Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai

Kisi ki muskurahaton pe ho nisar
Kisi ka dard mil sake to le udhaar
Kisi ke waaste ho tere dil mein pyaar
Jeena isi ka naam hai

Maana apni jeb se fakeer hein
Phir bhi yaaron dil ke ham ameer hein
Maana apni jeb se fakeer hein
Phir bhi yaaron dil ke ham ameer hein

Mitte jo pyaar ke liye woh zindagi
Chale bahaar ke liye woh zindagi
Kisi ko ho na ho hamein to aitbaar
Jeena isi ka naam hai

Rishta dil se dil ke aitbaar ka
Zinda hai hami se naam pyaar ka
Rishta dil se dil ke aitbaar ka
Zinda hai hami se naam pyaar ka

Ki marke bhi kisi ko yaad ayenge
Kisi ke aansuo mein muskuraanyenge
Kahega phool har kali se baar baar
Jeena isi ka naam hai......

The Google Wave treat saga

Some background info worth mentioning here: For the uninitiated, Google Wave is a personal communication and collaboration tool announced by Google. It is a web-based service, computing platform, and communications protocol designed to.. blah...blah...blah. In short, it is one of the hottest properties on the internet right now and one of the best things that could happen to you in the online world. But there's a problem. It's not public yet and testing invites are given to a select number of people. And yours truly happened to be one of them today...er, technically yesterday, coz it's 2:20 am already.

Scene 1: Yours truly and Prakash are cursing Sunday's mess food and the fact that they're broke enough to find even a cup of tea unaffordable. Random prods to BBS (Beg - Borrow - Steal) and subsequent curses are exchanged over gmail but the fact that the whole world is broke (no one has money to lend!) compounds the problem.

Scene 2: I don't know if it was my desperation or a starving Prakash which led to some divine intervention (as we realized later). I get a highly-anticipated Google wave invite from a friend. The happiness is apparent but the stomach still aches; for food, or for the lack of it. Interestingly, I get to invite 8 more people to preview Wave; and this is where it strikes me. I set my gtalk status message to, 'Google invites me to WAVE... yay! feel!...|| will give wave invites for treats.. buzz me!!', and wait in the faint hope of some response.

Scene 3: A series of unexpected conversations follow. To my own surprise, I refuse to budge on this deal.

 1. Aman Arora to yours truly:

aman: give me one 2

  plz

 me: treat please!

  meet me at 5th hostel thadi na

 aman: haha

  sure

 me: one maggi will work fine for me

  :)

 aman: k

 me: so, should i come down right now?

 aman: no no..not right now..

  have to do an assignmt

  tomoro

 me: okay, so buzz me wen u r done

in the night

  i'll invite u after the treat :)

  i have to encash this :P

 aman: this is nt done

 me: cant help

 aman: ok..then dont send

  x-(

 me: this is not done either

  u cant emotionally blackmail me!

 

 aman: hmm
OUTCOME: No treat

2. Nitesh Rai to yours truly

me: this is bad advertising, but do u want a google wave invite?

 nitesh: gimme yaar ........

 me: treat at 5th thadi

  only one maggi

  i'm starving

 nitesh: m gettin it 4 free 4m ankit

  sinngh

 me: umm... sure?

 nitesh: bt remembr dat u r a mechbull ....... hw can u charge 4m ur fellow bull?

 me: bhi, bhookh kehti hai mujhe ki treat lo

 am literally starving today

  no money

  only wave invite

  chal, ttyl

OUTCOME: No treat

3. Apurv Mishra to yours truly

apurv: send me wave invite

 me: pehle treat please

5th ki thadi par ek maggi only

 

 apurv: bhai bc se treat longe ?

 me: seriously!

  haan bhi

  bhookh yehi kehti hai

  no discrimination

 apurv: thiken

 me: aa jaaon thadi par abhi?

 apurv: haan bhai..

me: aaya

With a quick food-is-here call to Prakash, I reach thadi and the maggi is waiting.
OUTCOME: An awesome plate of maggi. pure delight. :)

4. Ambarish Desai to yours truly: No treat, he gave me some profanities instead. :P

5. Vishal Gandhi :

 vishal: yeh wave kya hai

 

send it na

 me: limited edition

  google wave

  people are giving treats for it

treat at 5th thadi

  one maggi only

  tell me

 vishal: fuck off

 me: thank you

ha ha :) the quintessential unblushing yours truly! :P

6. Alex Paul: This guy was so cool and calm about my demand that he agreed without much thought. It didn't seem that he wanted Wave THAT badly, but we (Prakash and I) got the treat anyway.

7. Prasanth V: In his typical style, he wanted Wave ASAP. And ASAP I did deliver him the invite, in exchange for the favour, in kind of course!


8. Saurabh Jain: Now with this guy, I caught his nerve the moment I saw his replies. He wanted it badly and I was unwilling to bargain.

me: hey want

  want wave invite?

 saurabh: yupp..sure

 me: one maggi at thadi! 5th hostel

  i've got 2 maggis already

 saurabh: abe dena

 me: only 2 invites left

  yaar didnt hv dinner

  people hv given treats

 1 maggi

 saurabh: ok...

  give..

 me: come to 5th thadi now

 saurabh: fuck u

 dena yaar

 me: bhi understand and come here.

 saurabh: theek hai.. 

OUTCOME: another treat for our team.

9. Naveen Methre: We met Naveen Methre at thadi itself, where he was munching his bread omlette. He might have read my status message, so upon seeing me, he quickly ordered some chips and maggi for us without much ado; and whoop! got his Wave invite in style!

With no more invites left, I decided to call it a day and so did my stomach. But wow, what immense fun it was, permanently etched in my mind.

-Sumeet Seth (sumeets29@gmail.com)     

The Times of Volkswagen?

A preposterous but - as I realized later - outrageous incident took place 2 days back. I stumbled upon a fresh copy of TOI's - Times of India as it is popularly called - Jaipur edition and was greeted with a full front-page Volkswagen advert. Shrugging it off as almost a regular feature these days (yes, most newspapers - with the exception of The Hindu - carry them, much to the inconvenience of their readers), I rolled up to the last page. A Volkswagen ad again! This is weird, I thought. Continuing to skip over to the business section, I was shocked. There was no business section for the day, only some pieces of news spluttered arbitrarily. A quick scan of the whole paper revealed everything - a total of 10 pages of Volkswagen adverts in a 16-page newspaper. I had just one complain then, just that, the editors forgot to change the paper's name to 'The Times of Volkswagen'!

Now I won't go into details, but to make things clear, let's admit that TOI is NOT a newspaper. It could qualify as a 'tabloid', at best, judging from the telltale it has become of late. I'd say that anyone expecting anything other than the sight of Lindsay Lohan in a skimpy bikini or some unsolicited sexual advice is going to be very disappointed with TOI.

The Volkswagen incident has firmly reinforced that belief. Not only the bull-shit content, but the fact that TOI could sell itself into printing a - for lack of a better word - 'news(use)less' paper shows the state of apathy at the desk of the nation's largest-selling newspaper.

Amongst all this, there are two clear winners; TOI, of course, for making tons of money in the virtual one-day sell-off; and Volkswagen (VW). Where else could you take over a brand to promote your own, reaching millions of english-speaking, wannabe VW owners, wannabe VW employees, wannabe VW shareholders and other wannabe VW somethings!

And there's just one loser: the ubiquitous (unfortunately!) TOI reader.

P.S. I subscribe to The Indian Express. *Big Grin*

- Sumeet Seth (sumeets29@gmail.com)