Dear Shiv Sainik (an email I recieved)

I received this e-mail from a friend of mine. The original writer hasn't disclosed his name, but its brilliantly written and takes proper case of the Thackereys and the Shiv-Sainiks. Read it completely, believe me, you won't regret. Here it is:

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21st Feb 2010.

Dear Mr Shiv Sainik,

I trust you have read Rajdeep Sardesai’s open letter to Mr Uddhav Thakeray
doing the rounds on the internet. Frankly, for two reasons I won’t be
surprised if you haven’t. One, it is in English. And two, it is extremely
well-written and very thought–provoking. If you haven’t read it I suggest
you ask your children to translate it for you. Like the offspring of most
Shiv Sainiks I presume yours too are studying in the most elitist of convent
schools.

But first, let me introduce myself.

I am just a Stupid Common Man. Have you seen the film *‘A Wednesday’*? You
must, even though it is in Hindi. Nasiruddin Shah’s soliloquy at the end of
the film where he spits out his pent-up anger against the system and all
politicians will make your hair stand on end. He calls himself just a Stupid
Common Man. That’s what I am too, as are the faceless thousands and
thousands of us in this city. And like the Stupid Common Man, we are a very
angry lot today; angry at your silly and immature antics, and angry at the
city being held to ransom by your aging leader and his coterie of Yes Men.

I have tried to understand what your core values are, but I am stumped! Let
me spell out why.

Your agitation against Shah Rukh Khan, Rahul Gandhi, Mukesh Ambani and
Sachin Tendulkar turned out to be as riveting as a deflating balloon. Nobody
paid heed to your leader’s call, least of all we Bombay *manoos *who you
have turned into a kind of experimental guinea pigs in the political
laboratory. What kind of wishy-washy, spineless, sloppy fellows are you!
Sorry, Mr Shiv Sainik, the nation did not want an apology from SRK – far
from it. They just want good, edge-of-the-seat cricket. And the nation
showed what they think of your fading leader by making SRK’s film the
biggest grosser in Bollywood. What Rahul G gave you gentlemen was a
resounding slap-in-the-face by doing what your leader has never done – Rahul
mingled freely with the ordinary *manoos* in Bombay. Sachin endeared himself
to the whole country by proclaiming that he was an Indian first. As for
Mukesh Ambani, please await the next chapter.

Now let me tell you why we are an angry lot. Your creaky gramophone record
about Marathi pride being hurt has ceased to convince us any more. During
your current tenure at the BMC, 35 Marathi municipal schools were shut down.
Is this your idea of pride? Rahul Bose (I don’t think you gentlemen have
even heard of him) in a recent TV interview gave statistics to show that
Bombay has already lost out to Delhi in virtually every department of
administration. Forget Delhi, it is losing out to Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.
Is this your idea of pride?

And your flip-flop about allowing the Australians to play in Bombay has many
of us in splits. If you are against immigrants, surely you should be
supporting racism in Australia! And if you are protesting racism in Oz, does
it mean that you have had a change of heart about the North Indians? Is this
pride, or total Alzeimeric confusion? Yes, we are angry at your threats to
paralyse Bombay at the drop of a sparrow’s droppings. And, more important,
we are angry at your wanton destruction of public property. Your loss at
successive elections is enough proof of the adage *“You can fool some of the
people all the time, or all the people some of the time, but you cannot fool
all the people all of the time.”*

Now let me tell you why some countries are great and the others are not.
This will perhaps appeal to you, if you have progressed beyond high school.
You have probably heard of a country called USA – it is the most powerful
nation in the world today. It is so because of the way it allows the human
potential to flower and flourish. Leaders – in politics and in business - in
the US come from all parts of the world. If you ever were an avid newspaper
reader (real newspapers, not the Saamna variety) you will recall that there
was a man called Henry Kissinger. He was a German refugee from the
Holocaust, and he became Secretary of State. That Mrs Indira Gandhi gave him
a bloody nose during the ’71 war is another story. But let me give you an
example that you would probably relate to better. You surely have seen
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s films. He flexes his biceps and can put Salman K to
shame – iconic and breath-taking stuff for your stone-throwing, public
property-destroying foot-soldiers. He migrated from Austria about 40 years
ago determined to make it big in the US. Arnold is presently Governor of
California. And there are several Indians in Obama’s (he happens to be the
President of the US) administration, including a few Marathi *manoos* (No,
Please, Al Gore is NOT a Marathi *manoos*). And their contribution to
American society and economy is just enormous.

The point I am making is simply this: you can throw out the ‘outsiders’ only
at your economic peril. All along you have been talking only about job
reservations. Have you ever given a thought to job creation? Have you ever
wondered why very, very few Marathi *manoos *make it to the IFS, IAS, IRS
and the higher echelons of the armed forces? It’s now high time you gave a
thought to that, AND DID SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!

Now try to picture this. Bombay accounts for about 35% of the income tax
collections of the country. This you probably know. What you probably do not
know is that companies pay income tax in the city where their registered
offices are situated. Now just imagine - and please try to do so seriously
because we are not talking *kaanda bhajiya* but real big mega stuff – what
would happen if the big 3 suddenly decided to shift their registered offices
to Baroda, or Bangalore, or Delhi? Do you recall the downfall of Calcutta
when Charu Mazumdar and his naxalite thugs ran amok there? And the ruins of
Uganda when Big Boy Idi Amin threw out the Indians? In economic terms it’s
called flight of capital. The Tatas called Mamta didi’s bluff and shifted
the Nano project lock, stock and barrel to Gujarat. That left Bengal gasping
for breath. Mukesh Ambani is already talking of shifting his registered
office to Jamnagar . . . I leave the rest to your imagination.

And have you ever thought what would happen to Bombay if the film industry,
what Bombay is really synonymous with, decided to move to Noida?

Sorry for being harsh on you, dear Mr SS, but I am just a Stupid Common Man
letting off steam against your apathy, utter lack of vision and foresight,
and utter lack of concern for us.

Now let’s see what you gentlemen CAN do. You are controlling the BMC for the
moment. And I say for the moment because I see the Rahul G tsunami in the
distant horizon fast approaching Matoshree. SO IT’S TIME YOU DID SOMETHING
FOR BOMBAY! You have until 2012. Merely changing names of cities and roads
and monuments, and creating an identity crisis for everybody, will not help.
I’ve never heard you gentlemen talk of

· Urban planning

· eliminating corruption, especially in the BMC that you presently
control,

· giving us good roads and footpaths,

· parks and gardens,

· upgraded municipal hospitals and schools,

· uninterrupted water and electricity.

All that I’ve heard is the tinkling of shattered glass panes of the IBN
Lokmat office, cinema theatres and of *bhaiyya*-owned taxis, and attacks on
Kumar Ketkar.

And you gentlemen have woken up to the existence of Vidarbha only when they
started demanding a separate state. It just boils down to plain neglect; so
much for your oft-touted Marathi pride. This polemics has ensured your
survival, but it has not taken you very far. You are fast approaching a
dead-end. In fact, when the obituary of the Shiv Sena is written what will
be remembered will not be the flyovers you built, but:

· Bashing up south Indians

· Bashing up north Indians

· Digging up cricket pitches

· Damaging the only world cup trophy brought by Kapil’s Devils

· Enron-Dabhol scandal

· Michael Jackson fund-raiser and the funds that disappeared

· Miandad-Supremo camaraderie

· Flight of capital and business (Hope you read ET. There must be a
Marathi version)

But there is hope for you yet. *Start talking economics* and you may just
survive the Rahul Gandhi tsunami. But above all, please read Rajdeep’s mail.
If you survive you will have Rajdeep Sardesai to thank.

Yours angrily,

Stupid Common Man

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I just hope somehow, by some means, they get this letter, and get try to get some sense in their heads. By now, I am pretty sure Uddhav Thackerey would have read Rajdeep Sardesai's letter, by now. Let's hope they change, or try to at least, before it gets too late.

Incident '10 Round Up

Well, after the fashion show night (which wasn't so great), I was a little busy with the project work in the morning and lots of events and other things during evening. The next night, it was time for some DJ show. We had Dual Drive (from Pune), DJ NYK (from Bombay) and Oliver Moldan (from Germany) to entertain the show. Dual Drive started off; they were just ok-ok, and no one had many expectations from them anyways. They were like the cover for Oliver Moldan. Then came our main man from Germany. I listened to him for sometime, but since I'm not that much into trance and house, I wasn't enjoying much. Just at that time I get a call from Nav, asking me to take this basketball guy who was a little injured to Padmavathi Hospital in Surathkal. So I picked up key from Preet, and me and Pups, along with that guy left. Since it wasn't a big injury, he was just given medication and left. We then dropped them off at the Hostel gate, and me and pups thought that we will go on some long drive. So, we decided on going to Bittu Da Dhaba, which is like 20 kms from the college. The roads were pretty empty, and only trucks were commuting. But, the worst part was these headlights of this car, they were very dim and if any light came from the opposite side, we were not able to see shit. Other than that, it was beautiful driving under a moon-lit sky. We had one starter and two masala papads at Bittu's and then headed back to college. After reaching college, DJ NYK had started playing. DJ NYK is a major bollywood mixer, he played all Hindi and some english mixes. His transition was bad, but his track selection was really nice. But, the best part was when our two professors - Dean of Student Affairs Prof. Lokesh and Dr. Dwarkish went onto stage and did the closing spin. This is one moment the whole college will remember and even the batches to come will cherish. So, this was the story of INCI day 2.

INCI day 3 was a Saturday, so I didn't have to worry about my project. So, we thought of going for adventure sports thingy which was brought to us by Axe Adventures, a company from Bangalore, which specializes in organizing adventure camps. The main events that they had were wall rappeling, river crossing, zip run, commando bridge and Zorbing. Other than wall rappeling, we got to do everything. River Crossing was not actually what it was here; here they had tied rope between two trees, but there was no river down, it was just land. They tried doing this thing in our swimming pool, but they didn't get permission, and so had to resort to this. It was pretty much fun. Then, we did the zip-run; here we had to slide down in rope from a higher level to a lower level. It was just ok-ok. Then, we went for Zorbing. Now, this was real fun. Zorb is an inflated huge ball, in which two guys can fit inside, and then they roll it. The guys inside are tied, with the help of belts. First two rounds, me and Prani were tied to the inner surface of the Zorb, but after that we thought we'll just get out of the ties, and we were rolling inside the Zorb, on top of each other, it was so much of fun. It was boiling hot inside, but the fun part made up for it.







After the adventuere sports, we headed off for lunch and then, went to check this place called Lounge, which had a PS3, an X-Box 360, 2 carrom boards, a TT table and many card games. We just chilled out over there for some time playing FIFA 10 and Mortal Kombat. Then, we headed off to SAC to check the stage being set for Motherjane and Led Zepplica, who were performing that night. It was something to be seen - gigantic speakers installed on temporary scaffolding sort of thing and more than 20 halogen lights, all in sync with the music, with the guy controlling them.












The main event started pretty late at night, at around 10 or so. Simultaneously, basketball matches were also held during this time. Semifinals were going on, NITK lost out to St. Joseph's College of Engg, by just 2 points. After both the semi-finals were over, Motherjane entered, and believe me, theirs was one of the best entries I've seen. It started off with their song 'Chasing the Sun', it was like shehnai's playing from all around. I pretty much enjoyed their performance, since I knew some songs, thanks to Gogo, who is a freak of Indian Rock Bands. He was the one who suggested me some rock and fusion bands, and gave me his collection. I loved their songs - Chasing the sun, Maktub, Mindstreet(my most fav),Before 1 Million(which Motherjane dedicated to Sachin on his double hundred) and some others. The vocalists and other band members took a break in between, when their lead guitarist Baiju decided to take the centrestage, and he put on a stunning show. He played guitar for like 5-10 mins, in between he played a rock sort of version of Saare Jahan Se Acha, which was brilliant. After that, Led Zepplica entered, and stole the show. For those who don't know, Led Zepplica is the official tribute band of Led Zeppelin, and are really famous all around the world. They've performed in IIT-Kharagpur once before. Well, I didn't enjoy much of their performance, probably because I am not much into Led Zeppelin. I just know two songs of theirs - Stairway to heaven and Kashmir. Both these songs were brilliantly performed by Led Zepplica. Apart from that, their drummer was insane. His performance was killer. Also, there was one another incident which took place during their performance, which I don't wanna discuss here.

Then came the last and final day of our Final Inci. I got up late yet again, went to SS directly for lunch, and then chilled out for sometime in Lounge, and then went for Promenade - the solo and group dance competition. There were totally 40 teams, and it would take at least around 5 hours to finish all of them. We were just waiting for our guys performance, but it was delayed so much that, we ended up sitting 2 hours before their actual performance. It would be fine sitting through them if it was for any normal dances, but most of them were all mythological, based on some Hindu Gods and all. So, it kept getting on my nerves later. Of course, there were good free-style ones also in between. But, they were very few. Then, finally came some performances from our college - one another group of final years were doing this bhangra number(who supposedly won 2nd prize), which was pretty good, and the second one was our guys - Dave, Poo, Akshit , Jag, Shwetha, Swati, Aarushi and Avanti. Their performance was pretty good, but could have been better. It ended pretty abruptly. After that, it was time for the last Pro-nite, by KK.

Just when KK was entering, we tried a lot to go backstage and meet him. But it wasn't possible, since there was tight security(that too from the students itself) all over the place. So, we chucked that, and went and sat right in front, where KK was performing. This was as good as meeting him. The crowd was crazy, everyone went mad. This was the first time I saw SAC jam packed. People were actually complaining of suffocation problems. Well, anyways, we were right in front, so we didn't have any issues. He started off with Bas Ek Pal, and then went on to songs like MP3, Alvida, O humdum suniyo re and many more, before he took a short break. In this break, he along with his band members, was felicitated by the college. He did repeat some songs, which he had already sung 2 years back when he came to college. But, they were still good. So, it didn't matter. The thing which I liked a lot about the show was the work by Light and Sound Dept., they put on a superb show. The lights were psychedelic. After the break, he started off with an unplugged version of Tadap tadap, which was beautiful. He sang many more songs, and we were singing all the songs along with him. Looked like the whole crowd was prepared with all his songs. I bet no one would be this prepared even for an end-semester examination. Before he could end, we went on to try our luck again to meet him. But, we were unsuccessful yet again. Even before his band members could finish playing, he left the stage and took an Innova immediately, whereas we thought that he'd still be in the backstage. But, anyways, we had a good time, enjoyed our balls off. Thus, the final Incident comes to an end and some memories which i would cherish all my life. I am pretty sure I won't have these kind of moments anytime in my life again. Before I end this post, I'll leave you with some more photos of KK concert.

They Lie. We Die.

Just recently, while I was searching for this one documentary called The Corporation, suggested by a friend, I came across this website called "www.theyliewedie.org". It is indeed a really good site, which has lots and lots of documentaries, and the best part is, most of the documentaries have direct link or have a torrent file attached. And it is all free of charge. It has documentaries like the famous Zeitgeist and its sequel, and of course the one which I was talking about, The Corporation. I really like the concept behind it, and the site address. Looking forward to some of the documentaries from there.

Have fun downloading, guys! :)

Disorganized Fun by Ronald Jenkees

Thanks to my friend Poo, I recently came to know about this guy Ronald Jenkees. He is an absolutely awesome musician. Most of the pieces that he makes are instrumentals, but there are few rap songs too. Disorganized Fun is his second album, the first one titled with his own name itself. The tracks that I loved from DF are Throwing Fire, Outer Space, Guitar Sound and Let's Ride. This guy hasn't been trained in any professional music instruments or courses. He makes music just with a keyboard and FL studio, a software which even A R Rahman makes a large use of. There are sample of his tracks on his website ronaldjenkees.com. Check out the video of him playing Throwing Fire, on Youtube. Just watch the whole video and you'll be amazed, by the way he does it.

Here's the video: