Cheers.!!!

It was one day while I was whiling away my precious time going through Khaled Hosseini’s most popular book “The kite runner” when I happened to come across a part in the book where main protagonist contemplates his life and its iniquities and asks himself “If there is anyway he can turn everything bad he did into good?” It sounded very familiar and then I reflected on that Isn’t this I’ve asked many times to myself as well?

At that very moment an uncommon thought struck my mind if is it really possible or can be made possible that there exists a thing which could cure every problem, right every wrong and render every bad into good. And to my utmost surprise I did find the answer. The only word that rang bells of my mind and struck it real hard was the word
“Alcohol”
But then another thought struck my mind: Not everybody in the world is alcoholic or boozer and hence the word “Alcohol” does not apply universally.

So how should one who abstains from such stuffs should be alleviated of his/her pain?
And only then I decided that I should provide people with real benefits of Alcohol and provide them an insight into how better can they lead their lives without any further complications or trouble once they realize its true potential and worthy cause of its existence. This very post of mine is just to provide them with the difference between “Drinking and Drunkenness”.

Let me make it very clear that it’s alright to be a drinker. According to me Alcohol is one and the only thing that breaks the ice, encourages bonding and no one is any worse for having a swig of the good stuff. Here’s how:
One way to ensure a book becomes a best-seller is to have the Govt ban it,or spread rumours that it is about to do so. That is very common here in India and has happened several times. The one way to ensure higher sales of items that many people indulge in is to ban them. The case of prohibition of alcoholic drinks is as old as history; the case of ban on smoking is recent. Both have proved to be flops wherever they have been tried. America went through many years of prohibition before it discovered it did not work. India tried it in fits and starts in different states and gave up after realising that however stringent the laws, people addicted to drink got it, if not legally, then some spurious substitute which took their lives. Gujarat is the one state which has refused to learn lessons. It was not surprising thus that last month over 150 people died after drinking some poisonous brew.

Drinking is not a vice, drunkenness is. All over the world adults are allowed to drink when and what they like. It is only when they get drunk and misbehave that they are arrested. Drink like a gentleman or a lady; it is a civilized thing to do. It breaks the ice and encourages bonding. If England had no pubs, life in the country would become drab. All over Europe the making of wine has become a fine art. People have wine-cellars in their homes; Europeans have their favourite wine with both meals. No one is any the worse for doing so.


Indians have been drinking since pre-Vedic times. They were mostly home-made stuff or a cottage industry: arrak, mahua, tharra, feni, etc. With the advent of the Europeans, it was enlarged to an industry and we began to brew our own beers, distill whiskey, gin and rum. In recent years, we also started making wines. Vineyards came up in Maharashtra and Karnataka. So we have our own red, white and rose wines as well as Champagne. Many of them are as good as any imported wine, and are good enough to find markets in old wine-producing countries and earn us foreign exchange. Our aim should be to produce good quality beverages with low alcoholic content like lager, cider and wines rather than spirits like whiskey, gin, rum or feni. And at low prices which the poor can afford to buy. But will our stupid politicians ever learn any lessons? The answer is one big “No”. They won’t as they have never been but we can surely change our perspective on how we look at Alcohol and its consumption. Remember excess of anything is bad and it’s not only applicable to alcohol but everything that exists around you.

Alcohol can also help one restore peace all around the world as once you consume it ,irrespective of who you do it with, eventually you end up saying to every fella “ You are my best friend and the only well wisher" and this helps you to get over with animosity toward somebody or something and hence encourages bonding and mutual admiration.

P.S: Let me clear this that I’m a complete teetotaler myself far cry from a dipsomniac but then sometimes I don’t mind having “Do boond zindagi ke” or a lil swig by myself. It’s not that I wanna have it…no…it’s ‘coz I believe in restoration of peace throughout the world and doing that is just a small step toward it ;)

Cheers..!!!

The Notebook

This has got to be the best Romance I've seen in a long time. This is about Hollywood Flick directed by Nick Cassavetes,starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams in a lead pair.Though it came really late to me...as it released in the year 2004..but better late than never. I've always loved romance ...be it in "reel" life or in "real" life...this is one field where I feel invincible. To me,if m ever asked(hopefully I'm asked) about the secret of real success..the word..the only word that rings bells of mind has to be the word "Romance". If you do anything...anything in the world with romance...it is sure to meet its desired destination and success. Be it your relationship with your love or with a friend..or your life..your job..your surroundings...when done with romance,is sure to end with immortal love. Anyway lets not get in there and digress...as this very post is about my take on the movie "The Notebook".
As for the storyline there's nothing extraordinary or exceptional about it. It has the story which anyone must have heard or seen somewhere. Just look at what it’s about – a young lovestruck couple in the 1940s (Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams), their disapproving parents, the predictable enforced separation, the forlorn attempts at happiness with others, and of course the end where the movie ends(noway...m going to reveal the end..watch yourself). But what's remarkable is how it's been told through a movie...how beautifully it's been directed.There are moments so scenic and beautiful that they might jus make your heart skip few beats...like the ones shown in in the year 1940.You may or may not find this as good as i did ,esp those who cringe at the mention of word romance and scoff at it to project their macho or masculine image which to their dismay is not how it is but deep down they are always looking for one short stint with it. But those of you who love romance and are in love would simply love this movie. I highly recommend seeing this film because it has everything that is needed for a truly great love story.
Those of you who wish to watch can have it from me.

Women Power

“God made man stronger but not necessarily more intelligent. He gave women intuition and femininity. And, used properly, that combination easily jumbles the brain of any man I've ever met.”
- Farrah Fawcett

Why a good job is hard to find

There are people who are placed in some reputed companies ...and are still waiting for their joining...there are those who are working and are not satisfied with the kind of work they have been assigned with and then there are those who are still struggling to see that very light of their career to led them through the pavement of their life's success. I wonder about this whole scenario currently existing in this troubled times of recession and contemplated a question : Why a good job is hard to find?
I recently came across a column in a newspaper where it says that there is good and bad news for those looking for work in these troubled times. On the positive side, there are at last “native jobs for native workers” as migrant labour heads home. The bad news? The vacancies include meat packing, sorting potatoes, grating carrots, cleaning, and – the least bad options – working as a retail assistant or in a fast-food restaurant. In Spain, strawberries are being harvested by Spaniards for the first time in years. “Picking strawberries is the last resort, but it’s all there is,” said Jose Maria Gomez, a 29-year-old former construction worker, in The New York Times last month.
As one employment agency manager told recently, a new type of job-seeker has emerged. “It’s what I’d call older, middle-aged people who have been in work for 10, 15, 20 years in one place,” she explained, “and now with the climate as it is, they are made redundant and are willing to take on anything. It is heartbreaking.” It is sad seeing highly skilled people being forced to take on semi or unskilled jobs. But while such work may be back-breaking, is it really “heartbreaking” as well?
Having a good job – that is, interesting work in civilised conditions – is clearly preferable to having a bad one. But better a miserable job than no job at all. So with unemployment rising just about everywhere, it might seem an odd time to start a debate on “good work”: what it is and to how create more of it.

But there are some who say that we should be thinking harder about good work cause economic recovery will come, and business needs to be ready for it. But then I believe that It would be difficult to imagine that employees will be attracted to work for a company that has acquired a bad reputation during the recession. Since 1992 the skills levels of employees has risen – indeed, sometimes to higher levels than those required by some employers. But at the same time employees’ freedom to take decisions and organise their work – “employee discretion”, in the jargon – has fallen. In Europe, Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands seem to have achieved both higher skills levels in the workforce but with greater employee discretion as well.

Managers are under pressure. They have too much to do, too little time to do it in, in a market that is unforgiving. They may understand perfectly well the enlightened argument for a less coercive and more accommodating management style. But then the next crisis emerges, the next deadline looms, and you see a reversion to what some people call the JFDI school of management. (The J, D and I stand for Just Do It.) But JFDI management achieves diminishing returns.

There is plenty of demand for good work right now. Worker unrest is rising around the world, with some employees staging sit-ins to try to protect their terms and conditions, while others – of course – have seized managers and held them hostage in recent weeks.
So, which is more important: work, or good work? The protesting workers are so desperate to keep their jobs that they will do almost anything to hold on to them. Their desperation stems in part from the realisation that any job they move on to is likely to be inferior, with lower pay and less job satisfaction.
Jobs are good, but good jobs are better. Managers should be trying to provide the latter. I am with the American psychologist Frederick Herzberg on this one. “If you want people to do a good job, give them a good job to do,” he said. How’s that for a mission statement to lead us out of recession?

But remember not everyone will share the same definition of what a good job is.
“Good work is in the eye of the job holder."

PC in TV

Just got to know about this wonderful example of some more new technological evolution...so thought of sharing with you all on this very part of cosmos.
A Bristol company is putting a netbook computer inside a Freeview TV set to create a screen-saving TV/PC combination for the UK market. There's nothing new about adding a TV tuner to a PC, but adding a full PC to a TV set is a bit more unusual. That's what Bristol-based Bristol Interactive is doing, with its as-yet-unnamed 22-inch and 32-inch TVs. The 22-inch model shown above is a standard Freeview TV set. Click the remote, however, and you've got what amounts to a built-in Atom-powered netbook showing Windows XP on the TV screen. The PC part also includes a gigabyte of memory, 160GB hard drive, four USB ports, an RJ45 Ethernet port, a circular "air mouse" and a wireless keyboard. (The one in my photo looks like a Hillcrest Loop Pointer.) The screen resolution is 1680 x 1050 pixels, which is far more than you get on a netbook.
Bristol Interactive's chief executive officer Paul Fellows says: "This is a full digital television set: a Freeview chassis for the UK market. The red button works, and the TV is completely independent of the PC functions. You don't have to be in Windows to watch TV."

One thing that's missing is Wi-Fi, because of the reliability issues and the potential for support costs. An Ethernet cable works better if you want video, and Fellows expects this will be a main function: buyers will be using the BBC iPlayer, and watching YouTube and similar videos. Internet radio is another attraction.

You can, of course, run standard Windows software. However, the problem is that users typically sit much closer to a PC screen than they do to a TV set. On-screen text is small enough that you wouldn't want to read it from a TV-watching position.

Fellows thinks the 22-inch model will find a home in bedrooms and kitchens, where its versatility will be attractive, as will the lack of unsightly wiring. (You can use a couple of HomePlug devices to make the Internet connection -- or, if you insist, a USB Wi-Fi plug-in.) The 32-inch model might find a home in living rooms.

Bristol hopes to launch the system in October, with 22-inch models being sold through supermarkets for less than £500.

There's clearly a market for this sort of thing. How often it stretches to £500 is another matter.

At the moment, my standard suggestion for this sort of use is to get an Asus Eee Box, which you can attach to the back of an LCD TV set. But at £300-ish plus the cost of the TV set, that's not really a cheaper option.

Karnal

It was one day when I found myself gasping for breath ...wait don't get me wrong here...i'm not asthmatic..it happened as an outcome of sitting idle at my place for very long and as a result of prolonged boredom. I tried real hard to keep myself busy with books but then you hardly get unputdownable stuff from a library like British Council and as a result had to manage with books by Manju kapur and likes which I found very effective to test one's true ability to endure crap and deal with boredom but you can't keep up a fight of this sort for long...you are sure to succumb against such rare talents and their books. At last I was left with zilch.
But then thought of my friends...thought that they are the ones who can help me escape from such long boredom but then to my bad luck they were all busy considering there are only few..thanks to my misanthropic attitude.But I somehow communicated my feelings to them.

Like they say...a friend in need is a friend indeed..these friends did come to my rescue. We all planned a short jaunt to Karnal in Haryana and hence headed in the direction of it on this sunday. I thought this would definitely bring some relief but never thought ..not even for a second that I shall be soon embarking upon one of the most beautiful jaunt of my life. We left early in the morning at 6:30 in two cars from Delhi to karnal. We've had fun of our life on our way to karnal. We kicked off with a breakfast in a dhaba called Punjabi Tadka which thankfully served us edible Paranthe with white butter and mineral water.Once we reached karnal ...it felt unbeleivingly good to see such beautiful surrounding all around us. We went boating for half an hour in karnal lake..which I thought was the fastest way to have six pack abs. We rode happily in scorching heat with my friend's faces gone red and mine black but it was worth of all the hardships we've had to go through. Clicked as many photographs in whatever possible poses and locations s.a facing "tittu teastall" and no. of crazy of them and finally came back by 7:00 in the evening. But It felt amazingly awesome to have such a wonderful jaunt with all my friends by my side.This day would indelibly remain in my heart forever.
Thanks each one of you who despite of their own problems did so much for me. You guys are my true friends.M missing you all :(
Hope we'll have one more very soon ..!!
Thanks..!!

Very True..!!

“ If people were as captivated by public affairs as they are by erotic ones, the economy would be very strong.”