Cinco Cosas que Quiero Hacer Antes de Morir

...which translates to "5 things I wanna do Before I die".

Yes..its been a while...and No ...I havent been extremely busy, tied up or any such excuse of an excuse....Yes... I'm back now...and No..its not cos I felt the sudden urge to go back to my literary roots or whatever....

Baba aka Nikhil is reponsible for my typing the 288 characters till now.

(u might wanna count..)

I'm listening to the title track of Bachna Ae Haseeno as I blog...and "yeah, baby when you see me coming! yeah, you better run for cover..." and yes.. nice, super lil track..would recommend...But I digress (which is as expected)

I think by the time I was 10 years old I had pretty much done 99% of all things a Human would do before he passed away. As you, my intelligent reader, would have realised by now...by plotting the number of unique human activities completed (y axis)against a human's age (x-axis)...the graph would represent an Beta curve.

For the Not-Quite-The-Einstien-yet readers, what I'm trying really hard to get at is this: In the universal set of unique human activities, I'm done with almost all of them. So the pessimist in you would say that I'm done living a full life.

But of course, we all know that the remaining 1% of the number of unique activities, when put in absolute terms, is still a sizable number. And I definitely intend to atleast try and ensure that the graph never touches the x-axis..ever.

So without much ado here are the top Cinco Things I wanna do..

Uno: I wanna hit the exosphere. Yep, space travel has to be THE THING to do. I hope I live long enough (and stay in a good enough condition) to undertake a low-fare commercial space flight (it might even be called Space Deccan or something)...

Dos: A smooth, uninterrupted ride on the German Autobahn in my Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren (with wifey of course and bachna ae haseeno title track in the backgroud), stopping only to pick up my KFC bucket from a drive thru inn.

( Yes..I am cheesy..and unapologetically so )

Tres: Time Travel. Dude..need I say more? While going back in time it seems is not feasible, it seems travel into the future is a theoretical possibility. There are only the nuances that need to be worked upon..In any case, I'll be first to line up for the low-fare time travel trip (Deccan Future ..anyone?)

Quattro: I wanna visit every country atleast once and ensure I fly every available airline. I want to experience every culture, taste all different types of Pizza, KFC, McD and Coke, experience every kind of in-flight entertainment (or the lack of it) available and collect all the available visa stamps on my passport.

Cinco: And lastly but not the leastly, I want to discover the one theory/idea/concept that will change forever, the way you, me aur hum, look, listen, feel, touch and taste the universe around.

Babaaa! your tag has unleashed the poor sense of prose in me. Never again..

Buhaha to one and all

Will the real Democrat Nominee please stand up?

Now seriously, lets get real about this. Hillary ought to win the Democrat nomination and there shouldnt even be a contest around this. At the end of the day, this isnt really about the media hype, the bitching and slandering and the quotable quotes between the 2 democrat candidates. This is simply about the right person running the world's most powerful country - and running it right.

The Tata tea ad kinda puts my point across. Our steroptypical India politician, all smiles and grins, with party workers and bodyguards in tow walks upto and interrupts the breakfast of our not-so-typical Indian protagonist. The politician "demands" his vote for the upcoming elections. After serving up some of the tea being advertised to the politician, our protagonist goes on to ask the politician what his qualifications are. The politician, mildly amused, tells him that he has "been around" in this field for N number of years. To which our man asks for specific experience in construction, administration, etc etc.. and reminds him that he has applied for an important job. Our politician is ruffled and his party workers protest. Amused and outraged he mockingly asks our man, what he meant by "job". To this our hero delivers the curt punchline - the job of running our country.

I would go for 3 things when it comes to nailing down someone for the job - credentials, contacts and chutzpah. Credentials - do a wiki on both profiles and you know its Hillary who's got the depth and breadth of experience needed for the job. Not to forget, she was at a vantage point during her Hubbie's presidency giving her that one addl unique experience. Contacts - Essential to win consensus on various decisions she would need to take as President. Apart from the several years she has spent in this field and therefore a larger network base, the fact that she was first lady having had a former prez Bill as hubbie can only help in this regard. Chutzpah - Here's where a seriously subjective aspect creeps in. On the face of it, its hard to judge who's got the Audacity and courage needed to taken on the reins. I'd place my bets on Hillary, simply cos its like she's written the CAT exam twice - almost been there, almost done that. Sure Obama may have the Audacity of Hope - but I can see the feet of inexperience from under him crumble, given the eco-political juncture the US is in, in the global context.

So to cut a long monologue short, its time the Amreekan public got real and elect the right person for the job - the job of running THE country.

Without the fear of consequence

1st March, 2008 - 60 days post-wedding and life's still the same. If one were to discount the total shift to junk-free diet, having to talk more than I was ever used to (communication is the key..they say), and an overall loss of a sense of that vague word called freedom, life's just the same as I had left it on the 30th Dec 07 ( and of course the phone bill's reduced by abt 400%).

This post isnt about my married life. The opening para is misleading. But then again, this aint a GMAT passage either..if you get the drift.

Ok here are some of my arm chair thoughts:

1. In a few years, India's + China's population will comprise close to half the world's population. In other words, every second person you meet, will most likely be one of the above. Chinese will have a larger ageing population and Indians, vice versa. Combine this with the fact that these guys are the seriously upwardly yuppie kinds and we have a whole new world order in place. Implications :- are you kidding me? I'll bet my laptop, Mckinsey have a whole team working dedicated to this one fact alone.

2. In a larger context, Laptops are the Pagers of this generation. Get ready for its mobile phone equivalent. Look around you. The seriously successful, DONT CARRY LAPTOPS....duh! Is it blackberrys then, you ask? Wrong answer. This also explains why I willingly bet my laptop.

3. A green revolution is around the corner and I dont mean agriculture. Hybrid cars, zero emission vehicles, bio fuel automobiles, and the like. Renewable energy is on the cusp of reaching desirable efficiencies. Implications: Invest in companies taking a lead on this.

Missus is serving lunch. I have to leave...but this aint the end. Muhahaha!