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This is the most bizarre piece of news I have read in some time :
Himesh has quietly put himself through surgery a couple of months ago and added one more voice, apart from his nasal voice. He has now become the only singer to have two completely different voices and the new voice will be heard in his forthcoming films. He has already recorded songs in his new voice.
While TOI goes on to pat its investigative journalism,
Well, he didn’t account for Mumbai Mirror’s super sleuthing skills! The source further said, “This new voice will be heard in all his forthcoming films – Ishk Unplugged, Radio, Kajraare and A New Love Isshtory. The strategy is that Himesh will perform live at the music release of Radio a few weeks down the line where he will sing in his new voice. The voice is extremely good and the songs that he has recorded are sure to work with his fans.”
it is this line that is without doubt, the funniest :
Himesh remained silent (in both voices) on the subject.
Back to the topic, I am usually so biased against anything even remotely related to Himesh that I can only make fun of this news. Greatbong has already gone ahead and taken the first shot, and I am still trying to understand what having 2 completely different voices mean.
Himesh is a product of careful marketing and image building and I won’t be surprised if this is just following his cap and beard in line. If true, the doctor who performed this is a quack, without a doubt.
Himesbhai, you should demand a refund, and use the money to go vacationing, and thereby stay away from a studio.
Link via email by Amit V.
I came across this piece titled “Jerks actually reduce the risk of traffic jams“, a discussion mainly valid for the U.S. with speed limits c seriously and the huge traffic jams near metros and areas like the Bay Area. Just a couple of days ago, I was discussing this problem, where a friend opined that drivers who drive around 10 mph above the speed limit (which is usually accepted on freeways where the speed limit is around 65 mph and not ticketed in most parts of U.S.) actually help reduce traffic jams.
The piece of course specifically refers to jerks who break rules, but it is valid for drivers who are within rules too. Intuitively, the argument makes sense that if everyone drove faster, some of the cars would have left the vicinity of the jam before the jam. I tried to think of a mathematical proof for this, but gave up after some time. Although it is easier to think of this in terms of wireless bandwidth and clogging. Higher the rate of transfer, lower is the chance of collision.
Back to practical stuff, U.S. freeways near cities usually have a carpool lane (for cars with 2 or more persons) which is usually free during peak hours, and is supposed to motivate office-goers to carpool. Carpooling is fine and should be encouraged, but given that a jam could altogether be avoided if everyone were using that one lane too, and the amount of fuel burnt in jams, I am skeptical about the effectiveness of carpool lanes. I am sure there are better ways to promote it.
Just some idle thinking.
The Indian judiciary is one of the reasons I still think there is plenty of hope. Take the recent 377 ruling, or this ruling against the person who was offended by Sach ka Saamna.
“Switch off your TV, Mister, if you don’t like it, or change the channel. Moral policing is not our job”. This was the Delhi High Court’s terse advice on Wednesday to Delhi residents Deepak Maini and Prabhat Kumar who wanted the controversial but popular TV reality show Sach Ka Saamna being aired on Star Plus to be stopped.
The petitioners had said the show — on which contestants are asked a series of prying questions — was “obscene and against Indian culture and ethos”.
…
Justice Shah said, “This is a classic example of the misuse of public-interest litigations. There are far more serious problems in the country.”
Couldn’t be better said. I also hope that frivolous PILs be heavily fined, the fine decided on a per case basis. That should discourage individuals from filing PILs whenever something offends their fragile sentiments.
The rule is simple : if you don’t like something and you can avoid it, then please do so. As long as someone doesn’t force obscenity onto you, you should really keep your mouth shut.
Link via email by Aadisht K.
In what was a full episode devoted to Sarah Palin’s resignation (or quitting, as you prefer), Jon Stewart quotes (on The Daily Show) :
Look at it this way. She completed a governorship in 2 and a half years.
She loves Alaska so much that she had to set it free.
If only Sarah Palin charged a royalty each time a joke was made about her, she’d have so much money that she could easily buy out the liberal media and force all of us to pronounce it Alyeskya.
I posted this song on Twitter a couple of weeks ago, but just heard it again and thought it deserves to be mentioned at the blog. So here it is, titled United Breaks Guitars, this is a fun song by Canadian musician Dave Caroll after United Airlines broke his guitar due to bad handling :
Apart from being immensely hummable, I liked his creative way of getting back at United, instead of creating an online petition or another lame e-mail forward.
Tip for readers : Most airlines allow guitars as a special item that you are allowed to take onboard. So always carry your guitar onboard with you on a flight. More so if you are bad at writing songs.
This piece of news about a Miss Moral Beauty pageant held in Saudi Arabia has been getting some attention recently, especially in the western media. It is supposed to be funny, I think.
There was none of the swimsuit and evening gown competitions and heavy media coverage of beauty pageants elsewhere when the contest was decided in the eastern city of Safwa. Instead, the winner and the two runner-up princesses had to undergo a three-month test of their dutifulness to their parents and family, and their service to society.
My concern is, with all contestants burqa clad, how do they make sure the person they are tracking is, in fact, the contestant.
Seriously speaking, I agree with most of the points mentioned by Amit V. in his post about the Miss World Punjaban contest (a video of which is here, btw). Most beauty contests are designed to showcase women whom men find desirable, within the paradigms of local culture or fantasy. In that respect, there is little to choose between conventional pageants, the Miss World Punjaban or the Miss Moral Beauty one. The more I went through the above article, the more I started liking the pageant. Firstly, the organizers are catering to the local tastes and culture in this contest. So there isn’t any scope for a fundamentalist idiot to get on the street setting fire to public property. Secondly, it tracks the contestants over a period of three months. It would be bloody difficult to fake anything for so long. Idolizing Mother Teresa for a few mins, on the other hand, a piece of cake.
The only problem is when men start looking for those exact qualities in their women, forcing a widespread shift towards those qualities that can be contributed to the popularity of the cosmetics industry today. But then that is true of most pageants and the culprit here is the willfulness of women to change for men, not what they change to.
Link via email by Xeb.
This is specifically for readers receiving the content on Google Reader. There is a new feature that allows a reader to “Like” a particular post using the Like (duh?) button at the end of the post in Google Reader, please feel free to use it by all means. It just helps the publisher, in this case, me, to keep a track of the kind of posts that are liked/preferred.
There isn’t a Don’t Like button yet, so most of you would have to wait.
If you thought the Indian parliament was bad, check out what the South Koreans are upto :
When it comes to raw power, they don’t beat us, but at technique, yes. These guys know kung-fu and stuff. You don’t mess with someone of the oriental race; you never know what they have learnt. I do sympathize with the South Koreans though. With a crazy dude sitting above them in North Korea, some of the crazyness would definitely seep down.
But I think it is time to change the definion of unparliamentary world-wide.
Do check out some more parliamentary scenes from a previous post here.
So does anyone in Pune know about this Abhinav Bhatt ? If yes, kindly convey to him that he is the Dude of this Week.
Abhinav Bhatt, a law student based in Pune, filed a complaint with a magistrate’s court in June 2000, saying rediff.com has committed an offence under section 292 of the Indian Penal Code (selling and distributing obscene material).
His contention was that if one were to type words such as “sexual intercourse” in the search window on rediff.com’s homepage, it threw up links to pornographic websites.
I demand that his PC be confiscated and searched for folders named Project, Study, Homework or Source code.
Of course, I have also reserved some of my ire for Rediff. When given “sexual intercourse” as a search term, they should only throw up images of Khajuraho and meanwhile, send a letter to the parents of the individual, Mr. Abhinav Bhatt in this case.
This person makes the Rajya Sabha MP, who demanded a ban on Sach ka Saamna, look like Aristotle. That MP, by the way, should be invited to the show.
So does anyone in Pune know about this Abhinav Bhatt ? If yes, kindly convey to him that he is the Dude of this Week.
Abhinav Bhatt, a law student based in Pune, filed a complaint with a magistrate’s court in June 2000, saying rediff.com has committed an offence under section 292 of the Indian Penal Code (selling and distributing obscene material).
His contention was that if one were to type words such as “sexual intercourse” in the search window on rediff.com’s homepage, it threw up links to pornographic websites.
I demand that his PC be confiscated and searched for folders named Project, Study, Homework or Source code.
Of course, I have also reserved some of my ire for Rediff. When given “sexual intercourse” as a search term, they should only throw up images of Khajuraho and meanwhile, send a letter to the parents of the individual, Mr. Abhinav Bhatt in this case.
This person makes the Rajya Sabha MP, who demanded a ban on Sach ka Saamna, look like Aristotle. That MP, by the way, should be invited to the show.
