The Great Indian Shopping Mall

Prologue:

For the last ten years or so, India has been arriving at the world stage only to retreat again. Every time something nice happens in India, the media hails “India has truly arrived at the world stage” The euphoria lasts for a couple of days after which the columnists strike back and remind us on how we have not “truly” arrived...

So what is new in India? Let me sum it up for you in one word – Malls.

Read: The Great Indian Mall @ http://bit.ly/bLi2FY


P.S: It has some New Rules

P.P.S: Also I think it is important to mention that my whole "new rules" thing is inspired from Bill Maher's New Rules segment in Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO.

New Rules for a Better World -- Episode 2.0

A couple of weeks back, I embarked upon a quest to change the world for the better. I intended to do it by sitting in my chair and delegating some new rules. And then, I took a break, burst some crackers, had an awesome Diwali. And now I am back with more rules, *follow them*!

New Rule

Not every statement you type on facebook deserves a smiley!

Don't people use punctuations anymore? I don't want to come across as a grammar Nazi but what the hell does, “Hey long time how are you :p” even mean?

Folks, :p is a very special smiley. It's one of the best there is! It's the only way you can abuse people without offending them. Use them judiciously and with purpose. Stop abusing :p!

The power of :p

New Rule

Married female bloggers, stop mentioning your husbands as ‘A’, ‘P’, ‘E’ or whatever the first letter of his first name is!

This is a very minor thing but I still feel it needs to be addressed. I wonder why married women have trouble mentioning their husbands' name in their blogs. It's not very uncommon for a married woman to write something like, “I was having this incredibly romantic and wonderful dream where I almost hugged Shah Rukh Khan in Switzerland but ‘D’ woke me up with his trademark snore”

Why the 'D'? What can possibly be so sensitive about a man’s first name? It’s not like some hot Swede is going to stalk him or snatch him, especially with all that snoring!

New Rule

We need more mirrors everywhere!

Sorry but I couldn't think
of any one else :p

There are a lot of malls and shops with glass doors in Mumbai but clearly they are not enough. Haven’t we all seen fat girls with really high self-esteem dressing up like a size-zero Kareena Kapoor and walking around with their shopping bags? They’re the reason we need more mirrors on every wall. We need to show them what they are inflicting upon us lesser mortals!

All such people, may be fitting into those clothes is an achievement for you, an achievement that you are probably proud of. Optimism is a fine lifestyle choice. I don't want to deflate your "I can fit into this" spirit but try stay out of public places while you're at it.

Why single out fat people in tight clothes, let's add all those brown people with blonde streaks on their hair to the list. They are the worst!

New Rule

Just because Picasa 3 has an “upload to facebook” button does not mean you upload EVERY pic!

Do you have friends who upload their pics direct from the digital camera to facebook without any editing, filtering, or quality control of any sort? I know you do. Chances are that it’s a chick with like 2000 profile pics! All of us have friends like that. It is one of those shared experiences that make us human.

All these people do is pose click upload, pose click upload, pose click upload… Their albums are infinite loops of badly focused duplicate pictures with someone in the background picking his nose! Why can't they spend some time filtering out those bad pics? It’s not like they don’t have time to filter them out. After all, they are on facebook 12 hours a day tagging 300 people in each photo! They just don't have standards. The world would be much better with some standards don’t you think? You’re welcome!

There's a reason pics like these should not be uploaded!

P.S: Indibloggers, this post on indivine here --> http://bit.ly/9oaSwe

New Rules for a Better World -- Episode I

Inception

Normally I am never busy, NEVER! But the last three weeks have been tough. Probably for the first time in my life, I’ve been really busy! All this busy-ness made me angry and frustrated that the world is not a perfect place (if it is, I’d never be busy in the first place!) And now I want to dedicate the rest of my life to help (in my own small way) transform this world a better place to live. I plan to achieve that by proposing some new rules now and then -- here goes!

New Rule

Tweeters: I happened to tweet my first new rule @twit2g2

New Rule

The only time people should be allowed to say, “I love my mom!” is when they are explicitly asked, “Do you love your Mom?” 

Now you may think what could be wrong in saying that. There is nothing wrong with the concept, it just insults my intelligence. This is how an innocent rant about the quality of mess sambar is converted into a fake Bollywood interview.

I don’t know if girls pick this habit from Koffee with Karan or the Filmfare magazine but they better realize that they do not have to go out of their way to say that they love their parents. It is assumed you love your mom unless otherwise stated!

New Rule

If someone is smoking 10 feet away from you, you’re not passive smoking, you’re just passive smelling!

I am a neutral nonsmoker. I don’t mind if people smoke around me. I don't really enjoy the odour but I do not put a disgusted expression on my face nor do I wave my hands in front of my nose and follow it up with a condescending stare at the smoker. But I am afraid we’re a dying species!

Nonsmokers are increasingly turning into obnoxious self-righteous assholes who just can’t stand anyone smoking in their vicinity! The worst part is that they think they're doing a favor to humanity which is followed by an exemplary display of moral highhandedness! When you question if their behavior is fair towards the smokers, they always give that passive smoking bullshit.

I agree that passive smoking is dangerous if you work for 10 hours a day in an ill-ventilated office full of smokers but when you’re 10 feet away in an open space? Come on… You can’t inhale the smoke even if you want to. You just get a scent! And not liking a smell is not a valid reason to claim a high moral ground! If you don’t like the smell, it is your problem. I don’t like the smell of public toilets but I don’t go around telling people not to pee do I?

New Rule

Not every intelligent quip or a silly coincidence is an Inception reference!

Aren’t you tired of inception references, especially the ones that got nothing to do with the movie itself? After a lame inception reference, don’t you feel catching the culprit by the collar and yell at him, “How… how is that anything like inception?” You don’t feel like that? Well, I do.

I was walking to class with a PHD guy after a particularly wholesome lunch feeling like a python that just swallowed an alligator. I casually remarked to him, “I am feeling so lethargic that if an accident were to happen here, I wouldn’t rush to help the person!” Just two minutes after I said that, some guy fell down from the bus near the bus stop! The PHD guy turns to me and says, “Wow that was like inception!”

It makes me wonder, how come anything slightly intelligent or mildly coincidental is now seen as an inception reference? I think it is intelligence that is becoming uncommon… almost like a dream we vaguely remember!

P.S: For the record, I never hang out with PHDs.

Indibloggers.. this post on indivine here --> http://bit.ly/aVwN3M

Padma Awards: High time we question them

For those who don’t know me personally, most friends call me g2. I am in a long term relationship with c2, my imaginary cat! c2 speaks with a sexy Spanish accent like Penelope Cruz while g2 whines like Woody Allen. Read the rest of our conversation my new article at The NRI here --> http://bit.ly/aHwKL0