Gold and Beautiful

Some people have asked me if I experienced a cultural shock when I came here for the first time... Actually I never did... until I saw "Keeping Up with the Kardashians".... If you have never heard of this show or of Kim Kardashian, kudos to you... You are not missing anything... If you have heard of this show or of this gal then you probably know what I am talking about. So a quick review.... Kim Kardashian is one of those Paris Hilton types, famous for nothing, has a big rear end and had a sex tape scandal.... so basically, run of the mill, nothing special. She (or rather her family) has a reality show on E. Last Spring I happened to watch a marathon of her show (I know... kill me!!!) and that was the first time I came close to experiencing a cultural shock... And no not because of how they spoke at home (nothing but "f" words) or what they wore (barely anything), etc... but basically I learned that this girl was a model, her mom is her manager and gets 10% commis...

Remember the famous (or one of the famous) dialog from Sholay? ".... beta so ja nahin to gabbar aa jayega" ??? The so called popular threat.... Do you know the modern day threat that moms use to keep their kids under control??? I read it somewhere online, can't remember.... "If you don't listen to me, I will create a MySpace page and invite your friends". Now wouldn't that scare any kid??? :-)

Shashi Tharoor is amazing. I love reading his columns and his books are on my "To Read" list, which btw is extremely long!!! Anyways, I read his TOI column comparing India and China and loved this observation that he made: Every Indian has been allowed to feel he or she has as much of a stake in the country, and as much of a chance to run it, as anyone else: after all, our last elections were won by an Italian woman of Roman Catholic heritage who made way for a Sikh to be sworn in as PM by a Muslim president, in a nation 81% Hindu .

Found this old video when I was organizing my Mac..... It's from 2005 when I went to Florida for 4 days with Anu n Amol.... man!!! it's been a long time since then... looking forward to some more adventure, perhaps this year!!!

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I decided to join this group on Facebook .... when I went through the list I was amazed... There are more than 100 entries and I could relate to so many of them. You can check the complete list on Facebook. I am listing a few here that I loved the most, although that decision was very hard to make (as I am sure you will realize if you are a Bombayite..) Train timings (9.27, 10.49 etc) are really important events of life. You spend more time each month traveling than you spend at home. You have the following sets of friend: school friends, college friends, neighborhood friends, office friends and yes, train friends, a species unique only in Bombay. (THIS IS MY MOST FAVORITE!!!!) The first thing that you read in the Times of India is the "Bombay Times" supplement. Your idea of personal space is no one actually standing on your toes. You love wading through knee deep mucky water in the monsoons, and actually call it ''romantic'. When you spent 6 hours of your day in ...