So coming back to the New Years, the most prominent tradition in New Years for me are the resolutions. I love doing New Year resolutions and then trying to follow it all throughout the year. Last year I made multiple visits to Coimbatore with my boss, in one of these trips my boss inquired if I would mind listening to a discourse by his spiritual guru. I mean no matter how disinclined you are spiritually but you cannot say no to your boss; so I agreed (in my defense all my colleagues travelling with us agreed too). He then played a discourse called Dinacharya which was old I guess given on last eve of 2007, where his guru TT Rangarajan discussed the concept of Dinacharya and emphasized on promising to oneself on doing something for 365 days a year and then keeping that promise. The discourse was inspiring and visionary which challenged one to push the limits, and it would be an understatement to say that I was really impressed. Though I haven’t joined the institution but I have the Discourse with me and I keep hearing it once in a while to find self inspiration. If you are looking a spiritual, practical and yet inspiring way to keep yourself motivated you should try listening to that discourse. I have decided that the following activities would be my new year resolution which I would be try and accomplish this year.

1- I will do some form of physical exercise everyday of the year, minimum 15 minutes every day. This can be walking, gym, running, playing or anything else but at least 15 minutes every day.
2- I will update this blog at least four times every month.
3- I will update my professional blog at least once a month.
4- I will learn to play Tennis this year. By the end of this year I should be able to play tennis in the full court without a handicap.
5- I will be more responsive on my personal email. I will reply to any email I get on a working day within the same day.

So these are my New Year resolutions which I would try and follow religiously, what are yours?
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So lately my share of irritation has not only been the telemarketers but also a set of people who have been testing me to my wits end; and here I categorize these tele-irritants:

1-      Lockers- Actually they are the folks who miss the “C” part of the Clock and don’t mind locking your number in their cellphone Big B style at any time of the day night. Apparently they don’t have anything significant to talk, and they might have just called to ask if you would wake up next morning.  Answer to which is ‘No’ as they would ruin your sleep, so the question of waking up is irrelevant as its answer.

2-      G-Pee-Yes-ers- These are the folks who would give you a call to find out where are you. There is no response which can satisfy their urge of tracking your location. Even if you tell them that you would reach a certain place in next fifteen minutes, they would call you back after five to ask “Till where have you reached?”

3-      Abhor-Ringers- They are the ones who do not understand the meaning when your phone goes on call waiting or is disconnected, they would keep on dialing back again and again until you reach your wits end and pick their call. Once you pick up they won’t even let you complete “I’m busy” but would say whatever they have to say like someone dumping the crap out after three weeks of constipation.

4-      Boomers- These are the ones who have their phones setup at the loudest level of ringtones to match the big boom boxes, irrespective of the fact that they are in office, meeting, hospital, or library. Also they would be the ones who would have funny, loud and irritating ringtones, so if you have a ringtone like this probably you belong to this category.

On second thoughts if you have this as your ringtone then perhaps you don’t deserve to keep a cell phone.

5-      Chew-Talkers- These are the ones who would be eating something and would suddenly have an uncontrollable urge to talk to you. They would simply call you in the middle of the meals and will talk while making chewing sounds on the phone, indifferent of how irritated you are with that sound or you can actually decipher what they are trying to say.

6-      Mid-leavers- These are the people who are having a serious discussion or a casual talk with you, and suddenly they would abscond when they get a call. Without even indicating or telling you if it would take time, or if you should wait. They leave all that on you to figure out.

So these are a few species of cell phone users which irritate me to my wits ends;  I am sure there would be some more which I might have missed. So how do people with cell phone irritate you?Similar Posts:

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Very frankly we cannot match up to the Ironies in US, I mean how can you ever match up to a country where they are desperately fighting to create more jobs on side while at other side the Jobs have already resigned (cheap pun, I know but I couldn’t help cracking this one ). Coming back to Sonia Gandhi’s own country, no actually that would be Italy; So coming back to Manmohan Singh’s Own Country err that would be Sonia Gandhi; So coming back to Rahul Gandhi’s own country and that would only be found on television in the silent mode; So coming back to Kapil Sibal’s own country  but then he would be from the land of non-existant $35 Laptops. And this actually went on in my head for like one hour and I couldn’t come to a conclusion. Now you know how difficult it is to write a blogpost in times like these.

I read this joke on the Laugh it Out Blog-

Having already downed a few power drinks, she turns around, faces him, looks him straight in the eye and says, ” Listen here good looking, I screw anybody, anytime, anywhere, your place, my place, in the car, front door, back door, on the ground, standing up, sitting down, naked or with clothes on; it doesn’t matter to me. I just love it !”
Eyes now wide with interest, he responds, ” No kidding…………………….. I’m in Congress too. What state are you from?”
And I sadly realize that this is true for our majority party in the government which coincidentally is also called the congress.

I sincerely hope these many days of fast by Anna Hazareji for our country brings a downplay in the role of corruption and one day in my life time I would wake up in a country as envisaged by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, whose poetry I have been reading since I started my school.

WHERE the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

On a very different note I am participating in the Indiblogger, Samsung Mobiler Contest and I need your help to become an official Samsung Mobiler. If you have an indiblogger account or a blog (which is required for an Indiblogger account) please promote my post on Indivine here.Similar Posts:

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This had time and again in our country created debates on freedom of expression. So before I discuss my views on freedom of speech and expression, I would also like to quote where legality stands on this particular issue does. So this is what our constitution says about Freedom of Speech & Expression-

 

(1) All citizens shall have the right—

(a) to freedom of speech and expression;

(b) to assemble peaceably and without arms;

(c) to form associations or unions;

(d) to move freely throughout the territory of India;

(e) to reside and settle in any part of the territory of India; and

(g) to practise any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business.

(2) Nothing in sub-clause (a) of clause (1) shall affect the operation of any existing law, or prevent the State from making any law, in so far as such law imposes reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the right conferred by the said sub-clause in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence.

So coming back to my point I respect our forefathers to include the freedom of speech and expression in our constitution; but my respect trebles on their foresight when I read the clause 2. Now coming back to case of MF Hussain, I see these areas where I think whatever happened to him weren’t totally unjustified.

Firstly if he painted some goddesses in a naked and sexual way his freedom of speech and expression was clearly shaky on the grounds of morality, decency and may be secularity too. When there were cases against him, he left the country, if one is convinced that whatever his expression was it was not indecent, immoral or affected the secularity of the state then he always had the option to fight the legal way out running out of the country is not an answer.

Secondly, he chose Qatar as the place where he would belong after separating from India; did he try and attempt to do an illustration which might have been a bit controversial for the people of Qatar. I am sure that would not be the case but instead he worked on the project under the ruling family glorifying the Arab history. Not that I have a problem with that but then my problem lies with the fact that between India & Qatar there is a drastic change in his idea of creative expression through art.

Now, coming back to a deeper question which a lot of people have been demanding, the creative freedom of expression should not be restricted by the rider in the clause (2) is where I have a huge problem. My entire argument in this regard is based on the premise of non discrimination and equality in the constitution would hold true. So when you waive off the rider for someone like MF Hussain to allow him to paint whatever he wants no matter how offending or immoral or indecent it may be, but he should be allowed to do as it is his form of creative expression. This is where my problem starts, now a good for nothing guy is standing on the corner of the crossroads and making lewd gestures to women passing by. Now he doesn’t say anything nor physically touches them. So technically he is performing an art form which can be a mime (or we can call it something else) which is offending, indecent & immoral to a lot of people (while it might be funny to some idiots standing around) but our constitution would allow it in the absence of the clause (2). I would accept a lot of arguments on this, but I would not accept an argument which is based on the premise that the laws of this Good-For-Nothing-Guy should be different from MF Hussain and I would not accept that Art & Paintings need to be given more rights than Mime (or whatever you want to call those lewd gestures technically).

He no doubt was one of the best painters India ever had but then he was a pathetic movie maker too (If I would have met him I would have asked my money back for GajaGamini).To conclude I would only say, my Hussain saab’s soul rest in peace. I have no issues with him or what he did; he paid a hefty price for it in his life time.It’s not an easy thing to live in self-imposed exile. I am sure the majority of the Indian population is gracious busy enough to forgive and forget him as they would soon forget the likes of A Raja & Kalmadi to elect them back in power then I guess the best painter of India deserved the “Saare Gile Shikwe Maaf” from us.

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As I mentioned in my last post, I have been in a lot of introspective mood lately. There has been something which has been putting me off blogging, or rather making me rethink about one of my favorite areas where I spend my time. I have been blogging close to 6 years and I have been following other blogs since then. Over a period of time the blogosphere has changed dramatically, and somehow I started to feel that it might not be an as interesting place as it used to be.

I don’t know why but I too face the problem which D faced and mentioned it here. Though I followed a lot of bloggers without any gender bias, but over a period of time a lot of male bloggers have disappeared from the block leaving my readers dominated primarily by female bloggers, which I don’t have problem with but my Google reader opinions are lot more female centric as they used to be. I don’t know the reason for this sudden disappearing of the male species from the blogging, some of the very good India male blogs I used to read are simply gone or are not frequently updated- Twisted DNA, Hitchwriter, Rajeev Karwal, Sidin, Amit Varma, Desi Pundit blogs, Nariyal Chutney are some which I miss reading on regular basis.

Another factor which has lately been a cause of disappointment for me in the blogosphere has been the quality and type of posts. If I would generalize the posts which actually carry me away from the blogging world would be-

• Feminist & Male Bashing: There would be a lot of posts on how the women are being mistreated or some piece of news/article how males raped women or tortured them etc. Now don’t get me wrong I too feel towards the cause of the women and support it whole heartedly. But its kind of boring reading similar posts and similar comments on a lot of blogs but not a single blog about actions being taken; a lot of blogs wrote on “Why Shiny Ahuja should be hanged/ castrated etc for what he had done?” but I didn’t see a single line on any of those blogs “I had a conversation with my husband/ brother/ son/ father on how to maintain the decorum when our maid is working in the house?” Some how all the talk without an action makes me disappointed. Similarly when lots of blogs were supporting Pink Chaddhi campaign over the top but I missed a picture of a set of Pink Chaddhis which were sent by those bloggers. All this makes me questions are we just the high society who would sit with a hot cup of coffee and discuss how much problems the world is in and then go back to our home without doing anything?
• Wordless Wednesdays : As far my knowledge of the concept goes it supposed to be wordless because the pictures posted should be expressive enough and shouldn’t require words to describe the photograph. But somehow Wordless Wednesday has become more of filler posts which would be schedules for weeks with actually no thought going in what goes into the posts. Though I am all for the awesomeness of the abstract art in photography but then may be its not such a bad idea to write a line or two about the photograph and set a context where the reader of a low IQ like me can get it too.
• Too Many Filler Posts: I am sure most of us have been guilty of posting posts without any actual content in it. But lately the filler posts have started exceeding the posts with actual content on the blog. So if three consecutive posts were only on how you didn’t have time to post and you would start doing it from tomorrow may be you should have combined the three posts into one and written something which would have satisfied you as an author and the readers too.
• Celebrity Posts: which are primarily about announcing to the world when and what they ate, generate controversies and then address them for free publicity. Having been on the block for a long time, I also know that most of them might not be even managed by the so called celeb themselves, but a trained PR professional might be doing it for them creating the so called “Public Image”.

So in short I was having what I would call crisis of faith on the blogging itself because either the world has changed or I am not following the right people, which led me to a point that I was considering that I should formally quit blogging. What brought me back was a series of posts from Sayesha (who from now I claim to be my blogging idol) whose blog I have been following since so many years. She underwent through a very difficult phase while giving birth to her baby where she also had to consider an option of terminating the baby. All the while in the hospital when she was struggling amidst difficult time she held on and never blogged about it and this is the reason she mentions on her blog which she also calls her bar “Some of you have asked me why I never mentioned all of this on the blog when it was happening. Well, here’s the reason. The bar is a happy place. It has always been and it will always be. I wanted our story to reach at least a small positive point before sharing it.”

It was reading these lines from her made it all come back to me “Why I started blogging/ Why I kept on it even when people around me were letting it go/ What do I owe, if I do when I Blog?”

So I guess its time to establish revisit the tenets which form the core of my blogging-

What is Ginger & Cardamom?

Ginger & Cardamom is a place which is open, fun, creative, humorous and happy while still being reflective on life, India and the world view.

Who are the people to which Ginger & Cardamom is responsible to and what that responsibility means?

• The Readers: Since they are the primary consumers of the content posted on G&C it is a responsibility to ensure the readers get the quality posts which maintain the Ginger & Cardamom character of fun, creative, humorous and happy
• Authors of the Post: Should allow the authors to reflect experiment and feature their creativity without editing or post processing the original posts.
• Aggregators: Any people (other bloggers or non bloggers) or forums (like Blogadda and indiblogger) who recommend G&C or a post on G&C; the G&C should strive to live up to the recommendation.
• Blogging Community: G&C would always be ethical and responsible to the basic tenets of the blogging community and would neither entertain evil practices like Plagiarism nor support people who indulge in these evil practices.

How do we plan to achieve the characteristics defined above?

• Open: The blog would be open about the authors’ identity and contacts while allowing the reader community to have a voice in terms of comments on all posts without moderating or editing.
• Fun & Humorous: The blog would strive to be a fun place retaining a sense of humor in posts, comments and replies
• Creative: The blog would be a mix of fictional, poetic & non fictional posts allowing multiple areas for creativity
• Reflective: The blog would constantly try to keep a perspective on things happening around us (events, news, politics, books, movies etc) to give the readers an opinion to rely on.
• Happy: The blog would be a happy place where the reader should be either happy with the effort put in or because the post left a smile on the face. (Thanks a lot Sayesha for this)

So this is what I think Ginger & Cardamom stands for and this is what I would be trying to achieve through this blog. However, since this is a changing world I would be revisiting this post again and again to chart out the future course till then see you when I see you. Meanwhile if you as a reader have some views on how can I improve this space or what can be a better direction for this place I am all ears.Similar Posts:

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