Encore

There are not many things that I know I am passionate about, but France & everything to do with it, most of all the French language, is definitely on the list. At least it used to be when I was back in school, where I had studied French for 7 long years. Just how much I loved French, & how much I have missed it since came rushing back to me last Sunday, when I found myself at the Alliance Francaise , giving an orientation test to gauge my level of French. Before going over to Alliance, I had picked up my ol' school French Book (Mauger Bleu is what everybody called it... :-) ) I had intended to go over the basic stuff, hoping that it would all come back to me in a flash..! But, that was not to be. And the test proved the same, that I remembered very little. A 5th-6th grader would have done better than I did on that particular test. Still, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had been placed in the 3rd semester of their French course...!

Still, it was a great feeling to read, write, hear & speak French (there was an oral test of about 10 minutes duration as well) after so long... Coincidentally, last week, I recited two French poems that I had learnt at school, one of which a group of us school kids had sung as a welcome for the French Ambassador to India, when he had come visiting my junior school (D.P.S., East of Kailash, for the record..), to a colleague at work.

The first one,

Am stram gram
Pic et pic et colégram
Bourre et bourre et ratatam
Am stram gram pic dam!

and the second one...

Sur le pont d’Avignon
L'on y danse, l'on y danse
Sur le pont d’Avignon
L'on y danse tous en rond

Les beaux messieurs font comme ça
Et puis encore comme ça

Les belles dames font comme ça
Et puis encore comme ça

Sur le pont d’Avignon
L'on y danse, l'on y danse
Sur le pont d’Avignon
L'on y danse tous en rond

Les militaires font comme ça
Et puis encore comme ça

Les musiciens font comme ça
Et puis encore comme ça

Sur le pont d’Avignon
L'on y danse, l'on y danse
Sur le pont d’Avignon
L'on y danse tous en rond

Francaise, je t'aime...! :-)

Theory..(i)tically

So, here's the deal... I have a theory. And I know that I am correct. It is just that most of the people whom I relate my theory to, tend to think that I have got it all wrong. But, fools that they are, they do not realize that by disagreeing with me, they are only proving me right. Not that they are fools, I know they are (that is another theory altogether), rather, that I am correct.

There is another theory by a very well-known anonymous figure. It (or he, depending on your sensibilities. This quandary, amazingly, can be resolved by another theory. Boy, don't we just love theories..!) says that most of the theories are, well, just theories. Like a famous non-theory that says that 87% of all statistics are inaccurate. Well, guess what, even this theory proves my theory right.

Ek minute, let us just clear up the blackboard (or ocre-blog, if you wish) a little. We have already talked about my theory, the theory that the ones who disagree with my theory are fools (more of a fact actually, but a theory explains their predicament), the famous anonymous theory, the It/he theory, the 87% theory.. hmph. Let us call these theories Theory A, Theory B and so on.. in the order in which I have summarized the list. So, in the short span of the 15 odd seconds you have taken to reach here, you have already been introduced to, what, 5 theories. That's one theory every 3 seconds. Wait a minute, I like the figure 3. But I like 2.5 even more. And the color blue too. So here goes another theory, it is quite improbable (not impossible, after all, Impossible is Nothing.. And I like Adidas stuff) that any 6 people in a group of 15 would all wear the same shade of blue on a given day. Wanna disagree with my theory? Sure, go ahead. It is a free country. But, I am free to call you a fool too...!

In the midst of all this, I completely forgot to tell you what my original theory was. Well, it was just that my theories are bunkum. See if you can disagree with that..! If you do, well, I have told you enough times in this post already, as to what I shall refer you as henceforth. And if you don't, then you need to visit the psychiatrist matey..! And if you take all this a bit too personally, peace out umbre, it was just a theory, it's not meant to be taken seriously. Haven't you heard this theory...?

Cellular Silence Day

Have a look at this and this, the effort of one man to voice his concerns over the apparent christening of Narendra Modi as the (probable) next Chief Executive of India. I am posting his petition here, verbatim. 

Dear Friend

The collective amnesia of the captains of Indian industry, Messrs.Tata, Mittal and Ambani embracing Narendra Modi and endorsing his candidature as future PM of India, disturbed me immensely.

This petition is my humble effort to engage the conscience of corporate India and make it known to them that the Indian citizen is not to be trifled with.Just as we can vote for or against the poitician, we can pinch the corporate bottom-line in order to engage their attention to mend their ways.

It is not an easy task for us to keep our cell phones and Blackberries switched off for an entire day on January 30th,- the 61st anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination.

However, it ought to be sufficient to get the message across to corporate India that we will not tolerate the endorsement of fascists as future Prime Ministers.

May I request you visit the link below to sign and thereafter circulate the petition below, if you feel as strongly about this matter

sincerely 
 Ranjan Kamath

The petition title is: Cellular Silence Day 30th January 2009. The petition URL is: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/30JAN09/petition.html

The petition is directed to: India Inc. 
 The start date is: ..January 15th, 2009 
 The end date is: ..January 30th, 2009

   

The petition statement says:

Dear Messrs, Ratan Tata, Sunil Mittal and Anil Ambani

I am one of a billion Indian citizens.

I am somewhere in the middle of that pyramid that you wish to give voice - from bottom to top - through wealth creation.

I am proud of the brands you represent that have made India proud.

I am one of the burgeoning Indian middle-class that share your aspirations of mutating India from indolent elephant to thundering tiger.

It ends there...

I have hitherto been accused of being indifferent and apathetic, simply because I am overawed and felt overwhelmed in a system replete with Goliaths.

But when I saw you embrace the fascist mastermind of state sponsored genocide as a future Prime Minister and endorse the Modi-fication of India, it was disappointingly apparent that the brands that aspire to make India rich shall continue to languish in ethical poverty.

While I am filled with revulsion at your endorsement of Narendra Modi, I must respect your right to do so as a fellow citizen.

In writing this petition I am a mere David amongst the mightiest corporate Goliaths but I feel empowered to address your collective amnesia - through recollection of the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 - by the true Goliath among Gujaratis in particular and Indians in general - Mohandas Gandhi.

All those who sign this petition will switch off their Tata Indicomm, Airtel and Reliance cellular phone and broadband connections from midnight on January 30th 2009.

It is eminently possible that I might be the one voice in a billion who will observe the 61st death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on as Cellular Silence Day.

Then again, there might be close to a billion who could join me on January 30th, 2009 expressing their solidarity and silently insisting that the captains of India Inc adopt an ethical, compassionate path to wealth creation rather than the single-minded pursuit of the bottom-line.

We shall know that by the end of 30th January, 2009

I have signed up for the petition & I urge you to at least read this up & think about it.

Of Crucio & Verbalists

Quite some time back, I had gone for a particular quiz where the audience was asked to explain the meaning of the word 'cruciverbalist'. Being a bit too immersed in the Harry Potter lore, I shouted out "one who hurts others by using harsh words" (I am sure most people can understand this - whether you have read any Harry Potter or not). Only when the quizmaster actually laughed at my answer did I realize that I had done something quite stupid. And almost instantly I realized that the word actually refers to a person who solves crosswords.

And well, that seems to be the flavor of the season - Crosswords. To be precise, as Thomson & Thompson say, Cryptic Crosswords. I first came to know of this kind of crossword in college, when a few school friends of mine (and at that time in a different college) introduced me to the world of cryptic clues & crosswords. But it was only at Adobe, that I managed to get a hang of it. A colleague of mine & I would sit down and attempt the crossword, regularly. But we were never really able to proceed further than 10-15 answers. And we thought, that even that was pretty decent, Hindu crossword's difficulty level being what it is. That was until now. We just picked up this old habit again. After a long time. It has been 3 consecutive attempts in this second stint of ours & Lo Behold..! We have come close to cracking the entire crossword ( bar 3-4 clues each time) twice. Yes, we believe that the crosswords are sub-par, and we vent out all our frustration for that on Nita Jaggi ( the current Hindu crossword compiler ), but still, solving almost the entire crossword is another feeling altogether. Conceded that we had the help of an ace quizzer cum cruciverbalist today, but we were matching him as well..! 

How I wish I had a scanner and could upload these 3 attempts of ours, all the insane & inane) rough work, guesses, cuts & crosses. But alas..! Still, for now, crosswords rule..!! Cryptic Crosswords, to be precise.. :)

PS: The blog post is badly structured for a reason. Look out for the cryptic clues embedded within the post... :)

3 things my friends should/need to know about me

1. I love to drive with my car's windows rolled down & my elbow on the door.

2. I love sarcasm & subtleties... And nobody does it better than johnny.

3. I get angry & out of control very quickly...

3 things most people do not know about me

1. I love the number '3'. I consider it my lucky number... :D

2. My first nickname was krishna.. I was born on janmashtmi, and barring this year & 1998, it has always rained on my birthday. Plus, the year I was born, my dad could not see me till about a week after my birth 'cause all train services had been disrupted due to torrential downpours..!! :-)

3. I love palak paneer (Ok.. this one some people might know... :-D )

My lost Photoshop Express account

Long ago, I had made an account on photoshopexpress.com (henceforth, psexp). Now, to create an account there I needed a US residence address. So I created a whole new email-id with a US residence, and I created my photoshop account.

Much enthused by this 'victory' I uploaded quite a few pics and played around with them. One result is my profile pic on blogger. I quite liked my work ( my only digital art, per se ). But, pretty soon, I managed to forget this email-id which was my psexp login id as well. I haven't been able to log-in since and my album is lost! 

I request all & sundry to make various combinations of abhinav & gupta & '.' & 101 & mail them to me. I am sure the email id was something of this sort.. I have tried quite a few combos but none have worked so far...

examples:

abhinav.gupta101

abhi.gupt

abhinav.gupt101

abhingupta101   etc.. etc..

Any help is appreciated :-) you know where to reach me..!

3 Answers

And now for some answers.. you could frame the questions as you wish:

1. Hurrr.... !!

2. Mard bano.. be a man..!

3. Pimply pimp...!

A 'chocolat de France' for anyone who can guess the 3rd :-)

3 Questions

I have just 3 questions that I want answered. Let's begin:

1. How many people does it take to read the time off a binary table clock?

2. How many people does it take to make a binary table clock?

3. How many people does it take to actually make a person shut up from talking about binary table clocks?

Answers when you answer. :-)

Happy Birthday Johnny

Hey John, here is wishing you a very happy birthday indeed! :-) Have a great day mate..! Remember, "this too shall pass...!" :D