• SHITOONS

  • Shitoon on Facebook

  • Last 10 posts read

  • Phool kullexun

  • Category Cloud

    Ads (23)
    Adult (17)
    Anshu-n-Shweta (7)
    art (15)
    audio (7)
    caricatures (25)
    circuit (3)
    coffee (9)
    Daily Goals (1)
    design (47)
    events (62)
    Featured (2)
    general (210)
    Gyaan (48)
    Header (27)
    humor (104)
    IIT (72)
    movies (16)
    my freaky stories (15)
    philosophy (53)
    Phres IITian (7)
    poems (27)
    Random Poster (5)
    Review (18)
    second life (5)
    senseless (52)
    senti (9)
    shaastra (28)
    Shitoon (151)
    snaps (75)
    sports (30)
    theatre (15)
    travel (72)
    Uncategorized (16)
    videos (76)

    WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck requires Flash Player 9 or better.

  • Categories

On Dev Anand

Ah so I am done with this 400 pages autobiography of Dev Anand (DA). There are some books that are full of words and there are others that aren’t. Catch 22 for example was full of words. It was small in size, the size of a pocket guide-book and had little less than 500 pages but it took me ages to finish it off. Reading every page was an effort and following the plot was a challenge in itself. DA’s ‘Romancing with Life’ however was as light as the The Safed Bagh by Adiga and I could devour it much faster than I had intended to. So I am bookless all of a sudden and it’s not a good feeling.

Few months back I was reading a book called the Penguin Non-Fiction Collection (Vol 1 to be precise – there are three volumes of this book). This collection had several chapters (I think about 30), each chapter being taken from a different non-fiction. One of them was from DA’s autobiography – the chapter talked about how he and Suraiya had fallen in love with each other once upon a time, only to later witness a rather sad end to the short lived affair. His spirit, captured in that one chapter touched my heart totally. I think it made my eyes moist as well. So when I happened to find his ever green smiling face adorning the thick cover of the hard-bound autobiography, I picked it up with delight. And now after having read it completely, I am happy that I did. People like me who relish it when reading or watching something moves them occasionally, moistening their eyes, will like the book. They shall like to read how full of life this dude is. The first 200 pages are cutest – you feel like watching a movie with DA as a hero, liking him more with every passing scene.

Verdict: not necessarily a must-read but you shall certainly feel good and light-hearted when you will follow DA romancing with his life.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Slashdot
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • MySpace
  • Twitter
  • Yahoo! Bookmarks

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Shitoon 109: Misnomers

Why can't you learn to write proper English you assholes. Stop misleading us innocent people who are out there to have some fun.

PS: Credit for this one goes entirely to Nita for letting me know about this beautiful name of a shop that she discovered in Pune.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Slashdot
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • MySpace
  • Twitter
  • Yahoo! Bookmarks

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Internship anyone?

No, I am not offering any internship but good friend Namita is. That too at IISc. That too with stipend. That too, she is biassed towards IITians. So read on.

There is this nice concept of Knowledge Economy (KE). It basically refers to an economic system that is run mostly by brains (mental work) and not by manual labour. Now such kinda economy is rather cool, ain’t it? But KE is possible for a country, like say India, only when most of the population is involved in serious resarch and that’s a big big task. A Knowledge Commission report talks about various things that can be done to help turn India into a KE.

Namita and some of her friends got inspired and decided to launch a  Research Portal (RP) and none other than IISc Bangalore liked their idea and agreed to help them in this step by providing infrastructure, faculty support and all that.

This RP is supposed to become an effective and efficient tool to quickly tackle some  of  the  problems  facing  the  Indian  research  community.  The Portal will essentially have three important characteristics:

  1. Information Resource
  2. Connect
  3. Exchange

The intern’s role will be along one or more of the following lines:

  1. Conduct primary research with a sample of all users available at IISc
  2. Translate the user requirements into technical specifications
  3. Do a high level design of the portal
  4. Implementation (coding) of the portal

Skill sets required: Coding skills and knowledge of algorithms. From what Namita told me, she is going to love you if you are from IIT. :)

Stipend: Will be provided with possible accommodation at IISc Bangalore.

One or possibly two students will be taken for this internship.

Last date for applying for this internship: 5th May, 2009.

All right dudes and dudettes, if you are charged up and all that, don’t waste much time and shoot off your resume to namita dot dalmia at gmail dot com. She has made it very clear that the position will be filled as soon as any applying student meets the requirements of the organization.

___________________

PS: you can also mail it to vikas dot bagri at gmail dot com

Popularity: 9% [?]

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Slashdot
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • MySpace
  • Twitter
  • Yahoo! Bookmarks

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Shitoon 108: Photographers – 2

Alright I am ready. Now say Pleasseee, yeah perfect, just look to your right a little - awesome.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Slashdot
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • MySpace
  • Twitter
  • Yahoo! Bookmarks

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Conversations with Barber

I went to a salon yesterday. I had real short hair before I left for the salon. I wanted it to be made shorter. I confused the barber and he could never really figure out how short exactly did I want my hair to be. I didn’t know myself.

‘So you want medium size’?

‘It’s already medium. It’s rather less than medium. I want it shorter’.

‘So you want short hair. So should I use the machine’?

‘No. No machine. I don’t want my hair that short. No razor also. Use only scissors’.

‘So you don’t want machine? So you want medium’?

‘Yes. I want it shorter’.

After few hours of such friendly conversation, he started off and somehow, carrying our friendly conversations forward, he managed to bring the hair down to a fairly trimmed appearance. I was satisfied with the final look. Then he asked – ‘aur sir, phacial vacial’?

‘I am already so fair looking. What do I need a facial for’?

‘Ah of course, that is there. God has given you a fair skin’.

LOL! At first I thought that he got my joke at my dark skin colour and decided to give a smart reply. But I soon realized that I was indeed fairer than him! Suddenly I wanted to laugh out loud on the fact that he actually thought that I thought that I had a fair skin which I had never thought until he made me think about things from his point of view. Phew!

I also want to let you fellas know that yayy, I wrapped up Catch 22. Finally! A Financial Times blurb on the back of the book sums up my feelings for the book most adequately:

Blessedly, monstrously, bloatedly, cynically funnily, and fantastically unique. No one has ever written a book like this.

The next book is Dev Anand’s autobiography (his romances with life). And thus, continues life!

Popularity: 5% [?]

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Slashdot
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • MySpace
  • Twitter
  • Yahoo! Bookmarks

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

A (really) long day in April

I switched on the AC tonight finally after all the fuss about the guiding principle of life and all that. I think it’s mad to not put it on when the AC is right there installed in your room, you don’t have to worry about paying the elec-bills and the temperature is touching 200 degrees. Stuck in Bhubaneswar without a single friend around I am getting mad already, more by the day. I decided therefore to not augment the agony. I switched on the AC.

Today was a long day. I ran 7.7 kms in 45 minutes and then gave up. I wanted to do 10K in an hour but I gave up in 45 minutes. That’s how the day began and then I made a boring Shitoon which made everyone yawn. Later, I tried to make pending caricatures but I was not in the mood. So I couldn’t make any. Now I think I will make them only once I have got my WACOM. I will get it when I reach Delhi this Friday. The funny thing is that Gaya’s dad already got one few days back and his WACOM is with Gaya’s sister who doesn’t make Shitoons. A funnier thing happened yesterday.

It was about 5:20 in the morning. I was done eating my pair of boiled eggs and was trying to wash down the after-taste with some super strong black-coffee when I decided to put on the projector and shoot some self-portraits under the projector light with my DSLR. The projector was in the hall, not in my room. Let me tell you that I walk around almost naked in the flat in the mornings because I know no one else would show up – at least not before six. This guest house consists of two flats. I live in one of them. Both flats have  three rooms and a kitchen each but only one of the kitchens is active – the one in my flat. The other flat is mostly empty but it has the gym equipments and the washing machine. The staff (all of them cook, some wash clothes and buy groceries – they are three of them) keep roaming around in  these two flats, mostly restricting themselves to the (active) kitchen. In the night, they leave to crash off in some place that I am yet to figure out. They come back by 7:30 every morning. Sometimes I have seen one or two drop by even as early as six. But six has been the earliest. So when I was sipping coffee at 5:20 in the morning yesterday, I was roaming around bare chested, setting up my tripod and the camera atop it. The projector was on, connected to TV that was also on but put on mute. I took some self-portraits under the projector-lilghts. Then I changed channels to see what light looked best on me through the eyes of the camera. I realized nothing was looking good on my bare chest. I decided thus to put my t-shirt on and take some more self-portraits. Then I was changing channels again. It was 5:30 and suddenly I heard the main door of the flat open with a creak and in a swoosh appeared one of the staff-members. A guy was fondly kissing a girl on the wall and there was a tripod with a camera over it facing the couple. I was sitting on the couch with a remote and I jumped. The staff felt as embarrassed as I did. He rushed to the kitchen as quickly as he could.

So yeah well, shit happens. I am glad the staff didn’t turn up when I was roaming around almost-naked or else he would have gone crazy.

There were no boiled eggs today morning and when I got my turmeric-milk after exercise (I drink that crap daily), it was all sour. That really depressed me. Today was the first time that there were no eggs and today was the first time that the milk had gone sour. I guess the eggs got over yesterday and it has become too hot for milk to remain good. I am sure it had nothing to do with what one of those staff-members saw me doing yesterday morning. Oh here is the pic by the way, which I finally liked enough to be put up on Flickr.

Hi Pieter by you.

OOooh.. got a good news just now – Ankit called up from Delhi to break a good news to his only bro – he finally has a job. Nice I say. He shall leave Delhi for Goa (where his college is) on 30th and I shall leave Bhubaneswar for Delhi on 1st of May. It’s rather funny that we are missing each other by such a narrow gap. I don’t remember seeing him since May last year when were in Andamans making fun of everything in Port Blair.

I had thought I could wrap up Catch 22 on Thursday itself. I am not yet done with it. The book’s size is deceptive. It makes you think you can wrap it up in no time and then when you are busy wrapping it up in no time, you suddenly get lost reading it. You get lost making your way through the black words and letters floating all across the yellow pages until you realize that several days have already passed and you haven’t yet wrapped up reading the book.  I have read more than 400 pages though and hope to wrap it up before I leave for Delhi. And whatta solid book this is – too solid I say. Tiwari was so true when he had said I was going to like it. More on the book when I am done reading it fully.

Delhi reminds me of Neelabh and there’s a good news on that front too. The dude got himself a DSLR too – Nikon D60. That’s nice. We are gonna shoot pics like nuts all alone in Ladakh. I was watching a Dil Se song one of these mornings while running on the treadmill when I realized that SRK and Manisha were jumping nowhere else but in Ladakh. I even spotted the Pangong lake.

Delhi also reminds of this new song from an upcoming movie (called 99) that I heard today. KK keeps shouting my name in the song. Listen to it. The world loves me, doesn’t it? The world might be crazy and full of gingers but it loves me nevertheless and sings me songs. I am one helluva lucky bastard. Though I wish Cyrus weren’t as bulky as he is.

Prasun sent me a new tune few hours ago that he has recorded in his all new Roland arranger. Prasun and myself had teamed up centuries ago to create music under the gay name of Melodiacs. We still have an account on Soundclick (please do NOT try to listen to any of the crap uloaded there). We have few very rough drafts with us so far but nothing very concrete yet. Just when I thought that Prasun had lost all enthusiasm and taste for music, I got an email from him that had his latest composition attached. He lives in Mumbai these days. If I were in Mumbai we could have created music faster. We shall create some very good music soon anway. Ok then, tata for now.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Slashdot
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • MySpace
  • Twitter
  • Yahoo! Bookmarks

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post