Random thoughts on a lazy Sunday

Successfully complete two months of self-imposed exile from the blogger space. Reason was to penance for the hopelessly cryptic and unfunny post below. Readers complained of nausea, prolonged constipation and other such depression symptoms during and after reading. I am not surprised thus that the endorsed product was left unsold.

Anyway, so a few days ago, I flew back to Scotland. They have work for me they say and I am thrilled. I was beginning to get worried as I was falling behind schedule in my work for the biggest regulatory project of the year. For those thinking Solvency II and RDR, please go take a hike. There is a world to be destroyed by the end of the year, did you forget ? And here they were still gathering requirements ......Sorry what ?... Oh I beg your pardon, we shouldn't say requirement gathering anymore, It's called Consulting these days.

And boy is my knowledge quotient expanding or what ! Have been finally introduced to the magical world of Conditional Formatting in an excel spreadsheet. Oh what wonders it can do ! You feel like a conjurer when you see those cells automatically colour themselves in so many different hues. No one really cares about the underlying data anyway. As long as you can make your sheet look like one having returned from a Holi bash, half your job as a Consultant is done. The remaining half would be to re-arrange the colours when the sheet comes back to you. I tell you, you feel like such an accomplished artist when you make your way back home after a hard day at office.

Speaking of colours, there is not much to be seen during the days in Edinburgh. Parents are having to show pictures available in the internet to make their kids believe that something known as a Sun does actually exist. The dour climate is however compensated for, by the lively colours that come out in the weekends, most often in the form of very short skirts. Designers here must be so frustrated with such lack of cloth material to express their creativity on. Indian designers on the other hand must be so thankful to our traditional sarees, salwars and the likes of Ram Sene. (Where the hell have they disappeared of late by the way ?)

But of course we are never short of exciting things happening in our country. The flavour of this season happens to be gangrapes. From Calcutta to Indore to Gurgaon , men are competing tooth and nail to get their team the Best Gangrapists award. And in this race, when chief ministers pass comments referring to the rape as a mere figment of imagination on the part of the raped woman, I'm sure it must cause severe heartburn for these men. How can some politicians be so stone-hearted , I wonder !! After all the effort these men put in , they surely deserve better. There is no justice, I say. And the women being raped.... Oh I'm sure they must have dressed so to get the honour.

At times....the word depravity makes so much sense.

So Pranabda came up with another Annual Budget and with every passing year , he and his department are mastering the art of copy-paste and we thought we IT guys were good at it. Just to avoid being caught, they introduce minor changes here and there. This time some bugger thought that the service tax column has remained unchanged for quite some time. Lets play with that and so he changed it to 12 % instead of 10%. No one noticed. More importantly no one cared. The bugger should have used some discretion I say. Tax on service is so very ironic for this government.

"I must be cruel, only to be kind" said our FM. Shakespeare must have died a few more deaths on hearing Pranabda quote his work in the context in which he did.

There is one thing however that strikes me every year about the Budget. They touch upon every damn thing! From match boxes to refrigerators, to complex derivative instruments to almost anything that you can name around you ! There would be a mention of it in the Budget. For e.g. this year they have an increase in excise duty for ice-creams and flavoured milk !! I mean, who the heck comes up with these ideas man and how? What could trigger a thought in a man's mind to raise duties specifically for ice-creams and flavoured milk !! With each passing day, I realise why our Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh neither speaks nor smiles. Often his constipated attitude is attributed to the bamboo treatment that Mamata continually gives him.....but I beg to differ. These ice-cream hating people too must be giving him a torrid time. What a life the man leads. My heart goes out for him. Maybe some day, if ever that day comes, when he gets his speech and spine back, we shall know the truth by God !

Anyway today has been a good Sunday. India won a match with Pakistan with the always angry Kohli scoring a marvellous 183 runs. I think the wounds of the Australian rape saga are already healing. Just as we don't care about the rapes happening in the country, we should forget about the ones that happened with our cricket team in Australia too. The boys are back home now.

Hip Hip Hurray !

The heading says it all. Really didn't have anything in mind but for an urge to write :)