Quoting Shakespeare

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek to me'', you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger; if your wish is farther to the thought; if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool's paradise -why, be that as it may, the more fool you , for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then - to give the devil his due - if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then - by Jove! O Lord! Tut tut! For goodness' sake! What the dickens! But me no buts! - it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.

ERADICATING CORRUPTION

Well, here we are then. A new year and everyone foolishly pretending that in some cosmic fashion, the torch has been passed from the cruel fates of the past to the benign fates of the future and that by some curious chemistry, the fact that it is now 2017 things will change.
The new year has nothing to do with change. There is absolutely nothing to indicate that the calendar leap has any bearing on what tomorrow brings. It never has.
Corruption did not die last night and nor did black money do a Houdini and disappear. The problem that resonated in the words of the prime minister on Saturday was the inability in most of us to appreciate and acknowledge that simply scrapping currency notes is not the be all and end all of the cleansing.
Until the bureaucracy, the political firmament and the keepers of the law are recognised as the worst offenders of the deceit that has bathed us these 70 years, not even ten Modis can win the war. Even the private sector is not exempt.
Our political system is so skewered that the very idea of having politicians who are not venal and vain and loaded to the gills with ill-gotten gains is absurd. It goes with the territory. Plundering the exchequer after winning an election or being bought over for a price is integral to this game.
Our bureaucrats are largely corrupt and irrespective of their cadres making money on the sly is par for the course. Every damn gazetted officer's signature on every damn piece of paper is written with counterfeit ink. Every damn document in India's endless paper chase and her choke by red tape makes it nigh impossible to ever reach that point where we shall be freed of this bondage.
Lawyers, doctors, cops, bankers, Customs, media, railways, you name it, each one has its own blueprint for making money and if anyone stands up to them, he is quickly warned or led into a trap and removed from the chessboard.
We pay capitation fees to get our children into school. Even copybooks and uniforms are forcefed to students courtesy conspiracies between principals and manufacturers. No major purchase is made without kickback. State borders reek with the stench of daylight theft. Coolies (is that still politically correct?) can get us seats on a train. The prowling Bittu at the courthouse can guide us on to the fast track for a price. Bribe the plumber, the electrician, give the 'bakshish' or stand in line and hope they will serve you. One can give a thousand examples but how do you break down a mindset that sees nothing wrong in the 'give and take' option?
Even the armed forces have divorced themselves from Caesar's wife and are now no longer above reproach. At this very moment, a four star officer is on bail for possible skullduggery. This was once unthinkable.
Which political entity do you know who hasn't made millions after coming into power, settled his family, got the indolent and lazy relations into jobs, usurped land and exploited the system, used nepotism and influence to carve through justice?
Let's talk about the poor, too. Modi extols the virtue of poverty as if poverty and probity were twins. They are not. They are part of the murky package. The office boy runs the office, your government peon is a powerhouse in himself. The typist at the courthouse, the millions of Mr Fix Its, the hoodlums for hire, the terrorising by gangs functioning from 'addas' where police are afraid to go, the police sub inspector, the tehsildar, the Sarpanch, the Khap brigade, all of whom run fiefdoms, how will they ever change?
The cop at the airport who cheats the innocent traveler, the secretary to the VIP, the legions of underlings swinging surrogate authority like a machete, the hangers on, the lickspittles, the line of middlemen who form the chain to the 'open drawer' and the lack of receipt, the 'topping' of the cream for every transaction between citizen and government, even paying for an appointment, this is where the roots lie, Sir, in the day-to-day dealings where your land can be resold 'officially' under a patwa and the devil take the hind leg, where squatters can lay siege on your home, where builders can add on 'extras' and you can do nothing, where the lowest bidder is manipulated and quality flung to the winds, when the banking system is your enemy not your friend, where you take away so much that the only way out is to take in an equal amount and more.
If we keep dancing around the issues and we do not want to discuss exactly how easy it is to make us crawl to get our work done, surrender our esteem to obtain that affidavit, to have our innocence exploited, to be beaten into submission because we don't understand the codicils, the profound declamations count for nothing.
I sometimes wonder if Modi had a professional death wish in opening this Pandora's box. In doing so, he did not see the two scorpions on the floor. The complexities of our love for bumf and paperwork on the one hand and how it feeds corruption at every step because the counter clerk is king and don't you forget it.
India's babus will be the most difficult fortress for the Modi Juggernaut to breach.
And the other scorpion. The sanctity given to the 'chai pani' concept in the nation at every level, that is where it started from. To ask for that extra is a right, a 'hakk' and so deeply ingrained in us that it has led us all to accept corruption as intrinsic to the lubrication of the survival machine.
Together, these two scorpions will begin a pincer movement unless the flanks of this war are widened and widened swiftly. And they will go for the wheel of the Modi chariot. Like a swarm of locusts, there are so any of them…of us.
Truly, we have only just begun…it is going to be a long and bloody campaign.

Whisky Trivia - Interesting !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

🔺The world's most expensive bottle of Scotch whisky is Isabella’s Islay ($6.2 million).

🔺The oldest Scotch whisky on the market is the Aisla T’Orten 107 years old, distilled in 1906. It costs $ 1.43 million

🔺Glenfiddich is the world's best-selling single malt

🔺Johnnie Walker Red Label is the world's best-selling Scotch

🔺The Famous Grouse is the best-selling whisky in Scotland

🔺Glenmorangie is the best-selling single malt in Scotland.

🔺The world's fastest growing Scotch today is Black Dog. India is a major contributor to its sales.

🔺The five most popular single malts globally are Glenfiddich, The Glenlivet, Glenmorangie Original, Aberlour and Laphroaig

🔺Bruichladdich’s The Octomore is the most heavily peated whisky in the world (167ppm)

🔺The three oldest single malts currently sold are Glenturret, Oban and Glenlivet

🔺The oldest distillery in Scotland is Glenturret (1775), followed by Bowmore (1779)

🔺With each bottle of Laphroaig that you buy, you are entitled to a lifetime lease of one sq foot of the distillery’s land, along with a personalized certificate of ownership


🔺Cadenhead’s Whisky Shop on Canongate, has a unique selling point: customers can have a bottle poured straight from a cask and labeled with their name. When sealed it has a label with the ‘born on date’, as whisky stops aging as soon as it leaves the wooden barrel, so each bottle is a unique blend.

🔺The highest price paid at an auction for a bottle of Scotch was $631,850 for a 6-liter The Macallan “M” single malt, in a decanter by Lalique. (The highest price paid at an auction for a standard sized Scotch was $460,000 for a 64-year-old Macallan malt whisky)

🔺Edradour is the smallest distillery in Scotland. The entire operation is run by just three people.

🔺The Glenmorangie distillery is one of the smallest in the Highlands and employs just sixteen craftsmen, called ‘The Sixteen Men of Tain’

🔺The most expensive country in which to buy Scotch, ironically, is the UK, where it is made.

🔺In the UK, its home country, the five most popular blended Scotch whiskies are The Famous Grouse, William Grant’s, Bell’s, Teacher’s and J&B Rare. Note: Johnnie Walker does not feature in the list of best-selling blends in its home country.

🔺A closed bottle of Scotch can be kept for 100 years and still be good to drink. After opening, a bottle of Scotch whisky will remain good for five years.

🔺The Australian Wine Research Institute has introduced a measure called a standard drink. In Australia, a standard drink contains 10 g (12.67 ml) of alcohol, the amount that an average adult male can metabolize in one hour.

🔺Although their proof differs, standard drinks of beer, wine and spirits contain the same amount of alcohol – 0.6 ounces each. They’re all the same to a breathalyzer.

🔺18,000 litres of Scotch whisky worth over $800,000 were accidentally flushed down the drain at Chivas Brothers’ Dumbarton bottling plant in 2013.

🔺Experts advise you to drink single malt with just a dash of water. The water supposedly ‘releases the serpent’ from the whisky.

🔺If there is a serpent, there is also an angel. As it ages, 2-2.5 % of the whisky maturing in a barrel is lost to evaporation every year. Distillers refer to this as the ‘angel’s share’.

🔺There is also a devil. The whisky absorbed by the wood of barrel during maturation is known as the 'devil's cut’.

🔺Some sources claim that the Irish whiskey distillers brought the Irish custom of triple distillation with them to Scotland. Auchentoshan was probably started by Irish settlers, led by the MacBeathas, starting this custom. The source of the name Auchentoshan is Gaelic. It means 'corner of the field'.

🔺The United States and Ireland spell it as 'whiskey'. A simple way to remember the spelling: if it comes from a country without an ‘e’ in its spelling, then it is spelt 'whisky'. (e.g., Scotland, Canada, Japan, India, etc.)

🔺Indian 'whisky' is technically flavoured rum, because it's essentially made from sugar !!!!!!!!!!