Miraj’s Birthday

First time in my life have i seen someone plundered like this!! It’s 1.20 am in the morning and i just returned from Pada’s home, of what was his Kickass day.

Miraj today turned 20. Miraj 10 days ago procured a bandage on his left elbow for a minor bone crack. And Miraj today will never forget how and where all did he bath.

It was Samit, Dhaivat and Anand alongwith Ruchik and Me at this midnight bash. The friends had brought a nice tasty cake for the food buff Miraj, who looked pitiable in his bandage and yet cheerful. He fully anticipated mischief and was not let down. He just wouldn’t stop laughing!!

Miraj .aka. Venu .aka. Pada

So after cutting the cake by the finger and ‘ijjhat eating’ where we actually ate the wonderful cake, including miraj, we got down to business. We pasted the cake on his face… Not only that we pasted it where ever one could imagine.. And please have a wild imagination!! Next out of nowhere the juggernaut of the day- Anand, who had brought a bottle full of ‘Rim jhim’ gola water, alongwith several packets of ‘flavored Gutka’- PASS PASS and all stirred and cocktailed to give him a nice shower!!! One couldnt stand the smell much then. So after some 20 min of nice bath, ‘Venu’ joined all to have a pic session and finally we were off to home. It was some laughter riot we had today, perhaps the most in recent months. I had the best masti in a long time… and got the actual feel of the people so famous, Samit, Anand and Dhaivat.

** Not to forget, the trio dragged him to Manekchowk for a midnight drubbing, which samit said would be more costlier than Bhagwati’s 199/- per head dinner!! Imagine the guy claiming to eat worth more than 200 alone.!! The account of that extraordinary experience next time with exclusive interviews from the trio! **

Thr n Bk Agn.. (Revisited)

Insignificance?

Its n end to d vacations. In a few days i would b bac to d old perspiring and humid climate of srt. Bt aftr two mnths of absolute boredm nd virtual sense of nothingness frolicking around my invisible aura wich in itself is shrinking with d passing day, i feel a sense of relief tat m gng bac.

Ftr 1 yr experiencin d ride of d roller coaster of ‘acads’ n seein it ever so gng down, i hope to perform b8r.  Tis vac ws a sort of packd wid events like family occasions(nt all so rejoicing) nd sum trainin. Bt as far as i cud sum it up. It ws a waste!!

Bt focusin agn to next 5 mnths. Hv sum plans n things on mind wich i wud pretty jaldi share wid u. Ofcrse d ‘Einfo Impts pgm‘. Hope it goes wel. Furthrmore i put up this advertisement wich is an irony of wt wrth ws my 2nd yr ::

‘                              Wanted

A Room partner for the III yr in Hostel 9.

One who bears this eccentric guy, with guarantee of good night sleep and assurance of maintaining the room clean.

No problems with tampering and Girl issues and definitely not a GAY.

All expenses to be shared and promise for fortnightly parties in CANteen.

Contact- 09725660466 for details or comment on this post.

  ’

With this i sign off.. Chao and see you on the other side!!

Etym-ohh..-logy

I am hearing a wonderful song ~ LOVE STORY by Taylor Swift ~ as I surf the internet.

Browsing through the net I wonder, social networking is infectious! From Orkut, My space to Facebook and Twitter; and I guess it all started from the young boy who found a place to find his love to the latest geek associating micro blogging and hyper terms like CSS and virtual catalogues of people’s lives. It has transformed life!

Just like that, I was thus surfing the site named FACEBOOK which holds the Indian imagination at present which some months ago would be in Orkut, and I found this wacky offer to keep a surname for myself on it. I said to myself, but I hold one myself and so do almost all people on the earth. But things ain’t that simple everywhere. The issue with Surnames has been in times dated been very important.

We in India have a system that women after marriage adopt the surnames of the men. I suppose it has been from ages since the beginning of the civilization. Since a woman spends on an average the life after 20 years at her husband’s house in majority of the civilisations, they adopt the new surname, that of the husband and live and raise families with it. The men are thus regarded as carriers of names. Few exceptions were that of the royal families of Europe, which they took names based on places or rituals. In Icelandic countries, they have a complex system of naming their sons and daughters, wherein they add a part of their own name in their son’s. The etymology and history of surnames is a very interesting field. Try Wiki.

The surnames in India were originally meant to denote the castes or occupation or the place from where people reside. Mehta’s for example where people who kept the accounts of the families or gave out salaries to the workers of the firms; their name originating from ‘Mehentana’. Singh in Punjabi means ‘Lions’, and people of the caste were regarded as warriors or protectors of righteousness. Similarly Trivedi, dwivedi and chaturvedi’sRadhanpura means one who dwells from Radhanpur. There are many more examples and almost all surnames in Indian subcontinent context would have logical origins.(Link) being Brahmins who would have knowledge of 2-3-4 Vedas respectively. Soni’s is a caste associated with business and services with gold and gems. In my case, being

In western countries it is much more informal and holds lesser equitable value or importance in terms of the society or caste. They name their children sometimes with surnames out of interest of nicer names, sometimes out of their own names, and sometimes according to the places from where they would dwell. It seems pretty unhistorical and baseless when you generalize in their case. But they do give importance to the names as much as we do, only not think it as a sole identification.

Now coming up to contemporary times, as the world turns more chauvinist and sexist or for other places the other way round, the debates and issues regarding surnames have intensified. In the US, liberal European countries and the Australia during the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s more and more women were treading a different track by either keeping their own parental surnames after the marriages or many more cases of new names appeared. It started a revolutionary idea for the women rights and many observations showed that those societies were much more advanced, with higher education and women rights. In India since the last decade, you could see a small step in the direction with the metro crowd women following their western counterparts.

Recently I read an article in Hindu(With ref. to The Guardian) about a british based media personality marrying and keeping the name of the husband, on this action some women’s group is ballistic and condemns the lady for doing so. Link. I came across this article around a year back when i was searching something else, about the surnames and problems in Meghalaya, India(Link). Such so, i also came across this weird study and report in Hindu about relating DNA with your ancestral surnames(Link). So much said and done, there are various institutes on Name Etymology among humans that study anthropology, archeology and psychology among us.

I read the book The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri some time back and came to know that in some places discrimination on the basis of surnames apart from color is prevalent. It is a fact that some surnames are language specific and its difficult for people from different countries to understand and spell them properly like for example the surname: Gogol, amenikhev, Akkerdijsk... Frankly I have problems spelling Russian and African surnames with elongated or suppressed syllables they comprise of and understand they too would have similar problems with ours. But its kind of sympathetic for those whose names are spelt, mine sometimes being among them!!

On the lighter side, we have surnames which resonate with abusive words like Banchood’s and Lodha or those with kunjinath and chudawala. It’s a birth luck for many in India to be born with some specific surnames like those with tribal names are regarded in future and treated on first impression as backward; or for that matter names like Singhania or Oberoi, or some with Brahmin names are treated with reverence and respect.While on the other hand we have big personalities who change their names by adding an extra syllable or replacing some letters to suite the pronunciation or if they provide good luck. More people are turning to vaastu for the new names and changing a lot more than just names.

All in all its not entirely in our hands with what names we come, but it is not in our hands whether we give importance to the surnames we have or whether it shows our oppression (in case of women) but it surely is in our hands to keep our actions and image ahead of the surnames which people may remark. It may not be possible to name parks and bridges on surnames apart from Gandhi  but It definitely is in our hands to make it a point that although the surnames may be important in distinguishing us, but they are not our sole identities.
our power we can have names to our liking and the governments do provide the right to change so.

For times change and so do the means, and times demand that we be legitimate to our actions much more than regard our birth as our destiny.

Statutory Warning

SMOK'in

FäG AlON§

What’s so common between FBI agents, Gangsters, Bankers and lawyers? Or for that case which is the act that arouses people in a much more aggressive way then anger or the urge to sex? Again to be more blunt what is it that people do inspite of knowing that it would take their lives sooner than later ?

One doesn’t need more guesses for that.

Some how as many movies I have seen, I have noted that majority of the characters who make an impact with their acting and convictions take the help of Smoking as an act or a prop. The history of smoking dates back around 2000 years or so, with cannabis and ayurvedic herbal hookahs being the tools. But the use of tobacco and opium among the other chemicals has been prevalent since the last few hundred years. One does relate the Sherlock Holmes adventures where there has been repeated mention of the opium dens in the later 1800’s and early 1900’s. Furthermore if one sees smoking was once regarded since long an act for both the sexes and in some civilizations it was a mark of wise and experienced people. Today although its paradoxically an act that demarcates the wisdom and weakness.(For reference Wiki).

Bless Urself

However hard one tries today to create awareness about the ill effects of smoking, capitalism and the minds of people in fact have popularized it even more. As my brother once told me, “If I tell you to close your eyes and not think about a ghost, the next instant you would be.” So instead of giving out stereotyped teachings and writings I would simply try and popularize it. Please do rate my marketing skills as I give an honest try.

“

Reasons why you should smoke:

‰ Students start smoking out of depression, when things don’t go your way, when you feel too lonely, when there is a huge void of idleness in life an precisely when you’re not feeling happy. So I feel it should be available easily to students with some special student concession from the panwalas. (~Follow~)

‰ Some students start smoking to show off their brawns, their lust and coolness, to show they are dudes. I think it’s the best reason I think one should at least give smoking a try! Women find men who smoke much sexier.

‰ Weed, grass, opium, hashish, cannabis, cocaine these all are hot stuff!! Just imagine, I can fly, swim, tranquilize myself or do whatever I fantasize just from a small doze of it. Just imagine! Its much more than a trip to Disneyland can do and that too can save thousands of rupees.

Kurt Cobain?!? or We?

‰ Its true that in the past many doctors would prescribe smoking to the women during as a safer alternative to control blood pressure. So the and julie’s and shaina’s must have a right to have atleast a fag a day.

‰ The Govt. has recently banned smoking in public places. Such treachery! It should on the Health department’s table as a bill- Right to Smoking. For the

Come on! Have it.

business professionals and workers anyway smoke it in large no’s.

‰ Finally smoking causes many diseases such as Lung cancer, stenosis. Heart Attacks and other chronic pulmonary diseases. This will infact help in controlling the population explosion and help the medical industry thrive. (Anyway in today’s time, people are more business oriented and helps increase the per capita income of the countries. Statistics)

Coming to the analytical facts about the smoking, one pack of 10 cigarettes costs something from 30 rs to 100 rs. The major brands of smoking are, Wills, Camels, Marlboro, India Kings, Bristol, Goldflake, 555, etc. Considering one consumes 3-5 a day, one spends on an average 20 rs per day on it. That is around 600 rs a month or 7000 rs a year. One can definitely afford to spend 20 a day on such pleasure. The only hindering factor would be the recent stats that around 500,000 people die due to smoking related diseases every year or 900,000 people in India but that is not even 0.1% of its total population(Link1, Link2). According to the Harvard School of Public Health , “The tobacco industry has carefully manipulated menthol content not only to lure youth but also to lock in lifelong adult customers in India. Menthol cigarette brands have been rising in popularity with adolescents, and the highest use has been among younger, newer smokers. Menthol masks the harshness and irritation of cigarettes, allowing delivery of an effective dose of nicotine, the addictive chemical in cigarettes. ” Whatever one says, it’s a good sign for the smoking market. ~Top 10 posters for Smoking~

Make it a habit.

The World Health Organization (Who?) celebrates every year 31st May as ”World No Tobacco Day”. Such fools!! It should be “World Know Tobacco Day”.

I just imagine the situation like the terminator where like the robots there would be a new dawn of smokers and by 2050 the percentage of smokers and smoking related habits rise as the mercury bar in summer at Ahmedabad. As I put an end to my dream, I hear the song by the Indian band Agni- ‘Sadho Re.. ‘. Go on listen it and Happy Smoking.

As they write in the packets, Smoking is Injurious to Health, don’t be fooled by it because as I said, The greatest way to promote something is to defame it.

”