Well, was trying very hard to concentrate but all of a sudden BB (my colleague+HR) came bursting into my room and said “email ta check koro!” Very obediently I opened the inbox and saw a message from our Creative Designer and an image of a buffalo! “What’s wrong today? As if dealing with a write -up on Ox-whatever wasn’t enough and now I have to excruciate myself by going through an email on Buffalo?” grudgingly I muttered.

Anyways I opened the image and clicked on the link. And I saw a buffalo being sold on ebay! A young black buffalo which gives 20l milk per day. Pretty efficient I would say. Though the stuff was funny it made me wonder what if such things (you know selling cattle) become online. Well, the thought was voiced by one of my colleagues who hails from Uttarakhand and said “ Mere ghar mey teen bhais hay. Agar mujhe kal ko koi bhais bechni hay aur online bechne ka option hay toh phir isse better option kya ho sakta hay.” If we can sell  coal online then why not cattle?

BTW ebay India has removed the listing.

The image was shared  by many on Facebook, if you missed it then don’t worry. You can take a look at it here

Buffalo on Ebay

I am a big Madz fan and was quite excited when I heard that her wax statue would be included in the Madam Tussauds. But my excitement soon became a roller coaster ride of laughter and digging up Wren and Martin – courtesy newswallahs! Two biggie newspapers (India Today and Headlines Today) carried the story with a super headline that said Madhuri Dixit to be Waxed at Madame Tussauds. So, Madz goes all the way to Tussauds to get her waxing done! My next question - where does she go for her mani and pedicure? To Eiffel Tower! And BTW since when Tussauds became a celebrity beauty parlor?

Seriously, whoever wrote the headline did not know the meaning of the word ‘waxed’  or was trying to be funny in a lewd way.  Then there was this Bollywood portal called desihits which posted a video with the headline -Video: Madhuri Dixit is Getting Waxed! While going through these headlines a thought struck me – Madam Tussauds should have zeroed in on Anil Kapoor! What helluva news it would have made – Anil Kapoor getting waxed at Tussauds.

Let’s see what does Oxford dictionary tell us what does ‘waxed’ mean when it’s used as a verb -

1) Cover or treat (something) with wax or a similar substance, typically to polish or protect it: I washed and waxed the floor

2) Remove unwanted hair from (a part of the body) by applying wax and then peeling off the wax and hairs together: she waxed her legs when necessary

So, going by the headlines it means either Madhuri is getting covered with wax!! or she is going to the wax museum for yeah, you know hair removal! Sounds, gross, doesn’t it?

P.S. – I am not  a grammar nazi.

1. At the core of every entrepreneurial venture there should be an idea which really solves some fundamental problems

The idea of Hotmail hit Sabeer Bhatia and his partner Jack Smith while they were working for Firepower Systems. The company had installed firewall around the corporate intranet which prevented both of them from accessing their personal email accounts. That was when the idea struck them “Wait a minute, we can access any website in the world through a web browser. If we made email available through the web browser, that would solve our problem. And then it occurred to us, ?If that would solve our problem, it would solve the problems of many others.”

In 1996 Mr Bhatia along with his partner had launched hotmail which changed the way people used email. Now, 15 years later Mr Bhatia has launched JaxtrSMS, world’s first and only free and open texting application. “This product will do to text messaging what Hotmail did to e-mail 15 years back” said Mr Bhatia at an interactive session at Tie Kolkata.

In a very short span of less than a month we have crossed 700,000 users and we are already in 210 countries. We are growing at 30-50,000 new users everyday and all of this is because of that viral ad line with every out – of network text message that goes your friend is using JaxtrSMS, you should use too. Click here to download” he added.

After briefly giving us some insights into the market for texting he got to the precise point – So, what’s the problem JaxtrSMS is trying to solve? About 20% of all the revenues of the phone companies around the globe come from texting. If one is to look at the amount of data bandwidth these phone companies use in terms of air time it is trivial. Users end up paying a lot of money for texting that essentially costs nothing to the carrier and also texting is extremely expensive when one needs to text internationally.

JaxtrSMS lets users who have data enabled mobile phones send messages to any other mobile phone free. In his speech he detailed the main points on how the application would work on any data-enabled phone and their competition in the texting space.

2.You’ve got to be very frugal when you start

Mr Bhatia gave the attendees a brief peek into the issues he and his partner faced before getting a $300,000 funding. He was candid when he spoke about his efforts to get funding and how he was turned down by 19 VCs before a funding from DFJ happened. “So, we started with a very small sum of money $300,000 and not only we proved to them that we could do this but we launched the company and had a 100,000 users before we went in for the next round of financing.” He added and was quick to point out that one of the factors that entrepreneurs must consider when starting on their own is – frugality.

3.People take risks with you.

“That’s the beauty of Silicon Valley; people take risks with you.” Mr Bhatia mentioned a few instances where people took risks with him. He told the attendees that with the $300,000 he’d hired 4 full time employees and 15 part-time employees. All the part-time employees were paid in stock options and were promised that when the next round of funding would be received they would be brought on board as full time employees.

4.For every 19 companies that fail 1 makes it. But the 1 that makes it more than provides for the 19 failures.

He spoke about a fund where he’d put some money. The gentleman at the fund had invested money at 150 companies and when the dot com crash happened 149 of the 150 companies failed miserably. But 1 company where he’d a put a small amount of money was Google

5.If the software industry in India is to truly develop we’ve got to breakthrough and create world-class products.

“And we have the opportunity to do that” said Mr Bhatia as India is the second largest mobile market in the world. He chose to launch JaxtrSMS in India as- the product was completely developed in India and he wanted people over here to see what it takes to develop products. He India has talent, audience and the market to test the concepts – all the right elements one need for innovation. We just need a few people to show us the way

6. Key ingredients of success – Size of the market, Technology, Financing required & People

He talked about the success of high-tech business ventures (of Silicon Valley) and zeroed in on the 4 above mentioned factors. He spoke, importantly, about the quality of people that plays an important role in high tech businesses. “It’s the quality of people that makes the difference between a good product and a great product, or a fail product and a super successful product, and in no other industry you see this much of variation because of the difference of people you find as you do in high tech space.” Mr Bhatia said in his speech and he very nicely summed up by saying “You hire A quality people you get A class product.” Also, he talked about mistakes entrepreneurs make while hiring. He very aptly drew a distinction between a good and a great leader. According to him a great leader identifies that the person they’ve hired is not the right person and let the person go immediately.

Sabeer Bhatia and Microsoft Negotiations

Well, we all know Hotmail was sold at $400million to Microsoft. There were different stories about the hard negotiation Mr Bhatia made with Microsoft Biggie Bill Gates. Here’s the story about that famous deal straight from the horse’s mouth!

Sabeer Bhatia – We were providing email to about 7 million subscribers when someone from Microsoft called us and said “Is this really true that you are providing email to 7 million subscribers” and we said “Yeah”. And they said”So we want to come in to see how you do it”. Microsoft at that time had Microsoft network which had about 2 and a half million subscribers and they were down every other week. They were getting really bad press.

It originally started off being a deal where we would provide email to their subscribers and because we had skillfully mastered the art of providing email to 7 million subscribers.

But very quickly they realized that we wanted to be more than just an email provider and they saw us as being competitor to their business so that’s when the VP of Microsoft called me “Have you thought about a merger between 2 companies.” He didn’t say acquisition. So, we were taken to meet with Bill Gates.

I started talking and Bill was looking everywhere else but at me. I thought he wasn’t interested but at the end of it he really heard every word of what I had to say.  And when we were walking out he shook my hands and said “You know what I hope we can do something between our 2 companies otherwise we like to write software too.”

So, when I walked out, there were 14 people from Microsoft in the other side and I knew if I had opened my mouth and try to negotiate then I’d be a dead duck. They started with $160 million offer at first they wanted me to counter somehow and this was at a time when both Jack and my personal bank balance was just $5000 and somebody put $160million in front of you and I refused to accept that. I kept negotiating so we countered back and forth. At one point I turned down $350 million at which point even my parents deserted me.

I called up my dad one day and he said what’s going on and I said “Yeah they made an offer.” He asked “what happened”, I said “I turned it down.” My Dad asked “how much was the offer.” I said 350. Dad said“350! $350 million and how much that’s in Rupees I can’t even put it on my calculator. You accept it right now!”

And luckily a week later they called back and I was asking about $450 and they said we can’t match your 450 but how about we meet half way and I said that’s a great idea. Let’s do half way.

Anyways I am very much out of my teen years now. I don’t dream about going to moon to spend the weekend. But bumping into Mr Cruise in the street – I think I haven’t yet crossed this one off my list. A couple of months back one of my dreams turned into reality and that too in an unexpected way. All of a sudden my husband and his friends planned a trip to Ooty and I was to accompany them. Well, a trip to Ooty is never complete without taking the toy train ride, is it?

So one fine morning in August we were standing in the queue after booking our tickets (we did second class) waiting to board the toy train from Coonoor station. As the train chugged into the station the feeling of excitement fluttered through my stomach. We boarded the train without any fuss and once we left the Coonoor station I felt my heart doing zoobi doobi with the onrush of scenery—the fresh air, mountains, eucalyptus trees standing out sharply against the skyline, tea gardens and over all a sense of happiness swept over me.

So, here I was taking my dream ride with my hair severely tied in a band praying the wind does not blow my hair…huh! Fifteen years back it wasn’t what I dreamt of – remember the wind blowing the wisps of my hair and all!…donning an old jeans, a yellow cotton top and my favorite sneakers, sitting by a window seat holding my camera and enjoying the chatter around me. It was an amazing feeling to realize that yes, one of my travel dreams have come true and I was happy amidst my family and friends who were equally enthusiastic as I was. We were moving from one window to other to click the best possible shots, laughing out loud and occasionally taking break from snapping to enjoy the ride and munch chikkis and fruit halwa . And after the photography break all the cameras would again Click. Click. Click!

P.S. -

• When asking the locals about the toy train timings, simply drop the word ‘Toy’. For them it’s train, just train. Locals use it for their daily commute. So, ask “When does the train to Ooty leave from Coonoor station?” instead of asking “Toy train kab nikalti hay?

Coonoor to Ooty via Toy Train Pics

Now coming back to the video- it was of a very short duration and in spite of trying hard I could not find the other parts of the serial. But the video brought back a lot of memories from my childhood, when things on TV were simple, fun and a lot more entertaining than what we see today.

Here is the Farmaan DD video that I had luckily bumped into

I agree that back in the 80s and early 90s we did not have many options; we had to make ourselves content with DD serials and later on DD2. But I enjoyed watching those serials. I still remember my favorite ones – Ramayan, Mahabharat, Buniyad, Circus, Farmaan, Kashish, Airhostess, Gul Gulshan Gulfaam, Chitrahaar, Rangoli ( I remember getting up early on Sundays to watch Rangoli and jot down the songs they played ) and Byomkesh Bakshi. That was a long list I know!

If you ask me what do I miss the most when I watch TV these days, my answer would be unique content. I think the last show on the TV that I thoroughly enjoyed watching was Sarabhai vs Sarabbhai.

I have tried to jot down 5 points why TV serials nowadays lose their charm a bit too early

1)      Too many options – With over 7 major entertainment TV networks each running at least 6-7 serials a day, one has now lots of options. It’s like going to a mall to buy a toothpaste and seeing 8-9 brands of toothpaste all claiming to offer added components and properties. And the result is – you come back home with lots of confusion and no purchase at all and at the end of the day you decide to stick with the current brand of toothpaste you are using. It’s same with the TV serials, with countless serials on air it becomes difficult to decide what to watch and what and most importantly how to keep a track of what’s happening in which show.

2)      Repetitive content – I don’t know if it’s the ‘good ole’days’ symptom or what! I somehow can’t manage to like what I see these days on the TV. Though every serial begins with a hope- Oh! This one is going to be different from the saas bahu ki nokjhok or the plain girl and the rich boy romance. Lekin nahi…all of them go the same way.

3)      TRP race- Every show wants to win the TRP race as a result they try to come up with new twists and plots completely different to the plot they’d started the show with. When you start watching a show you have some expectations from it, you want it to run in a coherent way. But with TRP deciding the content of the show nowadays it appears that plot and good story have taken a backseat. Look at Balika Vadhu which when started off focused on the hard reality of child marriage and took the TV industry by a storm but is nowadays reduced to mere pati-patni aur woh stuff.

4)      Duration – When Kyunki Saas bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi began it fetched a lot of appreciation from women of all ages. The serial’s lead pair Tulsi and Mihir became a household name and when Ekta Kapoor decided to kill off Mihir she was bombarded with hordes of fan requests to bring back the character of Mihir. But 8 years later no one even bothered that Tulsi died, she underwent a plastic surgery, and then again the original Tulsi came – the serial was completely messed up at the end. When you keep stretching a show with ridiculous twists, does-not-make-any-sense plots, what do you expect to get in return? Let’s face it- almost every month a new serial is launched in some channel with a  fresh plot, so who do you think is going to watch your ghisha pita serial.

5) Watching same faces every day is boring – When you do a thing every day it becomes boring – it’s happening with me these days. I am kinda bored of Facebook because I do it every day. So, watching same faces, same story which in most shows takes 1 month to move ahead, make people tired and bored.

Dear Indane Gas,

On 2nd August 2011, I booked a  cooking gas (LPG) refill through online booking , it was accepted and I got a message immediately that my dealer has been informed. I also got a booking reference number in the same message.  17 days passed since I booked my cooking gas but there was no delivery.  On enquiry over the phone, the dealer told me that there was no booking in my name.  I tried to go back to you but there is no way I can find the status of supply –except that one line remark “it is under process” –this was the status I got  around 17August. I really had a taxing time getting back to you with my complaint. Though you have a website!

Yes, you have  a website but did you ever check whether all the features work on it or are user-friendly? The feed-back form on the site is designed in such a way that I had to scratch my head for almost 15 minutes to convey my simple problem. BTW after all the head scratching I filled in the feedback form but till now I have not received any message from you. I had also tried to call your customer care department, if you have any that is. But for that I had to search the relevant section for 15 mins. After searching frantically on your site I found out the customer care phone number. I called them but no one picked up. Let’s put it in a simple way – Indane Gas, your website is hard to navigate and it’s equally hard to fetch information from your site.

BTW after all these efforts I am yet  to get my refilled cylinder and it is already 25 days after my booking.

Now, I have a few questions for you -

• Do you have a system of checking compliance of order booked on line by your distributors?
• Is your responsibility over after taking the order?

Now the surprising part comes  from my Indane distributor. He says that neither on 16^th nor 17^th August there was any refill order for my consumer numbe. In fact there has been no order for the last 120 days. Now, here’s another surprise. I also booked a refill order through SMS – I was given a order number and was told that I was supplied a refill cylinder on july29 – where from they got the date when my distributor tells me that there were no refill order  for the last 120 days from my consumer number and which is almost correct as I checked from my refill receipt book – So, whom did they supply the cylinder on 29^th July?? Or the dates are just to deceive consumers that Indane’s SMS system sends abruptly?

As always yours truly

Meabhi

To all the Indane Gas Customers – Is it I who is suffering alone? Or there are others as well? If there are others then let’s gather all our Indane Gas Complaints especially regarding their online booking system at one place and ask these questions – Did Indane Gas after installing the online booking system even bothered to check if the system even works or not? Besides the system –did they depute someone  to take feed back from the Distributors  about the compliance of refill order through centralized system including online booking. Even BSNL has a system for generating compliance report – why can’t you, my dear Indane follow BSNL?

Here’s the screenshot

Here’s another error that I got while posting on my wall – ‘Sorry unable to update your status. Try again in a few minutes.’

I seriously hope it’s some sort of a temporary error on their system and it recovers soon. BTW today morning I saw that Facebook chat looked a bit different, probably they’re working on it and may be that’s one of the reasons why Iam seeing the errors! Just guessing, btw! Anyways, anyone else seeing this error?

This is just the tip of the iceberg, there are probably one hundred pages named State Bank of India and none of them seem to be officially run by the bank. The one that probably has the largest number of members has its description taken from Wikipedia and only 3 posts by the members.

Now, before I begin with the affair and the by-blow part here’s a little background on why at all did I start my SBI hunt. Well, partly because of a query I had regarding my SBI account and partly because of my mission of discovering not-so-known Facebook pages. So, I searched for State Bank of India on Facebook  and the result page was…you saw the screenshot, so you know it.

After seeing the results my first question was – which one of these by-blow pages is the official one? I had absolutely no idea whatsoever on how to find the official SBI page , so , I started clicking on each of the pages that popped up in the result page.

• The first page had 2,564 members and the last post was on July 28 and not to mention there were tons of unanswered queries from the members. Some members even posted if it was the official SBI page. But I couldn’t find any response from the admin.

With a bit of disappointment I clicked on the Info tab and I noticed a disclaimer - This is not the official page.

• I clicked on the second result on the search. There were only 5 posts made since Apr 23, 2010 that was when the page was created! “Another non –official FB page, argghhh” with this thought I was going to unlike the page but I suddenly clicked on the most recent posts and found that one of the users got the privilege to be answered by the page admin. Here’s the query and the response from the admin:

Well, I thought this gentleman’s problem was solved but after going through the other posts I found that he again posted a complaint but no one answered him this time. I found that the queries on the page were unanswered. The admin has commented only twice in the page. So, by taking a look at the page I didn’t get any clue whatsoever if it was SBI’s official page. The info section was not much of help as well.

• With an unbridled frustration I clicked on the 3^rd result and saw that the page had just 8 posts and one of them was promoting a page named Darshan Caterers from Rajkot. Now. What’s the connection between RBI and Darshan Caterers? Don’t ask me!

So, after all the maddening search for SBI’s official Facebook page I returned to my profile with a SIGH and a few quetsions.

My questions -

1. Why do people join unofficial pages? (knowingly/unknowingly?)
2. Is Facebook ever going to do anything like Twitter verified accounts?
3. What can brands do to prevent such by-blows?
4. On web do brands really control their brands?
5. Will the majority win (Will the page with maximum fans become the official defacto)?

Update - Bhanu of bhanusmita.com has pointed out “http://www.statebankofindia.com/ its official website doesnt show any link to Facebook…so I dont think it is there in FB.”

BTW SBI had other non Mark Zuckerburg  by-blows as well. Check out http://www.seoforclients.com/blog/marketing/website-development/sbi-mutual-fund-online-transaction-please-grow-wrt-web.html

Here’s the email that I received-

Tata Consultancy Services(TCS)
5th Floor, PTI Bldg., 4, Parliament
Street New Delhi – 110 001.
Email:tataconsultancycareer@hotmail.com

REF: “TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICE” DIRECT RECRUITMENTS OFFER.

Your Resume has been selected from JOB SEEKERS DATA BASE for our new plant. The
Company selected 62 candidates list for Senior Engineer, IT, Administration,
Production, marketing ,Retail and general service Departments. It is our pleasure to inform
you that your Resume was selected as one of the 62 candidates shortlisted for the
interview.

Tata Consultancy Services(TCS)  is involved for Senior Engineer, IT, Administration,
Production, marketing ,Retail and general service Departments in India; The
Company is recruiting the candidates for our new plants in Delhi, Bangalore, Pune.Hyderabad
Kolkata ,Chennai and Mumbai. Your interview will be held at The Company Corporate office in
New Delhi on 26th Of July at 11.30am, we are  pleased to inform you that the
62 candidate’s selected 56 candidates will be giving appointment, meaning your
Application can be in progress to the final stage. You will have to come to the
Company corporate office in New Delhi. Your offer letter with Air Ticket will be
sent to you by courier before date of interview. The Company can offer you a salary
with benefits for this post 65, 000/- to 200, 000/- P.M. + (HRA + D.A + Conveyance
and other Company benefits. The Designation and Job Location will be fixing by
Company HRD. At time of final process. You have to come with photo-copies of all
required documents.

REQUIRED DOCUMENTS BY THE COMPANY HRD
======================================
1) Photo-copies of Qualification Documents.
2) Photo-copies of Experience Certificates (If any)
3) Photo-copies of Address Proof
4) Two Passport
======================================
1. Full Names:
2. Contact Address:
3. Mobile Number:
4. Sex:
5. Age:
======================================
You are to deposit a cash of 14, 700/-(Fourteen thousand Seven hundred rupees) as an
initial amount in favour of our Company accountant name in charges to collect your payment.
Payment for the Rs. 14,700/- (Fourteen thousand Seven hundred rupees) through any [STATEBANK OF INDIA]
OR [ICICI BANK] Branch from your Home City to our Company accountant name in charge. Account NO,
which will be sending to you upon your response. This is a refundable interview security deposit.
Your offer letter With Air tickets will be send to your Home Address by courier after receiving
The confirmation of interview security deposit. This Company will pay all the
expenditure to you at the time of face-to-face meeting with you in our corporate office. The Job
profile, salary offer, and date -time of interview will be mention in your offer letter.
Your offer letter will dispatch very shortly after receiving your confirmation of cash
deposited in STATE BANK OF INDIA OR ICICI BANK. We wish you the best of
luck for the subsequent and remaining stage. The last date of security deposited in
bank  22nd Of July 2011 you have to give the information after deposited the
Security amount in bank to the Company HRD -direct recruitment via email.

Your Letter with supporting document will be dispatch same time by courier to your
postal address after receipt of security deposit confirmation in bank. The interview
process and arrangement expenditure will be paid by Tata Consultancy Services(TCS). Lodging,
travelling and local conveyance actual will be paid by Tata Consultancy Services(TCS) as per
bills. The candidate has to deposit the initial refundable security as mentioned by
HRD.
NB: You are advice to reconfirm your mailing address and phone number in
your reply. And 14,500/- (Fourteen thousand Five hundred rupees) will be the refundable
Amount, as 200 rupees will be deducted as bank charges for funds deposit. And if
you are been selected or not, still the amount will be refunded to you, as the amount
is just to prove that you will be coming for the interview in order for us not to run at
lost after sending you the air ticket and you don’t show up on the day of interview.
Wishing you the best of lucks.

Regards,
Mr.Rohit Prakash
SENIOR H.R MANAGER

______________ ______________ ______________ ______________
Sent via the KillerWebMail system at shabakah.net.sa

So, are you ready to “bare” for Nutrichoice? Oh BTW, apologies that you’d to bear with my ramblings. BTW it’s just humor

P.S. The post has been shifted from IloveNutrichoice Facebook page to IHealthU

(img source- squidoo.com)

Happy Saturday and Sunday!

Weird and Funny Signs

This sign is from the Gents’ loo at SDF Building, Sector V Saltlake. My friend Rajesh Rana took the snap

(Img source – huffingtonpost.com, picable.com, lylot.com, gprsarena.com,funnyfunnyjones.com & littleabout.com)

But 24*7 news channels were not the only ones who raised questions on Aarushi’s character or her upbringing, in fact the blogosphere was active with Holmes and Watsons, with stories on how Aarushi’s parent were busy partying and didn’t spend time with her which prompted her to get intimate with Hemraj (Talwar’s domestic help who was also found murdered) and many other such unintelligible and gross theories.

For instance, a blogger called Gaurav, wrote his so-called intelligent opinions on this case on his blog. Take a look at what he thinks of the Aarushi Murder Mystery.

• It appears that Dr. Talwar, with the knowledge of his wife, had an incestuous relationship with Aarushi.
• Sexual acts with her was perhaps broadcasted/videos shared with other pedophiles/sexual perverts around the world.
• Since little girls are not very comfortable with such things, Aarushi might have confined this to Raju, their ex-servant, before. He disappeared mysteriously only to be found dead in a drain a few days later.
• Aarsuhi might have been the love child of Dr. Nupur Talwar.
• Motivation for killing her could have been Aarushi being in emotional and subsequently being in a physical relationship with Hemraj who comforted her taking advantage of the young age of the girl. And that she was increasingly in danger of spilling to the outside world as to what was happening in her household was the nail in her coffin. Maybe, her growing older and continued defiance was the reason why she was killed with her supporter Hemraj who was like a father figure.
• Noida/UP Police theory is most certainly right when they pointed a finger to the ‘kind of relationship’ Hemraj and Aarushi, a fortress bound teenager much abused by her father and privy to the swinging acts between her parents and a ‘other families’.

This jerk even has the guts to write “Risking libel I hazard a deduction” before he starts jotting down his ramblings which he calls deductions. Yes, dear Gaurav, the modern day Sherlock! You can go ahead with your stupid deductions and even publish a few more points as no one will file a defamation case against you. The poor parents are fighting for justice and the girl is dead!

Anyways, aajkal blogging is all about showing off how creative you can be and lemme tell you Gaurav you score 10 on 10 in creativity. You have a vivid imagination and if Ekta Kapoor happens to read your post she will surely rope you in!

Well, there were many like Gaurav, who got to play the role of Holmes. Here’s another bloviating Holmes who with his equally mindless girlfriend ( who I think played Dr Watson here) writes how Dr Talwar was raping Aarushi and Nupur Talwar found it and killed her daughter. This is what he & his girlfriend came up with -

As a ‘regular,’ normal guy, I was stunned by the brutality of this case of a father killing his own teenage daughter… it seemed to stump all analyis. Why? I kept asking myself. The strangeness of this case left me perplexed. I discussed it for hours every day with my girlfriend, who also happens to have considerable years of experiencein Psychological Crisis-Counselling in Delhi… and and a few days ago, my girlfriend came up with her own insight on the real motivebehind the murder.I’m convinced totally now that her theory cracks this case. According to her, it was not Dr Talwar, but his WIFE who killed her daughter! Why did she do so? Because what was going on in her home was even more shocking than a male domestic help abusing her daughter… Dr Talwar was raping his own daughter!This is why he kept saying he’d “been framed for the murder”… HE didn’t kill his daughter — his WIFE did!

On that particular evening, she had witnessed her husband having sexwith Aarushi … and as a mother, she couldn’t take it. She realized that her ONLY way of permanently ‘protecting’ her child from further rape was by knocking her out and quietly slitting her throat. This fits with her strange shifty behaviour on TV, where she shows noemotion at all: she never even cries, but seems to have rehearsed her speech… she “doth protest too much”, like Lady Macbeth… in factshe looks exactly like Lady Macbeth who can’t wash the blood off her OWN hands!…

On that fateful evening, this pervert Dr Talwar must have been sodrunk that he overdid his incestuous abuse… and Aarushi must have been protesting and screaming. Hemraj tried to intervene and protect Aarushi, who may have confided in him earlier and asked for protection. And Nupur may have returned home early to find her husband in bed raping her daughter. All hell broke loose. Nupur attacked her husband and tore her child

away from him. Dr Talwar attacked Hemraj and tried to knock him out,as he was witness.While Nupur sedated or strangled Aarushi and slit her throat, Dr Talwar was in the process of killing Hemraj, to make him a ‘fall guy’ as well as removing him as witness. Finally, both Dr & Mrs Talwar killed Hemraj together. But Dr Talwar didn’t know his wife had killed Aarushi… that stunned him! Now Dr Talwar is the fall guy for the murder… because, if he reveals that his WIFE killed their daughter, he would also have to explain WHAT provoked her to do so… i.e. his Incest! Why didn’t Nupur kill her incestuous husband instead of her daughter?

Good question… Because if she did, then SHE would be accused of the murder… (unless she singlehandedly killed Hemraj too, as her Fall Guy, which is difficult for a woman to do alone!) My girlfriend and I are 100% convinced that THIS is the Real Story… We must all have the guts to speak up on this possibility… so sendin your responses please, and let’s discuss this threadbare.

May the Truth prevail!

BTW, I really could not understand why our desi Sherlock had to write that he was a ‘regular’ normal guy!

My reaction to such posts – I’m dismayed (but neither shocked nor surprised) that people have such gross thoughts about a young girl who is dead and was loved by her parents. Yes, her mother didn’t cry on TV channels, so, what? It in no way proves that she killed Aarushi.

Yes, I agree that web gives you a platform to publish your opinions ( even if they have no sense at all), show the world how creative you are, how well you can write, sometimes you can write gibberish without  divulging your real identity, you can have  an online fan base with your blog and so on…but all this should not come at the expense of others, in this case the others are –  a dead girl who was 14 year old and her bereaved parents.

(Img source – tehelka)

However, not many on Facebook are aware of the page as it has just 382 members (BTW India has 25 million Facebook users and out of which only 382 travel by trains, hard to believe?). I don’t think they are doing any marketing on Facebook, which I think they should do as it will help more people know about their presence on Facebook which will give them good platform to bring forth their problems to IRCTC. So, instead of venting their anger about not being able to login to their IRCTC account or about deteriorating food quality in the railways or other problems  to different online forums they can now put across their complaints at the right place where they can be solved.   I’ve collected a few grievances people had posted and how IRCTC responded to these comments in real-time.

?

Here’s my colleague Arun Sharma posting his queries on the IRCTC Facebook page.

Please spread this message so that more people  learn about IRCTC ‘s presence on Facebook. Also, do comment as it will motivate me to unearth some more helpful but not-so-famous pages on Facebook!

Right now when I am typing this post I am fondly thinking about a gypsy track from the movie ‘Hare Rama Hare Krishna’ that all of us have  loved, hummed, sung or tapped toes to – be it in a disc, in picnics, while driving and even in bathrooms! Yes, I am talking about Dum Maro Dum, nopes, not the one that features a shrinking and not-at-all –beguiling Deepika Padukone sporting a skimpy skirt and a tattoo(Oh, yeah… we all know about her fixation with tattoos!). BTW Deepika P’s look (her tacky and so very glittery skirt) is not at all Kewl and Sexy. Though she’s trying hard to be sexy. Well, there’s a difference between being sexy and seductive and plain vulgar. I leave it to you to decide the category this song fits best in.

The appalling lyrics too don’t do much for the song. Though the lyricist has tried hard to up the shock value of the lyrics to either appeal to the rebel instinct of today’s youth or depict the false pretenses of the society we live in but the effort comes across as a joke. “Phir Dekh Raha Hai/ Aaj Ankh Sek raha hai/Kal haath seke ga/Aaj Dheel Chor Raha hai /Kal Khud hi Rokega/Aaj Mere liye Chair kheench raha hai/Kal Meri Skirt Kheenchega/Kheeche ga ki nahi?”

And this one is a shocker- “Uche Se ucha Banda/Poty Pe baithe Nanga/Phir Kahe ki society /Sali kahe ka pakhanda”. Huh what’s the relation between being naked while attending to nature’s call (everyone sits naked from the most influential people to non entities) and the falseness and deception of society.

Uff!! I tell you these pseudo-intellectual lyricists (the culprit is Jaipdeep Sahni)– only thing they are good at is making simple things complex. Anyways, if you forget, the movie has a strong social message, which is, to bring forth the evils of Goa – drug, prostitution and mafia. But that in no case is an excuse for having such a gross song in the movie. Well, the theme of the movie sounds similar to Dev Anand’s Hare Rama Hare Krishna shot in Nepal which at that time was a hub for drug-dazed hippies.  Well, there’s a saying if it’s not broken then don’t fix it! ( That fits here! BTW Just a suggestion – Rohan Sippy could have used the original lyrics in the song!)

Headline Blunders! In an effort to put the news first PTI made BofA the director of Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Group. Read the body and you will know what’s the real story.

Well, on the web, a majority of users just read the headlines. They don’t want to read the entire news so the headline must provide adequate information about the story. So, going by this headline people get ideas like:

P.S. Mukesh Ambani has been appointed as a director on board of Bank of America.

1. Avoid headlines that appear to be clever but  are basically confusing and incomprehensible. Take this headline for example.

I’ve taken this particular headline from the services page of a web application development company. It’s non-informative and doesn’t give a bit of hint about the company’s services. Instead of a confusing headline a straightforward headline saying We offer web application development, web design and web marketing services would have done better.

2. Don’t write for insiders who know your processes. What is Cognizant 2.0? I wonder whether anyone not acquainted with Cognizant processes could comprehend it!! A general- interest page where you write about your services should not have  cliffhanger sentences. Nowhere in this section it’s been mentioned what Cognizant 2.0 is all about.  Yes, you can click  to get a detailed information but remember there’s one thing common with all the web users, and that is, lack of patience.

3. Edit before you hit the Publish button. This is a basic rule but sometimes writers tend to ignore it and the consequences are somewhat like:

It’s taken from National Museum’s official site.

4. Don’t misuse acronyms. The first time you use an acronym spell it out with the short form placed within parenthesis immediately after. Once you’ve mentioned what the acronym stands for  there’s no point in spelling it out again in the article.

The worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, Wednesday introduced high-speed Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) network modules for the Cisco 3600 modular access platform.

These new OC-3 modules give service providers and enterprise customers a cost-effective solution for extending multiservice capabilities to branch-office locations through Asynchronous Transfer Mode.( Here the writer should have used the acronym ATM).

After reading the reviews of 7 Khoon Maaf I am a bit confused! How many husbands did Piggy Chops aka Susanna kill in the movie? 6 or 7? The reviews have definitely grabbed my interest and I am planning to watch it tomorrow. Here’s a roundup of the reviews that I found online. Also I’ve posted a video of the Russian song Kalinka and the Daarrrrling song ( which is quite a craze these days) is copied from it!  Do take a look at it too

7 Khoon Maaf – And the critics are saying!

Komal Nahta of koimoi.com:  He has given it 1.5 stars. Mr Nahta says that the takers for this kind of dark subject among the Hindi film-going audience won’t be too many. According to his 7 Khoon Maaf review “There are a lot of questions that remain unanswered by the story writer and the screenplay writers. For example, how does Susanna keep falling in love with men with such alarming regularity when she has had bitter and chilling experiences in her married life in the past? The natural way for a lady in such a situation would be to be put off marriage forever…Besides, why does she simply not walk out of the bad marriages? Why does she take law into her own hands each time she feels cheated by the husband? What is also puzzling is why man after man is keen on marrying Susanna when her earlier husband/s has/have died under mysterious circumstances.”

Anupama Chopra of NDTV: She isn’t very happy with the film. She says “This is a tough story to pull off and despite the voluminous talent on display here – from director-co-writer-composer Vishal Bhardwaj to Priyanka to co-stars like Irrfan Khan and Naseeruddin Shah – the film stumbles and fumbles.” Also the story and Susanna’s character doesn’t come off as believable. “She walks down the aisle with cheery optimism and the knowledge that if it doesn’t work, there’s always the other option. Why doesn’t she just leave or opt for divorce? Because, as her faithful butler explains, that is her nature.” Ms Chopra adds.

Sonia Chopra of sify: She has good words for the movie. She says “At no point does writer-director Vishal Bhardwaj permit the viewer to blame Susannah (Priyanka Chopra) for any of her crimes; the viewer is to remain consistently sympathetic to her. And the film is so luscious for this reason: the way Bhardwaj makes us root for this semi-villain of a heroine.”

Aniruddha Guha of DNA: He gives 4/5 to the movie and has showered praises on Piggy Chops and Vishal Bharadwaj. According to Mr Guha, “Priyanka Chopra takes on a character that most of her contemporaries would shy away from and enacts it in a way only she possibly can. For a woman with as many shades as Susanna, Chopra gets a crack at a role of a lifetime. And Bhardwaj ensures she sparkles like never before.”

Mayank Shekhar of Hindustan Times: He has given the movie 3 stars. He says the movie is a “Dark, demented dream run!” He has also some good words for the leading lady “For Priyanka Chopra, who plays the Anglo-Indian protagonist, this is unquestionably a role of a lifetime. She has you by the eyeballs. So does most of the movie.” Mr Shekhar also gives the readers a brief insight into Susanna’s quest for marital bliss and why she ends up murdering her husbands?  As per him “Each husband of Susanna’s, it turns out, is sick in the head (and bed) in uniquely separate ways. She adopts each one nonetheless, sometimes trusting hope over experience.”

Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama: He says “the film will meet with diverse reactions – some will fancy it, while some will abhor it!” He says “7 Khoon Maaf works in parts. A few stories – involving Neil Nitin Mukesh, John Abraham, Irrfan Khan and Annu Kapoor – are absorbing, while at least two could’ve been better narrated.” Also he feels that the second half of the movie is drab and lengthy. “The unfortunate part is that the uninteresting ones come in the latter half and coupled with its excessive length, the impact generated by a captivating first hour gets diluted in the process. Even the culmination doesn’t sweep you off your feet.”

Rajeev Masand of Ibnlive: He is disappointed with the film and says the movie “tests your patience” He has given the movie a rating of 2 on 5. “Boring isn’t a word you’d normally associate with a Vishal Bhardwaj film, but ‘Saat Khoon Maaf’ seriously tests your patience. The episodes don’t link with each other seamlessly, and the director moves on quickly from one to the next, never giving us a sense of reflection or regret (if any) on Susanna’s part after committing a murder.” Mr Masand gives us a list of the murdered husbands- a possessive one-legged army-man, a drugged-out rockstar, a sexually sadistic Urdu poet, a two-timing Russian spy, a lust-driven ageing police officer, and an old-fashioned natural pharmacist but says that “Few of them, however, have any scope to make a lasting impression.”

It seems everyone in the media knows who killed Aarushi Talwar. I also thought of hopping on the bandwagon and put my two cents in. Yes, the killer of Aarushi Talwar, the 14 year old teenager found dead in her Noida home, goes by the name of TRP (Television Rating Point) and sometimes by sleazy journalism.

Well, it definitely helps your TRP when you imply that the murdered girl was nothing but a slut and was having an affair with 2 boys from her school and her servant Hemraj (who was also found murdered). One particular news channel was so hell-bent on winning in the TRP race that it had even aired an obscene MMS of Aarushi which showed her undressing in front of a young man. But I think they got so busy calculating their TRPs that they forgot to mask the girl’s face and …the girl was definitely not Aarushi.

If I remember correctly a few days after the murder, one of the UP police officials had even said that the girl was as “characterless” as her father. Now, here comes another tale that Aarushi was upset with her father’s affair with another doctor and so she indulged in an affair with Hemraj.

The press conference was definitely a fodder for the media. Suddenly this tragic case turned into a filmi drama that had dose of thriller, lust, sex, erosion of family values, illegitimate affairs and what not! Sorry had forgotten to include honor killing in the list.

What struck me the most was the immediate reactions of the TV channels after the press conference of the UP police officials… practically every TV channel ran a show on Aarushi and her dysfunctional family. The TV talk shows on Aarushi case revolved around issues like : do you think the father and daughter had an incestuous relationship? Or were the couple involved in a wife-swapping club? And probably Aarushi knew about it and the couple killed their daughter! There were rumors that Nupur Talwar was involved in the murder because she was not Aarushi’s biological mother!!

Please…what are we discussing here and why? Did the CBI mention all these strange and weird “facts” in its report? Or is it the media deliberately making these baseless stories so that the case is filled with all the filmy masala!

The Aarushi murder case became a favorite topic amongst the sab jannewalas and media waalas claiming to fight for Aarushi so that she gets justice! And this is the way they are planning to give her justice:

BTW this is the opening paragraph of the write-up (sex sells big time!)

A disturbing sexual angle has emerged in the murder of Aarushi Talwar, 14. Crucial facts left out from her post-mortem report suggest that her private parts were “extraordinarily dilated”. But there were no signs of rape. These facts, established by the CBI after they questioned the doctor who performed the post-mortem, give a new twist to the case.”The vaginal orifice of the deceased was unduly large and mouth of cervix was visible,” says the CBI’s closure report.

There were some nuts who even said that the parents didn’t look devastated at all after the murder and even when CBI recently decided to close the case they looked happy. Oh yeah… the mother didn’t cry like Tulsi, there was no drama …she didn’t run in the streets crying “meri beti ko maar daala”. Nupur Talwar should have hired a make- up artist and even got herself some dialogues written from the creative heads of the TV serials!!

Even Charles Sobhraj got a chance to share hisgyaan on murder and crime by offering tips to solve the case.

We Indians love to give opinions be that- how to lift toilet seats or Quantum entanglement and Bohr’s electron model. Check out this thread and you will find that our country has many Sherlock Holmes. I think in this case being Holmes was simpler and easier as our detective junta had to just prove how big whore the dead girl was…and she couldn’t defend herself, she couldn’t probably scream from her grave  “I am as innocent as your sister or daughter is”. What punishment does the court of law give to those who  at their own leisure time dissect a dead minor’s character? None, I guess!

You know it makes me ponder what kind of world I am living in. People are beastly here; they would drive in their cars in hordes to witness public execution (if it were still allowed) and TV cameras rolling and capturing every bit of it. And yes after the execution the reporters will jump in with questions like: “Aapko kaisa lag raha hay public execution dekh kar?” And a major number of channels won’t shy away from taking the credit: “XYZ NEWS influence- Public Execution of the Killer.”

Just think about it: If it weren’t Aarushi but some Aarush who was found murdered in his room. In that case I wonder if the media would have even bothered to cover it? It would have been another drab story with no potential of fetching them a good TRP.

The story of the father-mother duo killing their pretty daughter has another vantage point – Just imagine an upper middle class family, an educated and sophisticated one, can commit  a heinous crime of murdering their daughter is a plot that is sure to hit the bull’s eye. And what kind of TRPs you expect when you show Hemraj’s friend sneaking into the house, getting into a fight with the servant and killing him and Aarushi witnessing it and getting killed? It’s an Ok kinda plot but not as sensational as the father and mother duo killing the servant and the daughter!!

Today the Talwars have been named as the accused by an SJM, what do you think the next course of action these TV channel waalas will take? May be a trial on TV – “Aarushi ko insaaf dilayie, sms kijie aur hume batayie ki Talwar dampati ko kya saja milni chahiye?” And I am sure they will love the rising TRPs!

The syphilis issue came up in Telegraph that claimed:- Facebook enables people to meet strangers easily which often leads to casual sex, and obviously more casual sex leads to more spreading of STDs.
This caused quite a furore among the internet users and as a result we saw tens of thousands of Facebook supporters blogging and commenting over the issue. I remember stumbling upon one such comment which said: Should I be wearing a condom when I use Facebook? Should I wrap my routers in a Trojan?

A survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers found that one in five divorces are linked to Facebook. You thought your wife didn’t see your flirty status messages, or didn’t know that you had recently connected with one of your old flames on Facebook. Huh! Facebook – The marriage killer! Yes, 66 per cent of lawyers cited Facebook as the primary source of evidence in a divorce case. MySpace, Twitter and other social networking sites were also on the what-causes-divorce list. Remember Eva Longoria? Yes, the “Desperate Housewives” star, split from her sportsman husband Tony Parker after alleging that he was having an affair with a woman he kept touch on Facebook.

Aww! I never thought this simple-looking but so blue in color portal that we know as Facebook was capable of igniting so much passion. I must say, all kinds of passions ( Here I have deliberately used Red as the font color, RED =Passion, remember!):

• Old passion
• Office passion
• Passion for your colleagues’ spouses
• High school/ college passion
• Stranger passion which leads to STDs
• As of now I can think of these many passions that Facebook is capable of igniting in us. If you think there’s any more to the list then please do share!

And then there were news of a New Jersey Pastor Rev. Cedric Miller who told married church leaders to delete their Facebook accounts as according to him the social networking site was a “portal to infidelity”.

These were some of the news reports that linked Facebook with almost all the evils happening in the world.

Now, let’s see what search engines suggest.

If you type “Facebook Causes” on Google you see:

On Yahoo it’s like:

To set the record straight – people searching for something does not in any way indicate that ‘particular thing’ is actually happening.

If you ask me, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace etc do not kill marriages it’s the couples who do that. It’s like  living in the New York city where you can meet 80 billion possible dating partners but, it entirely depends on you whether you want to cripple your marriage, want to betray your partner’s trust or cherish your married life.

Do share your thoughts on this! Would love to hear what you have to say.