Zip it Markandey

I like Sanjay Dutt as an actor. I have watched his Munnabhai movies several times over and each time I have laughed as hard as I did the first time. I admire the fact that he has managed to clean up his drug addiction issues, conquer his personal demons and at least on the surface of it, has become an ideal hard working family man. Precisely the reason why I feel for him, that he has to spend three and a half years in prison. Away from the life and his family that he has painstakingly built up and had on track over all these years.

But a pardon you say, Markandey Katju? What for? So Sanjay Dutt has had trouble getting bank loans approved and needs permission from the court every time he has to travel abroad to do shooting his films. So what? Half of India has troubles in getting bank loans approved. Getting visas approved to even visit abroad is a big ask for some, let alone getting one to work there. So let’s face it. Had he not been a famous star, as a convicted felon, he probably wouldn’t have been eligible for a bank loan or a visa anyway. Imagine a normal person getting convicted on even a simple crime like cheating. That is effectively the end of his life. Everywhere he went he would be a person marked by his conviction. And let us not forget that Sanjay was convicted under a far more heinous crime of terrorism. The fact that he has managed to rebuild his life after that is as a much a testament to his own will power as it is to the fact that he has had an extremely influential father. Sunil Dutt did a lot of good for the country. And he harvested all the goodwill that he earned for Sanjay. To ask for pardon for Sanjay based on the fact that his father has done a lot of good for this country is utterly ridiculous. The country has given him a lot of leeway in allowing him to rebuild his life and that is as much as a country can do for the father’s good work.

Mr. Katju has also been arguing that Sanjay has been upholding the very ideals India was built on by promoting Gandhigiri in his movies. In fact one can probably argue that he even took it a bit too far when he offered to give Mayawati a Jaadu ki Jhappi when he stood in the elections himself. But cast your mind back to the movie which re-established Sanjay in the Hindi movie industry after his release from prison. The movie which proved that he could be a bankable star again. Vaastav. A movie about and which glorified the Mumbai underworld. Who was responsible for the 1993 terror attacks? The Mumbai underworld. Not exactly trying to atone for his mistakes there was he? Given the fact that he had been convicted for events related to the attacks, it was probably insensitive on his part to star in such a movie. If you want a pardon based on his Gandhigiri in movies, I guess an equal argument can be made to convict him based on his underworld glorification in movies.

Sanjay Dutt may not be a bad person. He may just have been foolish and badly advised. And ended up being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that is no excuse. He probably understands that himself. Which is probably why he personally isn’t asking for a pardon for himself. However innocently foolish he might have been, he still committed a mistake and if punishment for that is prison, then prison it is.

And dear Justice Katju, if you are so interested in getting pardon for reformed characters, maybe you can start with the thousands of under trial prisoners who are locked up for years in our prisons awaiting the movement of our painfully slow legal system. You can probably make better use of your judicial skills and affect many more lives that way.

Tech Twister!

It has given me a headache this last week. Trying to understand what age we are in. On one hand, we have a new pope. Communicated to us by the oldest form of communication known to man. No not the Maine Pyar Kiya version of pigeons delivering love letters to Salman Khan. Try further back. Smoke signals. Can you believe that? There is hope that the new pope will be more progressive in matters of women ordainment, contraception and gay marriage. Yes. Remind me how they informed us of his election in the first place. Yes. Smoke signals. In this world of constant 24 hour breaking updates from people who inform us ‘What a beautiful day! Good Morning friends!’ (5 people like this), we had to rely on smoke signals. And we are thinking of progressiveness. I will give the Pope some credit though. After ages and ages of people choosing the same names over and over again, to the extent that the last one had to be XVI, there is a ring of originality to Francis I. A step in the right direction then. Now to wait another 2000 years for Snoop Dogg I.

A couple of days after our history lesson in communications, came the Koreans. Nope, not the bloody thirsty horde led by His Supreme Fatness from the north. This was Samsung threatening to devour Apple right down to the core and spit it out with disdain. Developing a phone which senses when you are looking at it, we apparently don’t even have to touch the phone to scroll through items. In the mornings it even sprouts arms to pick us up from the bed and dump us into the shower. All the while uploading a ‘What a beautiful day! Good Morning friends!’ status to Facebook. Now that, is communication!

Speaking of Facebook, they are apparently are looking to copy Twitter and bringing hash tagging to Facebook. A little too late aren’t we, Mr. Zuckerberg? Haven’t you noticed the growing number of people determined to annoy the rest of the world by hash tagging their posts? Dumbing it down for the rest of us common folk so that we understand the context of their smart joke or the origin of their exotic food. Just a couple of annoying examples which have presented themselves (#smh)

1. What a ball Ravindra Jadeja! #Respect
2. Ah! Delicious Maitales Alfajores! #LatinAmericanFood
3. Japan is unbelievable! #Believe (This is an actual one)

So there you have it Facebook. The twitter gravy train has long hit you and run you over, spilling gravy all over the spotless blue and white logo of yours. You have long missed the bus. Good luck coming up with something more innovative! Like a new app to block Criminal Investigation or something. That would definitely have a market.

So then. Have a wonderful evening. Happy weekend friends! (0 likes) #Logging off

Yahoo-ing to work

So the internet has been up in arms about Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s diktat to her employees to report to office for work or presumably quit their jobs if they couldn't do so. Working from home is no longer an option. Given how Yahoo has been doing the past few years, it is pretty obvious that ‘work’ isn't the only thing happening at home. But dear Yahoo employees. Worry not! As you grumble your way to work on a Monday morning, here are a few things to look forward to which you probably wouldn't get sitting at home:

1.The free coffee
Cups and cups of it. Considering that coffee is almost half the monthly budget as a student, free coffee is second only to free food. Additionally, the 3 feet between the coffee machine and the sugar stack has probably replaced the water cooler as the best place to swap gossip about your boss. Which when you have a boss like Marissa Mayer, might not necessarily be a bad thing!

2.The joy of the best parking spot
Big companies, lots of people (duh!). Lots of people, lots of cars. And what can be a better start to the day, than to find a parking spot right next to the door. The joyous realization that you don’t have to negotiate 10 minutes through the ice (or heat) to that damned entrance which seems to be at the other end of the world otherwise. Surely a day can’t get too bad when the first omens in the morning are so encouraging. The feeling is second only to the one when you head out for lunch and then come back and grab someone else’s ‘prime location’. Accomplishment!

3.Switching off and still working
The overly long staff and status meetings. You stand up, do your 5 minutes and then for the remaining 55, you try to fight off drowsiness as you listen to people who you would have no interaction with otherwise, trying to peacock their way into the boss’s good books. Aided by that ubiquitous cup of coffee of course. But here is the best part. Those 55 minutes when you sit and contemplate your plans for world domination if you weren’t encumbered by the trappings of office, still count towards the 8 hours of work!

4.The co-worker who can always be heard
Now there are several people who have become used to the home space and might have difficulty finding their way around the big office in their first few days. So if you get lost sometimes, there is a quick fix. There will always be one person who can be heard from any corner of the office. Locate that voice, set your bearings and home in on that location. And voila! You are in familiar territory again. If you are particularly poor at negotiating directions, there is tremendous satisfaction to be gained from finding your seat without losing yourself atleast twice in a big office!

5.The quirky co-worker
Mayer might have touched on this when she said, that working from home doesn’t encourage collaborations with other co-workers. But there is more to it than meets the eye. More than collaborating, the quirky co-workers will make the workplace a really fun place to be. The chatty one who will always want to know what you did on the weekend till Wednesday and then grill you on your plans for the weekend on Thursday and Friday. The one who exists to eat and will drag you to every restaurant within a 15 minute radius for lunch. The sleepy one who can be found taking a snooze behind his screen once a day. The flustered one who is permanently busy and is forever running around complaining that 24 hours are not enough in a day. They make work a fun place to be! Even the weary one who has been waiting to quit for a lucrative job for the last 20 years.

So all you Yahoo-ites or Yahoo-ers or whatever you call yourselves, get out of that house and head back to office. There is much to look forward to!