A glass of steaming milky syrupy tea is best served cut. One by two or two by three, it embodies the spirit of sharing and camaraderie (and more significantly a resource crunch). Come, have a sip.
The day before yesterday, on my way to work I got stuck in a traffic jam. Nothing new. With the number of vehicles on Delhi's roads coupled with the Kanwariya season (a few days back three Kawariyas on a motorcycle hit my two-wheeler from the rear at a red light) this was expected.
But going a little further I could see smoke and on coming closer I found the source, a Hyundai Santro was ablaze. I had read about such accidents in the papers, they happen quite often. I parked near a petrol pump and captured this video on my mobile.
Of late I've been facing problems downloading videos from YouTube using my favourite tools - KeepVid and the MP4 download bookmarklet - though the videos were usually playing fine, the downloaded files were only a few KBs in size.
Then I zeroed in on the cause - YouTube's India sub-domain: in.youtube.com. The existing systems were possibly configured to pick stuff from YouTube's parent domain and not the one with the 'in.' prefix.
The solution, therefore was quite simple. Just remove the 'in.' part from the url and download as usual.
Don't know whether this issue exists with YouTube's version for other countries as well.
On a related note, if you come across the despised message on the YouTube player, "We're sorry, this video is no longer available," try removing the country id prefix (you can even try adding it in case it is the default top domain URL) to the URL and reload or use a different country prefix. It worked for me a number of times.
Often just refreshing the page without changing the URL also works.
Aur bheriye ne memne se kaha, Mein tumhe kha jaoonga... Hhh... hhh...
Gale mein khich khich? Vicks lo Vicks mein cheh aushidi tatwa hain, Jo khich khich hataye. To jab bhi gale mein khich khich ho... Vicks lo.
Gale mein khich khich Gale mein khich khich Kya karun? Vicks ki goli lo Khich khich door karon...
To share/embed this video click here Download video [00:00:32 FLV 633 KB] Download hi-res video [00:00:32 AVI 4.13 MB] Download for mobile [00:00:32 3GP 728 KB] [From this post onwards I'll also try to include high resolution videos of the ads so that readers who need them for alternative purposes can have it a little easy]
We all who grew up in the 1980s and the 1990s would recall the ad and the tune, it ran for a good decade-and-a-half. I had learnt a new word, 'khich khich'. And my young mind questioned the term 'cough drops'. My argument was that drops were supposed to be liquid and this was a solid logenze.
This ad made Jayant Kripalani a household face. The little girl in the ad was Isshita Arun (or is it Ishita? The wonders of numerology) - singer Ila Arun's daughter.
And if you, like me, are wondering (I'm not very clued in) where is she now?
She has grown up (obviously) and is an actress and a television host (Some readers might easily recognise).
Jayant was paid only Rs 500 (don't know if Rs 500 could be classified as 'only' back in 1982) for the ad. But this led to his entry into the world of television (though he was already into advertising and documentary filmmaking) and he was later seen in Limca ads, TV serials Mr Ya Mrs (I don't recall that much), Khandaan (not much here too) and Ji Mantriji (the Indian take on Yes Minister). He also appeared in a number of films, the latest being Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na. Others were Trikaal and Rockford (saw them all).
As this too would make for a nice nostalgic ringtone. Here's the ringtone version.
In an expected move (you can usually foresee what the Indian Communists would do) the Communist Party of India (Marxist) expelled the Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee from the party.
This move by the CPI(M) would only add to Somnath's aura. He has already won a lot of hearts by his non-partisan role as the Speaker especially the during the dramatic trust motion brought forward by the Prime Minstrer Manmohan Singh.
With their dadagiri days at the Centre over, the Left will have a lot of firefighting to do to rebuild their image and this action wasn't surely an image building exercise.
I personally hold some of leaders of the Left parties in high esteem because of their personal integrity and commitment for a cause (whatever they may be) and their ability to make sensible (and legible) arguments (though not always agreeable). But as a collection of individuals under the red flag I (and many fellow Indians) are fast losing whatever positive vibes that we had for them.
We have all heard (and also seen) gory tales of red goondagardi in West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala. Not that other parties don't resort to such tactics, but theirs is more organised and deadlier.
The idea of Communism (though it does sound very good) has faltered in execution as real life and human behaviour tend to be quite different from the ideas enclosed in books.
Seems like it is time for the comrades to pool in some change from their Rs 3200 per month allowance to purchase some packets of the MNC manufactured Vanish to back some of the lost colour of the red flag.
It was almost like a World Cup Cricket final and it seems that the better team won. And what a drama. A crore in cash displayed in the well of the house. Allegations of horse trading. Some brilliant speeches and many of the usual boring ones. Some hilarious too.
Amidst all the pandemonium in the Lok Sabha the Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee (rising above petty party politics) managed to get the voting done on the motion of trust proposed by the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, who was actually not allowed to complete his speech by unruly opposition.
I think NDTV Imagine should ask McCann Ericsson to come up with yet another TVC for their Ramayan Ek Acchi Aadat campaign where kids are shown aping our Members of Parliament.
The final figures:
For: 275 Against: 256 Abstained: 10
And I believe its for the better. For now. As for the Left, there's not much left.
For the Akshay Kumar starrer Singh is Kinng, tons of free publicity.
The other day my brother called up. "Delhi's going to host the Winter Olympics," he joked. But for the people who take decisions on such matters in India might quite possibly be thrilled at the idea.
And a few days later I read that Delhi would be the official host of the 2010 Men's Hockey World Cup.
I don't have anything against Delhi, after all I have been living here for almost half-a-decade now and have started to identify myself with the city.
But then it isn't a nice experience to be a citizen of a single-city nation. To the outside world it would seem that there is only one city in the 32,87,263 sq km area of the country - Delhi or more specifically New Delhi.
Isn't it already enough that the city has already hosted the first ever Asian Games in 1951 followed by the 1982 edition and now the Commonwealth Games in 2010?
In between there was some unsuccessful bids to play the hosts for yet another international sporting event. And now there are plans to bid for the biggest of them all - The Olympics in 2020.
This one-city focus isn't found in many of the countries of the world. Honestly, I hadn't heard of Incheon before it beat Delhi in the race to the 2014 Asian Games.
If we look at the Asian Games, South Korea got the opportunity thrice to host it and only the first (1986) was in the capital Seoul, the subsequent events went to Busan (2002) and Incheon (2014). The 2010 Asiad will be held in Guangzhou and not Beijing.
Amongst the 20 cities that have/will hosted/host the Commonwealth Games (in its different forms) only four are country capitals (and this includes Delhi). And as many as 10 of the host cities of the Olympic Games weren't the cities where the seat of the government resided.
Such international events provide a tremendous potential to overhaul the entire infrastructure of the city. The city of Delhi has been fortunate enough to have good facilities (compared to other cities in the country), that has been augmented by the Asian Games and now the Commonwealth Games. Don't other cities in the country deserve an opportunity to make things better for its residents? Why do we need to be concentrated only to the National Capital?
Before you point it out, Hyderabad did host the inaugural Afro-Asian Games in 2003 and the 2007 Military World Games, but they were comparatively inconsequential.
There is an India beyond the periphery of the NCR. Our media is partially blind to the fact (partially because they at least see the other metros). And to our sports administrators... get a phacoemulsification done.
Old pal Kisholay seemed pleased with my series - Rubbers of India - and being the photographer that he is, promptly shot and sent me a couple of photos to propagate the message of safe sex via this blog.
"The waterfall was Indian advertising's watershed, when former Air-India hostess Karen Lunel appeared in a green two-piece bikini for Liril. The first in a series that later also brought us Preity Zinta, Liril gave Indian advertising the sex appeal of the semi-clad feminine form, which it has used ever since to sell aftershaves, cars, clothing and condoms..." I wrote in an article for Tehelka.
If what I know is right, this was one of the earliest colour ads to be aired on Indian television (the brand - Liril - was launched in 1975) and colour entered Indian living rooms courtesy the 1982 Asian Games.
For Alyque Padamsee, the man then at the helm of Lintas, the agency behind the landmark ad, "more than the freshness that comes from its features, Liril promised 20 minutes of freedom to the Indian housewife who gets pulled in different directions for the rest of the time."
For those who came in late (to planet Earth) here is the revolutionary Liril ad:
The ad was shot in Pambar Falls in Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu, which is now more popularly known as 'Liril Falls' thanks to the ad.
Karen Lunel was the first Liril girl. Those who followed her include Aneesha Dalal, Pooja Batra, Anjali Jathar, Hrishita Bhat, Tara Sharma, Ruchi Malhotra, Deepika Padukone, Divya Palat and of course Preity Zinta.
An interesting fact that I never realised before - the name is a palindrome.
So catchy is the La lara la la... tune, composed by Vanraj Bhatia, that I couldn't help but make a ringtone out of it. You can preview and download the MP3 ringtone from below:
The day before yesterday, on my way to work I got stuck in a traffic jam. Nothing new. With the number of vehicles on Delhi's roads coupled with the Kanwariya season (a few days back three Kawariyas on a motorcycle hit my two-wheeler from the rear at a red light) this was expected. 
Of late I've been facing problems downloading videos from YouTube using my favourite tools - 
The other day my brother called up. "Delhi's going to host the Winter Olympics," he joked. But for the people who take decisions on such matters in India might quite possibly be thrilled at the idea.
