A Treatise on Female Beauty

Randomly websurfing, I landed on this bollywood site, a picture gallery of cinestars.

Some of the most clicked galleries were the ones of Bipasha Basu, Kareena Kapoor, Malaika Arora, etc. In other words, of the hottie brigade. Doing what any sane man would have done then, I kept the interest in the viewer statistics to a minimum, and quickly gushed through the galleries of as many of these sultry hotties I could in 10 minutes.

Bipasha in particular was looking so very hawt in some of the pics that there appeared to be a larger conspiracy going on; a conspiracy of turning menfolk numb and stupid to the point of insanity. This is when that classic predicament struck me - by objectifying Bipasha and the hotties, was I in general reducing women to pieces of flesh?

Pausing for a moment or two, I injected some deep thought into the matter..and concluded that... no, I wasn't doing any such thing. I in fact felt (very much to the contrary of popular belief) that these fine women were telling me in unspoken words to respect female beauty more.

Now wait, we're talking about Malaika Arora, Bipasha Basu and cohort, right ? Whatever happened to my taste, my sensibilities, my moral universe and all those stuff that I say such a thing? How can they tell me to respect female beauty unless I am a warped sexist - these women carry their sensuality in their plunging necklines and for most practical purposes, are a source of shame to (indian) womanhood.

Well, nothing's quite warped about my taste, moral fibre yada yada. They're quite where they should be, and doing quite well. What is actually warped is the general perception, and general notions of female beauty in our part of the world. The thing is, Indians are a bunch of intellectually challenged dimwits who can't think using their own head, and they just choose the best possible dumb line of action every single time. In this case, they callously reduce these fine and beautiful women to a perspective of sin, sex or sleaze. Anyone with half a brain would be able to discern from any of the so called provocative Bipasha pictures that she is in fact exuding a subtle sense of being intelligent, a subtle message of being in command and a teasing reminder of being a superior female specimen - thus telling you to respect her more, rather than the other way round.

And that is why in our world of maa behen biwi izzat etc, it's hard for these hotties to garner respect for being women. I really can't say whether patriarchy aggravated this reality more, by stifling expressions of women's sexuality because male dominance is threatened by it; or whether it got aggravated because of a successful bid by feminists and women (who are personally and collectively threatened by these beautiful women) to create this mentality of hatred towards beautiful and sexy women. Or both working in tandem.

At any rate, the final outcome is that our system quickly denigrates these lovely hotties to pieces of flesh - a faulty system that has been scripted by and for the ego-satisfaction of jealous, personality-deficient feminists..... a system that also adds insult to injury, by telling you that you are reducing women to pieces of flesh by objectifying them - when in fact all you are doing is the most natural of things for a man to do - admiring very beautiful women. Anyone who has seen Malena would be able to relate to the plight of a hottie, how indefensible she is to the other women who force their (nasty) agenda on her, and how men are equally helpless in defending her against this nasty agenda. Why was Malena beaten up so brutally by the womenfolk of the village? Why were their eyes emitting a kind of hatred towards Malena that would put Hitler to shame? What was Malena's fault really? None. Her only fault was that she was drop dead gorgeous.

To quote a line from Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov - "beauty is the battlefield where God and the Devil war for the soul of man". It's quite simple. God will tell to look at beauty from a narrow and warped perspective - and to that effect, tell you to imbibe (a stupid thing called) morals, degrade Bipasha or your neighbourhood hottie, lower your gaze, and feel guilty from time to time for gushing at hotties - while the Devil will tell you to love, respect and admire hotties for who they are, and tell you to take 10 minutes off your busy schedule to objectify them (even if from a laptop monitor) and completely forget the reality of your existence for those 10 minutes. "Objectification" is a much vilified term and has impropriety written all over it, but is it all that bad and improper really? I firmly say No, now that I've looked under the veil of all the scheming machinations. I'm finally enlightened, and off I am to objectify the next hottie. A gori this time. A very provocatively dressed, but very beautiful Scarlett Johannson is the lucky one. ;)

Message in a bottle

Get the ink out. Spread out a sheet of paper. Write a message. Roll the parchment. Find a glass bottle, which has been emptied of its liquor content. Uncork it. Stuff the parchment into the bottle. Cork the bottle. And set it upon the sea.

The bottle bobs endlessly to the rhythm of the sea. Probably in sync with the heartbeats of the message writer, who watches the bottle float away. Some unknown day, some unknown hand will find the bottle. Or probably never.

Is setting of bottle on sea an act to create own personal mystery?

There are social networking sites. Orkut is popular in Indian subcontinent. Each person has a profile page. All the info on the page is a snapshot of the person's life. The page is one among the millions of pages "floating" on the web. Is it the same charm as that of "message in a bottle on sea" which drives one to fill out the page? The details, the witticism, the testimonials, the photo album - all put in to present the unknown visitor a glimpse of the owner's life.

Reaching out to unknown and making ourselves known has been a consuming passion for mankind. The same can be seen in the names people scratch on rock faces, archaeological monuments and classroom benches. The same can be seen when a lesser known painter signs-off his/her painting, when a caller on a radio show makes sure that his/her name is heard on air, when the good samaritans put their name plaques in temples/hospitals to which they have donated, when the Roll of Honor dazzles the name of Gold Medalists of previous years, when anonymous Marines scribbled "Kilroy was here", when NASA sent probes to deep space with plaques carrying message from mankind.

The brief moment of attention from a stranger - oh so elusive and precious.
You know what, I just had one :)

Gates of Heaven

Has anyone seen the Gates of Heaven? Are there people who can claim that they have crossed to the Other Side and can re-tell their experiences? And still there will be men who will be driven to the extreme to do all the needful things to reach this El Dorado. Acts, labor, dedication - to achieve the gate pass to the utopia on the Other Side. What after that? Eternal bliss? Salvation?

At least not 'salvation' as I know of. There are imagined greater comforts and pleasures to be attained on the Other Side. A true salvation would rob an opportunity to enjoy all that. So if my thought process is still sane - there are men who have been told that there is a place called Heaven, which has unparalleled happiness and comfort but nobody has seen or come back to re-tell (who would leave the Heaven and come back to tell the lesser mortals the great pleasures so as to entice them to work hard to get in the Heaven and increase pressure on resources) but they still work hard to achieve an entrance ticket to this unknown place.

"And the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to make people believe that he does not exist" . Kevin Spacey delivers this wisdom in what can be interpreted as persona of 'Keyser Soze'. The devil never had to show himself to make his mark. Probably its his invisibility which make him more threatening and menancing. Add to it that Man has from time immemorial been drawn to what is unknown. Who says that curiosity only kills the cats? So, is Heaven a notion setup by the Devil himself to have fun at the cost of people observing austerity and going through pains to live a sin-free life? Blasphemy! I am conjuring up a trick here!

Suppose there exists such a place. At least in physical sense. But nobody knows what promises are kept once you enter it. One would wonder how long the enigma continue if there are no proofs of the goodies on the other side. Well, the Devil, like the architect of Matrix, would think how to sustain this process. So the Devil does two things.

First

He makes the entry to this place really, really tough. Like say, 1 in 300 gets to go inside those Gates. No matter how hard everybody tries, only exclusive few get the pass-through. The 299 left behind, though bruised and sad, look up to those high walls and ivy decorated gate and think that they will work harder the next time. Or some just give up hope of ever getting through but never lose the awe of the gates they could not enter. In all the wisdom that these men have been bestowed, they equate the high odds of gaining entry as a proxy for the great value of what lies inside those gates. Any flaws in this reasoning?

Second

The Devil keeps telling those who got inside of what the 299 fellas think of them and the place they got into. He describes to them in great detail the awe which the people inside inspire in the people outside. Field trips are organized for these "lucky ones" where they see for themselves how the rest of their lot swoon on their sight. And the Devil poses them a question -"Whatever is inside those gates is unknown to the outside world. The promises were kept or not, only you know. But.... But, will you speak in any way to destroy your own self esteem and respect which you keep hearing from the outside world? Is the absolute truth more valuable to you or the perceived truth?" What do those "lucky ones", the keepers of the secret, the Children of Promised Land do?

The Devil smiles.

And so, the legend of The Gates of Heaven runs through eons of time. Nobody questions what became of the few who crossed to the other side. Occasionally, a light streak is seen in the skies of the Forbidden Country. Outside the high walls, these sights are referred and discussed endlessly. As might perhaps this blog entry.

The Devil still smiles.

Google Labs or a growing junk-yard?

Yeah, Google is God. I have been believing it since long time. It still remains. However, off-late I have gotten into discussions about how does Google make money? It has only Ad-words and Ad-sense. The analysts warned the Wall Street against high valuations of Google stock and changed their recommendation from "hold" to "sell" even though Google has cornered 25% of online advertising revenue. But, the markets have been bullish and the price of Google stock keeps soaring against the advices of analysts.

Why such exuberance when Google hasn't opened up any other avenues of generating revenues. Google launches cool products, we go and use them, laud them; but what happens to these products after that. How many of them are actually a commercial success or become the market leader in their category? Probably none. Here is an article (How Google wins by losing) which discusses the Google phenomenon on these lines and where does the whole thing fit in. At present, there are more articles doing round on the Web discussing these matters.

Google itself has made huge investments in buying other technologies, latest being YouTube. But how will all this gel in together remains hazy. Google is making competitors all around by making experimental products in their specialization area. It doesn't take those products to Release versions (most of the things are in Beta). But, that warns the other companies against Google's motives and they become skeptic of it. Exactly the same thing happened when Amazon removed Google as its preferred search engine and started using MSN Live on its website. Its a move which has great implications because Amazon is the best example of social-recommendation bringing up search results which complements Google's powerful search algorithm. Google lost on a potential ally by introducing a Beta online store service (Froogle) and other services (Books). Google has gunned against Microsoft (obviously), eBay, Amazon, Yahoo, Skype and the list goes on. Can it go on making such rivals without even seriously delivering Release quality products?

Its what some folks say. Google's product delivery model is summed up as "throwing spaghetti on the wall". It develops "spaghetti" (Beta versions), throws them on the wall and waits to see what sticks. Those which stick, become hit. Those which fall are forgotten (Google Finance, anyone?) And Google moves on.

Set 1

GAME 1

IIM A rolls out the carpets to me. The red bricks and the hallowed Harvard steps - the architecture symbolizing aspirations of 150,000 Indians each year - mesmerized me. I was gasping, perhaps it was too hot and humid on that day of June. The mazes between hostels could have easily passed to have been at Hogwarts.

Game : IIM A wins. My serve broken by IIM A.
Score: IIM A vs Me : 1 - 0


GAME 2

The "how's" and "why's" of IIM A are flung at me. Even Neo couldn't have dodged them. 270 brilliant minds of India face another set of 270 minds (who are better equipped with communication network and a heritage to fall back upon). Its a surrender. IIM A hits all aces. [This description is purposefully vague. Only after joining IIM A can you understand what is this Game 2 all about].

Game : IIM A wins. All aces on its serve.
Score: IIM A vs Me : 2 - 0


GAME 3

2.5 weeks into the course, its a sleepy noon after classes when I receive the call from the Admissions Office. No, they weren't reconsidering my admission. :) They called to tell me that I have been shortlisted for first round of selections for the Aditya Birla Scholarship (ABS). Are you kidding me? This is a prank!! But it didn't turn out that way. I was among the 20 students from IIM A shortlisted for the first round. The selection isn't based on my performance so far, if any, in IIM A. This is a powerful slam from my side, although utilizing reserves from past performances.

Game : I win (as of now)
Score: IIM A vs Me : 2 - 1


GAME 4

The institute is not directly involved in this one. I stand for the Class Representative election. Put forth my candidature at 23:59:59; I stick to deadlines. Having won Game 3, the onus was high to convert the advantage of ABS. Juggling between the quizzes, CR election campaign and ABS essays; some of the serves turned to Double Faults. In the end, I struggled hard to make it through with the CR campaigning. The counting starts. The first round of counting went Deuce. The second round of counting also went Deuce. The thrid round saw me losing advantage and I was defeated by 3 votes. For that 1 week, the acads took hit (Single Faults) and the effect escalated till mid-terms. I fought a tough game and perhaps, lost gracefully.

Game : IIM A wins
Score: IIM A vs Me : 3 - 1


GAME 5

This was an extended game. It continued for long as an intermittent game between other games. The psychological acceptance of the fact that I am at IIM A and there is no turning back. Sounds cheesy? It wont if you had been living a King Size life at Bangalore, doing a job which provided decent mental stimulation, get paid fat sums, earn a mark for yourself and the precious 'work-ex'; and you weren't really keen on joining a B-School. The charm of the old days lured me. The struggle didnot allow me to enjoy the initial 2 months of my stay. Each day was a drag with the classes proving some respite (as those were the times when the mind was focussed on a single activity). The issue settled in favor of IIM A on 22nd Aug when it finally soaked into me that "I can not go back".

Game : IIM A wins
Score: IIM A vs Me : 4 - 1


GAME 6

Mid term exams. The Double Fault of CR campaigning and struggle to earn ABS Advantage resulted in numerous Single Faults on academic front. It was an on-off case. A ace in one quiz, a C in another, a B+ in yet another.... so on and so forth. Previous game (Game 5) also took its toll. The things were beginning to settle as the mid terms neared. Well, the fallen angel made the best of them. In retrospect, I did better than I thought I was doing at that time. Its not been a clincher, but I took the advantage MENTALLY.

Game : I win
Score: IIM A vs Me : 4 - 2


GAME 7

T-nite, the talent week at IIM. I was not feeling well after the mid terms and T-Nite was just around the corner. The stakes were high and I knew that my contribution would do its tiny bit towrads the Section's success. However, the talent in the section didnot need any help. They rocked and rolled while I drove for some time to get stuff from the market, an advantage I had because of having a bike on campus. Still, the involvement could have been much more. This game went to IIM A; in the sense that the show was over before I could adjust to its demands.

Game : IIM A wins
Score: IIM A vs Me : 5 - 2


GAME 8

I cleared the first round of ABS and reached the final interview round. Not much to say, just that the efforts taken to write the essays didn't go waste though they clashed with the CR campaigning.

Game : I win
Score: IIM A vs Me : 5 - 3


GAME 9

My groupmates @ IIM A. Group dynamics is a difficult thing to handle. Especially when the competitive spirits are flying high and everyone wants to make a mark for himself/herself. Luckily, our group settled into a common rythm. Vroom, Hoax, PuBo, Bhoora and Tram make the Group "Four"ce. It has been a pleasure working with them. Towards the term end, the real power of group was into display. The multiple assignments could not have been completed without the group members supporting each other.

Game : I (We) win
Score: IIM A vs Me : 5 - 4


Game 10

I make it to the Niche club and would get to do stuff related to Product Marketing. With the support of a formal club, it will be easier to push through and make it an interesting activity on Campus. My dream company made a visit to the campus and I was able to justify endless hours spent tracking this company's progress. [I cannot mention the name because of confidentiality reasons, you make a guess and you may be right if you are feeling lucky! :)] Have I earned the reputation of being the nerd of the batch? Who knows? Will somebody who has overheard the conversations in corridors let me know?

Game : I win
Score: IIM A vs Me : 5 - 5


Game 11

The Professors and the faculty. They are God level! Never before in my life have I been taught by a Faculty where each member delivers more than 100 percent. Example, I remember my last class on Managerial Accounting. Having an Engineering background, Accounting was a completely new subject to me. I mean, COMPLETELY NEW. Yes. In the last lecture, the Professor made us go through an actual Annual Financial Report of a real world company. As he described the entries and numbers, somehow it all fit in. I could see what the numbers spoke, what they indictaed, where did they come from. The Annual Report had started making a sense, in just 3 months! Full credits to the Faculty. Though the grades in this particular course have not been flattering for me, the learning has been immense. I wasn't even fighting this game, I surrendered happily.

Game : IIM A wins.
Score: IIM A vs Me : 6 - 5


Game 12

Term 1 is over. The end terms have been written and results are awaited. I guess IIM A will score another win there :) In 3 months, I have known new capabilities and new limitations in me. The stay has helped me know better about myself. I have made a bunch of new friends. I played soccer after a long time. Some acknowledged my genuine interest in certain things. I was exposed to immense talent of my batchmates and the experience will continue. With each passing game, the "IIM A vs Me" factor has been reducing. No longer is a win for me not a win for IIM A. Was I fighting the system? Or was I fighting my own inhibitions? Its premature to take a stand right now. There are 5 more Sets (terms) to go. Lets see how the score card reads at the end. As of now, as I await Term 2 to start, I give this last game of the Set 1 to IIM A, for the sheer breadth of experience and revelations it has given me.

Game : IIM A wins.
Score: IIM A vs Me : 7 - 5

SET 1: IIM A wins

Nostalgia grammar - Past Perfect, Future Tense

I have hit the "Home" key taking a break from the gruesome first term at IIM A. The 3 months have passed in a jiffy. But more on IIM A in some other post.

Its been a gypsy's life for me in the past 7 years.
1999-2003 - shifted 4 hostels @ IT BHU in 4 years.
2003-2006 - shifted 4 houses in Bangalore
2003-2006 - shifted 3 companies in Bangalore
2006-now - shifted to IIM A

Each new phase adds new memories. Sometimes they are physical in nature: memorabilia, gifts, insignias etc. Each new spring cleaning throws out some of these which have now attained 'junk' status. Funny how some of the treasured possessions become unwanted as the memories accompanying them fade out.

Some of the items purged off this time:
1. Call letters of IIT JEE - 1999 and 2000.
2. Call letters of Roorkee 99 and BHU 99.
3. Computer project report - ISC 1999.

They were all lying neatly piled up in a drawer. Leafing through each of them renewed the times when they were so relevant. Just pieces of paper, are they? Not really.

They are almost like the geological layers which denote the passing of ages on earth and serve as markers. These marked the point on timeline when I transitioned from school to college. The umpteen competitive exams, the endless nights of toil on "preparation material", the idolizing of exam toppers of yesteryears, the anxiety to make it through.

Destroying those papers erased the another set of markers of a phase of life. What remains now is a fact that I joined IT BHU in July 1999. All the options that were present at that time and all the dilemmas they raised are lost. Similar exercises were carried out when moving from 10th to 11th, college to job, from being "Neo" to "no-Neo", 3 years in job to return to academics. With each passing milestone, the attachment to the current state is reducing. Hardly any determination is required now to throw away the belongings which an important of life a few days ago.

Is this 'nirvana'? Realizing that material possessions and memories are only prisons of mind and a man must move on because "the journey" is only the permanent truth. Or is it even a higher degree of materialism; where possessions lose their meanings to new advancements, the past is forgotten after it has been used, where old has no place to survive.

I am being nostalgic about "being nostalgic" :)

To blog or not

... that is the question.

Have been going through endless oscillations of an urge to pen down the events of past 3 months and stopping myself to display the conflicts on a public blog. Just deleted a draft of a random rambling. My par'd'ner, though, has read it while editing one of his posts. Hmmm.. so that piece of writing didn't go completely unnoticed.

The Signed Integer Theory

Here is another of my theories. Will keep it simple.

The signed integer dataype in C provides a valueable insight into how people behave to situations of pain, stress and emotional distress.

A signed int has the limits of -32768 to 32767. So if:

int i = 100;
i = i+1;

The new value of 'i' is 101.

Consider 'i' to be at 32766.

i = i + 1;

Value of 'i' = 32767;

i = i + 1;

New value of 'i' = ? Its -32768. When 'i' hits the limit of its datatype, it simply convolutes back from the other side of the limit.

i = i + 1;

Value of 'i' = -32767.

And thus, it goes in loops.

Humans deal with trauma in a similar way. Each one has an individual threshold. Once the accumulated stress reaches the limit, a person simply snaps. Anymore stress just becomes a big joke to him. He is on the 'other side'. Completely de-stressed.

The MAN

He will ride the horse making even the animal look more majestic than an unicorn. He will unsheath the sword which will be at the perfect angle to the sun to reflect a trapezoidal aura at its tip. He will take the worst of the punishment met out by his enemies; but his face will not twitch, neither for a frown, nor for a contemptuous smile. His eyes will speak - of his love for his family, nation and community - of his crying heart for a wounded friend - of his playful nature when he lets the neighbor’s son win the stick battle - of his unflinching empathy to the hundreds he leads and fights for their cause - of the emotional conflicts going in his dark heart.

Who is he? He is the MAN, the perfect embodiment of the male spirit. He is the hero in Gladiator, Braveheart, Last Samurai, Batman, Life is Beautiful, Lakshya, Castaway, Beautiful Mind. He is the one who will make the male audience realize that suddenly they are feeling a prick in their eyes and they need an excuse to steal a moment to bring the fingers to wipe their eyes off a saline liquid.

What does it take to become the Man? Have you ever felt the burning desire to know the answer to this question? Have you broken down when you saw those movies? Have you sat alone or gone on a walk after reading "To Kill A Mocking Bird", "One Who Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", "The Godfather"? Have you wanted to become the Arthurs, the Ashokas, and the Hectors of the world?

Boys grow up. They look up to their father. They look up to comic book heroes. They look up to their sport idol. Some of them grow up to idolize a legendary figure from history. Some have their Hercules and Achilles in war heroes, others in corporate world, and others still in academia. Boys grow up. They become man - still craving to become the Man.

If you are a guy reading this and unmarried, ask yourself - have you ever thought about your son. How would you want to see him grow up? Probably some two decades of history will flash before your eyes - of all your successes, of all your defeats, of all that could have been, of all that which should not have been. Does the junior appear to be the perfect candidate to grow up into the Man? If yes, do you still have the answer to the question - What does it take to become the Man?

Bison of the jungle

All the world's a jungle, and all the men and women merely species in the ecosystem. They have their weaknesses and their strengths; which they use to accomplish the most sacrosanct motive - SURVIVAL.

The jungle has predators and preys, the night-stalkers and giant roamers. Some work in groups, others are loners. Some are workaholics, others scavenge on the leftovers. Some scurry on the jungle floor avoiding being noticed. Some walk with pomp and show, reverberating the jungle with their presence. Some recycle the resources to keep the jungle alive; some devour enormous quantities of food and leave the jungle stripped.

Which animal are you in the jungle?

I'm the bison. Mostly interested in its food and water. Not too majestic, not too pawny to be ignored. Not having a drop-dead look. Yet can charge in fury to make others drop-dead. Have a gait when I walk but also remember to keep the head lowered so that I dont stumble over ground irregularities. Feeling that the whole savanna is my home, still not being foolish to venture close to thick jungle boundaries. Travelling with my herd, sometimes leading, sometimes being lead. Part of the outer defence to protect the young ones and females. Stopping to allow the weak and old ones to catch up. Hesitant to take the leap across the deep, fast current of river coming in the way of migratory herd. Still crossing it in the lure of rich pastures on the other side. Picking up fights with peers to share the spoils of females. Yet, not letting the fight become fatal. Accepting the rules of my herd. Yet, showing an inclination to rebel when I am young. Having confidence that I can take upon 3-4 predators alone. Acknowledging that its a lost battle when surrounded by 5 or more predators. Even in that event, fighting it out to death.

Which animal are you in the jungle?

The LEDs

Imagine a pixelated black board. It is wired and connected to power. The pixels are actually LEDs. And they are spaced well to be seen as discrete units from the point of observation. Something like looking at the arrival/departure mechanical info screen at airport terminals.

The central LED is of blue color. It has an adjacent red colored LED. The rest of the board is filled with green colored LEDs. In the initial state of the board, the blue and all the green LEDs are on while the red LED is off.

As you are observing the board, a green LED turns off at some point. Its disappearance - hardly noticeable between so many others. Some time passes. Another random green LED turns off at some other point on the board. With few more following, the disappearance starts becoming apparent. You, the observer, becomes aware of the phenomenon and actually anticipates the disappearance of another green LED.

The rate of the number of green LEDs switching off steadily increases with time. Blip, blip, blip. Thats how the board goes. Random co-ordinates. Its getting faster. The black of the background is becoming prominent. You can now make out even the clusters where the ON green LEDs are still dense. Even they are struggling to remain glowing.

A simultaneous event which may get unnoticed will start making its presence felt. As the rate of blipping of green LEDs increases, a faint glow starts coming in the red LED. Unlike the blue and green ones, the red LED seems to have the capability to have varying degrees of luminescence. It becomes brighter as the green ones start fading. After some time, it becomes quite noticeable.

The red glow following the rate of green blips continues for some time. But soon enough, the trend reverses. The red LED seems to have acquired a life of its own. Its glow is no longer controlled by the green blips. Rather, it is the red's brightness now which seems to accelerate the green blips. The more the red glows, the more the greens blip.

A state follows when the greens on the board are very few and standing alone at random locations which are not very close to the blue LED. Occasionally, one or two green LEDs suddenly become bright close to the blue LED. But only for a short time. The stable state returns and things remain calm. They would stay that way for a long time now. The blue LED has a red LED accompanying it and very few, random and far-flung green LEDs remain on the board.

Any guesses what is the black-board, and the LEDs?

Blue LED - A guy; me, you or our buddy.
Green LEDs - The blue's buddies. The nearer green ones are the closer friends, the farther ones are mere acquaintances.
Black board - The influence zone of the blue's contacts.

And the Red LED ?

Blue's girlfriend and later wife.

The green LEDs have their own respective black boards where they become blue LEDs.

An exercise left to readers :
You saw this scenario. Imagine what would be the scene like if green LEDs continued to disappear without the red LED even showing the faintest hint of glowing?

Sacrifice

SACRIFICE. The word which inspires, evokes reverence, brings compassion, warms your heart, and sometimes wets your eyes. The feeling of being larger than life; of being useful; of doing greatness.

But does it really exist?

Every human being has a set of thoughts and believes. She acquires it over the meandering course of her life. She starts assigning weightages to different parameters which affect her decisions. Some params are old, some are new. The weightages change. Any decision, at that moment of time, is governed by the current set of parameters and their weightages. Much like a cold-blooded foreign exchange transaction.

There come moments when, apparently, we have options to choose between. Deciding moments which will define the universe we will experience. They shape the fate which shall be cursed or thanked. And then arises the notion of sacrifice.

A set of humans put in that situation would generally choose a common option. Its their parameters, which will be mostly be same and have similar weightages, making a choice which is "popular". Yet, there will come along a person who would choose the Road Less Travelled. Disregarding the popular parameters, she goes ahead and picks the abhorred option. The generations to come, the peers who are dumbstruck, the texts which are hungry for ideals; get the rendition of a sacrifice.

The Sacrificer knows, she knows. The truth. She had no options. There didn't exist the popular option for her. Its pseudo-existence was nullified by her personal parameters being weighted differently. Her believes and thoughts could never have made her choose the popular option.

The constraints under which she is operating is different from what a set of people usually experience when they faced that situation. Was she larger than life then? She reached at that juncture influenced by uncountable earlier decisions. The priorities had already been set. The choices had narrowed down. And she chose that.

Should this be called Sacrifice? An act done because she could not have done anything else. It maybe a difficult path ahead down her choice, but she is helpless. Her governing factors leave her no choice. Its a camouflaged helplessness; created by her own value systems and preferences.

Sacrifice is an act which all of us do daily, every moment. We choose what we really believe in. There is no other way. On the contrary, when we (if ever) choose something which we dont believe in, it should be called Sacrifice. We call it Cowardice, though.

Let that act not become larger than life. Let not people forget that they chose something because of their own constraints. And we can't judge whether the Sacrificer has a superior set of constraints and weightages. She is what she is. Her act is hers. A sacrifice is nothing but a choice; acknowledging one's own helplessness.

Movies from books..

One of my favourite pet peeves - a bad film translation of a book.

If the movie is admittedly 'loosely' based on a book, and the filmmaker takes the liberty of tweaking the actual story line, either by, say changing some broad events or simply adding some characters, and I'm mentally prepared to see just another movie without the expectations of seeing the film of the book, then the peeve factor doesn't arise. Like for example, the recent adaptation of Great Expectation where Ethan Hawke played Pip and Uma Thurman played Estella - it played the Victorian storyline but it was set in contemporary America. Or, Baz Luhrmann's outrageous but brilliant Romeo and Juliet, which had the original Shakespearean dialogue, but was again, set in modern times (and had Baz Luhrmann's eccentric and colourful style written all over it).

My peeve is more with filmmakers supposedly making or trying to make an original adaptation, but ending up murdering the book. Mira Nair made a fairly bold attempt at trying to recreate Vanity Fair, but made a mess of it. Not a big mess, but a mess nonetheless. Gosh, Becky from the movie was anything but like Becky from the book! Oh, and my favourite duckie - Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas. This movie was a complete joke, and Bhansali had stabbed the original novel 46 times in the chest and back. I mean, compared to Devdas, Vanity Fair was excellent. I had given in to the hype surrounding Devdas and had taken a lot of trouble to ensure that I offered myself a great cinematic experience from a film that was made by a filmmaker who also made a very pleasing Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. Didn't go to the theatre when I was offered a free ticket from somewhere, instead, took pains to read the fat novel first to double the pleasure. Then I finally shoved my way through a packed cinema in extreme heat, alone, after buying a ticket from a huge queue - and all i ended up getting was the worst filmic experience of my life, coupled with insect bites all over my feet (nah, not those multiplexes..I went to a normal desi cinema hall). While both Nair and Bhansali failed to capture the original essence of the respective books they filmed, Nair still did a commendable job in catching an overall feel of society of that time. The art direction was excellent, and visual experience great. I give her 9 out of 10 on that count. However, the least said about Devdas, the better. Was Bengali society like how Bhansali showed? Heck, no. The dude got confused a bit, and he North-Indianised Bengali society. The overal value of his production was no better than those dime a dozen bad attempts at opulent saas-bahu soap operas, set in mahals and all.

Besides catching up on Devdas-the-book before going to watch Devdas the movie, I'd repeated this drill many times on other books and films as well, and more often than not, got disappointed by the lack of condensation between the two.

I'd like to mention here, whilst I disdainfully deigned all these bad book translations to movie, much of it sprang from partial ignorance. My views of good and bad were a bit too simplistic, without much insight or appreciation of the nuances of filmmaking and scriptwriting. Besides, my views were one-tracked - if a movie messed with the original flavour of the book, the movie was bad as far as I was concerned. Period.

It was while reading up Shyam Benegal's views the other day in an editorial that I became more congnizant of the nuances and restrictions that filmmakers face while converting books, and actually began to think somewhat objectively about the matter. In a summation, he opines that books which are deep rooted in literalism are difficult to film, and putting audio visual perceptions into metaphors and symbolisms is tough. Film tools and fiction tools being different, its difficult to coalesce a sense of uniformity into the two. E.g, potboilers, and other fiction with a high content of descriptive events are easier to film. Hence we have so many John Grisham, Robert Ludlum and Charles Dickens movies, while a Marquez, Rushdie or Joyce book, which feature intellectual debate, internal struggles, metaphors, consciousness and ephiphanies would be extremly difficult to put on screen. I'd just disagree with him on one point - he finds Death of Venice a brilliant adaptation of the book, while I don't personally, and this I am saying using his own logic and insight.

One great movie adaptation over the top of my head from what I consider to be a difficult book to film is Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. The loosely related choppy pieces of timeline are distracting in the movie, fragments halt at one point and picks up somewhere else - in another era, due to which the flow of association gets somewhat disturbed, but they all come together at the end, interwoven with the bombing of Dresden event as a central recurrent theme. The movie evokes the same thoughts and black humour the book does, and anyone who has read the book and chuckled, would surely love the movie too.

But all said and done, a bad movie is a bad movie - it would still peeve me. While Slaughterhouse Five was great, Vonnegut's other book that was filmed, Breakfast of Champions was a complete disaster. And I couldn't have been more bored than when I was watching Battlefield Earth, the sci-fi novel by the founder of Scientology (forgetting his name).

I'll conclude with a book translation that is flashing in my mind most strongly at the moment. To kill a Mocking Bird. Gregory Peck's performance as Atticus Finch continues to haunt me for putting flesh and bone to a very remarkable character. His character, other complex semi-protagonists, the main themes - hatred, innocence, innocence lost and compassion, each needed to come out through the childish perceptions of a little girl. Easier said than done from a cinematic angle, but done seamlessly here. The filmmakers presented the essence of the book through the eyes of the child more eloquently than the writer Harper lee had done himself with words and metaphors. Needless to mention since you must have guessed already, this is one of my favourite movies of all times! :)

ps: most of the above examples were those that
randomly came to my head at that particular point
of writing. Not necessarily my best and worst lists.

I'm recycling one of my favourite email forwards

Email forwards are inherently bad, a social menace - spammers make silly forwards and asks you to forward them, and as you keep forwarding, your email ids get embedded in them - and one day, when that chain mail falls in the hands of a spammer, he gets hold of all the email ids embedded in it. Then, he sells it to cheesy sellers who try to sell a plethora of cheesy products by spamming all these emails with the hope that 10-15 of the thousands spammed will buy them. I never forward the stuff I get, since I would only end up doing a disservice to myself and my email box if I did. I know gmail and all is 1 GB and things are not as bad as the old days of 2 MB hotmail where spams would mean you'd miss your important email, but still, I dont want to be spammed, so I dont forward forwards.

However, I'll make an exception with this forward. I'll forward it to everyone I know. I'll also post it here. When I read this, it absolutely made my day! :) Here goes..

Generation Gap

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 60's, 70's and early 80's probably shouldn't have survived, because our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint, which was promptly chewed and licked. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.

When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip flops and fluorescent 'spokey dokeys' on our wheels. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or airbags - riding in the passenger seat was a treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle and it tasted the same. We ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.
We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no one actually died from this.

We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us and no one minded.

We did not have Play stations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, and no Internet chat rooms. We had friends and we went outside and found them.

Continue!

We played elastics and street rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt. We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones but there were no lawsuits. We had full on fistfights but no prosecution followed from other parents. We played knock-and-run and were actually afraid of the owners catching us.

We walked to friend's homes. We also, believe it or not, WALKED to school; we didn't rely on mummy or daddy to drive us to school, which was just round the corner.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls. We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law.
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

And you're one of them. Congratulations!

Pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow as real kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.

For those of you who aren't old enough thought you might like to read about us.

This my friends, is surprisingly frightening...and yet it might put a smile on your face:

The majority of students in universities today were born in 1983 ...they are called youth.

They have never heard of We are the World, We are the children, and the Uptown Girl they know is by Westlife not Billy Joel.

They have never heard of Rick Astley, Bananarama, Nena or Belinda Carlisle.

For them, there has always been only one Germany and one Vietnam.
AIDS has existed since they were born. CD's have existed since they were born. And Michael Jackson has always been white.

To them John Travolta has always been round in shape and they can't imagine how this fat guy could be a god of dance.

They believe that Charlie's Angels and Mission Impossible are Films from last year.

They can never imagine life before computers.

They'll never have pretended to be the A Team, RedHand Gang or the Famous Five.

They can't believe a black and white television ever existed and don't even know how to switch on a TV without a remote control.

And they will never understand how we could leave the house without a mobile phone.

Now let's check if we're getting old...

1. You understand what was written above and you smile.
2. You need to sleep more, usually until the afternoon, after a night out.
3. Your friends are getting married/already married.
4. You are always surprised to see small children playing comfortably with computers.
5. When you see teenagers with mobile phones, you shake your head.
6. You meet your friends from time to time, talking about the good old days, repeating again all the fun you have experienced together.
7. Having read this mail, you are thinking of forwarding it to some other friends because you think they will like it too...
Yes, you're getting older and still rocking away to the 80's music!

So the Matrix hero turned Harry Potter reviewer and made it to a Newspaper column.

Neo's Harry Potter Review post from this blog has made it to a newspaper, thanks to my paindoo journalist fraaind Mehmal.

<- yeah, this is pinched from BDs blog.

FAO Neo.

Neo Anderson,

When I told you to let it all go, I meant let go of your Fear, Doubt, and Disbelief. I didn't mean that you should let go of your own self and presence from Zion (ie, this blog). I mean, I know you *are* here, but not often enough. Ya' know, I get stiff backs once in a while, and those blasted Agents are getting peskier by the day. I can't hold fort by myself all the time. Only yesterday I was lurking around at a coffee shop, and an Agent stole my coffee cup from right under my nose and ran away. I watched helplessly, coughed, pretended nothing had happened and coolly ordered for another coffee (I had money for only one). What's worse, as I was trying to tiptoe out of the shop and flee the yet-to-be-paid cafe owner, the dude chased me down on his mule, and roped my waist - cowboy ishtyle. All this, in bhare bazaar. How insulting! Imagine, there was a time when I could dodge bullets! And look at me today. I'm losing my edge! Sigh!

On a more important note, Zion stands defenceless to the whims of the Machines at the moment. The other day, an Agent pinched 2 human kids and whisked off right from our backyard. These kids shall be moved to the Energy Harvester, and their (kids) brains be sucked out to power their (machines') darned batteries. Anti Child labour campaigners here at Zion are stepping up pressure on the senile Councillor Harmaan to own moral responsibility of the incident and step down, while the Oracle is of the opinion that some more kids will be pinched soon. Since the resistance is too conked at the moment to beef up its ranks, I was hoping that we could delay Oracle's prophesy by an alternate technique - by giving Zion a cosmetic makeoever. We'll completely renovate the way Zion looks. Machines, being dumb as they are, will fool themselves to think that this different looking place is some other city, Lyon or something, and pass us. Of course, this is a temporary arrangement, and them machines will surely get back to Zion to pinch some more kids sooner or later. See if you like this or this as prospective get-ups. Or tell me, do we even need a cosmetic makeover? Can we manage without it?

Secondly, get your ass back to work here at Zion. I dunno whats keeping you away - has the obsession with chasing a wild cat given way to chasing Trinitys? Or have you gone back to your Dream World and job as a programmer? Or has your mind has got trapped in that dreadful computer netherworld, the Train Station*? Wake up Neo! Zion was hoping that you would come back to chowkidaari asap, and especially start that new section about your reviews of links - links that you constantly dig out from the web and forward as emails (Besides of course performing your other usual duty of long posts). A few links once in a while are necessary, they also make Zion a safer place - trespassers, bots, Agents and other machines would inadvertantly put foot on these links, and these booby traps would fling them away from the Zion to another website, webserver or whatever.

And lastly, fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony. I'm having to send you this missive through a machine - a computer! And I'll have to flash it right on the enemy's mouthpiece - blogger dot com! But this is only one way to save our city. Neo. Yes, You. Wake up! The Real world awaits your service!

While I go and get a shower. The bloody mule licked me when the coffee shop owner had me all tied up.

Your friend,

Morphy.


*Train station is a strange construct stuck between the Matrix, the machine mainframe, and the real world. It's a way station used to ferry programs between The Matrix and the machine mainframes. Effectively, he's stuck in limbo (source: some website). In the 'Matrix Revolutions', Neo's mind gets stuck in the Train Station. Morpheus believes that saving Neo's trapped mind from the Train Station is the only way to safe Zion.

George Best 22 May 1946 – 25 November 2005

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

Had Charles Dickens been around in the 1960s, he would have definitely rephrased that opening line from his French Revolution tale.

Berlin Wall, Kennedy, Vietnam, Napalm, M.L.King, Beatles, Dylan, Woodstock, Surrealism, Rock and Roll, Sophia Loren, Pele, Audio Cassette. A decade of turbulence, shifting identities and alliances, which took the human thought to unchartered frontiers, and even the Moon. An era of unrest and uproar - an era of love, hate and hash.

And in the midst all these exciting turmoil and shifts, a flawed genius dribbled his way to be one of the best footballers the world has ever seen. A true icon of all times, and especially of the swinging sixties.

George Best.

The fifth Beatle, the Magician at the Theatre of Dreams. Although he never could play at the world cups because he was from Northern Ireland, he stole every possible heart due to his mesmerising and glamorous stint at Manchester United. Pele reportedly saw him at the 1968 Euro final against Eusebio's Benfica and called him the greatest footballer he had ever seen.

George Best lived a life of a famous star, with chicks, cars and champagne. He made as much news from outside the field, as he made on it. His riotous lifestyle eventually gave way to bankruptcy, countless near death encounters, and a very painful liver transplant. But once a star, always a star. He never amended, and after a long fight, his health and life gave up on him yesterday.

He will live on in our memories as the most joyous of players. George Best zindabad.

My Inner European'

Your Inner European is French!

Smart and sophisticated. You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so. Who's Your Inner European?

I'm tagging this Quiz to BD, Aloka, Ayesha, Divya and Oook. It's fairly simple to take - just 6 questions. I would have liked to tag a few more people (including my pardner Neo), but I'd also like to spare myself the ignominy of snooty refusals.

If you are reading this page, and want to be tagged, here's an open invitation - feel free to go ahead and tag yourself from here. Like every other tag, you'll have to link this page with a 'I've been tagged by Morpheus' on your page. (and your tagees would have to link you, and so on)

Let the Tournament begin

I went ahead to watch the Friday Night show of "The Goblet of Fire". Expected it to be a visual treat of sorts. And it had some truly stunning moments. The mood was ominously dark in the beginning and the end. The slithering snake coming out of a stack of skulls - a grotesque image - in the very first scene has rightfully earned the movie a PG-13. Even the usually chiming "Harry Potter Theme" with cymbals and treble et al, has been transformed to a more haunting note. The graveyard/Riddle house opening sequence is on the lines of popular thriller flicks/shows like Jurassic Park or X-Files. The house-keeper gets a Avada Kedavra and we snap to Quidditch World Cup.

Next 15 minutes move really fast, sometimes jerkily and discordant. For that brief period, I was having a sinking feeling that the rest of the movie would be a fiasco. But, the director and editor have spared the 100 minutes to follow. We have a rushed sequence of going to Quidditch World Cup grounds, a view of the stadium and appearance of Death Eaters. This part is really weak; it hardly captures the lurking danger emphasized by the appearance of the Dark Mark.

Surprise. The plot takes a divergence from movie here. The role of Winky, the house-elf, has been purged off. And with that, the irritating-yet-useful, Dobby meets the same fate. Perhaps, we can be critical. But the volume of the book could not have been fixed in the movie otherwise.

Without much of an announcement (and somewhat ruefully in the spirit of teenage flicks), we are introduced to the French girls and Hungarian boys, Fleur and Krum. Mad-Eye makes an appearance simultaneously. Its a short sequence, probably done to justify the TriWizard Tournament. The challenges, as expected, have provided the directot to showcase some wonderful SFX. In his zeal to capitalize on the same, the dragon sequence has been overdone. No doubt it has been well-picturized, but we could have done more with "the Dark Side" of things than witnessing a reluctant Harry doing all the oomphs and aahs.

Rita skeeter serves as the perfunctory to-be-hated-comedian. The role has been well executed, but again, it takes up valuable minutes of screen time.

Ron's jealousy, Hermoine's anguish, Harry's drooling for Cho - all the twists which identify the leading characters' adolescence - have been dealt with reasonable justice. They also serve the comic platter (even Hagrid accosting Madam Maxime). Moaning Martyle gets more than her share of "peek-a-boo" at an all-wet-and-naked Harry. I wonder how did this scene get Rowling's approval and how do parents react to such explicit display.

The Yule Ball is a beautiful scene. If for nothing, at least for -
1) A stunningly beautiful Hermoine
2) Subcontinental influence in British society (Parvati and Padma Patil).

The underwater sequence with Merpeople is probably a better fare than the dragon fight. A message of sportsmanship is brought out when Harry receives extra points for a show of strength of character. Here again, the Gillyweed is supplied by Mad Eye himself rather than Dobby stealing it from Snape's cupboard.

There are two give-away scenes here and quite blatant too. Mad-eye providing the Gillyweed and then Mad-Eye confronting Barty Couch with a peculiar mannerism of tongue movement give away the suspense (if-any). I guess the director hasn't bothered much on that, especially as the story would be know to all the Potter fans.

The film goes back to the dark mood from the time the Maze challenge begins. Its all misty and grey; perhaps cold too (I was watching this at 0000hrs and the theatre's ACs were on song). Finally, the Portkey leads to the most awaited sequence. The Dark Lord rises.

Am I disappointed by the scene? In retrospect, I think not. But, my immediate reaction was, "It is happening too fast" (much to the contrary of the mood of my companion's "Sahi hai" take on that). Yet, Ralph Fiennes has delivered a powerful performance. Wormtail has appeared little too brave, Lucios Malfoy would have deserved a better charade (perhaps Darth Vader would have done that properly). What I missed - Voldemort should have had red eyes. What I liked - bald head, the serpent nostrils and the flowing black robes.

The film has two disappointing aspects - both in the same breadth. They are the character portrayal of Dumbledore and Voldemort. 2 powerful characters, they deserved a better appearance. They have way too much body movement, much more verbose than they should be, much less threatening than they actually are. Dumbledore is part of some unrequired humour (Filch firing cannons before the countdown and Madam Maxime dancing with Dumbledore). He appears so much shaken and unnecessarily grumpy to hear Harry's name come out of Goblet. Even the voices are so tawny. Voldemort gets dealt with same grace; the saving part is that he doesn't get any humour played on him.

My ratings for the movie - 3.0 out of 5.0. Had it been for a stronger and composed Dumbledore, some scenes could have done better.

Its a 3 hour affair. But, not long or tiring for ardent Potter fans. Let the magic continue.

P.S. : Where can I get Voldy's robes. Neo, Vader, Voldy... all get cool black get-ups!!!

scowls and howls

In college, we were clearly divided as far as the vote for the scariest Ogre was concerned. Martin Keown was the undisputed winner almost always, and Stefan Effenberg a creditable second, often in nail biting finishes. Roy Keane used to muster a few sporadic votes from here and there, mostly from the Manchester United coterie, but after his bust up with Effenberg where one scowl from the formidable Teutonic Goth almost made the Irishman pee in his pants, they dared not vote for Keane again.

Life as a minority in any form of social setup is most often than not, extremely tough - there are some things that you simply can't do freely without getting criticised, exorcised, berated, labelled a traitor, sometimes hanged, or as in this case - getting ridiculed and mocked at. Hence minority people often end up suppressing their true voice and reluctantly succumb to the whims of the majority, and pretend that everythings fine, rather than pressing for a crusade. Same thing with the poor Manchester supporters. Being in the minority, life itself was difficult, and hence, these chaps didn't want to complicate their lives any further by voting for Keane the Sissy as the scariest ogre and subjecting themselves as sitting ducks to the sarcasm of us nasty majority, who absolutely hated Man.U. (and still do). I mean, they had to survive college, and if you have ever been in college you'll know how difficult life can become once you get labelled something that is totally uncool. So these chaps not only succumbed to social pressure and voted for other ogres like Keown or Effenberg against their natural wish, but additionally had to pretend that they were doing that willingly. If someone was a fresher in college cum Man. U. supporter, then he also had to go through the additional embarassment of having to announce loudly in some public place or social hall or toilet room that Keane was a Sissy.

My votes went to neither Effenberg nor Keown. They were reserved for Paolo Montero, the scraggy pahelwan from Turin. Being a Juve player, Paolo Montero was outside the petty Man Utd - anti Man Utd. skirmish spectrum, and although a few eyebrows were raised initially, and some of the girls even found him handsome, people eventually adjusted themselves to this choice I had made, without making an issue out of it or fishing for an opportunity to pull my leg. Imho, Paolo Montero looked non-ogreish when he used to walk out to the pitch, but moments before the whistle, his expressions used to change totally. From then on, he looked positively doped, coupled with a bloodthirsty face that used to transform to hideous scowls each time the ball was on his feet, or an opponent forward was nearby. He was pretty useful too - won many Serie A medals with Juve, and had World Cup caps for Uruguay. He should have won some more World Cup caps, but the other day, the Aussies pipped them for the final berth, which means that Uruguay and all its fine players - Recoba, Forlan and especially the doped ogre Montero won't be seen in Germany. Montero is quite old, so he'll definitely not play in the next edition either.

I'm not optimistic about the ogre scene of the future, and I really worry about what the college kids must be discussing today. I mean, I definitely hope that they don't discuss who's the biggest metrosexual out there after David Beckham. Not that I blame them entirely - the tradition of ogres is badly on the fall from the hey days of the 90s - Valderrama, Effenberg, Tony Adams, Martin Keown, Paolo Motero, Stig Tofting, Oliver Kahn etc etc. These guys set high standards - they were not only great players, but one frown from them could send shudders down many a feeble heart. With the likes of Wayne Rooney as probable flag bearers, the future indeed is VERY bleak.


Note - the phrase 'Scary Ogre' is not to be confused with 'ugly' at all.

Note 2 - this is unrelated, since Christian Karembeu isn't exactly an ogre, nor a fine player - but he's an extremely lucky guy because his wife is the ravishing Adriana Sklenarikova. Lucky bastid, you!