Oxford Shabdkosh

Words like 'filmi', 'swadeshi', 'bhelpuri' and 'jhuggi'have found their way to the world-renowned Oxford Dictionary.

Other words finding their place in the dictionary are 'chutney', 'bandana', 'cheetah', 'cummerbund', 'videshi', 'bhelpuri', 'pukka', 'sahib','bundobust' and 'mohalla'.

Words like 'badmash', 'hawala', 'history-sheeter', 'bandh', 'dhaba' and 'chamcha', have also obtained respectability due to their inclusion in the dictionary.

The number of Indian words making entry into the dictionary has gone up to 700.Oxford has included 80 Indian words in its 11th Edition of the Concise Dictionary.

My recommendation for the 12th Edition "AAIYLAA" (Oh my GOD).

Word of the Day

"Shove It" .

Pronunciation: 'sh&v
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): shoved; shov·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English scufan to thrust away; akin to Old High German scioban to push and probably to Lithuanian skubti to hurry

Transitive senses
1 : to push along
2 : to push or put in a rough, careless, or hasty manner

First lady in waiting was caught on tape using this word with a journalist. I too have used this word often,with a certain kind of people.It makes you feel powerful.It relieves stress too.

There are bigger things happening in the world to be covered by the press than to put a microscope on a fitting reply from a sixty year old.

All those who don't agree can .......

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

7/25/2004 

Pandu Hawaldar

Police Dept across India are outsourcing peripheral responsibilities to private companies . Transporting convicts from jail to courts,serving court summons etc.

I guess the common man is not ready for that.The lathi wielding Pandu Hawaldar is part of Indian life as is the milkman and the postman.

Senior Officers in Police Dept should rethink the decision of what services to be outsourced .Let the transportation,serving court summons,verifying address for issuing passport (main source of revenue) remain with the police and all the other activities like maintaining law and order,solving homicides should be outsourced.How about outsourcing customer service to privately held companies?

The Tobacco chewing,potbellied,cycle riding Pandu Hawaldar is a multi talented superhuman.Lodging FIRs,catching underage kids driving mopeds without a license,controlling traffic,providing security cover to netas,arranging free cinema and concert tickets for Saab's baba log these are all in a day's job for Pandu.He is a superhero. His best weapon for any occasion is a Lathi and the ride is a Hero Cycle.

Lets give overworked Pandu Hawaldar some rest....

The Food Network

Yes,that's my wife's newfound love. She is a vegetarian but loves to watch non-vegetarian cooking shows all the times.She's an expert at Chicken Marsala, Masala Chicken and from shrimps to lobsters.

I wonder what our grandmothers did to hone their culinary skills ? Was there an Emeril to teach them how to cook watermellon chicken while some dudes played music in the background ? Was there a dish for every occasion or a George Foreman Grill to take out the extra fat from the steak.

This obsession with food has to stop somewhere. How many permutations can Emeril come up with , there are only so many thing you can eat with so many other things ...Can he cook Lamb in Pepsi .. I guess not .

After food network what's next, a Wine Channel ...a Dessert network ...

If Yan can cook, so can you folks...you don't need television to teach you that.I hope my wife doesn't start experimenting with the network recepies.I love her cooking.

Sunset at Carmel

Sunset at Carmel 

MAQBOOL

After a long time ,
saw a movie which is a must see piece of art ,well written and acted .
Maqbool has so many seasoned actors to give it a classic status .
Wonderful haunting music and crisp dialogues.

It was a relief to see a movie where the hero is not introduced with a song and 164 drums in the background.Its not about two bros getting separated in a mela nor about
a family leaving in NY suburb ,wearing DKNY and breaking into songs whenver they can.

I'm not going all Roger Ebert on this movie but I'll give this movie a Limca ,Two Thumbs Up and four pelvic thrusting dancers in the background.

Fitness Facts

There are variety of people you see and avoid meeting at the Gym .

- People pretending to exercise.

- People falling from treadmill while watching Seinfield reruns.

- People dripping like a sweat fountain.

- People smelling like sweat fountains , not necessarily dripping like one .

- People pedalling so hard ,as if they are chasing Lance Armstrong,only to find he is not there .

- Nerds programming the treadmill as if its an XBox .

- People trying out different machines,just trying out.

- Single men who are there for obvious reasons.

- Married women who are there for obvious reasons .

- Grand mothers who are there for no reason .

WMD

In a recent press conference, Mr Tony Blair emphasised there a possibility that the WMDs may never be found in Iraq .............Mr Blair try using GOOGLE.

At work on Friday afternoon

Mailboxes etc .

What's up with the latest trend of providing 100 MB to 1 GB mailboxes ....Who needs 1GB of space to store emails ? Who gets heaps of emails ? No one.

But yes there some people who are happy,Spammers. So start sending me all the junk you can ... Alert for all the guys at mortgage cos to credit card companies, cross border drug suppliers to baby diapers company ,Phoenix University to DeVry ,you are welocome to spam me as much as you can . I won't care to delete or block your address anymore .Very soon users will have 20 to 50 GB and on and on ... No one will need Public Storage services any more. Your inbox can store everything that you cannot sell or dispose of. Old couches ,
furniture, the junk you bought from Hobby shop and costumes you wore to Star Trek convention.

I wonder will my inbox be ever big enough ...big enough to live ...where I can live peacefully with my emails........... without spam .

Its down to Charisma...

Media is all gung-ho about how handsome,charismatic the V.P in waiting is ....time for current VP to get an Extreme Makeover.

....It's back

People blamed loss of jobs to outsourcing but from the WSJ to The Economist enough paper and ink has been wasted on evaluating job loss vis a vis outsourcing. There will still be few denials to the fact that the Michael Jordan Nike endorsement deal exceeded total wages of the Nike's outsourced labor worldwide.

With massive layoffs in the silicon valley, things got so bad that the card swapping machines at checkout counters were asking customers to punch in their employers name and not the zip code.

Economy is on the rebound . People are finding jobs , there are more cars on the roads , highways are jammed , malls are crowded , restaurants are packed . Does that mean a better economy brings more problem for the common man ...?

Pavitra Prabhakar

Only thing I feared the most has happened. Spiderman goes Desi ...he'll be called Pavitra Prabhakar who roams around in a Dhoti Kurta and tears into his Spidy costume when fighting his enemies .Believe me ..removing Dhoti kurta while on the run will be his one of the most difficult challenge .

I guess, Manjri Jayant Wadekar (MJ) will be the new Indian love for Spiderman . Did I mention Indian Spidy works for a Tabloid "Saamna" (ShivSena mouthpiece)in a Mumbai Suburb and its anybody's guess who will play his boss Mr Jameson ,a lookalike of Baal Thakre.

Sister Cities

So San Jose has a sister city , Pune ( India) , demographically Pune's composition is very similar to San Jose ...lot of South Asians and the I.T hub of Western India.

Very soon a San Jose park is going to have a Shivaji statue and probably a park in Pune will have a bust of Abraham Lincoln or Bill Clinton ..

The nature of problems faced by both the cities are similar like pollution ,garbage disposal and shortage of water ...... both cities can do with a little less technology .