For me a generation gap is about 13 years. And this is because way back around 91-92 India changed. We liberalised our economy, Cable TV came in, Multinationals(mostly American) set up shop, the seeds of the IT boom were being sown, et al. All this started changing the way we were thinking. It was as if someone had taken off a blindfold that was over our eyes. Kids of 12 -13 cannot remember a time when there was no cable TV, when the only cars they saw on our roads were the old Ambassadors...
I'm not sure how many of you there are keeping tabs on this, but the Indian Prime Minister is in Pakistan from today to attend the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation). Pakistan was formed in 1947 when Colonial India was partitioned(overseen by the British) into secular India and an Islamic Pakistan. It was largely the congress (under Gandhi) who fought for Indian Independence. The British played the ancient game of 'Divide & Rule' by playing of sections of Islamists agai...
I promised I'd post this. P.S. I almost forgot...you need to know Hindi/Urdu (Dakhni, preferably) for this! Anyway here's it... In Hyderabad we have our own little Johnny. His name is Howla. His father is ambitious to educate Howla. Howla goes to school in Tappa Chabutra. Its principal was educated in Urdu high school and claims that he passed tenth class! There is a school inspection the next day and the conversation is as follows: Teacher: Kal inispector ayinga. Kochanaa (questions...
Well, Smitha and me had been to see "Welcome to the Jungle". If you've seen Indiana Jones and The Mask of Zorro, you've seen this movie. I'd actually intended to see Kill Bill but Smitha changed horses midstream and poor yours truly had to hop on. I am sure Kill Bill would have been a good bet! Uma Thurman and Quentin Tarantino(I loved Reservoir Dogs) cannot dissapoint. Anyway, we went for this film to a big multiplex theatre called Fun Republic. This place shows 4 movies at the same time an...
Today is a 100 years since the Wright Brothers put a 'heavier than air' machine into the air. And the world has changed so much since then!! A good site for learning all about the Wright brothers is http://www.first-to-fly.com I remember first reading about them, when I was about 7...there was a big article about the Wright Brothers and how they persevered for their airplane in the Readers Digest. Today an airplane takes off every minute somewhere in this world. An England to India(Mu...
Now let me first vent my anger upon the joeuser blogsite. Damn!, for the past 3 days the login area on the screen just vanished. I searched left, right and cenyer for it and to no avail. Anyway, it's back again and I can now blog away to my hearts content(i.e. till my fingers tire). let's touch bas now on what's happening around here. 1. Urdu classes are suspended for a few days as Alam Bhai is not well. And yes, the much awaited notes from NCPUL(National copuncil for propogation of Urdu langu...
Ok, I am in the office today inspite of it being Saturday read weekend. I need to haul ass with the radio code. I have now moved to the keyboard/display package. I asked Scott in the last telecon what his estimated time for the interface manager package coding effort was. He said 40 hours. And how many hours have I consumed there...112 hours(40+32+40). I am 300% behind time here. Scott says he is not concerned this week but he says that I need to get cracking by the next (It means he's ...
Well I began my Urdu lessons today. And guess who's my teacher? 1. Javed Akhtar 2. President Musharraf 3. The local butcher Yes,it was easy wasn't it...the local butcher. He's a nice guy, a pathan from Bihar. Now what's the deal here. Certainly not free home delivery of the choicest part of leg or fresh liver. It's just that this guy teaches me urdu(the script) and I teach him spoken English. So today he taught me alif, be, pe(this character is not found in Arabic, and so I asked Ala...