There is a possibility that Steve Jobs is dead

Either that or the Bloomberg staff needs LASIK.

iDead?
Have heart and wipe the espresso off your respective MacBooks for the man is alive and well. Bloomberg journos(rookies?) played truant with his 17 page obituary by *ahem* accidentally * ahem* publishing it.

But the reporting notes do reveal that near the top of Bloomberg’s list of people to call in event of his death is Jobs’s ex girlfriend Heidi Roizen (quite the Valley switchboard, apparently) and California attorney general and (like Jobs) cranky aging hippie Jerry Brown. Also, Bloomberg doesn’t seem to have many people’s cell phone numbers.

Snigger.

You make me SIC!
Youtube Comment Snob – A firefox plugin that serves as a filter for bad spelling, obscence language and generally demolishes unpretty, grammatical errors left by those, who choose to spend their days rather productively, by spamming dead stupid videos posted by dead ugly people. Personally, I have a little trouble comprehending how exactly does one segment”profanity”. Its too fucking intricate, dude!

Girls Not Allowed

Depressing.

The average child sex ratio for Mumbai in 2007 computed with the birth chart stands at 921 girls per 1,000 boys, two lower than the Census 2001 figure of 923. The national average as per the 2001 Census was 934, higher than Mumbai’s poor show.

Mumbai makes no bones about its preference for the boy child over girl child according to the news report in the Times.
Flipping through TOI is usually an exercise in masochism no thanks to the atrocious journalism perpetrated by the ruffians at large who masquerade as journalists. Insert I heart all my journo friends here. Anyway, occasionally the pain is coz of the highly-unlikely-yet-equally-true-in-a-really-sad-sort-of way tinge to the reports.
The symptomatic tendencies towards misogyny exhibited by this vacuous metropolis are old junk. However, this sudden emergence and consolidation of the *anti-girl child* tribe should be something of shocker for the educated urban populace that prides itself for being benign and liberal and commences rabid tut-tutting about sexist, patriachrial issues emanating from rest of the country, at the drop of a designer hat. Well, here is the pudding now – most of this very urbane populace is actually contributing to strengthening the older hideous stereotypes of female infanticide.
The depression I experienced after reading this is seconded only by my seething contempt for our collective social conscience or lack of it. What hope for survival does a girl baby have in some rural Indian hamlet when a self proclaimed oppidan, often considered the ideal confluence of idealistic values and a progressive lifestyle is trying, rather surreptitiously, to reduce and probably wipe out women from its map.
You may label me quasi-paranoid but take a good look at the census and then factor in Indian government’s lower-than-actual policy which indirectly translates into a considerable decrease in the reported number. So, in all probability we have even fewer number of girls than mentioned. Do the convoluted math. It won’t be pleasant, you bet!
There is an ominous ring to the byline – In Every Month Of 2007, Fewer Females Were Born In Mumbai As Compared To Males. The recent hype around illegal abortion clinics has not yet subsided and here is the proof that sex-selective abortion is recurrent and rampant.

While Maharashtra’s child sex ratio in 2001 stood at 916, Bihar had a ratio of 944. West Bengal scored 963, Chattisgarh 982 and Tamil Nadu 933. Maharashtra, in fact, was identified by demographers as one of the worst states along with Punjab (799), Gujarat (906) and Delhi (850).

I remember the predicament of a young woman known to our family some years ago. A highly educated gold medallist with an unbridled passion for life, she was married into an emotionally and morally bankrupt family because kundalis must match for marital bliss, nevermind compatibility of mental, spiritual or physical kind. Her husband, a general manager with an MNC of serious repute made her go through 3 subsequent abortions at a squalid, unlicensed clinic in a shantytown, an hour’s drive from their penthouse suburban paradise.
Reason: She was expecting girls each of those three times that she was pregnant. Twins once.
We don’t really know what became of her because that association didn’t last long but I couldn’t help wonder, at 16, if an Indian woman’s whole life’s happiness was essentially a function of her ability to pop out virile male offsprings to carry forth the family name?!

That was almost 9 years ago. Apparently, things haven’t changed yet. My mother continues to get pitiful glances when she mentions that she has 2 daughters and thankfully, no sons. And we seem to be 1000 miles in the wrong lane. And perhaps, 1.5 steps away from smearing opium on a new mother’s breasts or perhaps feeding dhatura milk to newborn girls.

This is not a cool tragedy

Bihar flood situation gets grim

Kosi is angry. Not unlike a choleric, disowned, bastard child crying in a desolate ally, without garnering enough attention for the problems that have arisen from this sudden outburst of temper.
Almost 2 million people in my mother’s homestate have been displaced, luxated, destroyed in the span of a week. 500 villages have disappeared from the radar. Massive throngs are trying to flee various embankments with whatever remanants of their lives they can gather before Nature Gods and the local government wreck further havoc.
People are either dead or dying. But you’d say – So is the rest of the world..whats new?

This, of course, ain’t a “cool” enough disaster for the majority of metropolitan blogosphere to scream murder about. No siree! There aren’t any “Help the Victims” typa self important sites enlisted yet. Quite a change of pace from the millions that usually mushroom while pledging aid and a lot more in the event of some significantly more “international” tragedies of South East Asian typhoon or a North American hurricane variety raising their ugly heads.
Not to take away from the genuine of the species, the bona fide good samaritans who are making some headway contributing to repair the damages causued by the cataclysmic turn of events. However, I fail to figure out where exactly are the Rahul Boses and Arundhati Roys of the world hibernating when a signficant part of this country is quickly turning into Atlantis!(Well..Rahul, I can understand coz he needs to hide post the garish movies he’s been a part of the last few months but The God of Odd Things..wherefore art she?)

TOI is not wasting too much newsprint either. Secluded mentions aside. Botoxed SoBo divas/trannies and their tasteless divorce stories are seemingly more important. On the other hand, the Blame Game between central and state governments is on full swing and no one is wasting any time trying to extract their pound of flesh.

Congratulations Dear Nation! Another human aid disaster well ignored. Another dilemma well escaped.
Or is it?

Help:
Bihar Relief

“Segregation Now…..Segregation Forever”

People know this world is a wreck
Sick and tired of being politically correct
I see through it now but I didnt at first
The hypocrites made it worse and worse

Getting really pissed(the American version of pissed not the English pissed though I’d say both are equally easily achieved in this country)doesn’t require much. Just switch on the radio or the TV for roughly 10 mins and an unfiltered stream of pure bullshit will make you want to pour lead in your own ears.

I am not ok with some many things today. Primarily though, with this.

I am part Bengali, Bihari, Arabic and Latin. I comprehend Marathi fairly well and in my 6 years of “existing” in this metropolis, on and off (but on mostly), I can muster the “kasa aahe, bara ahe” conversations with much élan. But is that the only qualifying point for a true Mumbaikar? Hardly! Also, do I really care if my baniya has a Marathi signboard or one in Persian? Not really. I am more bothered about why none of your asinine hooligans ever came forward to help and heal the multitude of mumbaikars devastated by 7/11 bomb blasts. Kuthey hotas?
I don’t care if you think that I am undeserving of living on this soil coz my last name isn’t Shinde or Patil or Mahatre. I will, however, fuse your jaw with your neck if you insinuate that I don’t love this city enough coz I dearly do so. Despite its rampant crime, excruciating traffic jams, agonizing pollution and matchbox sized apartments. And it takes a lot to love anything when it carries excess a baggage that size. In fact, this city has been my single most stable relationship in the last 6 years.

If you trying to compartmentalize my city, I’ll have to ask you to wake up and smell the stale coffee as well as make some acquaintance with common sense because you are oh-so-wrong! No jingoistic verbal wordplay will help there!
I am as much a Mumbaikar as I was a New Yorker at one point in time. Do I have to choose? Not really. I love both my parents equally. My genetic mixture is my definition for most part. My city is as much in my DNA now.

Two of my closest friends are Maharashtrians. One of them lives and works in Singapore now. He manages a fair amount of Manadrin and even some Thai occasionally. His “Maratha” pride hasn’t been compromised in the slightest just because he now ends his sentences with a “lah” now. The second one is something of an entrepreneurial genius orbiting the software supernovas of Boston. Neither of them speak chaste Marathi and both prefer my mother’s chicken tikkas to kothambir vadis eventhough I would give my left eye and arm for some authentic bharlelili wangi.

I spent 6 months imparting primary school education to my bai’s kid in English because they couldn’t afford to send all their kids to the local school thanks to an exorbitant a fee hike and the BMC schools were pretty much turning them into vegetables. Will you behead me for corrupting the core populace?

I dare, you try!

What is this talk of regionalism?

Why is everyone so petrified of some incompetent political wannabe who spends his days spitting venom against Indians(we all are!) and his nights sozzled in the company of bar dancers from UP?(In a suburban joint.)
Irony redefined.
Here is a man who conveniently forgets that his kid was schooled at the notoriously upmarket(?) Bombay Scottish, when he goes hoarse crying against the “bhaiyyas” and the emergence of Hindi as Bombay’s primary language. Too bad dingbat! This is Hindustan, still.

Its quasi-tragic, quasi-comic to watch ignoramuses stake their own physical security to extend the bile and repulsion of this insolent fool. Literate baboons abound! Scores of nescient junta waiting in rain and hale to seek “inspiration” from a separationist.

The Thackeray spawn reminds me of another equally repugnant species of the political kind. George Wallace Jr, anyone?

Welcome to India’s very own homegrown “racist”.