Real v. Virtual world

Aren't we all living a virtual world life more than the real one. It is not uncommon to see pictures on fb or other social networking sites making fun of people who are constantly on their phones. The best one for me where there are group of friends sitting together and their phones are piled up and the tag line goes whoever picks first will pay the bill. Though I am writing this piece, but am doing it from my phone, which makes me guilty of missing out on the real world. But what is really real world for us? We tend to look up everything on the Internet and if we are not a part of this Internet age then are we really missing out on the virtual world or real world.  But sometimes I wonder if the principles of fb would be applied in everyday life, how the respone would be? Imagine some random person coming over to you and offer friendship. Will u start asking about the mutual friends or just say no. If I start following you I will be called a stalker and not a supporter. Butting in any conversation and saying I like it would definitely attract the attention of a policeman, a psychologist and a psychiatrist if not of any opposite gender. But I guess the rules of every society is different whether it's the virtual society of same people. 

Travel- for its love or for an escape

Captions of ThumsUp (Aaj kuch toofani karte hai) and Mountain Dew (Dar ke aage jeet hai) at first seem to be linked to adventure sports only but when you give a careful consideration it really make you think Whats your beat ? All of us are living a monotonous life or it just seems to be like that. What is the reason that everybody wants to break free and go on a trip. It has become very common to hear stories of people going on a backpacking trip or suddenly they have just left their jobs and started doing something completely different. All this makes me wonder, have we really become slaves of ourselves or have we become too scared to try something new. Everybody wants to live on their own but are they really living for themselves? When I browse the internet I see all the travel blogs with maximum followers and views. Is it really the love of travel that is making people travel or a break from the mundane routine or is it that we all have become really intellectual and have realized that the true form of education is travel. Mostly travel holidays work as an escape for few days but the real question which needs to be answered is why do we chose to do something for 30-40 years which we do not love? The clothes which we wear may be of the most expensive and latest trends but the psych is still age old. Parents still giving donations and spending lakhs and lakhs of rupees for their kids education and admission. Kids still competing for the age old courses and the cut off seems to be rising every year. In this era of technology where one can connect with a person sitting half way around the world in seconds and do any transaction, why do we term only 4-5 courses as professional courses. Is it our weak education system which does not empower the kids with their own faculty of thinking and choosing the right profession for them. 

The fear of changing profession is attributed to the expensive courses also as one tend to spend a lot for obtaining a degree in this nation. The social stigma of leaving some professional course/work (baap ka paisa barbaad kar diya) and the peer pressure also makes one bow down to the chains of slavery. We are living in 2015 and it is the age of start ups but we only hear the success stories and hearing so many of them now gives hope to our future. I only wish that a day may come when everyone gets to work and earn by what they love.     

First gote (daal baati) of season

Monsoons not only bring good/pleasant weather but also the urge to eat for me. The thought of eating dal pakoras with green chutney and tea in the evening or hot samosas or onion kachoris during monsoon makes me drool anytime of the day or month or year. Yesterday was my lucky day as not only it rained but I was invited for a prasadi/gote. In other words I was in for the most mouth watering daal baati. For people who haven't tasted daal baati I would say- Dude you eat non veg and you haven't tried laal maas yet. I may be a little bias but trust me in North India and especially in Rajasthan this is epic. I still remember the days when I was in college, how everyone from all over the nation started liking daal baati and even after graduation when people came to Rajasthan they would ask me where can they get daal baati.  Anyways coming back to yesterday's meal, the love of my life- my wife (who has not been brought up in rajasthan) also went with me and it was her first time trying daal baati. To be honest I was more excited about her experience than the whole meal and at the end her experience of eating daal baati and me enjoying my favorite meal both turned out to be quite amazing. Traditionally they make you sit on the floor and serve you in a pattal (disposable plate made out of some kind of dry leaf or something) but fortunately for many, there were tables and chairs yesterday. The moment you are seated people start serving you and its not just one or two persons serving you, there is a whole of lot of people serving you. Its like when you go for a buffet the dishes are static and you keep moving but in this case you are static and the dishes keep moving. The menu for yesterdays meal was 4 types of churma including pineapple churma, plain baati, masala baati, sweet baati, daal, gatte, bhindi, fried mirchi, kadi and rice. I personally love masala baati with fried mirchi and gatte. As it was my first gote of the season I tried everything and enjoyed every bit of it. The meal is very heavy as the baatis are soaked in ghee and churmas are also quite rich with sugar. Any experienced daal baati eater will never have lots of water right after the meal. I would suggest, to know the reason behind it you should go and try it for yourself. We all ate as much as we could but I wonder whether everyone was really satisfied or kept craving for more and cursing their tummies why it got full so fast. In the end we had kulfi for sweet dish and it felt like cherry on the cake. The meal came to an end, the satisfaction will last for couple of days but the experience shall last forever as this one was really a special one because of my wife. I hope you all get a chance to enjoy daal baati soon. Happy eating.

NOTE- all the non veg lovers you can try plain baati with mutton (laal maas). Finger licking good.

DAAL BAATI

Jaipur and Happy Hours

Rajasthan, one of the states where MRP of daaru is the most expensive in India. The reason behind the same must be very technical but logically it is just absurd. Rajasthan is the largest state in terms of size,  population and people here do drink. Rajasthan govt. profits a lottttt from the sale of alcohol too. There are cities like Kota which are  student cities but the idea of them becoming like Pune seems  a far fetched idea. In terms of hotels and bars the State must be  amongst the top states as Rajasthan is a tourist destination.
However, the concept of happy hours is still not prevalent in the capital even when the rates at which they offer alcohol is at least 3 times the MRP. In a decent bar one will not find a pint of beer less than 150 which is  three times the MRP and a 30 ml peg of VAT69 will cost around 250 which is 4-5 times of the MRP. I agree that the cost of obtaining licences have sky rocketed but the same has happened in recent past only. Cities like New Delhi have been offering happy hours since a very long time but I still remember seeing posters of happy hours in Jaipur where the bars offered 20% discount during happy hours. We are in 2015 now and yet only a handful of bars/pubs/lounges offer true happy hours. One of the places which started offering happy hours till 10 pm became the most happening place of town. No doubt the interiors were done quite nicely but happy hours made the place affordable and reachable for not only struggling professionals but also college crowd. It is still a question for me why all the good places have not started offering happy hours and even if they did, they have not started advertising when marketing is such an imperative part of  this business. Jaipur has become a metropolitan city on papers but I really wonder when concepts like these will become a part of this METRO city.  

Bahubali movie experience

Langda tyagi bahubali was the first thing which echoed in my mind when I heard the title. I still remember the hair style opted by Saif ali khan for that role and how it became a rage for all the college going boys. However ths movie was nothing like omkara.
I am reallt an admirer of south indian films as they are the ones which really have all the 3 ingredients for being successful i.e. Entertainment, entertainment and entertainment. The action sequences, the comedy, the costumes , dubbed dialogue and the happy endings make them jhakaas.
When I heard that bahubali is the costliest movie ever made in india I really wanted to watch it and finally got a chance to watch it yesterday. The whole experience was really a new one for many reasons. It has the best visual effects and all the ancient settings seem real. In the first shot itself the effect of waterfall is grand. The movie progresses throughout and has couple of songs which are worth witnessing as there is entertainment in that too. After many years I witnessed so much of whistles being blown, crowd clapping and thus experience in itself makes the movie worth watching. The ending was abrupt as there will be a second part releasing and it will be in continuation but other than that amazing mivie and if u are a fan of action and south indian drama you can't affOrd to miss out on BAHUBALI. after watching this you will stop thinking about the incapabili ty of Indian filmmakers to create grand epic movies like gladiator etc coz now there is genuine hope that bollowood will learn fom bahubali and may create something more mesmerising. As the critique say I would rate it 5 stars and a must watch.Kudos to S.S. Rajamouli

What's your beat?

  " Work hard and you will be successful " was my fathers childhood advice to me. I can still hear his words ringing in my head. You may have heard the same from your grandparents or parents. However, they were all partially right. 

   Right time, right roles. These two factors when in sync brings forth the question- are we doing what we love? I work a minimum of 10 hours a day and wonder if the duration of my work equates my passion and balances my life leaving me content. For the hundredth time , you drag yourself out of bed and yet another mundane day at work has passed by. It's been 7 years for me and if success depends on the number of hours I've spent at work, then I've made it already! Very soon you might mock hardwork being a noble goal in itself. So... 

  I may be passionate but am I "passionately curious"? Why am I not content? Is this my beat? How do I get started with something of my own that I love? Without asking the right questions your passion and talent may drive you towards the wrong direction. 

  Another aspect is when one is in a relationship, it makes you struggle with balancing your work and life with your partner. If your not in one, your struggling with wanting to attract "the love". According to those universal laws mentioned in The Secret we are supposed to " feel love" to attract it. Thus if I'm not loving what I do or feel love ( nearly) each day does it mean it's an impossible to acquire it? This leaves me with no option than to fake it till I make it. My heart doesn't agree and my quest to find me beat continues..... 

Varnika

welcome back

hi there, its been such a long time since I posted anything on this blog. its may be because i decided to spend too much time on my career or watching movies. :) its great to write and share some thoughts or knowledge with others even if no one is reading. its just your mental satisfaction that you are able to share some stuff. enough of this crap, the main reason and objective of this blog is to do bakar for which i will try to do my bit. i hope u guys will also contribute by writing comments. keep posting

ISS JUNGLE SE MUJHE BACHAO

I received a text from my friends saying that Akash got involved in yet another altercation. Now you must be thinking who Akash is. Must be one of our common friends? Right? Wrong. We do not have any friend named Akash. Then who is this mystery man Akash who got the attention of my otherwise nescient friend, as far as television is concerned. Anyway I asked again who Akash is. And this time he couldn’t bear it and chastised me.
You don’t know Akash? How can you be so dumb? Are Akash yaar ISS JUNGLE SE MUJHE BACHAO wala. And that is how I got into this stuff called Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bacho.
Anyway now when I got into it I find it very fascinating. Not in terms of the entertainment it provides or the emotional roller coaster that swings and sways that too at breathtaking pace, that leaves you bewildered, awed and not to mention “entertained” and celebrities drained.
The show is approaching its end and as the hosts put it, it would be a very eventful week and the last one coming after it. And trust me guys it is going to a very eventful week, the one coming and the ones that have passed for the psychologists and psychiatrists as well. The show is providing enough fodder for all these guys to get an insight into the psyche of candidates or humans for that matter.
The interesting thing to note about the show, apart from the entertainment dose it provides, is that how people crack under stress. A look at Akash or Mona or Anaida or-the new member of the group- jay will tell you the whole story. But my personal favorite is Akash. It is only interesting to note that no matter how much we claim of being civilized or different from our ancestors, but once you put a bunch of Homo sapiens at one place they present you with the best zoo visit you have ever had in your life. They’ll shout and fight and abuse each other. Ready to cannibalize and take each other’s place. They have long forgotten the basic value of human being; harmony and emotions and feelings; that separate humans from animals but our very own television celebrities are giving a run for their money to animals.
The debate of supremacy in animal tree has once again started and it is looking ever stiffer, with Homo sapiens having an edge at the moment. I am still confused whom to support, on whom to put my money on.
While I am munching my chips and pondering over this, Akash, my hero is into another fracas. Go Akash. Go Akash. I have made up my mind; I’ll put my money on Homo Sapiens. You guys also go and pick your favorites but trust me it’s really difficult to beat us. This show is set for over the edge thriller. Its uber cool, uber fun, and in vogue.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

It is 14^th feb 2015. I am in the dark by lanes of a filthy area. And we are hailing the SRS, VHP, BD. Trust me if you want to survive you need to do this. The lane is full of contrived faces, who are trying to cover their lament.

It has been 5 years since we have celebrated valentine’s day or friend’s day, mother’s day, father’s day, rose day, or any other day for that matter. I personally have not seen female gender for 1 year now. They are a rarity these days and the only females you got to see are in your own houses.

People have stopped roaming out, there is a general sense of despair, foreign tourists have stopped coming to India, people are spending a gloomy, dull and dismal lives. It is only VHP, SRS and BD and their self avowed moral raj(rather goonda raj) that are ruling the roost.

Picture looks dingy but could be a reality if we don’t put a check on these self proclaimed moral police and saviour  of Indian culture and their destruction of anything and everything that is UNINDIAN.

So friends time has come when we go all out with more spunk, more vigour, more charisma and more chutzpah to tell these pontificating and pedantic bastards that we have set ourselves free from the bounds of slavery and nobody, I mean NOBODY, can dictate their terms on us. A very interesting instance needs to be mentioned here and  that is about Mrs. Renuka Choudhary, union women and child development minister, who has called a PUB BHARO ANDHOLAN, which I think is a befitting reply to these morons. So guys, if we need to, lets fill the pub this valentine’s day and show these trash cans that that we are indeed free by all means!!!!! HAPPY VALENTINE”S DAY!!!!

CELL PHONES..

It is around 1 o'clock in the afternoon and i am standing at Rambagh Circle in jaipur. The light is red so it provides me an opportunity to look around here and there in case i find an interesting piece for EASY BAKAR.

And guess what i did.(of course thats why i am here stupids!!!). I am standing in between a branded, heavily billed luxury car and a city transport bus. 

I first turned towards my right where the luxury car is. I found a well dressed, heavily paid man sitting on the wheel. He was checking his CELL PHONE, probably surfing the net, checking his mail or sending a multimedia message to a friend on his communicator.

When i turned towards my left to look at the city bus, i found bus driver talking on his CELL PHONE.

Now thats the beauty of a cell phone, it just doesn't believe in discrimination. If it looks good in the hands of the rich then it equally gets flaunted in the hands of the poor. Besides being an instrument used for communication, bridging the people, making them realiase their expressions, text messages(that wonderfully revolutionary technique called shor messaging system), multimedia messages, not to mention the style quotient and other n number of uses it can provide; a cellphone is a marvellous indicator as a whole.

It indicates the distance we have travelled. From being a country of poor, who did not have basic amenities, to a country that boasts a middle class almost as big as the total population of United States. This middle class is eventually making  India the 3rd largest cellular using country and we are really close behind China. Where you just had one phone in the entire region and where you had to connect to the operator for making trunk calls and trunk calls itself were the major swanking factor; having mobile phones in virtually everybody's hand is really a telling story. This same fact is aptly mentioned by Shashi Tharoor, the great writer and a diplomat, in his book "The Elephant, the Tiger, & the Cell Phone".

So next time you see a man talking loudly on a cell phone by your side, dont get bogged down, the man is simply reiterating the already established phenomenon- India is really scaling new heights daily!!!!!!