Some of the banners held in protest/support of haneef included..

 ”Reckless with a SIM? Arrest Shane Warne?”,

 ”Howard: 600,000 Iraqis killed, Haneef: One SIM card lent”

 ”I’ve lend my SIM card, arrest me too”.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/this-is-not-a-bad-spy-novel-151-its-real-life/2007/07/21/1184560109204.html

The reasons being he was related to 2 people, suspected in UK terrorist attacks. He left a SIM card for their perusal.

In the wake of crumbling evidence against him, it would be foolish to assume Haneef is innocent. We will have to wait and watch whether the government can provide further evidence, which they could have kept confidential so far. No problems with that.

But what is sad and highly worrying the way the Oz government handled things is the way it smashed the basic tenet a legal system is bound to follow. “Presumption of innocence until proved guilty”

The public prosecutor has “presumed guilt until proved innocent”.

The implications it has for me personally.. If I book one-way flight tickets for my marriage, jus because there is a very good flight deal on that particular date, and If I had chatted with yahoo a few days before with a buddy while exchanging a couple of photos about sydney’s AMP tower or harbour bridge,  the Australian federal police can arrest me on a hitch or an itch (or a suspicion), they could keep me under arrest without a charge jus asking me questions, they could smear my photographs across on all newspapers, rendering permanent damage to my character profile all across the world, detain me, cancel my visa and then when there is no evidence or substantial evidence, they could simply deport me and wash their hands clean. So much for australia’s anti-terror laws.

And if I take australian citizenship as I am planning to, there is no deportation in question. So I could be f**ked.  Done and dusted and smeared for life!

PS: Haneef is not innocent quite yet. Lets wait and watch how australia plays this out.

It has been 6 months and what a long 6 months it has been. It has been a work tinged and romance touched journey and I would be failing in my duties if I dont provide you some spicy details about the latest love of my life.

She is sleek, sexy & romantic. And fair. Gorgeously fair. I end up speaking to her for nearly 1 hour everyday, she never tires of me. She enjoys my touch so much I have to gently prod her each time I need her to do something. We share the bed and I have changed so much, I dont wake up in the morning unless I hear her ‘sweet voice’

Shez  the all new Dopod D810 (Bah…. men are always men ), a fantastic PDA phone I bought recently.

Now for all the IPhone fans.. dopod is a company unheard of.  But this phone is the best phone I have had so far and trust me, this will go a long way. I have not been a great deal brand conscious and by all accounts, I could be justified.

Its a PDA phone on very similar lines to the O2 atom or Jagsam. It has got a nice touch screen interface and stylus running windows mobile 5.  It has got all the PDA stuff like the word, excel, power point etc and stuff like calendar and hand written notes which are cool. No QWERTY keyboard to add bulkiness, it has got a virtual keyboard. Hotmail, Outlook email and exchange server to connect to. Being a windows OS, I can install custom applications like skype and yahoo. I can connect to my home wireless router and browse via Internet explorer. It has got Windows media player through which I can create playlists and library. GPRS (HSPDA which is high speed GPRS), WLAN yada yada.

All OK. Its supposed to have all that.

But the thing I fell in love with that.. and I have been head on heels since then is the GPS! Fucking Awesome.. the beauty comes with an inbuilt GPS chip and GPS reciever (the morons at 3 dont give you a GPS enabled ROM for reasons I couldnot fathom, but its not that easy to crack, have been in a windows world.. cracking should be easy). So I could download maps on the Internet for free (yes.. cracked version again) and roam around australia (or anywhere in the world.. but india excluded) and have a map in hand. I travelled to Sydney recently and I didnot have to struggle to find places. The phone was great when it said ‘turn left in 200 metres’. it was jus awesome.

Now the good part where it really scores over its competitor, the Nokia N95.. battery life. Awesome battery. With GPS.. it easily lasts a day, gets upto a day and a half. No GPS.. nearly 3 days of light usage and 2.5 days of moderate to heavy usage. (1 hour of talk time everyday and 5 SMSes)

I have been head on heels so much so the other love of my life is getting furious.. he he. Will upload pics very soon. Pics of the dopod I mean.

A raikkonen win this weekend would be sweeeeeeeeeeeet , might make me blog again.

They nudged out Steve waugh when he was still good enough to make a typically gritty match saving 80 in his last test innings.

Now Damien Martyn has been forced to go. Mind you, Damien Martyn is not a bad player.  Very very elegant and one of the few batsman who could play on bouncier and spinning wickets. The chief architect of the 2004 India series win and has made consistent runs recently.

Make no mistake, if Glenn Mcgrath’s consistency drops rapidly and he doesnot go himself, Australian selectors will make him to.

Which brings me to the point..

I cant remember when Virender Sehwag last made worthwhile runs. I do remember he  is good at making comments to the press as a senior statesman. Previously he used to win India a few matches. But now, I will be happy if he can make atleast the same number of runs as the hair he has left on his head. 

It hurts to say. but Sachin tendulkar has been a walking passenger as well. He made that 141* on comeback, but he has this knack of making his comebacks special and then his consistency drops. Too many single digit scores, 20′s and 30′s and being a bunny for bowlers. All the argument about ‘ya ya u always say this abt tendulkar’ is stupid. A genius like him is expected to win India atleast once in 5 or 6 matches.  Jus watch Ponting and Lara.  Why cant he give his injury ravaged some rest by playing only 1 form of cricket?

The issue is some players feel indiI dispensable, feel too secure and refuse to work on their weaknesses.  If that is the case, a shakeup cannot be bad. And for those who argue against shakeups, the present team is performing so badly and so without confidence you would rather watch a new youngster fail as part of his learning curve than watch sehwag make the same mistake 20 times (Wafting at the swinging ball with his feet fevicolled to the crease)

And this argument from the Indian selectors about lack of backup talent available as the reason for persisting with people who fail repeatedly lacks substance. Indian domestic cricket and standard and pitches and quality has always been this way in the past. Yet we have always had some world class individuals like Gavaskar, Viswanath, Kapil, Tendulkar himself and Dravid.  So there is nothing wrong in trying youngsters like Badrinath or Ambati Rayudu.

Afterall, India’s best team of Sehwag, Sachin went to SA and got thrashed 4 matches out of 4. Can these youngsters do any worse?

Before trying to change the pitches at the domestic level, we have to change the mindsets. Even if you are the best player in the world, if you dont perform, you go! That is why Australia wins consistently. No sentiments, jus thinking on your head.

Since returning from India, I havenot had a chance at enough sleep. They put me on the early shift starting at 6 which means I should get up around 4. The disorderly bachelor that I am, I go to bed around 11 and not any earlier no matter how hard I try. Which leaves  me with 5 hours everyday for the last 2 weeks. And to complicate matters, I lost the weekend as well

Talking abt the weekend, I had been on a fully paid trip along with a few of my office colleagues (abt 500 of them, thats all) to a resort in queensland. The place was called Coolum and the resort no less than the hyatt regency, my first such foray into a 5 star place. It was real nice. Queensland is sunny for starters and is very pleasent at this time of the year. So the story was about beaches, sun, dinners, drinking, playing in the pool and even a bit of golf. The company paid for my flights to and fro, all the food and the stay. Worth around a 1000 bucks each person. Not bad eh. And did I mention the chicks! The company has got some serious talent man.. especially in summer outfits!

I am into some serious reading and I get the feeling I am getting addicted. And for once I am happy with my addiction. The good thing with reading compared to physical activities is it tranports the mind. And at the moment, thats my tool to beat my homesickness. ‘To kill a mocking bird’ was a good read. A 65 out of 100. The message at the end that ‘everybody is beautiful once you get to see them for real’ was NICE. real true. The person whom you despise may be that because of the way you are to him than what he is to you.

I am presently reading ‘The partner’. John Grisham for the first time. And its pretty pacy!

It was getting dark and the place was too congested. So much so even breathing was a problem. Thick smoke all around. I asked my friend about how people survived daily here. This was common place it seems. Finally I saw my baby and boy she was so fair I would have to call her colour snow white. I immediately waved a hasty good bye to my friend promising him I will take it from here on. And as soon as he disappeared, I got into the ‘act’ if I could call it that.

She was smoking. I knew they smoked but never knew they did this badly. Not my problem anyway as long as I got my ‘job’ done. I started riding her slowly. But perhaps overeager, I switched gears and started riding her very fast. She was moaning. Even faster and she started to groan. She sure needs a working over.

The journey was not smooth. Everytime I made it rapid, there was a groan. Perhaps it could have done with a bit of lubrication. Next time.. there is always a next time.

Right in the middle of the fun, my cell phone started to holler. Holy cow, what a sacrilege. Isnt there a better time for this idiot to call? Not wanting to lose my concentration, I switched my phone off, threw it onto a chair and got back to business.

And concentrate I did. Boy I had known this to be physical. But I never knew this was mental too. No air conditioner or even fan and I was sweating profusely simply making the right moves and the right maneavoures. Deft nudges around deft curves. I have heard that the foreign curves and bumps are smoother. Advanced technology I hear. For the present moment, I have to make do with what I have.

There was a number of start-stop-start phases which was actually a bit irritating. It would be fun with 1 single go without any stops. But that is unreality. Finally after 3 hours which was much much longer than anybody would anticipate, I was home and dry. Or rather wet.

(my first car journey in chennai from nungambakkam to porur took all of 3 hours because of rains in chennai, would you believe?)

A definitely recommended read.. 500 pages of fast paced fiction from Erich Segal, worth all of the 50 bucks I spent buying it on the mount road platform stall

Story revolves around inter-religious issues and of a love between a young christian gentile boy and a beautiful jewish girl, with her brother forming the troika around which the entire book revolves. Besides giving the reader an insight into the Jewish and Christian customs and the mindset of conservatists in these religions, the book strolls at a very fast pace and was never boring on a consistent basis. The book also deals with the controversial topic of ‘lustful feelings for those in the path of God’ if I could use those words.

I would have to rate this book as one of the best I read..

Doctors:

Doctors fell jus short of Acts of faith in my satisfaction stakes. But nonetheless brilliant. I have read 3 books by Erich Segal. This, acts of faith and a love story. Each one has made compelling reading..

A monster worth 650 pages length, it gives you tremendous insight into the world of medicine. Also involving a romantic interlude between Barney Livingstone and Laura castellano, the 2 lead protogonists, both brilliant and attractive, both wanting to be doctors right from the time they were neighbors and tinytots, both considering each other to be jus best friends for a long time with sexual feelings at a mutual exclusivity, going through numberous affairs that failed to click, finally realising in their late 30′s that they were indeed perhaps made for each other and finally facing the reality of death for their own kid through the negligence of one of their clan, a fellow doctor.. phew..

The last 150 pages simply unputdownable.  If ever you want to know about the world of doctors without wanting to study for medicine, this book is a good beginning point. For those that have tremendous faith in their doctors, this book can freak you out. It talks about how doctors can be fatigued, careless and even negligent working 36 hour shifts, how a lot of guesswork & conjecture is involved in diagnosis, and how doctors can cover up deaths due to their own carelessness and manipulate the pathology report (death report) to escape blame.

But the book is special for 2 more reasons. 1.. it deals with racism. How a brilliant surgeon Bennett Landsmann gets treated roughly and even when he tried to save the life of a man in the hotel, he got beaten up by the police because he was black. Beaten so badly that he couldnot perform his craft and his lifetime dream, surgery, ever again.

2.. the question of euthanasia. Whether Lazarus Seth was right or wrong in administering the death-knell injection to patients who are suffering gruesomely horrible and painful deseases and whose suffering are so much they themselves requested their doctors to kill them and put them out of their misery.

I personally feel Euthanasia is allright if the victim and their family are okay with it. But then I could be in for strong censure from conservationists. Whether we have the right to play God?