Pro - pose

I just heard about this TV news reporter who proposed to his anchorwoman girlfriend on live television at the end of a news broadcast.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/entertainment/805210/journalist-proposes-to-anchor-on-air

The Indian news channels are infatuated with this story. Its understandable, to them, this must be the most romantic thing in the world. On the face of it, it looks to be a perfectly sincere and creative way to propose. But i can't help marveling at the brilliant idea of the reporter guy. Not because of the inherently innovative way he employed, but because of the near fail-proof nature of the plan.

Think of it from the anchorwoman's point of view: This was completely unexpected. True, to some, this might just be the perfect proposal. Provided the guy is the right match.
Now consider the situation where the woman wants to say no. the catch is that she can't say no without coming across as a heartless inhuman non- friend. I mean, who the hell says no to such an innovative and wonderful proposal, right ?
For the guy, its a win-win situation: She says yes, all's well that ends well; she says no, he becomes the martyr to creativity who was shot down by the evil anchorwoman who can't appreciate genuine love.
The thing becomes even more complex for the anchorwoman if she wants to actually consider her answer, like if she wants to think it over. What could she do, with the whole world watching ?
and her boss breathing down her neck ? (Oh cmon, if she says no, think of the boss' reaction: Ratings plummet negative publicity blah blah : in short, both her personal and professional lives are screwed up). The only option for her, say yes.
Moreover, the guy gets all the credit. 'oh, how brilliant that was! ' and 'He's such a romantic'
And the woman ? She's blissfully forgotten. She's the side show.
That's called strategy.

PS: In case you are reading this, Mr reporter, ( oh yeah, now thats a stretch ! ) im sure you meant well.
Thats the second straight post that might get me labelled as crazy :-/

But it (sp)Rained !

I had wanted to post something a few days ago, but was thwarted by the stubborn refusal of the bits net to get me signed into blogger.
Im just back from yet another trip to Bangalore, although unlike the others, this one was strictly a chumma trip.
Anyways, today i decided to go play tennis for a change. Back home, i play at least 4-5 hours on weekends. In college, due to the laughable courts combined with my racquet being nicely hoarded back home, my playing frequency is zero. However, today it seemed to be a favorable alternative to being bored to death, and so there i went, off to the newly being (re)built tennis court. Someone had mentioned the courts were blue like in US open, though made of tar. Well, that was enough to spark off my curiosity, and i went-a-searching for a tennis racquet. I found one with a friend, and promptly headed off to the courts.
There i found the nets hanging dead barely a feew inches over the ground, as if some hurricane had come there and demolished everything in its path. The courts, lived up (down) to my expectations of resembling more a road than a tennis court.
Anyways, all the effort gone into gearing up and walking right upto the tennis court was not going to go to waste, oh no. A few juniors playing, i joined them. Ah, long time. New court, new racquet, new opponents, and the ever so fickle wind changing direction every other minute, being sometimes a boon blowing cool sea-breeze into the face and sometimes a curse swinging the ball wildly according to its own whims and fancies. Anyways, it was fun simply because it was something other than staring at a 17 inch screen.
During the last rally, i sprained my leg. Perhaps it was due to the lack of tennis in the past 3 months. It should be just another sprain, i know. But i can't help glorifying it, because its been aeons since i had any physical injury. It feels good to be human sometimes. It might be a minor sprain, and then again, it might not. I can't really remember when i last sprained my ankle, or for that matter any part of the body. Its not that i don't play much. At home, tennis forms my major weekend activity. In college, of course, i take recourse to other activities, most of which involve sitting idiotically in front of the machine which im using to post this right now. Its just that I haven't got hurt much. All around me i see people on plasters and temporary crutches and Volinis. I kinda feel this sprain was long time due.

Obviously, i dint visit the doc or anythin, despite the assurance of some basketball n football players that i might regret it later that night. Lets see, if it swells to conspicuous levels, then i might go tomorow. Till then, i will savor this once in a blue moon occurence. Even if it means a painful night. The only downside is that i might not be able to play for a few days. Ah well, one can't have everything in life now, can they?
I aint no masochist, just another crazy human, with just another crazy post.

Soup

Some mixed feelings here. Spurred by the sudden joblessness that has creeped in lately partly due to the clarity of what im going to do the next two years and my giving up gaming altogether, these thoughts are more prominent now.
Happy i am, for me, and many of my friends, all of whom will start a new journey of their lives.
Sad i am, that i will be leaving this college and all the people i have been associated with in here, in a month, on my own path to wherever.
Hopeful i am, that these friendships will be maintained. That these memories will never be forgotten.

A longer and more detailed post on this will come, when the time is set, for us to set off from here. Till then, i shall relive these memories in the unlimited spare time i seem to be having at the moment.

My latest impractical plan for saving the world

The world is currently a sad place. There is recession looming everywhere, terrorists are havign the time of their lives blowing up people every other day, and roger federer failed to win yet another tournament.

In these times of grave crisis, i come as a messiah of hope. Here goes my plan for eliminating recession and bringing peace to India. Like most ideas, this one isint original, but has  cleverly been tweaked so that any claim on the idea, in case it goes on to win me the nobel peace prize, would be seen as merely yet another zietgiest.

For starters, lets find some country that terrorists ( like al qaeda, US govt, or Investment bankers) would never target. Lets take the swiss, for example. Those neutral bastards found the perfect scam to avoid being attacked by terrorists or dictators. Thats called good defense strategy. 

Obviously, it is impossible for India to stage the neutral scam, although not for lack of trying. Take the case of hospitals. Rarely would one hear of a hospital being blown up ( except in case of 'joker' of the Batman: Dark knight fame). Even terrorists try to avoid that sort of target. My plan is to make India the country to look up to when there is an emergency. With the right foriegn policy, India could become the country to fall back upon. 

The problem is, India is neither a supremely rich country that can afford to aid monetarily, nor is it a superpower so it can support militarily. The one thing that we do have in excess, however,  is population. We could have a national disaster relief consortium, that goes to the various nations and provides the labour to rebuild it. This could be in the form of manual laborers or skilled ones. We could even customize it according to the GDP of the nation concerned and charge for our services. For example, Australia and Canada would be heavily charged, while it would be free for afghanistan. In the times of recession, this could provide the much needed job openings for people, and remove us as the target of radical groups.The lure of foriegn travel is also something that could be used to attract people to the job, not that they need it during these times. 

The great thing is, there is no shortage of disasters in the world. Thus, there would never be any actual joblessness.  The best part is that we could use the same in case we ever get struck by disaster. We would still need a big-ass military, just in case. But it would be efficient if they would be dual trained, for fighting and for disaster recovery. Foriegn policy is completely over rated :|

As most of my ideas are, this is probably unoriginal and completely impractical. I just think its interesting to think why. 

This Cushion

After quite a long time, actually, for the first time this semester really, i had a good two and a half hour long discussion/debate on politics, policies, world happenings, history etc etc.

Only three of us, but its been some time since i'v had a good long debate about these things in college, so,  man, that felt good! Interspersed were facts and quotes that were googled just to make sure none of us was bluffing our way to dominion.

It started with the usual rambling about the job scenario in rDx's room, which, by the way, is way too damn hot , where any air circulation goes to die. The eternal optimist in me still felt that the scenario wasn't as bad as was being portrayed, and that bitsians would still have some advantage, hopefully, to weather the storm, only to be laughed at, and then followed by the regular college,economy, wall street, etc abusing. 

A small innocent comment about the inefficacy of the govt proved to be the tipping point for the discussion, further fueled by the arrival of Samya, the walking-talking-world-war-2 dictionary. From whether or not the NDA would be better than the UPA,  to their past policies, Samya siding with with the latter while rDx with teh former, n yours truly, in the true spirit of a dilly dallier, with both (:P), it then spiralled into the posible solutions for kashmir, then into the balochistan-kashmir comparison, china, russia, europe, world war 2 ( at which point samya almost jumped with delight ), g20, manmohan vs advani, modi, sonia, PoK, tibet, afghanistan, intelligence, osama, WTC, and the like. 

Why im posting this is because it reaffirmed how little we know (or at least i know) about what is happening in the world around us, how we are just another face in the crowd, how there is so much scope for expanding our sphere of information, how my quest for keeping myself abreast of the latest developments has to keep pace with the ever changing world. 

Nothing like a good ol' discussion to remind us that we are truly just an insignificant seed in the forest of knowledge, and only by absorbing all that the environment offers can we rise above the weeds and reach out to the sun. 

If theres one thing iv learnt in the past few months, its that im pathetically ignorant, and its about time i do something about it :|

Edit: Tan ta daaan !!! My new avatar is here 0.0