PC FM presents: Friday Fury!

On a regular basis, now we have our Finance Minister P Chidambaram expressing his ‘Friday Fury’, I am talking about those Northward-bound inflation numbers.

For the media and the opposition, the government has become an easy target, thanks this issue.

But, what is the feedback from the ordinary man? I have seen very few reports on this interesting human side of the issue.

As per my experience, I have not seen any slump in that weekend shopping rush in departmental stores or malls. Have people reduced on their spending? Are they more cautious now? How’s the business doing for these stores and the malls?

Does it have anything to do with the recent string of box office failures?

Do these so-called upper middle class care a damn?

I think, I don’t have that complete picture yet, except those dreadful weekly numbers.

One last question also: Do prices fall when inflation is brought under control?

...and I get nervous..

This week, I have been following two murder cases that shook us for their gruesome nature; The Neeraj Grover case from Mumbai and the Arushi Talwar case of Noida. The police was frantically trying to solve the mysteries. And by week-end, they solved either the cases, or at least one of them.

While the Neeraj case now seems to be a open and shut one, I still can't digest the police version on the Arushi case. The deceased girl's father has been arrested by the police, but I still want to wait and watch for some more dramatic revelations in the days to come.

Honour Killing and Passion Killings are the buzzwords. It is all about the survival of the fittest mind and body for all of us, as the conscience levels of our society is fast moving to the negative zones.

We are talking about inflation and the rising fuel prices, what about the rising levels of crimes by quantity and 'quality'? When I think about the future, try to foresee the living conditions of my kids, the world ahead of me… thoughts of this nature depress me and I get nervous.

It might sound very foolish; but is it foolish to think ahead as all kinds of evil minds are lurking out there in the darkness?

A Vanity Affair

Aamir Khan pondering on his dog called Shahrukh, sitting in the remote hillside of Panchgani.

Amitabh Bachchan, in short and crisp paragraphs, musing away in his hotel room.

These blogs from the two supershots of bollywood have caught the fancy of fans, media and the industry alike. And they had been creating great waves as well, for their sheer intensity, simplicity, honest approach and above all..for some of those blunt comments...surely intended to stir the scandal-crazy minds a bit.

Look at the latest Aamir blog entry that had been making the whole world sit up and take notice. In this blog, Aamir reveals he has a pup named Shahrukh in his Panchgani house. And he did not name it, he says. It was named by the ex-caretakers of that house and the dog came along with the purchase.

We can choose to believe him or not. But, the point is, the way he has written the blog.

Contrary to the argument and the criticism, nowhere in the blog, he has blurted out anything harsh against his archrival. And, still the mockery stands out. That is what makes this particular blog entry very very cute, I believe.

Subtle. This is what Aamir does. (As you know, Shahrukh is busy teaching his IPL team the ABCD of business management in cricket.)

Celebrity blogs, if given a honest and real life treatment would always stand out. It is like a real life show you get to watch...a peek in the real life incidents of these stars. But, forget those fancy brainless blogs come in the name of certain stars. The blogging tool manipulated or rather exploited by their PR for sheer plugging.

And then, here we are, the aam janta, jotting down our good for nothing musings, and most of the time, nobody reads it!

We are not popular…we matter to only our close friends and relatives.

Still, we write about what we ate today for breakfast, what did we gift Mom for birthday, the plans for the next weekend, how ugly we felt the last hotel food we had, how we rate the last movie we watched etc etc....

In all of us, I feel, there is an urge to emulate the lifestyles of those celebrities we see all around us. But, we are not able to do that....so what should we do?

One ego-cushion is these blogs.

We write our blogs and circulate among friends.....add the url as a sign-off to our mails...expecting even those hapless strangers - who receive our tasteless forward mails - read it and admire our creativity....

It is just one method....everyone can't do it....you should know how to write....

But, talking about the public, there are various games people play to get noticed....grab eyeballs....their endless thirst for admiration.

We have often heard about kids with rare skills..........some of them can drive even before learning how to walk by themselves....some of them can solve any maths problem......some of them can get you the names of country capitals in a flash...

But, I wonder...why these parents are so much publicity-crazy. Let their little ones have a life....Keep the skill to yourself and use it for better things......I don't know what happen to all these kids later....we never get to see any update......they end up in the capsule programmes coming at the end of a news telecast...bringing their parents some instant stardom in their locality.

I hate vanity.

So, me hating vanity, how does it matter to others....?

What makes me writing down this piece of blog....and rather forcefully conveying my ideas about vanity? Answer is simple. I want the reader to read this blog, and appreciate and admire my hatred for vanity.

So, who is the biggest fraud here?

an IPL lover is born

I did some IPL bashing in my last post. I repent.

After closely following its fortunes throughout the just concluded first half of the series, I want to concede that the property is a hit.

And you don't need me to tell that either!

But I want to admit that, my first impressions on the tourney were wrong to an extent. These are some of the elements I thought stood out in this T20 edition so far.

In which other format of the game, would you get to see the South African ace batsman-stumper Mark Boucher and our new-found pace sensation Praveen Kumar sharing the crease, and that too in the death overs of a game that was turning out to be a cliff-hanger?

In which other format of the game, would you get to see Sri Lankan spin doctor Muthaiah Murlidharan injecting venom to his Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni's plans of slow poisoning?

By bringing all these world class players together, irrespective of their nationalities, IPL has demonstrated a great truth to the cricketing world: The truth of unity in criketity.

Our cricketing youngsters have been making the most of their careers by rubbing shoulders with players such as Mathew Heyden, Ricky Ponting, Jayasurya and the likes!

And more importantly our youngsters like Badrinath, Gony and Yo Mahesh, who had been knocking on the doors of the Indian team, are suddenly finding themselves exposed to international cricket, and making the most out of it as well.

But Vijay Mallya is a disappointed man. He gets setbacks in life very rarely and this time it has happened from a very unlikely field – cricket!

I could not see any logic in him firing his Bangalore team CEO Charu Sharma. And that also makes me wonder, what exactly is the job role of a CEO in an IPL franchise!

Whoever said 'cricket is a great leveller', I want to salute that guy. Look at the experience of Harbhajan Singh. Australians are the happiest in this amusing context, no doubt about it.

Another great leveller is the failure of our superstars such as Dravid and Ganguly to deliver for their respective teams. The grapevine says many teams want to disown their non- performing assets in the next season! Man, this should happen in international cricket also. The term ‘non-performing assets’ - I am loving it.

And finally, Sachin! I wonder if he ever had plans to play in IPL!

Ambani won't mind if their team win or loose! He has better things to do, such as building billion dollar houses.

Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta might get affected by the kind of overexposure they had been subjecting to themselves to promote their teams.

Next time, when someone come to you and say Shah Rukh and him peed together in the stadium loo, please don’t utter any expletives of disbelief. IPL rocks and you don’t need me to discover that.