And finally some pearls of wisdom, albeit in Marathi :-)

A volcano in India? Nah, it's just the monsoon clouds hanging low over a mountain top. :-)

The last of the summer clouds

Something that will make Green Peace proud :-)

Bizarre Signboards #3

A friend forwarded this:

Who Is Happy?

Happy is the person who knows.....

What to remember of the past
What to enjoy in the present
&
What to plan for the future

No wonder there are a lot of vacancies in the Club Of Happy People :-)

Don't you find it plain annoying that in world's largest democracy, ordinary citizens don't have any say over the presidential candidates but someone who is from the land of pastas and pizzas does? What a shame! :-(

उम्रकी राहमे रास्ते बदल जाते है
वक्तकी आंधीमे इन्सान बदल जाते है
सोचता हू के काम कर करके रेकोर्ड तोड दू
लेकिन सेलरी देखतेही इरादे बदल जाते है :-)

What we Indians don't know or don't care about traffic rules could very well fill up a book, or two. But sometimes you just wonder if people have a death wish for others as well as for themselves while on road.

The case in point is the big trucks that ply on the roads with these long pointed iron rods hanging about in the back. It scares hell out of me to even think about what will happen to the vehicles following it should the driver suddenly brake. A few days back, I saw a car that had stopped only inches away from such a truck while waiting for the traffic signal to go green. I wish I had taken a photo.


Last weekend, on the Mumbai-Pune highway, I spotted another truck where a guy was hanging out the back while holding onto a single thin rope. I could see that there was ample space inside. God alone knows why he wanted to risk his life by hanging on to it by a mere thread - both literally and figuratively.


At another junction, we were passed by a bike which was driven by a young guy while a girl sitting on the back seat was holding onto him with both hands and had fallen blissfully asleep - without a helmet.


Has life become so miserable that we don't care about it anymore? :-(

Prometheus(Spoiler Alert)

What happens when you start with a good plot and nice execution but decide to have a sequel sometime in future. Prometheus! Alright, I agree - a team of scientists, backed by some wealthy dude, on a quest to figure out where we came from – not a very original plot. But throw in some references to Babylonians, Sumerians, Mayans, not to mention a few cave drawings of stick figures pointing at bright lights in the sky and you can bring some in the audience to the edge of their chairs . So far, so good.

There's a pair of scientists – Elizabeth & Charlie – who thought of the expedition. There's a captain to steer the spacecraft. Then there are a couple of dispensable types – the kind who are at the front of the pack when it comes to dying at the hands of the aliens. Of course, in such teams, a robot who looks more human than the real human beings on board is more necessary than life support systems. So we have David. And then there's Meredith (Charlize Theron) – who turns out to be the daughter of the old guy who has financed this expedition. Early in the movie, we are let in on the secret that David and Meredith don't care much when it comes to searching for mankind's' Mummy and Daddy but have a secret agenda of their own – not hard to guess when you have already shown the holographic projection of the old guy :-)

The movie moves ahead with a fairly tight plot till the team lands on the planet of the aliens who have supposedly put us all on this earth (God, you can be happy now! I have found someone else to blame for bringing me to this earth on my bad days). This is the point when something has to go wrong and it does. But not just with the expedition team – with the movie plot as well. Things start happening and we viewers keep wondering about whether they will be able to tie all the loose ends in the end or not.

Turns out that they don't. But by then the movie has (mercifully) ended, the bag of popcorn and glass of coke both are empty and it is fairly obvious that whosoever has made this movie is already thinking about the sequel.

And you exit the movie hall wondering not about the reason the aliens want to destroy the civilization that they themselves created but about just how on earth (!) can Dr. Elizabeth walk around (and occasionally break into a sprint) just moments after her stomach is split wide open and sewed back by what looks like a row of staple pins!

Sometimes we fail to understand the feelings of very close people
Because a book held very near to eyes is very difficult to read

I had the misfortune of cursing season's very first baby rains last week. There was a drizzle when I stepped out in the morning. Thinking that it will be sunny soon I didn't carry my umbrella. By the time I was downstairs, the drizzle increased in intensity thus making me run upstairs again. Hence the cursing. But my heart melted as soon as I caught a glimpse of the rain-washed trees and blue sky dotted with rainclouds. Now the rain has disappeared again. And I am heartbroken. :-(