Thursday, July 21, 2011

India - from Animal Farm to Angry birds

In George Orwell's Animal Farm, the pigs lead by the Old boar revolted against humans,fought for freedom of all animals. Freedom was won finally. The Pigs were animal heroes. After all Pigs had freed all animals from centuries of atrocities of humans. Many pigs had sacrificed their lives for this freedom. On August 15th, 1947, The Old Boar declared At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, Pigland will awake to life and freedom. Pigs burped. Birds flapped their wings. The snakes hissed. Finally the pigs had made their tryst with destiny and Others thought their's was made as well. Snakes had other ideas. Led to believe by the King Cobra that snakes were god's favourite children and Pigs & Birds were non believers. Snakes declared freedom from pigland and built two independent hives one for the venomous snakes called Snakistan and another for the non venomous snakes called East snakistan.

In the land of pigs also lived birds. Infact many birds and just few pigs. But still it was the land of pigs. The birds knew only to nest and produce more birds, who also nested and produced even more birds. One bright pig in the late 70s wanted every bird to lay no more than 2 eggs. Even a single egg more, the birds were herded together and their beaks cut off.  Birds across country protested.

Mother pig declared Emergency. Many birds were put in cages and their beaks cut off. Birds wanted a leader. One tall bird film star named Amitabh Bacchhan became their icon as the angry young bird in many films. Many believed that the birds have finally arrived. Birds won 449/450 seats in Lok Sabha and the first ever bird govt. took oath in pigland.   Ask the free flying birds to sit in day long lok sabha debates, they are bound to flounder. Birds lost faith in their own bird leaders. Soon the pigs were back to power & regained their status at top of animal class hierarchy.

With an aura of invincibility, Pigs started to show their true colur. Old boar's vision had long died. Now there were saffron pigs, Maoist pigs,urban pigs & rural pigs. Pigs that wore no footwear & pigs that drank their own urine. Saffron pigs swore by their religion, Maoist pigs swore by china. All of them ate more filth than what they needed, even grabbing the whatever little was left for the birds to eat.

With the country running at less than 15 days of bid feed left in its granary, it was staring at a gloomy picture. Then came globalisation, Pigs from USA agreed to help, provided pigland  opened up their markets to dump genetically modified bird feed. Additionally, bright birds from pigland were allowed to write software in USA. Many birds migrated to USA never to return. A new breed emerged Non Resident Pigs (NRPs). Mostly intelligent birds from poor styies, who made it to PITs (Pigland Institute of Technology) and PIMs(Pigland Institute of Management) & from there to US of A. NRPs sent back truck loads of dollars back to pigland. Pigland saw prosperity for the first time since independence. Every pig in pigland could now afford to have filth 3 times a day. The Dark pigs of south could afford their face whitening lotion. The fat pigs of punjab now ate their filth with basmati rice and paneer and showed off their maruti 800 to all who cared.

Across the border, the Snakistan had become envious of the pigland's wealth & prosperity. All they had was venom and all they ever knew was to bite. Little did they know anything about software or democracy. In 1947 & 1965, They tried to bite the pigs of pigland, but pigs were far too thick skinned to even feel a pinch.  A few birds sacrificed their lives, but many more were born and Pigland honoured its heroes and moved on with life.

With no one to bite, venomous snakes from snakistan started to bite its own non venomous brothers in east snakistan. Seizing the opportunity, the pigs helped the non venomous snakes defeat the venomous snaked &  declare independence as Snakedesh, 212th country added to the world map.

Snakistan still licking wounds of insult, decided to wage a proxy war against pigs and pigland. They recruited jobless snakes from north warziristan, indoctrinated them with additional venom imported from gulf countries and infiltrated them through specially designed snake holes across the border. Pigs were caught unawares for the first time. Soon the snakes were stealing eggs from birds all over pigland. Many birds lost their eggs. IT birds in Bangalore, Gujju birds in Mumbai, Punju birds in Delhi. Young birds & old birds, no one was spared. Needless to say, Birds were angry. Questions were asked. Leader Pigs replied with rhetoric, no one understood the reply and life was back to normal.

Money aplenty, now pigs had turned into greedy pigs. There was the telecom pig, commonwealth games pig, adarsh society pig. Birds were angry again. This time they protested differently. Birds across the country decided to starve in protest. Pigs were worried. If the birds dont eat, they wont produce enough filth for the pigs to feast upon. Birds of civil society were soon joined by yoga birds, bollywood star birds and it was mela at Jantar Mantar, when birds of all feathers flocked together & starved together.

Pigs at the pig party office on 10, race course road were shaken. Their leader, the revered pig, who was a great economist finally opened his mouth, only to cough mild and soon shut it close, disappointing all who had waited long to hear from him. 

No one stopping them, Snakes struck again, this time many more birds lost their eggs. Instead of hitting back, the pigs thought it wise not to react to provocation. Pigs across the world praised the resilience of piglanders. Snakistan rejoiced.One Intellectual bird who wrote books & didnt ever lay a egg of her own, participated in seminars justifiying the actions of Snakistan. Common birds sat helplessly in their living rooms seething in anger at this absurdity shown on live TV.

One ultra stupid pig by name Diggy Piggy accused saffron pigs of trying to kill saffron birds, so that it can conveniently blame the snakes for everything. He even wanted to reward one captured snake called kasab, a cup full of gulab jamuns for all the birds he had killed.. Diggy Piggy wanted to appease the minority bird community who inturn only vote for the pig party.. He even said telecom pigs and adarsh society pigs were innocent to please their sub caste, who then decided to support pig party in the next election.
Birds are really angry now. What they will do next?. No one knows.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Haiku & Others

Baba Ramdev
Amma Jaya
Didi Mamatha
Bhai Dawood
Beta Rahul
We are family!

MV Wisdom
Juhu Kingdom
Pav Bhaji anyone!

Rain, Rain, Go Away
Come again later in the day
Late to work
Boss will slay!

Abbott buys piramal
Abbottabad where in found osama
The Abbott blesses Kate & William
Numerology!

No food & drinks
Baba shrinks
Manmohan thinks
Sonia blinks
Sushma winks
Saffron links!

Sachin...Sachin
India win, India lose
Sachin..Sachin

Gay parade at Nari-man point
Slut walk at Horni-man circle
South Bombay!

Saina wins
Sania loses
The big endorsement!

BabyB for Ash
No work for BabaB
Stay at home dad!


IPL over
No good movie
Watched Ready!

3rd wife for shashi
3rd hubby for sunanda
3 cheers!

Prithivi! Fire.
Agni! Fire.
Akash! Fire.
Trishul! Fire.
GSLV! Fire.
Target hit Finally in Bay of Bengal.


Mumbai - costliest city in india
Zunka bakar- cheapest food in india
My 2 cents!

Reddy to Yeddy come in
Yeddy to Reddy over
Transmitting code 123242. confirm.
Cheque received and encashed. over & out.





Monday, March 14, 2011

Jannat-e-Kashmir

I have been all gaga over the past week, posted my first photo album on facebook & still not stopped yet. Well, reason is simple. I feel a sense of accompolishment that I might be first among my friends to have been to these places. But still, I am really going over the top with this :).

Now for the post below, I am stealing Ishu's template from his latest post. I dont want to give him credit for this, just to annoy him :P

Things I had planned, but could'nt manage to do

  • Ride the gondola upto the peak of Mt. Afarwat (some 5000m above sea level, well clear of my previous altitude record)
  • Click those pretty flowers in Mughal gardens of Srinagar. They cant be blamed for not flowering in winter
  • Convince Kashmiris to give up their independence movement :P
  • Complete one full course authentic Kashmiri dinner. yuck! the smell, so non veg like.
  • Walking around Srinagar streets, with a kangri (charcoal pot) keeping my belly warm in near freezing weather outside
There were also things I ended up experiencing, despite never intending to

  • Kahwa - Kashmiri herbal tea laced with saffron, cinnamon, walnut & pistaschio nuts. Heavenly!
  • Spending 2 nights in a room overlooking Lal Chowk (If you havent heard of this before, ask Sushma Swaraj)
  • Jet lite flight announcement -Yeh Plane - Mumbai se Srinagar tak jaane wali dheemi local hey. Yah local Delhi, Chandigarh, Jammu aur srinagar inhi stanakon par rukhegi. Baaki anya kisibi stannakon par nahi rukhegi. Yeh yatra hum 6 gante aur 20 minit mein poori kijayegi. Aapki sukhad yatra ki kaamna karte hue Dhanyavaaad.
  • Srinagar policemen look like straight from one of the GI Joe series. What with all the hi tech armoury,  seen only before in counter strike & like. May be our pot bellied maamus should take a lesson or two.
  • Only one thing more beautiful than Kashmir itself, its Kashmiri men & women. Such fair complexion, sharp features with that ubiquitous long slender nose, straight from one of the greek sculptures. Even the women speak hindi in soft yet fast paced accent, that is such melody to the ears.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Best android game thus far ?

Due respect to ANGRY BIRD fans, I was pretty bored doing the same thing at different angles, with little else to control. FRUIT NINJA is not much fun on small screen, may be galaxy tab/ i-pad offer a great experience. RAGING THUNDER 2 is a decent car racing game, but having played a better car game in NFS2 more than a decade ago, Raging Thunder 2 offers very little excitement to me. Now, leave out the many word games, very basic DOS type games - SUPER MARIO kind. Casual games like PAPER TOSS is superb timepass, But wont really qualify as a game. I was soon back on the android market searching hard for a first of its kind game.

Finally a chance download brought me to WINDS OF STEEL DEMO. A realistic flight simulator for a WW2 plane with some cool controls & shooting options including a ultra cool dogfight campaign. Needless to say, I am truly madly deeply addicted. Last clocked 79000 points on the dogfight equal to 40 enemy planes shot with my lone fighter, with attacks coming in waves of upto 4 planes at a time.

Can we have AOE ported on android, may be a mini version?. Well, the closest I have found to a strategy game is a tower defence fame - ROBO DEFENCE. Each game lasts atleast 15 mins & reward points earned for victories can be redeemed for ugrades to higher levels. Neatly done!.

HOME RUN 3D is another game I am enjoying over the last couple of days. My endless search for a decent cricket game, ended with this one. Hand eye coordination based controls, very closely mimic the way cricket or baseball is player is unique selling point here.

I am still with free games only, any good ones any of you have come across, please let me know soon.

My Wishlist

  • Mortal Kombat or any similar fighting game
  • Any 2 player game that two android phones can play against each other over wifi, especially tennis/ ping pong between android phone & laptop talking to each other on wifi

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Monday, February 7, 2011