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 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 - 
