America is BERNing again

Bernie2020

With Donald J. Trump’s gaffe as President mounting or so the democratic party thinks, is jumping in record number to throw their hat in the ring to compete against Trump in 2020.

The first one to declare her candidacy was Tulsi Gabbard, a little known U.S. representative from Hawaii although she is very well known for supporting Dictator Assad, I wonder if she was inspired by Narendra D. Modi who won with handsome majority using his Hindu card in India. Tulsi is the only Hindu candidate to ever run for the office in America period. Then came the most viable and popular candidates Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris. Yes democrats had a tremendous success in Mid-term elections with electing record number of female candidates across the country, so even though world thought that America would elect their first female and most popular candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016, there is tremendous hope in 2020. Democratic hopefuls list keeps growing with Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker and ten other candidates, check the complete list here.

Bernie Sanders is a repeat candidate, which is rare in American Presidential candidacy, but Bernie believes that he was robbed of his pick in 2016 against Hillary by DNC, with the caveat of Super Delegates.

AGE: Bernie will be the oldest candidate to run for office if nominated on Democratic ticket, Americans prefer young and healthy President in office. Trump is an exception, because his doctors have claimed that he has super gene, if not this obese, he would live up to two hundred years. He is also an exception for being racist, xenophobic and sexist. But Bernie being the oldest candidate has serious young generation following, no wonder he had huge crowd at his first 2020 campaign kickoff at Brooklyn College.

SOCIALISM: Bernie’s primary agenda is to fight against big corporations, provide free college education, free health care like other developed nations for all and levy heavy taxes on the wealthy top one per-centers since 2016 much else has changed. It is this socialism that DNC got scared and tilted their support towards Hillary in 2016. Knowing this, Trump has already launched a massive campaign attack against democratic party as socialistic for 2020 re-election bid at CPAC. But the difference this time around for Bernie is another young star; recently elected US representative from New York; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez more popularly known as AOC has rocked socialism. Most of the democratic presidential hopefuls have distanced themselves from socialism but Bernie prefers to call it Democratic Socialism. Socialism is a dirty word in America although it has been applied since ages such as Social Security, Medicare and free education to all until high school. Bernie says that times have changed and High School diploma is not sufficient to get a job instead every American needs a college education to get a job.

How far Bernie will get ahead this time around only time will tell with the crowded hopefuls, although he is the first to kickoff his campaign in full gear. The energy he has demonstrated thus far is commendable. Not far behind him is another most popular candidate still mulling on, Joe Biden.

With the early kickoff Berine sure has shown some steam in the game, but will America BERN this time, only time will tell.

Wars have REAL consequences

India-PakStat

In the wake of current Indo-Pak stand off Al Jazeera posted a picture of World Bank on the both nation statistics comparing side by side. The picture above caught my attention.

It all started when Pakistan sponsored JeM terrorists struck the CRPF bus killing more than forty personnel, one of the deadliest terrorist attack since a decade on Feb 14th at Pulwama. The entire nation mourned the loss of brave forces, rightly so they wanted answers from the nation that harbors these terrorists. This time it was no different that Pakistan said it did not harbor JeM.

It took ten days for India to plan and strike the cells of JeM well within the boundary of Pakistan and destroyed there camps, successfully returning back while Pakistan media mocked it’s Military as “Don’t honk, Pakistan Military is sleeping“. This covert operation was no less than what America had carried out to eliminate Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad. But India is yet to eliminate Massod Azhar.

This escalated tensions on both Nuclear armed neighbors, Pakistan launched air strikes against Indian military targets and India responded aptly. Indian pilot Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was found in Pak occupied Kashmir as POW. India established that Pakistan had used a missile that was sold by America with a condition that it cannot be used against India. This was a clear violation of the agreement.

Understandably talks began behind closed doors to the release of the Indian POW with international community. President Trump who was busy with his failing Vietnam Summit and barrage of accusations by his long time lawyer(fixer) Michael Cohen at home, he found only one good news to deliver the Hanoi press, stealing the thunder of PM Imran Khan.

https://twitter.com/StateDept/status/1101028965546749954

https://twitter.com/omar_quraishi/status/1101079219252150272

With the release of Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, it is a clear victory for India and time to rejoice, but Retd: Air Chief Marshal AY Tipnis cautioned (more so scolded) the media, it is wrong to use high decibels on air and hyperbolic vocabulary, one man stands out for me is Arnab Goswami who has such thin skin being a journalist and a public figure does not have a Twitter account for the fear of public retribution, but barks non stop night after night on TV screens without a rebuttal, another is Rahul Shivshankar at least this man has a twitter account. You are welcome to list more in comments. Mr Tipnis said that media is talking such nonsense that even though India has been wronged by Pakistan, it appears that India is a aggressor in the international community.

With the international pressure or the good will gesture of PM Imran Khan (that’s what he claimed in his Parliament), a brave soldier has returned home.

In the end I wish to change that picture posted above by Al Jazeera to the one below, one day it will happen.

IndiaPakNew

Modi Strikes Jaish; JeM

PM_Modi

India has struck 80 KMs inside Pakistan with a precision air strikes in response to the Pulwama attack. It is inappropriate for me to title this opine as Modi strikes; it is more of the Indian Armed Forces that has carried out with vigor. A little credit is due to Prime Minister Modi for taking a call on this strike for being the first Air Strike of India into Pakistan since 1971. Googled the number of terrorist attacks since 1971… I fainted looking at the chart, once I recovered, composed myself to eliminate the ones that were home grown. There are scores that were conducted during Congress rule; more deadlier than Pulwama and couple in one term BJP; PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee administration. But this is the first time a sitting Prime Minister has taken a decisive action against the terrorist in their home ground. So that’s there; Modi Strikes!

Modi was elected in part due his strong hand and 56 inch chest that was needed to address the cross border terrorism from the past which Congress had failed miserably time and again. It would have been apt to strike the terrorist cells upon his swearing in, in 2014. But he chose to give a hug to the then PM of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif to mend a better relationship with our neighbors. The opposition cried that the 56 inch had deflated. Then the URI response happened, the first surgical strike in Indian history on Pakistan soil, opposition called it foul. And here we are after a Pulwama attack, within 10 days the Modi administration has stuck with military might within Pakistan eliminating the terrorist cells successfully. This time around there is no confusion among opposition that the administration has failed.

Now playing the devil’s advocate, what took Modi government to give such a decisive outcome around this time? it’s been almost five years that India elected him with absolute majority for this outcome. Is it that in 2018 the people said that they are turning back to Congress with the election results in Hindi heartland? In conclusion it is the good opposition (Mahagathbandhan) that has compelled Modi to display his 56. It is not mission accomplished yet until JeM‘s Massod Azhar is eliminated. So I urge the opposition to get even stronger and the citizens of India make an educated decision to elect Modi for second term, which he rightly deserves. You have given ten terms to Congress to expect the same failed outcomes hoping for the next one to be better.

Sarah Sanders Speaks…

It was refreshing to see Sarah after 40 days, she out ran government shutdown which in itself made a history as the longest shutdown. But I wonder why Sarah went 40 days without a press briefing. Trump had already tweeted in support of her saying, media never respects her, why address them anyways.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1087733867614781446

Sarah being a true christian had intentionally stayed in hiding for 40 days and 40 nights (Genesis 7:12)(Acts 1:3) from the evil press.

It is extremely cramped for reporters to sit in that small briefing room and wait for Sarah to arrive. She has mastered this art to call the reporters at 2PM and shows up on the podium at 3PM. Today was no different, Brian Karem went in to check on her, who came back with two fingers wagging, a lady reporter in the crowd was surprised that Sarah would show up in two minutes. Then when adorned the podium, she immediately went to work, “Under President Trump’s leadership, economy is growing…” though she uttered President Trump, her mannerisms sounded like Emperor Trump. The gloating monologue went for another few minutes, I wonder if Trump would like to sit on a throne nearby when Sarah addresses the press, he would have if only press was not allowed to ask questions. Soon she handed over the mic to John Bolton and Steve Mnuchin, her idea was to tire the press by asking them questions. As though these two were not enough she sent out Larry Kudlow for taking the questions on this infamous shutdown, which when asked Larry dismissed it saying it’s not his place to comment on it, walked of smiling, leaving it to Sarah.

Finally she came back to podium to take questions, saying, “There should not be much left to ask me?” The media pounced her anyway with blizzard of questions. The first question she took was from her comfort zone journalist John Roberts; a Fox News white house correspondent. She had thought it would be an easy one, well karma is a bitch!

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1089691564283183105

But the question wasn’t easy to which she replied her usual answer, “Look I don’t want to get in…” basically it’s either get in, get ahead or get into. Since Sarah is trump’s spokesperson, she is his mouthpiece, when she says “I don’t want to get in” does she mean she does not want to get into the guts of Mr. Trump? Then she took a few questions from her nemesis like April Ryan, when asked “Will Trump shutdown the government again in three weeks?”, Sarah responded, “I don’t know you need to axe err ask Democrats for that”, I don’t if the use of word axe was in error or intentional, she has learnt few tricks from her boss. Finally ended with sly joke on Jim Acosta, he asked “All Trump’s aides are indicted like Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Mike Flynn including the most recent Roger Stone, is White house in trouble?” To which she replied, “Look, President Trump did nothing wrong.” I wonder even if she is indicted, would she say, “Look Trump’s mouth did wrong not Trump!”

Finally she stormed of the podium when the reporter shouted, “Good to see you Sarah” and another said, “Come back soon”.

Trump imitates Modi, Modi imitates Trump

Narendra Modi campaigned heavily on India being a Hindu nation and that India needs to defend itself against Pakistan sternly. He accused the previous govt Congress of being too soft against the aggression of Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. He even campaigned that the top leaders of Congress as the Western establishment ruling India associating the Gandhi family as Italians, although Sonia vehemently opposed that saying she had left Italy to be with her now deceased Indian husband Rajiv Gandhi. It did not sit well with the Gandhi family as their budding heir Rahul Gandhi expressed no such Indian values other than wearing an Indian kurta for campaigning, while most of the time he was found in Bangkok detoxing himself to gear up against Modi attacks – the strongest one being the Shahazadha; the son of royal family. This was 2014 and Modi won with thumping majority as the next Prime minister. The Congress was decimated, Rahul who had half heatedly canvassed on the persuasion of his mother went back to Bangkok for further detoxing. Since then Modi has been the first Indian PM to visit Pakistan with surprise visit found hugging the then PM of Pakistan, Nawaz Sheriff. Since then Kashmir issue has escalated and India claims it has now given the befitting reply to Pakistan cross border terrorism, understandably now detoxed and formally appointed as President of the Congress party Rahul claims otherwise.

Then came 2016 and America went for election and Donald J. Trump took the Modi playbook and accused all the politicians of big swamp and especially Barack Obama as too soft to the world, hence undermining the might of Mighty America. The reality was George W. Bush had projected America as a bully nation after 9/11 for going to war without the UN consensuses. It is then that obese Americans who love French Fries had renamed them as Freedom Fries in retaliation to France, it is these Americans that would eventually vote for the now Republican candidate DJT who had little knowledge that French fries had nothing to do with France. Trump crushed 11 political presidential hopefuls to nominate himself as next Republican candidate in Primaries.

Against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, he pitched that under her administration it would be the same 8 eight years as her predecessor Obama. Frankly she was running on that agenda as Obama had brought the respect for America it deserved from the rest of the nations and had made an effort to diffuse the nuclear tension from Iran by holding a bilateral talks. He had also steered America from the worst recession created by out going GWB since Great Depression. But what Trump used against her was Modi’s strategy, America’s superpower status had diminished under Obama and he was too soft to speak with Iran and bent backwards to appease them. He vehemently opposed the stand immigration policy against the illegal immigrants, where in the past both Republicans and Democrats had avoided the issue. Trump came along and said he would deport all illegals back to Mexico, 11 millions of them and build a beautiful WALL across the Mexico border. Although majority of the illegals are from Mexico sizable illegals are from other nations too, including India, so will he send them to Mexico too? but this was a good catch phrase for election and he ran with that.

It worked and Trump was elected as the first non political failed businessman (not according to him, on the contrary Trump race is the most powerful gene, to which he feels that every women needs to be impregnated with his sperms, to further the dominance of America against the rest of the world) as the President of America.

Now it is Modi’s turn to run for a second term and he is using all the gimmickry that of Trump. Although it’s almost two years since Trump took office he has not gone any further with his biggest policy of building the wall on Mexico border. He had promised his supporters that Mexico would pay for the wall, the supporters had cheered him in every rallies “BUILD. THAT. WALL.”, now as a elected president he went to Mexican president to pay for the wall, that did not go well but he got a big middle finger from former Mexican president Vicente Fox. So now he has retorted to build the wall using American tax payers, although the congress is not approving it, even though republicans are in majority. So trump has planned to shut down of the government, twice by now.

Here Modi has called for deporting some 4 million illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, apparently the illegals that have entered India since 1971 are at the risk of getting deported back to Bangladesh, only problem is they are all born in India. To make it more complicated he had declared in 2014 that all the Hindu, Sikh and Christians refugees from Bangladesh are welcome anytime, so who else is left, that’s the Muslims. Muslims mostly poor daily wage workers are claiming that they are born and lived in India, if they are deported they have no place to go, Bangladesh would not accept them. Indian constitution is built on secularism and cannot ban the immigrants based of religion. But Modi supporters are backing the move. The opposition is warning bloodshed if such a move was executed. Thus some 4 million people are stranded as to not knowing when they would be deported to Bangladesh.

Trump announces ‘SPACE FORCE’ and Modi pulled of Space Mission on Aug 15 2018.

WhatsApp Lynching

I first read the lynching incident way back in Sep 2015, which has now become infamous Dadri lynching. The incident was so sad that the man was lynched based on the rumors that he had eaten beef.

So what?

I know, if you are in USA beef is an American staple diet; trust me it’s high in cholesterol, you need to cut on that. Just a suggestion or if it was Mayor Mike Bloomberg, he would heavily tax on it, which is outrageous, who wants a nanny state, right? Even if that saves your life in the long run. Lets get back to our story, turns out this man from Dadri (I try not to use the real names, it’s subject that matters); a parent of an active soldier, was made to run in the village streets while a mob chased him with machetes. The senior man ran for his life behind a bunch of teenagers; could you think that a senior could out run a bunch of teenagers with adrenaline. That senior out ran them, it was the last hope he had, else death. Anyways the peasant ran to his home, locked himself up in the bedroom. Commotion erupted in the living room, the family members scurried around the crowd begging to save his life.

What couldn’t they immediately call for the police help?

You might think these poor villagers did not have phones, they did! as a matter of fact every individual has phone in India, actually India has the highest number of cellphones in the world. No wonder Mark Zuckerberg visited Prime Minister Narendra Modi multiple times, to provide a free internet to all his citizens. Good deal hah! not so fast, in return Mark gets to control what content the nation views. See the game here. Well that did not happen and Mark returned home empty handed, actually the first thing he ate after landing on American soil; A double cheese Hamburger. So they had called for the cops but they were standing outside the home as the tiny home itself was filled with mobs. The wife begged and pleaded the leader to spare her husband; it was immaterial what his offense was. Nonetheless his son demanded what was the offense?

“You filthy humans, you eat beef”, said a burly mustache and darted towards the kitchen and opened his fridge to produce the beef.
Aah! the beef, dear Americans pardon those mobsters for calling beef eaters as filthy humans. Well lets talk about this beef a little, there two flavors of beef in India. No it’s not Angus and regular beef; that’s debate you fight in America. Here it’s cow beef and Water buffalo beef.

What’s the difference?

Big difference. Cow in India is a sacred animal, so sacred you worship her everyday. That buffalo, the dark cousin of cow, not so sacred, you can butcher it and eat it, at your will. Mind you, buffalo provides more milk to the nation than cows. If only they evolved using Fair and Lovely to become fair like cows, Sigh! So this Cow Beef is banned in India since independence, see the Brits left the land and cows roamed the streets at freewill. A foreign delegate comes to the capital of India; Delhi, the entire population is shooed off the streets for the entourage to pass by and suddenly it comes to halt. Then President, Barack Obama once asked, “Aaah! Why did we stop?“. The Indian high command sputtered, “Saaar! it’s the cows they are crossing the streets and one is just resting on the road, they will have them moved and we will get going.”

Buffaloes dare not come on the streets, they would be beaten like hell. You say, “I get it, this man was eating Cow beef“, no he was not, it was a buffalo beef, but this wonderful WhatsApp we have now had spread the word that he was eating otherwise, even , more sinister a calf meat. You know how fast the news spreads on WhatsApp right, it goes viral within seconds and then the cow vigilantes gather and dart towards the culprit. So here we are attacking this father whose teenage girls were huddled in the corner for the fear of being raped. Son pleaded that the beef in the fridge was buffalo beef, if only he could reach his older brother who was deployed on the treacherous Indo-Pak border; defending these cow vigilantes from the terrorist attacks. This soldier does not carry a cellphone for security reasons, in short he was nowhere to be reached. The mob chants grew louder,

“Kill that man, who abuses an innocent cow.“,

few reprimanded the family members and rest broke open the doors of the bedroom. Father was mercilessly beaten to death while his entire family looked on!

The mob moved on warning the remaining family,

“Dare you eat this beef, you will meet the same fate“,

actually the mother darted to eat the meat; it was suicidal, her children held her back.

Mob moved out, police moved in.
“What happened here?” asked the inspector.
“Sir, they killed my father for eating this beef, it’s buffalo beef”, cried his son.
“Send that meat for forensics”, ordered the Inspector, you see his priority.
Indeed the forensics report had come back as buffalo meat, really nobody eats cow meat in India. Actually cows have become such a nuisance on the streets, they have been left to die eating plastic bags and trash. The day cow stops bearing milk they are left on the streets, nobody dares take any action. Not to digress, but there are few organizations who shelter these abandoned cows.

Finally the military son was informed, whose bosses were appalled to hear the story and sent him home to attend his grieving family. He being the elder son torched the dead body for cremation and did the final rights.
Media asked him, “Soldier how do you feel that you serve our nation and here a bunch of mobsters kill your father”.
He simply says, “I forgive them”, and finally moves the entire family from that town where his generation had lived.

Since that incident scores have been lynched over the past few years, it was not always cow related though, some times it’s religion, other times it’s journalists/writers, I was loosing track of these incidents until the last one that literally hit home.

My hometown Karnataka, a software engineer, who had just returned from Middle-East on vacation, gave-away few chocolates to street kids, who devoured with joy. The bunch of vigilantes go to work, sent a Whats-app message among their friends, with this engineer’s picture attached saying that, he is a child-lifter. Really that’s a popular word in India a Child-Lifter. The mob got to work and this highly educated engineer was not given any chance to defend his actions and dragged on the streets and beaten to death.

Since most of these mob vigilantes are affiliated with one or the other political parties, the police keeps looking for them but can never identify the perpetrators, conveniently, even though all of the act is circulating on the same WhatsApp among rest of the world, I mean, I sit here in USA and get to see these videos within an hour of the incident.

Argument has been that WhatsApp has to stop these false propaganda, Facebook parent company of WhatsApp has been under fire for selling out users information to Cambridge Analytica, which has compromised the election results in USA and India alike. The technology can only go so far as in case of WhatsApp, the privacy of the user is protected by not revealing the information to anybody except the intended party, in this case the vigilante groups messages cannot be seen by law authorities or the WhatsApp organization itself. Facebook has put in place a lot of checks and balances in case of English language, but would take a lot of time to decipher the hundreds of Indian vernacular languages.

For argument sake let’s say a person ate beef or abducted a child, what right and authority does the mob have to punish him or her. Yes there were women killed based of fake messages of child-lifting. If anybody suspects that somebody is doing wrong, inform the authorities, let police handle it. Well in America this has gone too far, too. A black child sells lemonade and a lady calls cops on that child. Yet she did not take law into her own hands, at least for now.

My final plea is that we as humans need to care for other humans, justifiably to animals too. I cannot fathom that a bunch of people use there bare hands and kill another human in a gruesome manner while rest of the people watch it or video tape it. The person begs for water during his last moments and beating continues, until he goes silent!

KRSNA

KRSNA is a mythological story told by himself for children in a very simple language.

Excerpt

What Next…

Well it’s been five thousand years and I am meeting with Lord to land on earth. We feel like we left it for you humans to handle it on your own without we meddling too much, but we are noticing the state this earth has been brought to.

The constant argument here is who will lead the effort to go down there and take care of the business. Every time; all of these thirty three million us, none wants to come down there. Everybody has gotten very comfortable up here, we look down and see the technological progress you guys have made, frankly lots of devas fear of being outdated. I remember few decades back, if I am not mistaken Narad went to Varanasi; the university of Hindu literature. He even met with you people and explained that he was Narad, Lord Brahma himself had sent him down there to address your concerns. He was heckled so bad, that we couldn’t help but laugh at his plight.

Narad went to one beggar who had his legs crippled and twisted from knee down, beard, hair and body starving for nutrition, clothes falling apart rotting on their own and said, “I see you in distress, is there anything you need from Lord?”

The man looks at him like Narad was some kind of an alien and goes, “Who are you?”

“Oh! I am Narad, the messenger of Lord himself”, explicitly displaying his signature Veena and Jasmine flowers tied around his head and arms.

“Well you seem like a nice guy, what’s up that hairdo”, he scooted over a little and continued, “come sit here, this is a popular spot, every temple visitor passses from here, you can collect a lot of money here, you seem like a nice guy, what brought you to this state”, he spread another rotten gunny bag next to him and patted to dust off.

“No! I am not here to beg!”, Narad looked up into the sky, frankly we were laughing out loud, this embarrassed him and continued to the beggar, “I am sent by god to check with your concerns”, frankly he was losing his cool.

“Alright then, give me hundred rupees”, said the beggar, “you make my day today”.

“No I can’t pay money, I don’t have, I can carry your concerns…”

“Alright beat it now, you are obstructing my busy hours here, go check concerns of other people out there and take them to your lord”, he threw an air quotes around Lord.

Narad, stepped away from the man and got moving, beggar yelled back, “Hey watch out godman, a bus will run you over, nobody has time for your Lord concerns out here, take it somewhere else”.

Narad turned to look around and a cyclist knocked his Veena and broke it, he just yelled back “Sorry” and kept riding his bike. Some other person picked up his broken Veena and handed it to him, “Are you looking for the drama theatre?, you look lost, it’s right there, you see that cobbler sitting down there, turnaround you can’t miss it”.

Narad frustrated, “No, I am not…”, before he could complete the man had taken off, was hanging on to a moving bus. The wooden slippers were also knocked off, he decided to meet the cobbler to repair. Limping on one leg with broken Veena he approached the cobbler.

“My good friend, can you fix these sandals for me?”

Cobbler busy sewing a leather sandal adjusted his broken glasses and looked at Narad, “What are these, you don’t wear these on streets”, he continued with his work, irritated.

“No! This is all I have worn all the time, please fix them for me”, pleaded Narad, his feet was burning in the hot sun, his other wooden sandal had stuck in the melting tar and had no clue how to get it off. Cobbler wanting to take a break, dropped his sewing and grabbed the water jug and gulped the water. Wiping his mouth turned to Narad and said, “I can’t fix these sir, leave them here, walk into the theater and when you return maybe I will see if I can fix them”.

“I am not going to a theater!!! I just need these fixed, I need to go home”, said Narad visibly irritated by people asking him to go to theater, feet were killing and sweat dripping off his temples.

“I can’t fix them, here you can buy these”, cobbler handed him a pair of Hawaii slip ons.

“What are these?”, asked Narad looking at the soft sandal shaped pair.

“Go ahead try it, they are very comfortable”.

Hesitantly Narad slipped on the Hawaii and was amazed, they were soft, did not have to pinch his toes to hold to them like he did with wooden sandals.

“What are these”, asked Narad, a smile had broken on his face, they were so comfortable.

“Just pay two hundred rupees, I feel bad for you”,said the cobbler while he got busy with his sewing.

“I like these, but I don’t have rupees!!!”, said Narad, “Here take this, but I need these sandals”, he jumped with joy handing him a gold chain.

“I don’t want your chain, you seem to be a nice guy, go home now it’s hot, pay me later, don’t cheat me, I know you come to this theater”, cobbler waged his finger sizing up Narad.

Narad turned around the bend to check on this theater, he saw bunch of people dressed as Amitabh Bachchan and Elvis Presley impersonation, of course he could not make anything of it. This was it for him, drifted back into the clouds and reported to Lord Brahma, “Fire me if you want to, I am never going back there”, flashing his new sandals.

“I am not firing you! Go take rest”, Lord could no longer control his laughter. Narad walked away with a swag enjoying his new sandals.

The meeting went on for hours at end and there were no takers who would go down there and do the job they are supposed to do. Lord Shiva had declared, “I have gotten too comfortable with Kailash, it’s hot down there, I am not going”. Of the top three two had already ruled out. I being the third, well if you don’t know I am an incarnation of Lord Vishnu; the third supreme god. I had to speak up, “We can send Ganesha, he is very popular among them, I see every car dashboard adorned with elephant head wobbling there”.

So Ganesha was summoned, he came with a laddu in his mouth, looked and his father respectfully, then sized me up and bowed his head to Lord Brahma.

“Ganesha, we want you to go down to Earth, looks like they need your help, also they believe in you”, Lord Brahma was like a car salesman selling his idea.

“What! Did you see what they did to Narad?, he looks so normal yet he was ridiculed, I have this elephant head, thanks to this man here, if I go down there some billionaire or a politician will claim my ownership and keep me in a cell and start billing the customers for my viewing”, he went and fell to the feet of Brahma and Shiva walked away staring at me, for suggesting this idea.

The meeting continued, actually it was only me and Brahma that were discussing, Shiva was peaceful. Lord Brahma ran his fingers through his gray beard and looked at me pleading.

“Alright, alright, I will go”, I said throwing my flute on the floor. Shiva just smiled in the corner, he stood up to leave, it was settled. I had to work on logistics with Brahma, first thing I said was, I am going to lose this attire, thanks to my mom, who made my look a legend but this peacock feather and dhoti had to go.

Brahma got curious and asked, “What do you plan to wear?, I know you like those gold jewels”.

He is right, I have this affinity towards this bling, I just love it, “I don’t know yet, I just don’t want to be fooled like Narad.” I really can’t believe you guys treated him like that, what a change millennials can bring. After he saying he wants to help a beggar, he was ridiculed, what will a common man do us when we get down there, I wonder.

Anyway Lord Brahma has left it to me to wear or do whatever I want to, all he wants is somebody to get down there and bring some order. So good or bad news, I am coming, I do need some input from you guys, especially the millennials, it’s your time to shine. I am planning on getting hooked with Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, really what do I do with instagram, I am the most progressive out here but, I am clueless about instagram, I know people post pictures there, but what good would do that to me. I am also done with these chariots, planning to get a fast ride; Lamborghini or Tesla, I am torn. Tesla will be good in a sense, I don’t have to drive and relax at the back.

I am thinking we will see how it goes…

Kirik Party (2016)

The prologue (jump to review)

This has been the most elusive movie for me, ever since I have heard about it, it had already been taken off the screens here in New Jersey, needless to say I had least interest in watching Kannada movies when Bollywood churns out everyday a new movie and friends around me dropping their jaws for not watching this one or that, recently I have also been watching Marathi movies like Sairaat (2016) and Court (2014), which had made waves of their own. Got calls from India; Kirik Party is a good movie, you should check it out. My quest for the same in local stores for a pirated copy went in vain. Many a times I googled for an online copy, never watched Kirik Party but ended up watching some other Hindi movies. There are times I was jubilant to see on YouTube Kirik Party run time 2 hr 40 some minutes, the movie starts fine and then after the ghastly cigarette ad, it turns out to be a third rated movie. Dejected I gave up on watching the movie or so I say with blood shot eyes.

After an year of air date, I landed in India for vacation, vacation was fine, family was even better. It’s my wife’s sister-in-law that disturbed my peace.

“Shrikant anna, did you watch Kirik Party, it’s Superrr”, she said.

“No!”.

“I will get it for you, you need to watch it”, she darted out the door.

I lay on the couch, day after day in front of TV, she being busy with her house chores ran to neighbors house to get me a copy of DVD, she did manage to find few, one was a very bad Camera recording and rest just did not work. I just thanked her for trying so hard and she was depressed that I couldn’t get to watch that one good Kannada movie after long time.

After landing back in US, once in a while I googled for Kirik Party, nice song videos but never a complete screening. I had begun to like the movie. Sadly I am not here to preach about marketing but Kannada industry has lacked a lot in this, every Hindi, Tamil or Telugu ends up on Einthusan after a week but Kannada; how do you expect Kannada movies to become popular. Recently bought another Chinese video box that streams pirated videos of entire worlds collection but English; we have Kodi for that. Started watching live cricket matches and latest and greatest Sony TV comedy shows. For the first time in US my wife bragged she had watched Jagga Jasoos (2017), where her friends dropped their mouths in awe.

“Where did you get that, I want to watch it too, is it on Einthusan?”

“No! It’s not on einthu, it’s on this box”, she beamed.

Out of curiosity and zero hope browsed Kannada section for Kirik Party; you thought I had given up on this movie. Lo behold I found it; a working HD copy!

The review

To my pleasant surprise the movie opened up to a beautiful upbeat song, bunch of boys, being boys in a college and having fun, is the most winning formula in any of the Indian movies. Hollywood has long given up on this theme since Grease series. For me it brought the pleasant memories of my college days watching another best Kannada movie of that time, Premloka. The comedies were not slapstick but some creative humorous dialogues. It was a long wait but it paid off for all the pain I had taken. It was almost a musical like Premloka; unlike stupid musical; Jagga Jasoos, got involved in the romantic comedy, had begun appreciating the directing skills of Rishab Shetty and decent acting by Rakshit Shetty until they killed that Senior girl, Rashmika Mandanna;no I mean really she looked senior. For a moment I thought it was his dream, asked my wife, if she really died. I don’t know if I dozed off; I do a lot with chick flicks, my wife is very annoyed with me for that. There are times I watch movies in installment because I sleep half way, sadly she watches every time the whole movie. Next thing I see is that there is an election in the college and best of friends have broken up canvassing against each other. I am like did I wake to Shiva (1989)? Just to confirm, I ask my wife, that Chasmish girl is gone, I had begun to like her. She said “Yes” sternly. Then I see this high school girl Samyukha Hegde flirting with protagonist, I am like come on, don’t kill him now gods sake. The girl is very good on the screen but again a misfit in the story; Rishab, where are you going with this man. Then he steals some scenes from 3 Idiots (2009) and makes Rakshit drive on the Royal Enfield and go missing, why? Now the movie has become so painful you start to enjoy the torture, I am saying let me see how he will tie all the ends of this movie and pull the curtain down, he does after three agonizing hours. The End.

You can’t help notice that the graduation party has the banner 2013, the movie has been delayed to release

~~Every good movie must be an inspiration but never implemented in yours~~

Hubballi Hitler

Hidden Figures (2016)

Sheldon Cooper (Big Bang Theory) makes a first movie and gets beaten up in NASA mission by our protagonist, thats a first. I could see him twitching with pain when Katherine Johnson, erases the black board (no pun intended it is black board not white board) and rewrites the formulas for John Glen‘s pod re-entry, unfortunately Penny was not there to console him.

The review

Hidden Figures is a wonderful uplifting story of three African American ladies during segregation, making it to the top in NASA space mission. The bubbly, Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) who wants to be an aeronautical engineer in the white mans world, men watch her struggle through a observatory window when her heel gets stuck on the launch pad. The senior, Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) who is managing a colored computers – literal meaning is a black women employed for computing. The genius of the trio is Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) who is calculating rocket’s trajectory and re-entry crossing odds with Paul Stafford (Jim Parsons famously known as Sheldon Cooper). The movie is fairly star studded, Al Harrison (Kevin Costner) is head of the launch mission who at first is very skeptical of the Katherine’s math abilities, he is a fantastic scientist with great leadership skills, but his human side is revealed when he discovers that Katherine took half hour breaks on a critical mission days just to learn that she had to walk half a mile (rain or shine) to relieve herself in the colored bathrooms. Takes a sledge hammer and shatters the signs of color of the facility and declares “There are no colors here at NASA, we are all one color”. In the other building Dorothy updates her staff with coding (FORTRAN) so that they don’t become obsolete on the installation of IBM supercomputers in the building, in the interim gains the much anticipated respect from her supervisor Vivian Mitchell (Kirsten Dunst). Mary breaks the barrier to be the first women to go to a College for White only through a court order. The icing on the cake is when management decides to take off Katherine from the mission control since all the calculations can be done by IBM computers, John Glenn personally orders to get Katherine to verify the calculations done by the computer. She oversees safe re-entry of John Glen in the Mission Control room filled with White people (I mean all men dressed in white shirts), with Katherine in a bright colored dress. She later goes on to supervise the Apollo 11 launch, mission to moon.

The movie is a pleasant watch, very well directed by Theodore Melfi, a must watch for all children.

hadagali

Up in air

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