Winners of Marathon...

11:06 AM,
9 Jan '09,
Bhopal,
Finally Chhotu, Gampi and I won the Golden Jubilee Marathon, however from the tailing end. Ya thank you thank you!! for the praise... we actually deserve it... It has never been so overwhelming as we felt today... prize distribution had ended half an hour ago, and we were getting messages on our mobiles like " kaha reh gaye.. sab jaa rahe hai!!!"," abe saare prize distribute ho gaye...". At least we were not like Magga, who disappered after registration, that even we don't know where. But we saw him at the finishing line eating halwa, chips and other stuffs, that was actually meant for the runners.
Finally we returned home, not with head hung in shame, but held high... saale magge... hamne race to complete ki... :-P
Apart from all these nonsense, what nobody noticed was that this marathon could have turned into a stampede claiming important lives of our college. The marathon beagan with our Director standing at pole position(if there was any) and the students standing behind them. A photographer was clicking pics and everybody was posing for it. I don't know if I couldn't hear or what, but the race started like a blink of an eye, i.e. without any prior information. And everybody ran as if their lives were at stake. This could have possibly resulted to Director and couple of faculties ending in the ambulance standing by. But fortunately it didn't happen.

Operation Blue star: K.S. Brar, A story misconstrued

Lies, Myths, Half-truths and mis-interpretitions. How disasterous these words can prove to be, is no better explained as the 1984 cataclysm does. An year commemorated as an year of demise in Indian History.25 years have passed since the apocalypse, in which India nearly fell prey to anarchy and terrorism, took place. A new generation, to which I belong and is least affected by the ghastly incidents has emerged. Even if some of us belong to those families that confronted the riles, we are not as much in pain as our elders were at that time. Our Country witnessed a tough time and paid a heavy price for it. History can not be repaired, nor do we have any tool to verify it's veracity. Is it a truth or a charade, can never be known. All we can do is look for the factual and unbiased narrations of those incidents, if exists any. I chanced to read one such book on the 1984 "Golden Temple-mayhem", compiled by Lt Gen K.S. Brar(Retd). At the time of the operation he was a Lt Col and commanding officer of the operation.The author has meticulously explained every incident that occured in the wake of the incident- the ineptitude of Govt in nipping the threat in bud, the bureaucratic and judicial failures, the predicaments of Govt while taking the costly decision and the catch-22 situations the Indian Army was in and later was docked in after the operation was over.It will be very interesting to mention (from the book) that Bhindranwale was oiled by Zail Singh with patronage. Furthermore, the akalis found their own self in a free state Khalistan. So they never spoke against the antagonist of this whole drama, besides his fears paralysing them as well. Bhindranwale, along with Shabeg Singh, A retd. armyman and war hero of 1971, conjured up a plan of fortifying the Golden Temple to use it to clamour for autonomy. This was already being fueled by Master Tara Singh's campaign of recognition of Sikhs as a seperate community and seperate state of Punjabi Suba. Situation worsened in due course of time when Bhindranwale and his followers were intransigent in their demands and kept washing off any threat that sprouted. The cold blooded killing of Hind Samachar Editor Lala Jagat Narain, and DIG A.S. Atwal near the temple premises followed by the ineptitude of Govt. to arrest the perpetrators further added to their courage and the circumstances were totally out of control by then. In the meanwhile the Golden Temple was being turned into a bastion. Ridiculously however, the news that spread all over the country condemns the Indian Army for encroaching the dignity of Golden Temple, overlooking the acts of disgrace commited dauntlessly by the millitants. It was,however, the fault of strong and uncontrolled sentiments of people with the fuel of the miscommunication propagated by Media that the millitants were looked as martyrs while the Army was perceived as culprit.
In my whole life I have never chanced to read such a live and vivid description of an Army operation to the most precise detail. Brar, impartially confesses the mistakes commited by Govt. and Army while weeding out the terrorists. The writer personally believes that freezing the free press was the biggest mistake by the Govt since this gave rise to incoherent speculations which in turn raved up the sentiments. The entire operation of flushing out millitants has been explained from planning to execution, the dramatic situations that sprouted meanwhile, and the accurate description of emotions of people. This is one book of historical significance that will five you goosebumps for sure.The writer, in preface of the book, hopes this book to be useful for understanding the historical event of biblical proportions, and after reading this book I am sure that it will.

I think Joel Pereira got the beetle wrong

I am an ardent viewer of Times Drive, an auto review show, on Times NOW, and followed them blindly till lately, when Joel Pereira, one of my favourite auto show anchors, owing to the funny-quotient he adds to the show, commited a gaffe. In his review of the Volkswagon Beetle, a cute little bug with 150 bhp max power, 172 Nm max torque and 1980cc displacement, he called the vehicle to be overpriced at 20.5 Lakh. Let's not forget that beetle is a legendary car, better reminisced in India as Rampyari from the movie Akela. The Legendary tag of this car can only be retained if and only if it is owned by very few. The 20.5 lakh tag is perhaps not a constraint for auto enthusiasts who have ogled at beetle aka rampyari from time to time. It's an exquisite car and should remain a legend forever. So I think the beetle is aptly priced and Pereira seems to have missed the uniqueness of this car.