Some readers found this title image a little distasteful and asked me to take it off. Keeping their sensibilities in mind I'm putting a new one up. Anyway it's been there for almost a month-and-a-half and the replacement with was long overdue. As Sandeepa said I remain the boss of this blog and things around here happen according to my whims and fancies, but once in a while I should heed to readers' concerns (or at least pretend to).
The movie is Madhubala, of course not based on the beauty of the yesteryears (I was and am an adorer) but on the Preeti Jain-Madhur Bhandarkar episode. It was running in one of Connaught Place's (New Delhi) oldest theatres, the landmark Regal, usually described as seedy, in-kempt and exhibiting 'A' rated films. Haven't yet been inside the theatre, but the posters usually attract sufficient attention.
Photographed October 1, 2006.
The description of the present title image will be made available on its retirement.
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Was a little preoccupied all these days and couldn't visit blogadesh. As things settle down on the professional front, issues of personal importance, like blogging, will follow suit.
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I lasted in my first job for two years two-and-a-half months. This time I'm changing my official address in exactly 10 months. Too soon, some say. But when opportunities come your way, better grab them, with both hands. So what if it entails a 70 kilometre ride every day? My hunt is for satisfaction, which I know I'll never achieve. And that's a good thing.
"Why do you want to leave this job?" the HR Manager asked me in my exit interview. An honest answer would have been, "I don't know." But he wouldn't have understood. Therefore I told him, "the work profile is what I always wanted to do, the salary's higher" and the other standard acceptable reasons. I didn't lie, these were just some of the obvious reasons. There are many other unobvious ones, which even we ourselves cannot comprehend. I said yes, to the offer at hand, because something inside me said yes. Why did it answer in the affirmative, it never gives us the reasons. And I don't argue.
Professionally things are changing, on the blog front I don't see much of a change, unless I try to apply my brushed-up professional skills on the blogosphere; or they tell me that it's either your blog or your job. Since the paapi pet rules, I'll continue with the latter (till the time I find myself a new job, with a fatter pay cheque of course). But that seems unlikely, since my boss' a blogger too.
I wrote this in my last job-switch post, it still holds true and will.
A struggler day entry in my diary (nowadays I only blog) reads, "Some days you are the dog, on others the lamppost. Today I was the lamppost..." Tomorrow too wouldn't be much different. The lamppost remains, the dogs change.
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A 1986 Only Vimal ad featuring the cricketer for whom the word swashbuckling was perhaps coined - Viv Richards, or more appropriately Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards, one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Century (Don Bradman, Gary Sobers, Jack Hobbs and Shane Warne were the other four. Only Warne was the non-knight in the list). This Antiguan was one of the most fearsome of batsmen, but in this ad he looks a charmer. No wonder Neena Gupta fell for him.
Download video [WMV 580 KB 00:00:30 Stereo 208X160]
When you are looking for the best,
Put the rest to rest.
Now baby I've found a new love,
It's the one everybody is talking of.
It's Only Vimal,
Only Vimal,
Only Vimal.
The looks of a winner.
Can't view the video? Download Windows Media Player
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December 13, 2001. The Indian Parliament is attacked. A dozen dead, including the attackers. Massive deployment of soldiers by India to the border with Pakistan. Relations strained. Many arrests made. Some convicted, others acquitted. One now in death row, seeking clemency.
In five years, a lot has been happening, moving and changing. But inside the highest seat of the world's largest democracy, not much has changed except for the people occupying the treasury and the opposition benches. They termed the December 13 attack as one on Indian democracy. I wouldn't reproduce on this blog what actually were the people's reactions (there's a strong possibility of getting blocked). Everyone knows, or can very easily guess how the common man would have reacted.
The most crippling attack on the form of government that this country practices is not from the terrorists or militants from outside, rather it is from the ones inside the House. Every session is an unending assault. This is what cartoonist Neeraj Gupta says through his exhibition 'Sansad Par Hamla' (Attack on Parliament). The exhibition was inaugurated yesterday, by veteran cartoonist Sudhir Tailang at the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society, 1 Rafi Marg (Opposite Rail Bhavan), New Delhi 110001. The exhibition is on till Sunday, December 17, 2006 from 1:00 PM to 7:00 PM.
I know Neeraj (Neerajsir to me) since my university days in Bhopal, where he was a cartoonist with Nava Bharat. He was someone who fitted my visualisation of a cartoonist to the hilt. The other two that I met in flesh and blood were quite different. The great RK Laxman came across as acerbic (maybe because of his age), but not without wit and I didn't believe that Sudhir Tailang was Sudhir Tailang until he drew a caricature of the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on my notebook (but Narasimha Rao remains his best), he to me looked quite un-cartoonist like.
Neeraj is jovial man even in the most adverse of circumstances. Someone, who isn't afraid to take risks and face challenges, even if the costs involved are great. One fine day he gave his comfortable job up and landed in the city of dreams, Bombay, in pursuit of his dreams (later also took me along on my very first visit to the city and played a gracious host). When things didn't work out the way he would have liked them to be, he bid adieu to Bombay and landed in Delhi in his tried and tested vocation as a cartoonist with Dainik Jagran. Not very satisfied with the ways of the media, he joined Samsung India Electronics, where he is the Creative Director.
If you happen to visit the exhibition, do chat with him He's interesting to talk to. Makes you feel comfortable.
Here are a few cartoons from the exhibition (tried to translate them for readers who are not comfortable with Hindi, but much might be lost in the process).
Hope you remember? Repeated boycotts made me forget the way to the Parliament
... and this is an extinct species of a Parliamentary etiquette following MP
It is hereby informed that this premises is not for commercial use ... shut your shop from here ... else this place would be sealed. By order - Public
Live Telecast
Breaking news! Today the Parliament managed to get some work done
The Great Indian Comedy Show
In our sport steroids are an absolute necessity
Walk out
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