When I met Bala Saheb Thackeray...

The year was 2011 and I had just come back from watching the movie X-Men:First Class with my friends. I was told to reach Kalanagar directly and my parents would pick up from there and we'd go and meet Bala Saheb Thackeray. I lived in blissful oblivion and even though I had  deep interest in politics, I never bothered to look up how great this man was.

We finally entered the hallowed gates of Mathoshree and were greeted by a string of bodyguards,waiting to frisk us.I thought to myself, Oh yes! I am going to meet Bala Saheb and I am carrying guns with me. The minute my mother saw him she broke into tears and a cry of joy emerged. This cry was very similar to that done by Jaya Bachchan when she sees Shah Rukh in Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham. So I went and touched his feet while Uddhav Sir stood took pictures of us together; a good photographer that he is.So Bala Saheb asked me where I was coming from. I told him about the movie and I was thoroughly amazed to know that he had already watched the movie. We discussed about the movie and he told me that I need to do a lot of self pondering to realize what I am meant to do in life and how this movie can be taken up as a case study to understand how human minds work. He told me that he loved Wolverine and the movie was definitely as the name suggests, 'First Class'.

Tea was served and we sat down discussing politics and I told him about my inclination of getting into politics and someday heading the country.We decided to test ourselves and undertake a test to see if what we were doing was really what we were meant to do. We drew up a model which we fondly called,

'The X-Men Self Realization Model’. He drew the sketches of the different characters in the movie while I made a list of things.I agree it wasn't one of the most earnest and intelligent discourse. But Bala Saheb was really fun to talk to and he was very engaging. Very cogent, Trust me!

Given below is the model and I'd like to ask everyone to pick up 2 characters from the one's given below. The results are posted below the picture of Bala Saheb Thackeray- Shiv Sena Supremo.

• Charles Xavier: The telepathic leader and founder of the X-Men.
• Erik Lensherr / Magneto:A mutant capable of manipulating and generating electromagnetic fields.
• Sebastian Shaw:He has the power of absorbing and redirecting kinetic and radiated energy.
• Mystique:A shape-shifting mutant and Charles Xavier's childhood friend.
• Beast:A scientist who is transformed into a frightening-looking mutant in an attempt to cure himself, but is kind at heart.
• Sean Cassidy / Banshee:A mutant capable of ultrasonic screaming,
• Gambit: Gambit possesses the ability to mentally create, control and manipulate pure kinetic energy to his every whim and desire.
• Wolverine: Do I need to describe him?

RESULTS:

1. Charles Xavier: Highly intelligent but reserved.You define a person who is in no need to show how smart he is. Simply brilliant with your work and very humble.
2. Eric Lehnser/Magneto: Raw and the need to control, dominating and very vengeful. Highly commanding and needs people to adhere to his demands.
3. Sebastian Shaw: Arrogance is a characteristic of your personality. You know you have everything but the fact that you can control something makes you wonder you can control everything.If you come down a bit at the level of general mass it would do real good to you.
4. Mystique:Feel the need to keep changing yourself?Not happy with how you are? May be that's why you chose this character.Also, a constant hunger for change is a dominant characteristic of this person.
5. Beast:A people's person and loved by most.You too have the urge to be powerful yet you're very happy with your inner self. You're that person who values one's inner self more than what you see outside.
6. Banshee: Very very creative. Chooses to go by the path nobody would want to go. Not crazy about power but wants to stand out in the crowd.Unique!
7. Gambit:Here comes the stylish one.Who is very conscious about one's appearance. Not a valedictorian, perhaps love for stardom. Women are definitely mad about you! 
8. Wolverine:Hurt and brooding looks.You stand for the raw sensuality that most women look out for.If a woman has chosen this character then you're that person who's just fancied by the way he carries himself.Its not the need for power that dominates your personality but the want for good to triumph over evil.

So I asked Bala Saheb which one he had chosen and I was indeed bewildered by his choice of characters. Bala Saheb chose Banshee and Magneto! Surprised aren't you? Now I was completely sure and our claims that this model is effective were validated by Bala Saheb's choice.

What you saw on the stage was exactly what Bala Saheb was in real life. His characteristic speeches, which were intelligently peppered with substance and laced with wit and sarcasm bordering on vulgarity which finds no parallel in the political spectrum, mesmerized the youth. Just when I was about to ask him to say a few lines from his favorite speech, I was rudely awaken by my mother. Her morning quarrel with Manisha (Our maid) awoke me from my deep slumber.And the dream of sitting next to Bala Saheb was shattered. Today being 18th of November, Bala Saheb being no more...

Respect to the man whose one call would awaken lacs of people in Maharashtra and ring bells all the way up to Delhi.
An Enigma I shall never forget!

Don't know which speech of his to listen? Just check out his oratory skills in this video.Bala Saheb Thackeray Speech

PS: The X-Men Self-Realization model still stands true as I have already experimented in on at least 30 people with about 90% accuracy.
You're free to criticize and I request everyone to please CRITICIZE my writings by leaving an ANONYMOUS comment below this article. ANONYMOUS if you're intimidated by me.

The Female Story on Facebook!

I have always wondered why women get more ‘likes’ on Facebook as compared to men? Although I have been on Facebook for about 5 years now, I tend to underestimate the power of it and initially was really skeptical about the whole idea. I never thought Facebook would last beyond 4 years and I was pretty convinced that it would eventually follow the same suit as Orkut.

And here we are, almost 8 years after the launch of this mastermind platform called ‘Facebook’, glued to it day in and day out. Now, there are cell phones with special click button especially for Facebook but not a special click button to the Helpline. Funny, isn't it? How one piece of technology and innovation can alter our lives!

However, all’s not well for the people on Facebook. There are the ‘Social Butterflies’ with over 5,000 friends but can hardly remember the names of 100. Facebook has been able to gather crowd from various age groups. The minimum age required to join Facebook is 13. Even so, there are children below the age 12 who are hooked on to Facebook to play the free ‘cool’ games and bombard everyone on their lists with game requests. We also have our Old Folk who are utterly captivated by the beauty of Facebook and are going gaga about it. The fact that the oldies can connect to their long-lost friends (Of course those who are still alive.) is very fascinating to them. Women tend to put up pictures to appease their friends and fish for compliments. Young girls often mistake Facebook for a personal diary and pour out their puberty-fuelled emotions. Boys, on the other hand, try to display their Macho side even if does not exist.

Gone are the days when you'd have to actually call up people to ask where they were and what they were doing. Just recently, I had this friend from college who messaged his mother saying he was busy with class and the very next moment his mother liked his Facebook post which declared, 'XXX Is at IMAX with Sexy Lady (Name Undisclosed).'

So how much do we believe what we see on Facebook?

We (Chinmay & Ria) decided to conduct a quick experiment. Both of us put up the exact same status on our respective Facebook pages and gave it some time to check out how many people will actually our status.
Our main aim was to prove that women generally evoke more response on Facebook than men.

The status:

'Success is like a fart.

It only bothers people when it's not their own.'

Our findings suggested the following:

•  Ria Shenoy ended up with 21 more likes than Chinmay Shenoy
•  Nobody commented on Chinmay's status but there was 1 comment on Ria's.

Now, this is something we got from the results but according to the predictions or the actual ratio what should have been the real output? 

•  Chinmay has 1950 friends on Facebook whereas Ria has 1069  thus  Chinmay has almost 82% more friends than Ria.
• If Chinmay got 14 likes then the according to the prediction, Ria should have gotten 8 likes (7.69  to be precise) and nothing more.
• Furthermore, Ria ended up getting 35 likes and that is 27 likes more than what was predicted being almost 438% higher!

This is a two part series and all our findings along with the conclusion will be highlighted in the next post.
The second part will include:
a) How differently people react to serious as well as a stupid status updates.
b) The kind of people who like our status.

Why did I think about this? In case you didn't know already, there are some geniuses out there who like their own status! I found a Facebook group which gives the perfect explanation for this ridiculous behaviour, "Liking your own status is like Hi5ing yourself in public"