would have used text, but blogger also has a similar code, so it'll just disappear..)

Its possible to embed anything using this code, not just music. Once the first line is written, you can write html code normally.

N.B. : It is advisable to put this code at the bottom of your page, so that you can use the googlepages interface with greater ease.

This is twenty per cent skill. Adios Amigos!

How to download videos from Youtube, Dailymotion,et cetera

Some of my friends have been asking me for posts on a few things, like how to save flash videos(youtube, etc.) and play them, and also on how to embed sounds, or other things in googlepages. So, here's the first one...


Step 1 : Get the video

If the site does not seem to allow saving, You can get the video by using a website like http://www.techcrunch.com/get-youtube-movie/ or, just wait for the video to load (all of it), then go to your Temporary Internet Files folder, and copy the file to another folder.

For Firefox users:
Just open firefox, and type in about:cache?device=disk as the URL. The folder used for Temporary internet files will be displayed, as well, as the various files and their details. Just search for the URL of the video, and then open the folder and copy the file by seeing the file size. Arranging the icons according to size is usually a good idea.

For IE users :
In many computers, the Temporary Internet files folder is hidden, so to view it, you'll have to change your view. To do this, just open any folder, and go to:
Tools > Folder Options > View (the second tab)

Here, change the following :
A) In Hidden files and Folders, select Show hidden files and folders
B) Uncheck the box saying Hide protected operating system files

Now go to
C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR USERNAME\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files
And copy the file to your chosen folder.

If you have trouble finding the file, there are three common ways of identifying it-
A) Right click, and arrange icons by size - your videos will be larger than most other files.
B) Arrange by Modified - if your video was the last thing you loaded, then your video will be the large file at the end of the file list.
C) The name of the file will often begin or end with the name it has on the URL, so,
www.blahblah.com/videonum=drw43rfsf will often have the name drw43rfsf.

Step 2 : Get a player or codec

There are many ways of playing these files, but the three most common ways are to use a flash video player, or to install a codec, so it plays in Windows Media Player, or to use another player like VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/).

There are plenty of flash video players available, however, it is often difficult to know which ones are safe to use, so be sure to scan it before running.

As for codecs, the one I use is FFDshow (I actually installed something called PlayFLV, which required FFDshow to play most new files). This, once installed, allows you to play numerous file types on Windows MediaPlayer.
FFDshow can be found at : http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow

. dot . dot . dot .

Been a long time

Hello World. Its been a long time since my last post, and it seems to me, that 'soory'[sic] seems to be a most inadequate word.

I have been wasting my time in a number of new ways, ranging from playing Minesweeper to trying to imitate a crow to mugging words for GRE (I shall soon put up a post detailing said preparations and the sites I have found useful). That being said, it has come to my attention that I am woefully behind on my plans for WORLD DOMINATION, OR FAILING THAT, BECOMING FILTHY RICH.

So, here I am.

Doin' just Fine here in Nadigram. Just Dandy.

With this fiasco in Nandigram, the esteemed 'Leaders' of the Government of West Bengal have undeniably earned their position as the most utterly ignorant government in the history of India.

According to our government, when some violence broke out in the Nandigram area, the CPM party sent some of its 'boys' to 'resolve' the problem. The Police were told to ensure that the 'boys' faced no trouble, and they obeyed, in the cheerfully spineless manner the residents of this state have come to expect of our Police Force.

Fact to Ignore #1: Who the @*%$ are these 'boys' to enforce peace ? There is a difference between supporters of a political party, and enforcers of Law and Order in a democratic country.

Fact to Ignore #2: The cauldron of violence had been boiling in the Nandigram area for quite a while, however, the Government chose to ignore it until it was on the daily news - it would appear the the Government depends on 'Star Ananda', 'Tara News', and 'Chobbish Ghonta' to inform it of what is going on in its own state. It should be noted that the last, 'Chobbish Ghonta' is, through various means, influenced, if not entirely controlled, by the CPM party.

Fact to Ignore #3: The Government could see, on live television, the atrocities being committed in Nandigram. They still assured the public that Nandigram was now an entirely peaceful area, and the only trouble had been caused by Maoists and Trinamul supporters (NB. I do not possess any sort of bias towards any of these parties - I am, in Twainian tradition, entirely democratic - I hate them all equally). Also, I have till date been unable to find any reason for the existence of these 'Maoists' - Their agenda seems to be rather ..hazy.. I would give a lot to know exactly what it is they want.

Here is the TRUTH, mon ami - The CPM cadres in te Nandigram area have alredy murdered, raped, and pillaged (though, in some cases, they seem to have forgotten the Golden Rule of Invasion : pillage, then burn) - if peace is restored to the region, and Justice is served, they're facing, at best, a decade or five in prison. They are cornered rats, and thus, they act and fight like vermin. Even as I type, they kill more people - and they shall kill until they are stopped. The question now, my friends, is not who these people are, or what should be done to them - I for one, would like to spare more thought on the victims and the survivors, rather than the murderers.
This is not the first time a village has been 'taken' by the CPM - this has happened many times in the past, however, this is the first time the media has caught them red handed.

There is, of course, another reason for the violence - we know why these CPM cadres are fighting - but what motivates the people who are fighting against them ? Sadly, it is not merely love for their land which sets their hearts aflame. The tragic truth runs thus - The CPM, in wanting to control more votes, has been, for a not inconsiderable period of time, letting in illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. This has resulted in a large number of terrorists being escorted over the border of the Republic of India by the CPM. This is, perhaps , part of the reason why there are not many terrorist attacks in West Bengal - the terrorists do not wish to attract attention to the hole in the wall.

The population of Nandigram contained many such immigrants, who have no legal means of survival outside the areas where the CPM cheerfully turns a blind eye to the fact that the population of an area id nearly triple of what it should be (the number of false ration cards in West Bengal is, according to many estimates, comparable to, and perhaps even greater then the number of legal ration cards). These people had nowhere to go if the land on which they lived was seized by the government - and they would, of course, get no compensation - they were not supposed t be there in the first place ! And So, they fought back. Cornered rats, against vermin who are now in the same boat.

A disgusting, revolting, and utterly inhumane condition, caused by the foolishness and lack of foresight of the people of West Bengal - for I find them the true criminals in this case ! Criminals, who have not revolted against the atrocities of the government earlier, before it escalated to such levels. Criminals, because of whom, few will now wish to invest in this state. Criminals, who are to blame for this - for all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

I, for one, am most displeased (I am well recognized for my talent for understatement) with the actions of the government. If I could, I would roast that fool of a speaker Biman Bose over a slow fire. By the GODS, what an imbecile ! "A new Sun has risen in Nandigram". My foot. They call themselves communists.. Leftists (!) - when they know nothing of what they preach, and are more likely to think of plates then philosophy when Plato is mentioned.

Pathetic.

A big name in India today

Avul Pakir Jainulbadeen Abdul Kalam.

Big name indeed - I remember reading an old cartoon, where one student is complaining to his teacher regarding the unfairness of his punishment, as compared to that of another student involved in the mischief , writing his name on the board one hundred times, citing the fact that "His name is Raj Ray, and mine is Shreegopala Chandraswamy Venkataraghavan Subramanian".

These .. Indian Politicians (I have tried and failed to find a worse insult to throw at them) seek to replace Avul Pakir Jainulbadeen Abdul Kalam ! With who ? The current candidates may be very nice people (or not!) but APJ Abdul Kalam is not an easy man to replace - If this had been a company, the executive who thought of firing him would be on the streets by now- which goes to explain the state of our country.

The cheap methods employed by both the sides in canvassing their candidates for the role of President of the Republic of India are nothing less than disgusting (and criminally foolish, but the rest of them appear to be even more stupid than I had initially suspected).

One one hand, we have a candidate who was pushed up by the media, which was jumping up and down about the 'first Female president', to a position where she was receiving more publicity than most presidents do. While she is perhaps... 'qualified', according to our eminent political minds, she was part of several mills which have shown large losses. The promoters of her campaign say that she had nothing to do with this, and cite the fact that some 74 other mills were also experiencing less than profitable accounts. That is fine and well, but not a good excuse - we are not asking any of the other mill owners to become the President of the Republic of India, are we ? What I want to ask is this : Do we really want a person who ran a mere sugar mill (was it sugar ?) into the red; Tens of crores into the red, running our country ?

On the other hand, we have a Vice President. A good person perhaps, but a nonentity.

That's what an Indian President was all about - nonexistence. The person chosen was usually a well educated nonentity . but that changed when Dr. Kalam came along. He was the first President whose presence was felt by the world. A man of immense knowledge, potential and moral strength, and he possessed the two qualities I think any person in any governmental position should require - Patriotism, and Intelligence. How many of our politicians are patriotic ? (I shall not mention intelligence. The two do not belong in the same sentence.)

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. Padma Bhushan. Padma Vibhushan. Bharat Ratna. Scientist. Known to be a morally upstanding person. Son of a fisherman. Has written books bought by people other than those paid to buy them.

Nonentity #458216. Politician.

(Enough joking around - we all know who's actually going to be the president if those two are not.)

Sonia Gandhi nee Maino (she has her own website). Has written books. Politician.


What is our country coming to ?

Nettles

Yep. That's what my net service feels like. been offline for two weeks.

Are you pondering what I'm pondering .. ?

It is amusing to note that one of the only jobs in India today which do not require any educational qualifications whatsoever is that of the politician. We find ourselves at a point in time, space, and general incompetence, where we require the lowest office clerks to possess degrees, while we allow ourselves to be ruled (no less !) by fools, criminals, and people who lave long since passed into senility. The imbeciles who 'govern' us are apparently representative of the people of India; If this is true, then such people should not be allowed to vote. Look at them ! Criminals with murder cases by the dozen against them, corrupt to the point that a single honest act evinces astonishment from the intelligent population (if such an entity exists; I merely speak for myself and a few of my friends).

Democracy ? It is with great effort that I am able to restrain myself from cursing this term. The word promises much. It brings before us a beautiful vision. Nonsense. That's what it is. Democracy ? Mobocracy is more like it. We allow ourselves to be ruled be people elected by a mob. A country, in the end, is just another team effort, just like any large business; the employees must be happy.. the customers satisfied, and the surplus (I like this term better than 'profit') generated for the shareholders as large as possible. What company allows a person with no qualification (And I do not speak in mere educational terms - an illiterate person is patently qualified if he or she has the knowledge and ability required, while a person with a doctorate may be entirely unqualified for the position ) to become its head ?

Any team effort requires a leader, or at least a manger, with the capability to lead. This person, then, must be inspirational, intelligent, and most importantly, must want to do what needs to be done to take the country forward. What we have is incompetent buffoons with IQs which have raised suspicions that they were switched at birth with shaved primates, whose primary interests seem to be pecuniary. They have embezzled so much money from their countries that, if caught, their jail sentences would likely cover the rest of their miserable lives.


Ah, how I rant..

The future before us is a bright one, if only we can find the strength to grab it. We come into the world a marvel of evolution; or creation, if you like, but a marvel nevertheless - and what do we do with our infinite potential ? We squander it.

There are good politicians. There are good policemen. There are good people, all over India, and the World, in great numbers. What there is not enough of, is initiative. The will to change, to say, that This Is Wrong, let me change it; the usual answer in our minds, is a 'Why should I do anything.. nobody else is.. Its not my responsibility !' - an answer fraught with our apathy, our fear of being ostracized, and most of all, our inherent mental inertia.

Yet.. what are we likely to do about it ? How many intelligent, competent people will sacrifice the rest of their lives to become politicians ? Because that is what it is - it is almost a vocation; a politician has to do the same thing as the soldier, and give up his or her life for the Country, but where the greatest sacrifice required of a soldier is death, the political arena demands life, a lifetime of service. How many are prepared to give up lucrative careers to do this ? There are no money boxes in the future, only toil.. I confess that I, for one, would not. I had once entertained the idea of governing, but I have long since lost my faith in humanity, as pathetic as it has become, and am unable to find it in myself to care, to care so much that I should give up my life.
And so, we end up with the leftovers of society becoming the rulers of it.

Ah, the irony of it.


But all is not lost - there are Harsh Manders in our India, and a hundred Teesta Setalvads whom we walk past in the street. A Dilip D'Souza types away in the shadow of the dilapidated building to the right. The dim, flickering light from the unstable looking lamp post, casting more shadow than light reveals a Ram Puniyani in deep thought, looking up at the skies. Perhaps its the 'Accusation : Its the Management's fault' syndrome which is to blame for much of the unhappiness - either way, a long road lies before us - forget the thousand miles, and take the first step !



Aviroop. You're it.


Todays Tidbit : Sacred Games (Vikram Chandra)

Twist and Shout - The Soap is Watching You

Television, of late, has become an instrument for transmission of so called 'entertainment', which, as the days go by, has become increasingly inane. This aforementioned noun has come to represent some of the most potent mentally damaging elements imaginable, all packed into a good-sized multiple-hour chunk of what little leisure time we have.

I have become so irritated with the programs these fools air, that I have stopped watching television, save for reruns of Numbers, Friends, and the occasional movie. Most of the shows are not only bad, but downright unwatchable; the rest are reruns. These shows are apparently aimed at the general public; the makers' excuse being that "this is what our consumers want", and they carry on making these pathetic excuses for serials and reality shows - and these programs are driving the average IQ down even further.

First, the infamous soaps. Let me speak of the good before the bad : Hum Log, Buniyaad, and even some others .. say Tara, Saans, Banegi Apni Baat and Kora Kaagaz were, on the whole, not as full of fæcal matter as expected. The rest ? Well..

The Indian soap opera is Stereotypical with a Capital S. It is full to the brim with plot holes, and the storyline is more unrealistic than that of most fiction/fantasy novels. As for the excuse .. " this is what the audience wants" ? Excuse my language; Bullshit. Every single person I know and respect dislikes these soaps. I know some who watch them, but they do so purely out of .. well - desperation (!) ; I quote , "There's nothing else to watch. I have nothing to do all afternoon - and the only thing on is this.".

What must be understood by these producers and directors is that there is a great dearth of quality programs of Indian television. What does one watch when one does not wish to watch Engineering the Impossible, or Lonely Planet, or a News channel (this last one shall be the subject of a future post, dattebayo) ?

The soaps of India are of a special variety - they contain stereotypical Indian housewives, for the most part (the audience they are aimed at ), and then, these housewives have adventures. Of what Kind, you ask ? Well, there is, of course, the silent battle between different females in a joint family to wrest control of the 'ghar ki chabi', which, apparently, is more sought after by these people than the Crown Jewels. There is, of course, luxury - 300 crores ? Pah ! That's nothing - make it 600, and we'll talk. This, of course, is aimed at the middle class families - targeted on their dreams of wealth. The serials give an entirely erroneous portrayal of the corporate world, with takeovers being performed on a word and a document, in a matter of minutes. The legal aspects are woefully handled, with the levels of sheer incompetence in plot research sinking to incomprehensible depths.

The dialogue is unnecessarily grandiose and filled with false melodrama, with the most pathetic music in the background - There are tribal music drum beats with people shouting chants from the Mahabharata (when the Good people in white, or at least light coloured sarees and Kurtas are successfully standing against the Bad people, who are usually richer, and wear dark colours). There are ghostly sounds, punctuated by cat screeches , and (pathetic) hip hop songs; there are even parts with full blown music from hindi films, usually at 'parties' (these may be identified by the presence of balloons and cake, regardless of occasion).

These serials can be identified from the following Irritating Characteristics -

1. Crying scenes - female protagonists will inevitably burst into tears at every available opportunity (and the scripts provide for plenty) and the Evil Female will stand and watch, with dramatic music adding to the loathsome mix.
2. The "Bees Saal Baad" feature; one can identify this occurrence by the sudden appearance of grays in hair, of otherwise unchanged characters, as well as the introduction of new young individuals, who are the children of the now older characters. This time shift is performed with an air of careless contempt, with children who were just born transforming into business tycoons, and others who were touching their teens becoming 20 somethings 'just out of college'.
3. The Face Off Trick - This plot twist has a person (The Good One, of course) be the unfortunate victim of some sort of mishap or the other,which results in amnesia, while the Bad One Has plastic surgery performed - which makes (usu.) her face look exactly like that of the unfortunate amnesiac (this includes differences in height, the voice, and even eye colour and defects ), and this Evil Person now goes on to wreak whatever havoc the script commands.
4. Massive attention to the quintessential 'Indian Family' ideals.
5. Money money money - If you hear a few hundred crores being carelessly shuffled, you're watching a soap.
6. The camera spin - The camera will spin wildly during many important scenes, with music, usually of the high octane melodramatic kind.
7. The never ending road - If you see episode 420 being aired, you're here.
8. Zero attention to current issues - if you see a show where the only thing people mention, even when using metaphors being the Mahabharata and other family members, The Soap is here. (never a mention of rural society, Aids, ie., general issues which ought to be of interest of every educated individual)
9. Aesthetics ? What's that ? Never heard of it. Does it have something to do with horses ?
10. General bull. You don't exactly need to know the finer points of baloney detection to get this.

Hm.. And I haven't even reached reality television yet. Oh well... I'll continue tomorrow, for tomorrow is another day.

Petrol costs less than bottled water in Venezuela.

Excuses

And if you don't like these, feel free to add to the list.

I know I've been off for quite a while.. oh well. Now that I'm back, I find myself in a quite a situation - there is the Mandatory Post On Nandigram to write, as well as one on bedbugs and one on the importance of food habits.. so much to do, so little time. .

Happy New Year !

Well, its been a long year, 2006 has... from Mamata fasting in order to save farmers from starvation, to Bush admitting that he had 'made a slight miscalculation' in invading Iraq (Note to newsreaders : it's e-rak, not eye-raq), to my mother discovering yet another way of cooking steamed cabbage (do not ask).
The Google Zeitgeist reveals, according to many, the level of the collective intelligence of humanity at any given time - let us see, then how humanity has evolved in the last year...

Google.com - Top Searches in 2006 1. bebo 2. myspace 3. world cup 4. metacafe 5. radioblog 6. wikipedia 7. video 8. rebelde 9. mininova 10. wiki

Google News - Top Searches in 2006 1. paris hilton 2. orlando bloom 3. cancer 4. podcasting 5. hurricane katrina 6. bankruptcy 7. martina hingis 8. autism 9. 2006 nfl draft 10. celebrity big brother 2006

Google.com - Top Searches of 2005 1. Myspace 2. Ares 3. Baidu 4. wikipedia 5. orkut 6. iTunes 7. Sky News 8. World of Warcraft 9. Green Day 10. Leonardo da Vinci

Google News - Top Searches in 2005 1. Janet Jackson 2. Hurricane Katrina 3. tsunami 4. xbox 360 5. Brad Pitt 6. Michael Jackson 7. American Idol 8. Britney Spears 9. Angelina Jolie 10. Harry Potter

Oh well. On that most jarring note,

Dowedzenia, Debayan.