Wordly wise

Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect
-Samuel Johnson

(on a day when Jaswant Singh was expelled from BJP for his thoughts on Jinnah and Sardar)

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Proverb of the day

"A dog with a bone in its mouth, can't bark"
- A Zulu proverb

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mobilog

Celebrities and their private lives!!!

Media today ran stories of how Hrithik and his wife, Susanne held each other's hand for a ramp walk putting to rest all speculations about their estranged relationship. HT says the split between that Suman jr. and oohh-so-hot kangana babe is also a part of the same plot. I won't be surprised. Earlier Errrbaaz and even-hotter-than-kangana-Malai arora khan a similar thing to promote some brand. There are many more such examples.
HT said that it was all a publicity stunt to promote the next Hrithik starrer and that all the statements and media appearances around the controversy were scripted.
That was not too difficult to guess, I guess. Making public your private life to get attention is the latest bollywood way to get publicity. Think of it, you don't need to pay all those media to write about you, talk about you and people would be so eager to hear everything about you and talk about you. Quite an ingeneous way and cheap too. Pretty CHEAP actually.
I mean I can probably understand this strategy being used by newbies but people like Hrithik, Malaika. These are successful people with huge fan followings. People hang on to what you say or do. You are public figures and need to behave (when you are in public eyes).
Ofcourse there is SRK argument - when asked that he should not smoke in public, he says something to the effect that he has smoking all through - right from his days of struggle. So why stop now just because I have become successful. These same people have made me star.
This man is too successful to be told anything. He defends dancing in weddings and being paid for it. May be I shouldn't be writing about the Badshah here - he has such a massive and I think loyal fan following that this post would get eclipsed by a discussion on him and lose the main theme.
I think I digress. I come back to pre-SRK part.
The point is if you want public to respect your private life, you need to respect it first.

(and while writing this, I hear on radio that Shiney Ahuja has been accused of rape by his maid. Medical tests of maid seem to have confirmed sex at least. I can't remember any Shiney movie promo, so this one can't be a publicity stunt!!! In fact now I am thinking if it being a publicity stunt is better than it being turning out to be true. Disgusting stuff.

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Injury prone me (update 3) - wasted weekend

So I told this school time buddy of mine (school basketball team captain, head boy and sportsman of the year twice...) to wake me up at 6 in the morning and that we would go together (to play cricket). I set the alarm anyways. So I get up in the morning (our champ dint call up) and got ready, still waiting for his call. In the meantime, I start getting calls from other people (to make sure we have the numbers to form a team). Our champ's call never came so I decided to call him up myself but he wudn't pick up his phone. By this time I get to know he is not coming and because of my plastered leg, I cant drive myself. So what do I do, go back to sleep but can't find sleep: So do the next best time killer - switch on my computer and log on to facebook. No I am not addicted to fb, in fact dont even log in that frequently but early in the morning cant think of anything else. What a waste.
(But while being on computer I do one good thing take a long overdue back up of my hard disc.)
The stage is also set for a long and boring day (after a similar day earlier) and I know I wont be watching TV or any movie. Dont know why.
So the whole day I keep lying on my bed checking fb occassionaly, calling up friends, taking small naps etc etc.
Damn it can't find sleep also, I mean I loooove sleeping but cant sleep the whole day. Wifey not home and there are better ways to spend the day than snoozing. But for my broken leg.

Injury prone me (update-2) - My injuries and my wife

Well I should have known it better. I wrote in my earlier post about my injuries while playing. I realised it just now that all three had to do something with my wife in some way. Ofcourse my folks keep pulling my leg for the last two injuries but the first one is also related to her, I realised that just now.
I start with the last two first.
Both the times I got injured, my wife had gone to visit her parents...poor she (or is it me!!!) that first time she decided to cut short her visit and this time again she plans to come back sooner. What a loving wife. (just that I am telling her that its no big deal and that she can should stay there a bit longer, I hope she does!!!)...and my folks joking me that I get injured intentionly because I miss her too much...and want her back the earliest...yeah right!!!
And about the first injury...well that was before marriage so how is that related...dude i was supposed to meet her father only a couple of days after i had the fracture...Some signals come pretty early man!!!

(is there a way i can hide this post from her...or somebodys gonna hurt real bad!!!)

Injury prone me (update)

I said some of the players are in their mid-30s...Let me make it clear that I do not fall into that age bracket...

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Injury prone me

Last weekend I once again hurt myself while playing - this is what, third time in a row. Last year i had a hairline fracture on my right arm while playing basketball (fell on my right arm while trying to save the ball cross the foul line (whatever that line is called), then a couple of months ago hurt my back while trying a caught and bold and the last one was last weekend itself.
I misstepped while finishing my bowling action and ended up twisting my ankle. I now have a hairline fracture in my right foot and it is plastered and all. (Damn can't even drive but tried riding my scooter a little while earlier so thats some solace).
The last one on my invitation. Apparently we needed to save some 13 runs in the last two overs and so I went to bowl the second last over. First ball cleared the ropes, I decided to deliver a beamer the next one (which would probably be slower than a shane warne bowl but then your run up to bowl means a lot when you are playing with some irregular players in mid-thirties)...Quite excited and all hmmmm....I was the top scorer and had to remain a hero and we needed this buggers wicket. But well luck had something else in store for me...not only did this one also cleared the ropes, I had to forfeit the over as well which means the opposition still had two overs with them but only 5 runs to score. I rested for the next two deliveries ( ofcourse didn't realise its a fractured bone till monday evening...u see doctors don't sit on sundays and we are no less than any doctor for such small injuries but thats aside ). I came to field again and that too at short forward...bravo me (no, actually i decided to field there because of shade)...well we lost the match in this over itself...would have a good one from my team mates but for my injury and probably for batting earlier and ohh did i mention earlier that i insisted to bowl the second last over when we did have other bowling options.
We play every sunday and well i am going tomorrow again ..may be will bat with a runner (think they will allow me to play) or else will have to umpire...

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Rise of nickel prices

April 19, 2009: Price of nickel, which is used in stainless steel, moved
up by 16 percent this week against the previous week due to production
cuts and investment buying.
Nickel futures on London Metal Exchange (LME) closed up 16 percent at
$12,725 per ton after making a high of $12,844. On MCX, the April
contract closed up 15 percent at Rs 633 per kg against last week's close
at Rs 550.8.

Global production cut of the metal is expected to be 20 percent this
year which is driving up the prices despite a weak demand from the steel
industry. There has been over 33 percent increase of the LME inventories
on a year-to-date basis that shows there is low demand for the metal.
Nickel price also got support from the movement in global equities
market.

Severe production cuts have pulled out around 20 percent of nickel
supply from the market and this is the real cause for the rise in prices
rather than improvement in demand.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Market-News/Nickel-up-on-production-
cuts/articleshow/4419233.cms
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Not really production cuts but largely investment (speculative) buying.
Nickel prices rose because of investment buying by the Chinese in
anticipation of government buying of the metal similar to that of copper
(China's strategic reserve buying(SRB) of copper has moved up the red
metal by some 40% in the last seven weeks or so). Investors (or
speculators) also expected that the metal would go up due to (China's)
fiscal stimulus related demand.

Nickel 30 day chart
http://www.kitcometals.com/charts/nickel_historical_large.html#30days

Improving Delhi's traffic situation!

We have such wide roads, we have so many flyovers and we have metro - we have a lot better traffic situation than we used to have!
Depends, really depends where you travel. ( I dont think it has really improved for anyone except for those who commute through metro). For someone like me who has been travelling close to 90kms daily to and from office for the last 4 years (yeah, fine, same company), travelling time still very much remains the same - travelling at a dismal speed of around 30kmph. This becomes more pathetic when you look at the fact that most of my travelling route comprises of national highway and then ring road, which is signal free.
Significant development has been done in the last 4 years, admittedly and the situation could have been much more worse.
But thats not the way to look at it. The situation could have been much better, a lot better had the authorities been proactive and had expedited the work. Look at the way metro work is being done. And look at the way NH8 was constructed - it took forever to get it ready. (add to that another month after its complete, waiting for a VIP to inaugrate it).
There is similar situation with Naraina cross section/flyover - the place has remained a blot on ring road forever terrible terrible. You can never be sure of your travelling time if you have to cross Naraina. It is one place that I need to cross to reach South Delhi and go to some decent hang outs, meet with friends etc etc. I can tell you that the idea of crossing this place completely puts me off restricting me to just one part of the city. (I think traffic is more responsible than television in killing people's social lives).
So many of my colleagues keep telling me they want to quit and look for some job close home. One guy indeed had to leave due to back problems (you seat in a cab for like 3-4hrs everyday). Alas! When you are in Delhi you dont have much choice, have to look for a job in NOIDA or Gurgaon, and both are equally bad. There are of course many other obvoius negatives of traffic jams, i dont want to get into.
So do I see the situation improving? Well, completion of Naraina flyover should provide a lot of relief. And given the fact that we have the commonwealth games upon us, I think some urgency will be shown and work will be expedited.
The problem with the traffic situation is it does not seem to be planned - not looking what the traffic situation would be, say 5 years down the line and work accordingly. I also feel there is not optimal use of the current infrastructure. Outer ring road and the inner ring road are the lifelines of Delhi. Delhi also has decent rail network with decent number of railway stations all across the city. We now have the metro also. We should somehow connect these four through feeder buses or some other way so that people can travel between two place in the city hassle free taking the least possible time. Than only we would be able to encourage use of public transport and improve the situation.