will we ever experience it again?

time changes... things change.... but at what cost?

"mach gaya shor saari nagari main" sung by kishore kumar picturised on amitabh bachhan... simple, sweet yet impactful.... compare it with a "tha karke" sung by who-knows picturised on wh0-knows... costly, yet thrashy lyrics and even worse music.... we will never hear music again

an elegant backfoot drive on the 4th day of a test by a dravid to a mcgrath... a sight to behold in memory.... compare it with a reverse sweep played by a raina to a watson... same result but not something u will remember 1 week later... we will never see cricket again

a brilliant ovetaking by a schumacher in a non-performing car on a hakkinen.... a sight to watch again and again.... a hamilton winning like a robot in a fully automated car... which race was it?.... we will never see racing again

a hard hitting, thought provoking but unbiased article by an editor sitting in an old office with reams of paper... an article to cut and frame.... a biased, nonsensical blog from a non-entity written from a macbook sitting in a plush office .... an article to put in the recycle bin of ur computer... we will never see journalism again

a summer vacation spent playing cricket, riding bikes, watching movies.... nostalgia.... a summer vacation spent in front of xboxes and ipods...which summer was it?.... we will never see simplicity in life again,....

Losers !!!

Please....it is not audacious, it is not daring and it certainly is not well coordinated. Please stop the using terms that are reserved for when something is being protected, something is being rescued and something is being saved, all courageous actions. If someone wants to throw around adverbs and adjectives to describe the insanity that started it all and that is still unraveling at Mumbai, call it timid, call it cowardly and call it desperate (for attention). It does not take balls to walk into a crowded place and spray bullets all around and kill people. It does not require great degree of co-ordination to come prepared with arms and almonds, take unarmed people as hostages and remained holed up in some dark corners of a huge hotel, like some vampires afraid of the light, and count the seconds till their eventual and inevitable horrible deaths. So call them what they are. THEY ARE COWARDS. NOTHING MORE. NOT HOLY WARRIORS, NOT JIHADIS, NOT MILITANTS. PLAIN COWARDS. It is a waste of time and energy to even try to string together a rational argument/explanation for why such dastardly acts are perpetrated by ghastly ghouls. Oppression of minorities, Babri Masjid, Godhra incident, Mumbai riots and the aftermath bomb blasts - though these merchants of death try to cite the above reasons to incite a sense of shame and try to trip the country in guilt into thinking that, in some twisted way, it brought this all upon itself, make no mistake, this is not about retribution, this is not about revenge and this certainly is not about retaliation. This is about a bunch of losers, who have lost all purpose in life, trying to escape the misery in their own lives. And the only way they know - pulling down others with him, than pulling themselves up. For a little while, the losers have certainly managed to achieve their agenda. Yes, the entire country is awash with misery. Not because of the gloom or doom or even the prospect of it, but because of the natural human reaction to CARE about their fallen fellow beings, a trait that even the thoughtless animals possess, and something that these beasts have long lost. If anyone sees the country, and particularly Mumbai on its knees now, it is because it has bent down to feel sorry, express regret, and mourn alongside its fallen innocent and unwitting victims, and not because it has been BROUGHT DOWN to its knees. Losers, try to understand the difference between the two!

Idiots, you are not the first ones to launch a mindless attack and terrorize people into subjugation. Your ancestors, forefathers, and many others before came in from that same direction and have tried this irrational tactic from thousands of years, with waves and waves of invasions. This country is not new to attacks, and you are no different from them. (At least, some of those plunderers waged conventional warfares. They didn't hide in corners and shoot at the crowds from the dark). But in your puny minds, you failed to grasp a very simple fact. Your brethren Babar is no more, Ghajini is no more, Ghori is no more, Khilji is no more, but INDIA IS STILL HERE, and its people are still here, and its children and their children would still be here, proudly STANDING, long after you are gone. You are not misguided youth. Misguided youth torch buses and destroy government property, at worst. You are a frustrated lot. You are frustrated, because the rest of the world has left you behind, and marched towards progress on the road of betterment. You are frustrated because you don't see any prospect to look forward to, any hope on the horizon, in effect, any valid reason to live for. And so you take that frustration out on others. By killing others. You know what some people cursed with the same misfortune do in the country you attacked? They don't kill other people. At best, they curse their luck, and go on about their lives, as rag-pickers, as beggars, as bums. They do not cloak their impotence and frustration in some extreme interpretations of religious texts and go about massacring people. Your own religious text calls a Jihadi as a holy warrior, a pious soldier. But doing what you did, you are not pious, you are pitiful, and you certainly are not a warrior, you are, at best, a rabies stricken dog, which goes about biting and attacking people (and in the dog's defense, rabies infects the brain and its judgment. In your case, your interpretation of your religion proved to be your rabies).

All that you managed with your bullets and grenades, apart from taking innocent lives, is BRING A COUNTRY TOGETHER. Here is what is going to happen to the country and its people, after some of you are captured and some of you are mercilessly killed. NOTHING. The country will pick up the pieces, just like it has been doing from a long long time, and go about its way. The people will recover from the initial shock, and get on with their lives, just like they have been doing since eons. That is because terrorism, at best, can leave a scar, a scar that will mend and disappear with the passage of time. Terrorism cannot bring about a change of hearts, a radical revolution and herald in a new world you wished for where religious extremism is practiced and progress is turned back in time. It never had, and it never will, not here, not anywhere, and certainly not in civilized societies. You remain the pest you always were and always will be, that will be crushed under the foot of collective cause of like-minded agendas. The society recognizes you will not completely die off. As long as there is frustration, as long as there is false hope, as long as there are religious zealots spewing false prophecies, and importantly, as long as there is a loser pool that these false prophets can tap into, the society recognizes that attacks like these will continue, many more people will be martyred (you are not the martyrs, the people who are killed are the true martyrs, because their deaths would amount to something eventually, unlike yours) at the altar of freedom. The same city that you attacked many times before has become one of the important players in financial, social, political and cultural sectors in the world. And it has gone from strength to strength with each attack. And that alone should have given you an indication as to how hopeless your cause (if you can even call it that) is. And if you think, it is a masterstroke to target the guests of the country, and terrorize them into leaving the place, you know nothing about economics (among everything else). The entire world recognizes that this is not a problem of one country, one religion and one society. Just as your kind bandied together to become a border-less organization, the world is coming together to become a boundary-less society when dealing with your menace. In opening up the world that way, you forgot to realize that you cannot run anywhere, you cannot hide anywhere, no country will give you the protection and backing you seek without jeopardizing its own image and prospects in the eyes of the world. In effect, every ghastly action of yours is bringing the world one step closer. If prosperity does not bring the world together, this adversity certainly will. You false leaders may use the phrase - in the end, your agenda will be achieved - during your brainwashing sessions. But, the rest of the world does not use the term "In the end", there is no end here. We will prevail, and we will continue to do so and prosper, AT YOUR COST.

source - idlebrain.com

Losing my religion

The events of the last few weeks are freaking me out. Anil Kumble has gone, Sourav Ganguly will go, and the other three may not be far behind. I assume there is a large group of cricket fans in their mid-to-late 20s, like me, who are grappling with the implications. This transition is messing with our minds.

Let me explain. For many of us cricket began in November 1989. Pictures of what went before are too hazy. I remember Allan Border lifting the World Cup but don't recall what I was doing then. So I can't connect Australia's World Cup win to my own life.

Sachin Tendulkar spoilt us. He commanded that we sit in front of the television sets. He ensured we got late with homework, he took care of our lunch-break discussions. He was not all that much older than us, and some of us naïve schoolboys thought we would achieve similar feats when we were 16. We got to 16 and continued to struggle with homework.

Then came Kumble and the two undertook a teenager-pampering mission not seen in India before. Tendlya walked on water, Jumbo parted seas. Our mothers were happy that we had nice heroes - down-to-earth prodigy and studious, brilliant bespectacled engineer. They were honest, industrious sportsmen, embodying the middle class.

When we thought we had seen everything, they reversed roles - Tendlya bowled a nerve-wracking last over in a semi-final, Jumbo played a match-winning hand with the bat. We were such spoilt brats that we pined for openers and fast bowlers. We cursed the side for not winning abroad. Such greed.

Economists would probably have predicted the bursting of the bubble. We had a deluge instead. One fine day at Lord's we got a glimpse of two new saviours: Delicate Timing and Immaculate Technique. Suddenly my group of eight friends was split into two camps. You were either with Ganguly or Dravid. In that period we even took Kumble and Tendulkar for granted. It was adolescent indulgence taken to the extreme.

When we played cricket on the streets, we had a number of choices. Left-handers were thrilled, defensive batsmen were happy, extravagant stroke-makers were delighted, the short boys didn't need to feel left out anymore, spectacles became cool, and freaky bowling actions were no more laughed at.

In such a state of bliss did we live our lives. We flunked important exams, shed tears over girls, crashed bikes, had drunken parties, choked on our first cigarettes, and felt utterly confused about our futures. But every time we felt low, we had an escape route. One glimpse of Dada stepping out of the crease, or Jam leaving a sharp bouncer alone, or Kumble firing in a yorker, was an uplifting experience. So what if India lost? Could any of those Pakistani batsmen even dream of batting like Sachin or VVS?

I remember Ganguly and Dravid soaring in Taunton, mainly because it was the day I got my board-exam results. And boy, did that provide some much-needed relief. I remember Tendulkar's blitz against Australia in Bombay because my dad, who thought cricket was a waste of time, sat through every ball. So connected were these cricketers to my growing up.

Now, after close to 20 years, my generation needs to brace itself for this exodus. Some of my friends, crazy as this sounds, have been talking of needing to revaluate their own careers. Others are realising they need to recalibrate their childhood definitions of cricket. "Part of me just died," said a college friend who was the kind of extreme cricket buff who memorised scorecards. "No Dada, no Jumbo. I'm positive I'll stop watching after Sachin and Rahul retire."

These players were not only outstanding cricketers but also great statesmen. However hard they competed, they were always exceptional role models. Now we dread the next wave of brashness and impetuosity. Harbhajan Singh and Sreesanth are talented cricketers, but there's no way anyone would want a young kid to emulate either. The younger crop seems worse - a visit to some of their Orkut and Facebook pages tells you enough - and things may only get cruder in a cricket world when you can make a million dollars in a little over three hours.

"Our childhood is ending," said a friend from school, and in some way he was probably spot on. Tendulkar's retirement may mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but for a generation of 25- to 30-year-olds it will mark the end of the first part of their lives. Switching on the television the day after will be a serious challenge.

A Few Good Men !!!

Young men in sport are always rightly granted a leniency that older men are not. So this autumn, at the first uncertain innings by India's cricketing aged, at the first legspin spell with no reward, one word will surreptitiously creep into every conversation. Retirement.

These men, whose names stay in the memory just behind family, are clearly older as athletes, their skills fading gently like the evening light, but the question always is: how much of The Gift remains? The faithful will say, look at thousands of runs, hundreds of wickets, behind them. The critics will say: precisely, greatness is behind them. Should they go, stay, wait, make a deal? There is no perfect end anyway to a sporting life. Maybe only a Pete Sampras or a Michael Schumacher got close on that evening at the 2002 US Open or the 2006 Brazilian Grand Prix.

Every day pragmatism and sentimentality collide in India's cricketing universe. Once, I incorrectly thought Sachin Tendulkar should retire, then I changed my mind, now I just watch. Goodbye is awfully hard, for them and us, but it is getting closer.

We met the Great One in 1989, when he introduced himself to us. Tendulkar may have two children, but for my generation he is always favourite son.

Then the rest came. In 1990, The Precise One, a scholarly warrior who unveiled his spinning craft with devotion.

In 1992, The Defiant One, a steely, stylish man of amusing, aristocratic belligerence.

In 1996, The Intense One, cricket's student who batted like a monk upholding a vow of discipline.

And finally The Elegant One, who was a Japanese haiku master in a previous life.

They were, and are, our champions, our companions, our obsessions, our sporting best days and our very worst, a part of the calendar of our lives. Whenever life seemed to get away from us, when the water dried in the tap on a hot day, and bosses stank, there was always them.

But if these men once exuded a certainty, now it is less so. Confidence comes, then it dries. Tendulkar has no control over his body's misbehaviour, Rahul Dravid no idea why technique abandoned him for a while without even a farewell note, Ganguly no certain explanation why timing briefly eluded him. Mind and body are in a slow divorce. These men have fought and defeated everything: selectors, derision, pitches, Australians, but age is beyond beating. Of course there are five-wicket hauls left in them, and strong centuries, and even great series, but they will arrive at a slower frequency. So why not go, leave to an applauding nation; why sit, in cricketing middle age, alone at home, as Ganguly must have, waiting for a phone call? He was reprieved, but still it's intriguing how many heroes become tragedies.

Competition is an addiction that keeps them here, that brings them back, an addiction so deep that even the perfect ending is somehow imperfect. In a way, this makes sense: how can finishing what you love most ever be satisfactory?

But in sport the fairytale ending is mostly an illusion. It can happen to a Steve Waugh but not more. Mostly men just fade from the memory. Or exit a shambles. Or go to a sigh of relief as Kapil Dev did. From our safe distance in jobs where we can work till we're 60, where no public calls for us to go, it is wondered: why do they still play, what for, what's left, aren't there enough runs and rupees? It is, in fact, an ignorant question: they play because they love it, because they ache for competition, because they don't do anything else as well, because they can still play. They achieved greatness because they believed in themselves, because they didn't give up, because they were problem solvers, it's inscribed in their DNA; so perhaps we can't expect them now to suddenly stop believing, give up, run from the problem.

Competition is an addiction that keeps them here, that brings them back, an addiction so deep that even the perfect ending is somehow imperfect. In a way, this makes sense: how can finishing what you love most ever be satisfactory?

Athletes arrive at greatness by believing, then proving, they are better than the rest. Muhammad Ali just had the chutzpah to say aloud what his kind think: I am the greatest. A Michael Schumacher would haughtily say to his interrogator in Japan in 2003 "I know pretty much every single manoeuvre in the book and that's why I'm the best at my job." For such men to admit they're not good enough, that other men (in the cricketers' case, younger men) are better, is indigestible. When they go, eventually, they'll gallantly say, "It's time to make way for younger men," but they're not really in the giving-way-to-anyone business. They've built their lives by leaping and scrambling over others.

And so these men play. They were good enough to be the best in India; now they must remain good enough to play for India. They have changed. They might compromise, gently and subconsciously: where once 80 was a minimum, now they might settle for 20 fewer. This deal is somewhat understandable. What is not is the appalling suggestion that they will be "accommodated" in the team as long as they agree to retire soon, so as to be given a fitting send-off. It puts individual before team, and these men surely will not stand for it.

They are exceptional, these five, great players and good men, and this is not easily found in sport. There is a reluctance now among sports people to play the role model, as if it is some unreasonable, excessive burden, but these men wore that responsibility with a fine dignity at most times. India is lucky to have had them.

I am less enamoured of world cricket these days. It is a noisy game, full of boastful official chatter, where manners on the field have become disposable, and Twenty20 threatens to derail everything else. The best love affairs, anyway, come in our youth, and these men I grew up with. Always I watched them. Now especially, even though occasionally it is painful to see them lurch and stagger, feet mixed up and bat late. But I have to watch. Because they're Great, Precise, Defiant, Intense, Elegant. Because soon enough, a few months, a year, whether they walk away or must be pushed, there will be an Indian team without the names Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Laxman, Kumble. Imagine that? I'd rather not.

Using Remote Desktop on Vista Home Premium

Steps to Add Remote Desktop to Vista Home Premium:

1. Download termsvr.zip here
2. Extract Termsvr.zip to a temp directory
3. Start "Command Prompt" in Administrator mode (Run As Administrator)
4. Run the corresponding batch file for your Vista edition
5. Allow TCP Port 3389 on Windows Firewall or any other firewall product.
6. Done

Its a bloody joke !!!

Thirty-two months after an Indian Institute of Technology professor was killed on the campus of the Indian Institute of Science and twenty-four months after the horrifying blasts in the heartline of Mumbai (the local trains), 'terror' returned to the pensioners' paradise that no longer is, shortly after lunch on Friday afternoon.

The question is not why Bangalore or Ahmedabad, but why did it take so bloody long?

Seriously.

Why did it take so long for these smart-asses to set off around twenty bombs just as people were readying themselves for the weekend, when they could have done it yesterday, or day before, or last week, or last month?

The rocket scientists dressed as 'intelligence sources' and 'security experts' are already busy adding one and one and making it eleven: It was a Friday and then Saturday. It happened at 1.30 pm or shortly thereafter. Ergo, you know who was behind them. Those bearded, fez-wearing, menacing-looking guys who procreate like hell, send their children to madrassas, and receive their cheques from strange places.

Any time now, the state government will start blaming central intelligence agencies for not alerting them. The Centre, in turn, will blame some unpronounceable outfit whose benefactors are across the border. By primetime, the prime minister (depending on the toll) will make a macho statement something to the effect of 'We will not cow down to terror.' The Union home minister, whose very sentence-construction sends terrorists scurrying for cover, will pronounce that 'such incidents will not deter the government from pursuing its policy of dealing with terrorists in a resolute manner.'

Tomorrow morning, the Congress which is in the Opposition in Karnataka will blame the BJP which is in power for being interested in anything but governance. The BJP in turn will blame the Congress for revoking POTA and making this a 'soft State.' Editor types will stand up and say it is time for 'moderates' to speak out.

And just when the TV guys were rubbing their hands in glee that something finally had happened to keep them busy over the next 36 hours, bam, the toll is just forty. How do they fill 'We, the People' and 'Big Fight' and 'Weekend Edition' this weekend?

Yes, it sounds all too flippant.

Forty people have been killed in two cities in two days, several more injured, how can we be so joyful and jokey about such a serious 'menace' like terrorism that is 'eating into the vitals of our system' and taking 'innocent lives'?

We would.

If they would.

The truth is security in India is a joke. You know it, the terrorists know it, it's just that our political and administrative and police masters think that we don't.

So, like Pavlov's pups, we are supposed to feel concerned about what happened in the 'IT capital' on Friday afternoon and the 'cloth capital' on Saturday evening; we are supposed to slam terrorism 'in no uncertain terms'; we are supposed to light a candle in our hearts and mourn.

For what?

Truth is we have been there, done that, and bought the lousy blood-stained T-shirt several times before: In Hyderabad, in Bombay, in Delhi, in Jaipur, and not necessarily in that order.

And you don't need rocket scientists dressed as 'intelligence sources' or 'security experts' to tell you that it will happen again in Hyderabad, in Bombay, in Delhi, in Jaipur, and not necessarily in that order, some time soon.

The truth is security in India is a joke. Unfortunately, it is on you.