Friday, December 19, 2008

True Lies

Lies are not so bad after all, are they?

Is there anyone who ever lived in this world without telling a single lie? I cannot think of anyone who practically did it. Remember Jim Carrey’s “Liar Liar”? No one can ever be truthful in his whole life. I’ve heard of the story of Raja HariChandra and his truthfulness, but I feel that is just a myth. I’m certain if he lived, even he’d have lied, at least once in his life.

Lies do good to you at times.  I think I’d have lied to practically everyone I know, at least once. Imagine a friend asks you about her new hairstyle which she just got done for an exorbitant amount of money. And you feel it is the worst haircut ever. What would you do? Would you tell her that the haircut looks horrible and be happy that you told the “truth”? Or would lie to her that she’s looking gorgeous in that haircut? If you lied (what I think I’d have done ) you just made another person happy with a simple lie. Huh? So calling someone a “liar” can actually be a compliment to him ‘cos he’d have made someone happy by being a liar? Think again…………. You could lie and call him a truthful guy, you just lied and made him happy……

Happy lying………………

 

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Basic (Indian) Instinct

There is a chain of movie theatres in US, called Showcase cinemas. They have a ticket counter at the entrance, where you buy a ticket and then you are allowed into a corridor from where you could enter any of the movie halls. An Indian friend of ours, who resides in the US, was telling us that actually we could buy one ticket and then watch as many movies as possible in a whole day in that multiplex. There are no ticket checkers for each movie hall, as we have here in India. He added on with a smile,” Only Indians do this, though!!”.  We being an Indian gang, we too did it, we bought one ticket and went into more than one movie hall. This is the basic instinct of Indians. We won’t miss a single opportunity where we could sneak in and save money. Bargaining is also very Indian. There is a Russell Peter’s episode I saw once in YouTube about  an Indian bargaining with a Chinese guy ( Its really funny ). If there is a long queue at a freeway exit and you see a car that drives past all the cars waiting in the queue to reach the front end of the queue, he’s got to be an Indian. 

During my short trip to the US, I was really amazed about how the people there obey traffic rules, how they painstakingly yield for each and every pedestrian standing by the road, how less they honk, how polite they are. I was actually thinking of a time when people here in India (including me) be polite and obey traffic rules. But then, after thinking of what Indians do back in US, I gave up my dreams. We are very Indian, and so will we be. 

My very first lines….

I typed it wrong again!!! Bolg instead of Blog ( and hence the very name of my blog )…. I never believed in conventional typing skills ( like most of us ) and always press the keys whichever way I liked.  Saying about typing, I recall that in my childhood days there were a lot of typewriting institutes which taught how to type. Typewriting was taken as a career option especially for middle class girls in those days. I wonder if there is any more of those typewriting institutes today. Probably not….

I’d been brooding over the idea of starting a Blog for quite a bit, the idea struck me when I was traveling in train alone back to Bangalore from home one Sunday. I am getting bored of myself and was standing at the door of the train, with wind in my hairs ( no sand at my feet though J ) …. Hoping that could trigger some innovation. I wanted to do something different in life. There are more than a million software engineers working for various MNCs in Bangalore. The common joke is that you throw a stone anywhere in Bangalore, it will either fall on a dog or on a software engineer. I’m just not content by being one among them. I wanted to be on my own. So I was standing there, hoping to get a spark that could change my career. Why don’t I start a company, a hotel, a web site at least……..Finally.. I said to myself: “Listen, why don’t you try to write a blog. After all, it is the easiest thing to do”. Even though the idea is not going to change my career or do anything of that sort, at least there is some creative element in it. The whole idea about starting a blog has been with me ever since I read the blog of my first manager (Sunshine Days, by Suresh Nair). So here I am, writing the first and may be the last (I sincerely hope not), I am a good starter but a very bad finisher!!!!

 

The past week was a terror week for India,. India’s 9/11 just got over, with a chilling death and destruction count.  I saw the pictures in the newspapers of the terrorists, there were teenagers of my age, in a T-shirt and a backpack. I really wonder how much amount of brain washing would have been done to these chaps to make them do this cruelty. Or, was this act their own choice of doing something “different” in life? God knows.  Don’t worry; I am not going to comment on terrorism itself, there would be millions of bloggers busy writing about it anyways. I want to comment on a movie about terrorism I saw a couple of months back. The movie was titled “The traitor”. It is about terrorism, but unlike most other movies, it glorifies the actual meaning of Quran and Islam. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a Muslim, neither am I trying to promote Islam.  I was moved when I saw this movie. This movie is about a Muslim who helps the agencies to crack down Islam terrorists.