Utterly Butterly Delicious...Amul

I am sure all of us remember the Amul Butter Ad. It has a young school gal munching a toast with Amul butter spread on it and singing "Utterly Butterly Delcious, AMUL!". Apart from consuming Amul butter, cheese and icecreams I used to like their BIG HOARDING at an important junction on Mount Road in Chennai - junction of Mount Road and College Road leading to Ethiraj College. They used to picturise the important event of the week whether it was in sports, movies, politics, etc as a funny comic strip...I guess it was a part of their PUBLICITY stints! I remember some of their cartoons.

1) When Imran Khan married Jemima, the BANNER had a cartoon strip of Imran and Jemima with the caption " Imran 42, Jemima 21! Better Half Indeed !!"
(Cant find the pic now :(...)

2) When Lara hit the highest ever test score



To look at more captions, check the following link :)

Amul Comic Strips

Take a look at them. You can have a hearty laugh :)

The latest one is very interesting...Obviously its about Rang De Basanti (Since RDB seems to be the talk of the nation)

I dont sing "Maa Tujhe Salaam", I sing "Roobarooooooooooo"

A lot of things are being said these days about being the change. I get to read lot of blogger's take on "Be the change". To name a few I read Sudhish Kamath's post on the same Sudhish's Post, couple of Rediff's blogs etc. I was very happy to know that lot of us feel the same way about couple of things happening in society, city and the country. Some of the lot seem to think/say that its all the aftermath of Rang De Basanti. Yes definitely, the movie was a fresh breath of air amidst mighty king kong, kiddy stuff like Narnia but its not that thousands of us got INSPIRATION and pulled our socks only because of RDB. Come on guys. We dont need a movie to enlighten us on the state of affairs of the country. We are very well aware of the same thanks to newspapers, television etc etc.

There have been movie makers who have tried to inspire us from time to time. To quote recent ones (I am mentioning just the hindi and tamil flicks since 1990's here)Gentleman, Indian, Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani, Lagaan, Mudhalvan, Anniyan and the latest RDB. Each of them tackled a specific issue. Gentleman clearly portrayed the plight of students trying to get professional admissions. Indian spoke about corruption at length. Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani was about how 2 reporters turn into a new leaf as an aftermath of an incident (Oh how I wish the Times of India, the Hindu, Nakkeeran guys turn into new leaf and publish only FACTS). Anniyan spoke about the innumerable misgivings in society right from jumping lanes to under value registration of land to avoid tax. Hmm...Watching these flicks makes you think...Yes, we give it a thought for a day or two...What happens after then?

I was discussing this with a friend of mine. This friend always has an opinion about things ie a highly opiniated person. We were talking about RDB and I was telling him that couple of us are discussing about "Be the change" thing in our blogs etc. He commented that there's something fundamentally wrong with the people's mindset back in India and it was a waste of time spending our energy discussing about all this. I got slightly irritated with his comment but did not say anything further about it. I quickly changed topics and the conversation ended. Hmm...I realised whose mindset had actually taken a beating.

As Sudhish's posts says, all of us can contribute in our own way to make this dream possible. For starters, we can start talking good about our country and feel proud about the fact that he/she is an Indian. (This might sound funny or touchy to couple of nincompoops out there but I dont care!) I had posted my comments on RDB's movie review in Suman's blog Suman's Postwhen one so called Anonymous asks me whether I sing Maa Tujhe Salaam even in my sleep? I replied to him that I sing "Roobaroo...". Another Idiot accused me of being touchy. If we dont feel touchy about our country, who will be? An American or a Brit?

Few Do's and Dont's:

Let us cast our votes. Let us not give up our voting rights.

Let us follow traffic rules. Let us not jump lanes.

Let us keep the street clean and green. Let's plant trees and pave way for another Green Revolution.

Let us stop aping the WEST and cherish and nourish our culture. That does not mean, start wearing dhoti, kurta, khakhi etc. You could still wear a Denim and a t-shirt and listen to heavy metal but at the same time let's not dismiss our traditonal music as just a HYMN !

Let us stop buying leather products. Let's save the fauna.

Let us not PAY BRIBE or ACCEPT BRIBE. Let us be systematic (strive to be a conformist) and plan our activities so that we dont have the oppurunity to engage in BRIBERY.

Let us respect our National Flag and sing our National Anthem with pride.

Let us respect each other. Let us co-exist in harmony. Let there be no fight or even brawl among us.

Let's contribute towards the CHANGE. Let's BE THE CHANGE !!!

Aishwarya Rai - Media's Obsession

I had been thinking of writing this post for a long time say close to 3 weeks ever since a VERY IMPORTANT NEWS was out. "Aishwarya Rai all set to marry Abhishek Bachchan"! Damn It ! Any news site I visit, all I find is news about this - Rediff, Times of India (They are tha BAAP(FATHER) of ALL USELESS NEWS), a tamil daily called Dinamani etc etc. For NRIs like me (We need some whacking to read such papers)who crave for news about happenings in India, this news gave us a gist of the major HAPPENINGS or DEVELOPMENTS in India !!!

To add to my frustration, came across one more news which was the HEIGHTS !!!

A honey bee attack and Aishwarya Rai’s scream

While shooting in Jodhpur, she was stung by a honey bee yesterday. No one in the crew realized what happened when Ash gave a pained scream. It took them a few seconds to find out what happened. Shooting has been cancelled and Ash could not be approached for comment.

I wonder what happened to the PRESS??? Is this what everyone in India/Outside India need to know? Is this is a gist of whats happening in India? I am sure these MORONS would publish news about the medicine she used, the no of times she visited the restroom etc etc !!!

Indian Army getting smart...

Here are same slogans. I got this as a forward. I added the pics for the visual effect :)

Sign on a railway station at Patna ->

Aana free, jaana free, pakde gaye to khana free.


Seen on a famous beauty parlor in Bombay ->

Don't whistle at the girl going out from here. She may be your grandmother!


Seen on a bulletin board ->

Success is relative. More the success, more the relatives.


Sign at a barber's saloon in Juhu, Bombay ->

we need your heads to run our business.


A traffic slogan ->

Don't let your kids drive if they are not old enough - or else they never will be.....


THE BEST ONE ->

Its God's responsibility to forgive the terrorist organizations and It's our responsibility to arrange the meeting between them and god." - Indian Armed Forces

Are we secular mindwise??? Nah...

I was reading rediff's article on the controversial movie star Salman Khan being sentenced to jail for a year. Hmm...law after all takes on its tolls...I was just about to move to the next article when one of the reader's comments caught my eye

"Sub: Salman is targeted becoz he is muslim

I dont know why muslims are treated like this in INDIA, I dont understand why people are so jealous with Salman, Out of all the ...

Posted by hidayat"

I was just pissed off with this reader's comments...What has being a Muslim/Hindu/Christian got to do with Imprisonment? :(

Well, one could defend this statement by saying that one has the freedom of thoughts,expression, speech etc in India ! What use is this freedom when it is used for making wrong assumptions and making false accusations? Why dont the nincompoops understand that LAW IS ABOVE ALL THIS ! Ofcourse one needs to wonder what happened to the others involved in controversy like another bollywood actor (or actress according to my fellow bloggers like BT and Suman:)...)? Why were they acquitted in the first place? Is it because of political contacts or something?? I am not saying that LAW is JUST in our country ! Just think the irony of this - LAW is supposed to be JUST and EQUAL for everyone unfortunately it is screwed up so much that we can say that the legal body in our country has been sold long back to the monsters in the name of politicians and big-wigs of society...

Come on folks, how long are we going to blame each other by saying that HE/SHE is deprived of something because he/she is a MUSLIM or HINDU...I just want to ask all those out there...Dont we have friends from different part of India/World? Would we dare comment like this in a heterogeneous group? Shame on US !!!

I was just happy few days back after watching Rang De Basanti (RDB) as I thought that a GENERATION has INDEED AWAKENED ! How wrong I was...:(

I guess I just assumed and made an ass of myself :(

I guess we were just RDBied for sometime and forgot about it after a day or two...There's a saying in tamil "Kudeegaaran pechu viduncha pochu..." (A drunken man forgets what he spoke the next morning)...

Ofcourse few in the blogging circle might wonder why I am making a big fuss out of it or being touchy but I just dont care...I just penned what I felt !

Financial Planning, huh!!!

Well, well, these days my situation is somewhat similar to that of the family shown in the cartoon except I am not the family under consideration but the planner :)
I am studying hard to become a financial planner...I am getting drowned everyday in the big ocean of financial planning...All I can think of these days are IRS, 401(k), IRA, QTP, PUP, LEI blah blah...By the time I read about the different insurances in the US, I went NUTS (not that I wasn't before). I got so mad at the various insurances and even went to the extent of proposing a new insurance for students - "Anti-stress insurance for students" !!!



Looking at all this, I feel life is more secured for a Beggar as all he needs are food and shelter (and also the IRS will not come after him with a gun in hand) :)