If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

– Rudyard Kipling

(from http://www.swarthmore.edu/~apreset1/docs/if.html)

In an era where even reality shows are almost completely staged it is refreshing to see a movie in which almost all of the scenes are unscripted and all the characters except the central 4 characters are unaware that they are being filmed for a satirical (?) movie. Almost throughout the movie I felt that the participants did not know they were being filmed but I thought that it was just the way the movie was filmed and narrated and that like all movies the actors were indeed acting. A quick check on Wikipedia (Borat on Wikipedia) confirmed that I was wrong and that most of the movie was unscripted and that the participants were asekd for their permission only post-event.  

This movie might come across as being anti-American, making fun of various things American at various stages in the movie. However if anything I think it shows America as being an extremely tolerant and accomodating culture. Think of Borat’s high-society dinner where he insults and offends the host and the guests again and again and only at the very end is he kicked out. He would have been kicked out for things much less offending in most Indian settings I can think of Think of the car dealer who spends an hour or more trying to sell him a Hummer costing 50+ grand but eventually sells him a $700 ice-cream truck. Think of the etiquette consultant who maintains a straight face even when she was being shown nude pics of Borat’s son. And there are many such instances throughout the movie.

Brilliant. Genius. Stuck in your head kinda movie. This is not a movie you would want to see with your parents or your kids but this is definitely a movie you should see sooner or later.

~ Sant Kabir

But then I did not really work hard for the board exams and scored only mediocre marks, maybe that’s why. Any of the 7 readers of this blog who studied meticulously for their boards and scored great marks care to leave a comment?

P.S. – I still love you Mom and Dad!

Sometimes I blog to tell friends and family about the stuff going in my life.
Sometimes I blog to confess.
Sometimes I blog to unwind.
Sometimes I blog to talk to my inner demons and to retain my sanity.
Sometimes I blog just to blabber about nothing in particular.

Hmmm… I think that’s about it.

I came home after work today and was a bit stressed out. I needed to work but before that I had to unwind. I decided to read something. I am reading Atlas Shrugged but I was not in the right frame of mind to enjoy that book so I did not resume reading it. I turned to Slashdot, however my mind refused (gasp!) to take in the green hues, the news for nerds and the stuff that matters. I am usually a very avid follower of my friends’ blogs and I have a blogroll right here in the sidebar so I started clicking one after the other and realized that most of them had not blogged in a while, just like me. Prude also has been bugging me since quite some time to resume blogging and it’s also due to her persistence and insistence that started this chain of thought.

That got me thinking. Of course before I started thinking I shot off emails to my friends asking them why they were not blogging, very typical of me. I am the blogging evangelist in my circle and I had to live up to my unofficial title. OK, so I got thinking. Why the heck was I not blogging? Laziness? Yes. Being busy? Yes. Lack of material? Not at all since life has been full of ups and downs in the recent months (more on that later. Hopefully) and I could have blogged at least 20 times if not more. I guess for me it was just laziness and also wanting to write the “perfect” post.

I have been very lazy and very stupid. Blogging is easy, you just have to take out a sum total of maybe 60 minutes in a week to write 2 posts. And aiming for the perfect blog is idiotic because there is nothing called the perfect post. One just has to write, some posts will be good, some will be terrible. Some will be timepass, some will be memorable.

So dear friends here I am. Back to blogging. And happy about it.