Elysium to Dust...

The Bollywoodization of Cricket: A Business Proposal

2010-05-01T09:00:00.004-04:00

Unless you had your eyes welded shut, ears stuffed with molten iron and your Twitter and Facebook logins disabled, you would most certainly have noticed that IPL 3 dominated the news and most of your time spent awake. And if you are even the most average Indian fan, you would have followed the tournament through its month-and-a-half duration absorbing all that it threw back at you - the annoying TV anchors, Lalit Modi's omnipresence, Yuvraj's paunch (not to be confused with the MRF blimp), Shilpa Shetty's husband (not to be confused with anonymous cheerleaders), the Tharoor twist, and perhaps from time to time the activity that went on in the background all along -- the cricket.
I do not (or, more accurately, cannot) belittle the tournament. IPL is what it is: The glorious congregation of game and glamour. Perhaps the primary reason why the IPL has flourished is that it has brought together India's two evergreen favourites: Cricket and Bollywood. That allows Anil Kumble to dine with Katrina Kaif, L Sivaramakrishnan to pose for photographs with Preity Zinta and Harbhajan Singh to (literally) sweep Nita Ambani off her feet.
My lament, if I should have one, is that even after three editions of the IPL, Bollywood continues to play a disassociative role. The glitz continues to be restricted to owning teams, appearing in post-match parties and Navjot Singh Sidhu's so-flashy-it-turns-people-blind outfits in pre-match shows. Bollywood missed a wonderful chance by not bidding for one of the new teams planned for IPL 4. It's also a foolproof business plan - why invest insane amounts of money in other teams with underperforming cricketers, inconsistent coaches and Ajit Agarkar when you can have your own folk playing on your own team?

So, dear Bollywood, it is high time you set up your very own IPL franchise. And I present to you the following tips to go about this tedious task.
Finance to set up franchise: Now there should be no dearth of money in this industry. Clearly, the calls from Dubai aren't from old friends wanting to catch up, correct?
Franchise Name: Needs to be catchy yet self-defining. How about Juhu Juggernauts? Or Film City Fundamentalists? What? I'm serious.
On-Field Eleven: A team entering the IPL arena with such high expectations deserves to carry nothing but the very best of the lot. However, I propose the following starting XI:
1. Harman Baweja - Because the direction in which the acting career is headed, a change of careers is definitely recommended. (Applicable work ex: Victory)
2. Aamir Khan - Played the role of a dashing, inspirational batsman in one of the greatest cricket movies ever made in India, directed by an unchallenged legend. You guessed it right. Dev Anand's Awwal Number. Aamir also played cricket in some movie called Lagaan.
3. Ashutosh Gowariker - Played a pivotal role for his cricket team in the movie Chamatkar and later directed Lagaan. Ironic that he should figure in a T20 XI considering most of his movies are as long as Test matches.
4. Naseeruddin Shah - Played the role of a match-tampering ghost called Marco in Chamatkar followed by that of a washed-out bowler called Mohit in Iqbal. Included in this team because -- think about it -- how many old people do you know who are named Mohit?
5. Rani Mukherjee - Same reason as Harman Baweja. Applicable work ex: Dil Bole Hadippa
6. John Abraham - Has not appeared in a cricket movie (at least, one of note) yet but managed to convince a total of zero persons with his role of a soccer player in Dhana Dhan Goal. Also, he is included because someone from the team has to look good in the ads endorsing jerseys, toothpaste, lightbulbs etc.
7. Mandira Bedi - Included in the team for the sole reason that this prevents her from appearing in cricket shows before, during and after cricket matches, thus reducing the occurrences of brain haemorrhage amongst Indian cricket viewers drastically.
8. Aditya Lakhia (aka Kachra from Lagaan) - An awe-inspiring leg-spinner from 19th century India, his claim to fame is the crucial 10th wicket unbeaten partnership with Aamir Khan in Lagaan. Also, it's fun to shout "Kachra, gola phek" on a cricket field.
9. S Sreesanth - Not an actor you say? Like the typical Bollywood 'hero', he can dance (ref. the Andre Nel incident), cry (ref. the Harbhajan slap incident), express anger (ref. pretty much every match he plays) and act kind-hearted and charitable (have you seen his bowling stats?!)
10. Shreyas Talpade - What? You thought Sreesanth was going to be the dependable pace bowler in the team? (Applicable work ex: Iqbal)
11. Mithun Chakraborty - Because Mithun can do ANYthing. Rather, EVERYthing. Period.

Bollywood should also nominate their members to the Elite Umpires panel. My two choices:
- Amrish Puri: Known for his excellent super-accurate umpiring skills, made well-known by the movie quote "Uparwala (Third Umpire) wrong ho sakta hai magar Dong kabhi wrong nahi hota!"
- Dog who umpired in Hum Aapke Hain Koun: Well, he was being typecast as an annoying dog in too many movies and wanted a change of profession. That's all.

So that's that. Let us all agree that this is a fantastic lineup and an awesome business proposition too. So if you are connected with Bollywood in some way and would like to take this idea further, let me end with these five profound words - I accept payments in cash.

Weekday Rant

2010-02-17T12:00:00.000-05:00

It is important for me to state in a public medium that i am not fond of Mondays. Not only do they ruin the weekend reverie but they effectively obliterate the potential pleasures i may have otherwise drawn from Tuesdays. In fact, I despise Mondays so much, i am writing this on a Wednesday. You may not appreciate the essence of that profound statement right away, but that is not the point. The point is -- Mondays are miserable.
I have much to talk about though not as much to put in writing. But i am not much of a talker. But then, i am not much of a writer either.
I babble now.
See, this is what day-before-yesterday (Monday) has done to my Wednesday.
Let me focus my hate to next Monday now.

Doh! It's 2010 already

2010-01-10T22:45:00.007-05:00

Note: Did this for a newsletter thingy at work. Parts of it may be too geeky for non-IT folks. But the last line goes out to each and everyone of you who visit this page diligently to have this blog clock in an average rate of 2.5 hits per day. Yay for 2010! Here we go...

The following is not Breaking News: We are into the new year - 2010. We like to celebrate New Year - to most, it signals the start of something new and fresh; a chance to erase the old and ring in the new.

What we actually love to hate (or hate to love) most about new years are resolutions. We make them, we break them, we fake them. To each his own.What is interesting is the nature in which our resolutions for the new year adapt themselves to the calendar as the months roll by. By Dec-31 of the year, the resolution has miraculously morphed itself into something that bears no resemblance to its Jan-01 form. And that too only if it has survived to see Dec-31 - in most instances, the resolution is lucky to even see days beyond summer. Here are some common resolutions you may hear / have heard / may (not) hear few months down the line in the office corridors.

The Health Freak
In Jan: I am going to work out, lose weight and stay fit this year.
In May: I will stop donating 1/6th of my monthly salary to the gym by actually going this month onwards.
In Aug: Salad for lunch every Tuesday from this month.
In Dec: I am going to work out, lose weight and stay fit next year. Promise.

The Techie Geek
In Jan: I will master a new technology this year.
In May: New technology later, let me learn the current one and knock off a technical certification to show off on my resume
In Aug: Let me just target contributions to one online tech forum discussion based on my project learnings.
In Dec: Forget it yaar, I still need to make sense of what I worked on last year.

The Managerial Aspirant
In Jan: By the end of the year, I will be PMP certified and will be leading two large, happy teams
In May: Will book a 2011 date for PMP. Must hold on to one team of any size till end of year.
In Aug: Must learn to use the terms "leverage", "bandwidth" and "core competency" in at least three sentences daily.
In Dec: (changes topic when reminded of resolution)

The Over-ambitious Everything-er
In Jan: This year, I am going to quit smoking, eat non-veg only on weekends, appear for and ace CAT & GMAT, blah-blah .. .blah-blah…
In May: Yeah, yeah! Plan still on. Have not smoked in three hours, was force-fed beef by friends at party last night and tomorrow I am joining coaching classes for ...
In Aug: Er, yes. Sure. (mumble, mumble, grumble and groan) Lets talk tomorrow.
In Dec: (reminder about resolution elicits barrage of expletives)

The Avid Reader
In Jan: Three books a month in 2010. No fewer than three.
In May: I think I'll start with Dan Brown.
In Aug: Arre, this Chetan Bhagat writes ekdam fantastic books, yaar. So thought-provoking.
In Dec: Forget books, man. I've seen Three Idiots four times and I'm following Chetan Bhagat on Twitter also.

Like it or hate it, each one of us will find ourselves slotting into one of the four categories above this year. No? Then you are certain to slot into the last category – The Naysayers Public statement: “Bah, I do not believe in making New Year resolutions”. Real-world translation: “I’d rather sit back, relax and have myself a ‘happy’ new year. World be damned”.

Like I said before, to each his own. Happy New Year, all!

Style Rant

2009-10-16T05:56:00.000-04:00

Let me tell you this. This past week has been oddly cold and rainy for October. Promptly, jackets were off their hangers, sweaters were unfolded from their half-yearly hibernation. For it was cold this week. Cold enough for me to pose around in my myriad jackets and sweaters like a er.. poser. Tuesday was especially fun in the pose-y sort of way when the sun threatened to peek through the clouds. Two rays which managed to get past the cloud barrier gave me enough reason to pounce on my sunglasses. So finally, the morning found me driving to work wearing jacket AND sunglasses and the quintessential accessory to go with that combination -- the scowl.

You know the scowl. No? It's that stone-stiff expression that is set on a guy's face the moment the frames of his sunglasses come into contact with his face. Picture this - Before sunglasses: goofy, crooked smirk ; After sunglasses: starched, straight face with zero expression. Yes, that's it. Do not try denying it. Every guy has worn that scowl everytime he has worn sunglasses. It makes you feel like that unshaven, mean-looking hunk with sunglasses in the stylish ads in a Cosmopolitan. Made me too. Only i had shaved just that morning (even cut myself just below the jaw), flicked an ant softly from my jacket without killing it and try as i might, i would have struggled to make it to an ad for Babubhai Suitings & Shirtings in the latest issue of Borivali Today. Much like most other guys.

My point here (you didn't think there actually was some point behind this rambling now, did you?) being - style is blinding. Primarily, your style blinds you. e.g. the dark sunglasses dim reality around you and you slowly turn oblivious to the noise that is the rest of the world, especially the cacophony that is the pointed laughter of your colleagues. In some cases, your style can even blind others. Ask Bappi Lahiri. Or eternal friend of the Little Master and wannabe politician, Vinod Kam-bling who is rumoured to have blinded two people attending his rally during his campaign for the recently concluded Assembly elections by simply flashing his gold chain(s?) and earring(s?).

So men, here's some advice for you. Leave the jacket-flashing and sunglasses-brandishing to me. Don't let me catch you walking around with your shirt-collars turned up. Lets not try getting that oily long-ish hair from your face with a flick of the head. And by any means, do not, and i repeat DO NOT get me started on the pout.

The Return

2009-09-27T13:45:00.003-04:00

Entries, much akin to exits, must be short, quick and effective.
So here I am.
Again.

Notes on matrimony and other grown-up matters

2009-03-08T05:26:00.002-04:00

Last week, for a few moments, i found myself in a state of restricted motion and unable to react with anything more than a few incomprehensible syllables. And this, when there was not a hint of alcohol anywhere around or in me. The incident that caused me to enter such a state of immobility was the sight of an old friend staring away at me from a photograph with a tired yet glowing smile on her face and a slightly more conspicuous live infant in her cradled hands. Now, said friend is one i have known since she wore school uniforms, so the sight of her in a maternity gown had roughly the same effect on me as a well-aimed wooden club at the back of the head. And did i mention the baby in her arms? Thud!

Of course, once the stun-ray effect had worn off, i was all smiles and warm with good wishes for the newly-mommied friend, the sweet little baby and the new pa, who in another pic had that look of slight belief which seems to suggest, "Did I do that now?" - so perhaps a few extra wishes for the hubby-slash-daddy. What also occurred to me is how suddenly i seem to know an ever-increasing number of people who have just been married, or are in the last few laps leading to matrimony, and of course this friend already bearing offspring and what not. A college friend i am very fond of got herself bound in matrimony last month and at least two more good friends and a small army of cousins, close and distant, are scheduled to walk the proverbial aisle before 2009 sets. The only aisles i've been walking - and will be walking for some time to come - are those on buses (there was that one occasion when i got to walk the aisle of an airplane last year but the mind-numbing in-flight 'entertainment' ensured that that was no experience to store in memory).

The age at i am is one where the elders in a regular Indian family start assuming that it is their duty and service to society to hitch every human young and single and rid society of the evil that is the unmarried youth above the ripe age of say, 28. The first wave arrives in the form of the generation two levels over - the grandparents, the great-uncles and -aunts and of course the Seniors' Special - the unidentified, crotchety relative, generally found in family weddings, who pinches your father's cheeks, then yours, comments on how much weight your mother has put on, launches herself into a serious discussion on how it is vital for today's kids to realize the importance of an early marriage set up by the family elders and proceeds to rattle of names of families in the community who house eligible single members of the sex opposite to yours. The second wave, the mom-dad generation, joins forces with the first soon - more orthodox the family, the sooner the amalgamation of forces.

Thankfully, my family seems more relaxed in these matters. Either that or they are resigned to the fact that this son of theirs is what is not so kindly known as a lost cause and they should focus instead on rearing the younger son for matrimonial bliss. Not that i am opposed to marriage, really. Or am i? Weddings are fun, come to think of it – free food, lots of it, happy people everywhere. But then i pass this judgment based on the weddings i have been to, none of which were mine. It’s the parts after which seem to be what i am averse to. To be specific, i am referring to the parts from the next morning onwards, lest you comment harshly on my sanity. But maybe the daily dribble of marriage won’t be too tough either, will it? At least it did not seem so when i played house with my neighbour at age 7.

Eureka! I know exactly what i need to do. That’s what’s going to get everyone happy – me, the family elders, the guy who sells crockery articles which are gifted to newlyweds and which end up lying unused for the first 16 years of marriage when the couple decides to pass on the same unopened gift to another unsuspecting marrying twosome in an act of typical middle-class thriftiness. You know what i’m thinking about. Yes, that’s absolutely correct. I need to find myself someone to play house with.

From "Midnight's Children"

2009-02-13T16:27:00.000-05:00

Most of what matters in your life takes place in your absence.

Now what else to do but agree?

Odd

2009-01-25T04:51:00.002-05:00

*******

It’s an odd feeling (in the head, to be precise) to be holding another man’s hand by a busy Pune roadside on a Sunday afternoon. That’s what occurred to the man whose right hand was grasping another’s left. At least a minute passed before they could venture on their expedition to get to the other side of the road weaving through oddly heavy traffic in a city otherwise known for its afternoon inactivity. The man with the occupied right hand, the odd feeling in a twenty-five-year-old head and the black shades shielding his eyes from the January sun was the younger of the two. The older man wore a watch with a tattered strap on his clasped left hand, hints of wrinkles above his brow, signs of grey in his sparse hair and black eyeglasses with frames thicker than those on his new, younger companion. The youngster made small conversation as they approached the other side. But he didn’t let the turmoil in his head show. Nary a word about the dirty politics at his workplace or his statuses as a failed son, misconceived friend. Not about his educational ambitions or the ambiguities of his professional dreams. Not a word about his quarter-life crisis. All through the few minutes they were together, the young man noticed that his older fellow traveler never lost the smile on his face. The older man clearly seemed relatively less affluent and afflicted by a handicap graver than something as abstract as ‘quarter-life’ crisis, yet a serenity seemed to have rested permanently on his otherwise blank face. And contagious it was too. By the time the duo got to the other side, the younger mind was calmer than it had been a minute or two ago. Hands unjoined. Ways began to part. The young man bid his roadcrosssingpartner goodbye, felt another odd feeling – this time of much-needed calm - and carried on along the same road, adjusting his sunglasses and staring at the sun for a moment or two. The older man smiled in no particular direction, mumbled a silent blessing, adjusted his own dark glasses and then slowly turned right, accompanied by another companion – his white-cane-with-red-tip.

*******

It’s an odd feeling – she thinks it’s coincidence. How is it possible that each and every time her phone rings, flashing his name, she catches herself thinking about him ?! Perhaps she knows the answer but she wants to avoid it for as long as she can. What she does not probably realize is that there is no coincidence in this at all. How can there be – she keeps thinking of him all the livelong day. He could call an hour or two (or even more) earlier or later and she could still find herself with the same thoughts in that twenty-five year-old head of hers. What, however, she does not know (and is actually coincidental) is that at the other end, he goes through the same odd feeling too. What she also does not know: he too calls it ‘coincidence’.

*******

Twenty five. Quarter life crisis. It’s an odd feeling indeed.

Weekend of Audacity

2008-12-24T13:03:00.002-05:00

Last week, there was that Day of Outrageousness.
This week, there will be that Weekend of Audacity. Six hours from now, i hope to be driving into that audaciously planned trip that has got me excited more than atomic activity (yes, i have misplaced my humour somewhere in all that excitement, but care i shall not).
Off i go.
P.S. with nothing else to post, this post serves the purpose of avoiding 2008 from being the year of fewest posts on this blog. Cheap thrills! Woohoo!!

Change is Here!

2008-11-15T14:06:00.002-05:00

Unless you've been stranded in a desert with your head up a camel's ... er, mouth, you would have known by now that Barack Obama is now officially president-elect of the US of A. Which means the evergreen McCain can now go back to telling his grandkids (or anybody else's for that matter) stories of how he survived the Vietcong after being taken prisoner.. oh wait, he's done that a million times already! And he's told (and retold) this story to anyone who'll listen... and to those who didn't really care too much either. Anyway, the young, fit Obama has ended up defeating the not-as-young, don't-know-how-fit McCain and will be going to the White House... um, he went ahead and did that already. Just to rub it in, he got Bush to give him the tour too. The conversations could have gone on the following lines:

George W: To the left is the master bedroom.
Barack O: (runs gleefully and pounces on the bed) Left side's mine.
Michelle O: (dismayed but holds her composure in an attempt to get into first-lady mode) OK. But only if we get an all-male intern team.
Barack O: Georgie boy, where's my welcome drink? But first, how dare you step into my bedroom without my permission! And are these undies with the Flintstones print yours?
Onlooking prissy British butler: (to himself) Egad! As if it wasn't bad enough that I had to serve these fools who were our slaves 330 years ago, now I have to wait on a black guy??!! Lord, how the tables have turned. Egad!!

Meanwhile, back home, our beloved Sardar, the Singh who was made King, had been sitting by the telephone with the eagerness of a pimply teenager, plucking petals off a rose, going "He'll call me, he'll call me not". Finally, the dark knight (politically incorrect yet mirthful euphemism, no?) puts in that call and this is how it probably goes:

The Man, The Mohan: (twirling telephone wire while blushing) Hi, Barack.
Barack O: (in deep baritone) Hey there. How you doin’?
The Man, The Mohan: (more blushing) I’m over the moon now that you’ve called. Much like Chandrayaan.
Barack O: You know we are natural partners, right?
The Man, The Mohan: (slightly irked) You know, that teenager comment a few lines ago might have given you the wrong impression. I might appear to be calm and unassuming, but you seem to be calmly assuming a little too much here.
Barack O: No, no, my friend, you are mistaken. I was referring to a partnership of the strategic kind. See, I know the streets of your country are rife with beggars. And all I have been shouting about for the last year or so is Change. Beggars and change. Yin and yang. You see?
The Man, The Mohan: Sigh. Not only is that offensive to my country, but it is also a testament to your poor sense of humour. That is why I had told George Bush that the people of India love him. He is so much more funnier than you are, he has entertained people so well over the last eight years with his antics.

All said and done, the one person I feel sorry for at the end of the election campaign is Sarah Palin. But Sarah need not worry. Here’s three pieces of information that may (or may not, i never know) help keep herself focused for 2012:

Her passport will be six years old. And that is not a cause for worry since she is not from Singapore.
Continental drift will help her get a better look at Russia.
Joe Six-pack will have matured (read, expanded) to Joseph Eight-pack (Six pe do free free free). Hockey Mom will be concerned about her Hockey Son not bringing home an Unwed-Teen Mom. Who better for Hockey-Mom to seek advice from than Sarah “I’ve-been-there-daughter's-done-that” Palin herself.

That’s it. That’s about as political as i can get.

Hell-o, I'm Home Again

2008-11-01T04:02:00.016-04:00

Being back in the homeland has its perks. What's more fun is getting a chance to say all those things that you hated other phoren-returns saying before: "It's really hot here in India!" or "tsk tsk, all these potholes!" or "Wow, is that Himesh Reshamiya in that movie?". But i'm not that pretentious, really - i haven't found India too hot, the roads in Pune are actually better than they were a year ago and the lesser i (or anyone else, for that matter) speak about Himesh, the better. So, all-in-all, coming back home has been rosy and charming that way. Of course, the odd incident must occur to remind one that life, like everything else, is not perfect. Said incident is one involving TJ, me, a phone and a call-centre.
Objective: To obtain incoming calls on a cellphone with a connection from Coimbatore, which is on roaming in Pune and is able to make only outgoing calls for some reason.
Location: Mumbai-Pune expressway
Resources: A cell-phone, toll-free(?) number for Chennai call-centre
The Protagonists: TJ and i (the Allied forces) and a lot (a LOT) of hope.
The Antagonists: Call-centre operatives for the telecom operator in question - henceforth known as the Phone Nazis or Phonazi for short.
The Story -
TJ: Let us call the helpdesk to get this issue (ref. Objective) resolved.
(Number is dialed. Hope brims, unaware of what is to follow)
Helpdesk IVRS: (Endless introduction on facilities like "automatic activation of roaming" and "wonderful nationwide coverage". The irony of it all!)
TJ: Damn, let me call from another phone.
The helpdesk is slightly merciful this time and we manage to bypass the IVRS intro this time
Phonazi 1: (Welcome message in Tamil)
TJ: Sorry, I do not understand your language. Can you speak in English please?
Phonazi 1: (In chaste English, albeit with strong Tam accent) Hello, how may I help you?
TJ: (explains Objective)
Phonazi 1: (Attempts to understand. Fails. Offers own explanation which turns out to be in no relation to the actual problem)
TJ: (Patiently explains Objective)
(10 minutes later...)
TJ: (Still explaining Objective. Patience strained)
Phonazi 1: (appearing to have suddenly cracked the code) Sir, we will have this resolved in an hour. You will be able to receive incoming calls then.

(An hour later, of course, the Objective remains unfulfilled. We call again.. and again... and again...)
(This time, i, the US-return out to set the world right, dare to venture)
Helpdesk IVRS: (Same long introduction)
me: (Unparliamentary language with unpleasant references to the telecom operator's near and dear ones)
(Disconnect. Redial. It's ringing... Bheja already fried)
Phonazi 2: Hello! (Puts the 'Hell' in Hello to good effect)
me: Hi! This is about a problem we had an hour ago and ... (explains Objective)
Phonazi 2: (Long monologue in Tamil)
me: Sorry, i don't understand Tamil. Can we converse in English please?
Phonazi 2: How can I help you?
me: (explains Objective... AGAIN... for the next ten minutes!)
Phonazi 2: (suddenly, after showing no comprehension for ten minutes) OK, this will be resolved in two hours.
me: Can i call you up and check with you two hours later?
Phonazi 2: No. This will be resolved in two hours.
me: Just in case it doesn't, can you give me a tracking number of some sort to refer to this issue when i call you back?
Phonazi 2: (like a stuck LP record) No. This will be resolved in two hours.
me: But just in case, something goes wrong, how do i refer to the same issue when i call you folks back? Surely you have some tracking number or a ticket reference number of some sort which you can give me.
Phonazi 2: No. This will be resolved in two hours.
me: (exasperation nearing peak) But WHAT IF ...?
Phonazi 2: No. Two hours.
me: (white flag, white flag) OK. I shall wait two hours then (aka "You win. i fall to my knees, i grovel, but YOU.. you win")

(Two hours later, of course, the problem was as fresh as ever. In a fit of bravery, we put one more call through)
me: Hi, i'm calling for ... (what else? Objective follows)
(Phonazi 3 insists on speaking Tamil, i almost plead with her to choose English instead)
Phonazi 3: How may i help you today?
(i have my left hand on my hair, ready to yank at it out of frustration)
me: (Objective again. Sigh!)
Phonazi 3: OK
me: I called two hours ago and .. (sad story from previous call is told)
Phonazi 3: OK
me: But the incoming call service has not started yet, although two hours have long passed.
Phonazi 3: OK
me: (puzzled with the 'OK' bombardment) So can you please help put this incoming call service right?
Phonazi 3: OK
(Left fist grips bunch of hair)
me: (after short silence wherein each waited for other to speak) Umm.. so can you please do something to resolve this?
Phonazi 3: (FINALLY departing from the OKs) I will (mumble mumble) and then I will do a (more mumbling) so that (more mumbling) to you
me: (at the end of my tether) You'll do WHAT to me now??
(TJ breaks into laughter that does not end for remainder of the journey)
Phonazi 3: (after short silence) Sir, this will be resolved in two hours.
(A yank on the left hand renders a slight bald patch on my head as the phone call is disconnected. I am left too stunned to even cry out of helplessness)

Needless to say, incoming calls never got through to said cellphone all through its Pune sojourn. Now, all those people who spoke of rapid progress and development, please stand up and verify your health insurance policies - i am coming after y'all.

The Last Hours

2008-10-15T03:49:00.002-04:00

- It just took me nine minutes to go thru each voicemail, saved over the course of these almost-eleven months, before deleting. I had saved the good ones.
- Am i ready to go home? Ready for yet another change in course?

Tragedy strikes!

2008-10-07T21:15:00.002-04:00

Let me get to the point and break this news (i will not hold myself responsible if Aaj Tak beams it all day tomorrow). The sad piece of news goes thus: This blog will not shut down after all - at least, not in the present or near future.

There, i've said it. Hopefully, you've taken this news well and the melodrama has now subsided. I shall now ~~needlessly burden you with~~ proceed to provide a detailed explanation on the hows and whys of the blog-shutdown fiasco that has ensued in the past few months.

All was well on this page when ~~the realization of lack of lingual skills to write~~ writer's block hit. Need for abandoning this space was identified. Then came a brainwave of starting afresh. This ruse involved leaving the nice folks at Blogger in the lurch and defecting to the seemingly-greener pastures of Wordpress. Thus arose the clandestine Operation Defection (please attribute poor unimaginative nomenclature to crippling writer's-block-itis) and with it what i thought was my next haven - a new blog. Eventually, laziness reigned supreme and i only got this far with the new project. After some considerable thought, favouring laziness over tedious blog-decorating activity, i decided to sit back at Blogger and come up with a new makeover for the old blog instead. After some more thought (because thinking is easier than performing blog-decorating activity), laziness won another battle and this idea was abandoned as easily as babies are abandoned at the beginning of Manmohan Desai movies.

So hear i am. Still on Blogger. Still not blogging. Still eyeing that page-hit counter regularly (The only other counter that ticks slower than the page-hit counter on this blog is the one that counts Rahul Dravid's runs these days). I do plan to blog though (note emphasis on 'plan'). Just that it's been a weird year - so much to do, nothing to do.

Bleh! Excuses!

Run

2008-09-27T03:47:00.002-04:00

When the world around begins to crumble
A soft whisper: Run
But where to and to who?

News piece of the Day

2008-09-15T02:59:00.002-04:00

Alternate headline: Pot calls kettle black
Article (Rediff): here

Fighting the Evil

2008-08-01T15:13:00.008-04:00

This is a first. It's Friday afternoon and i'm in the office... blogging. Knowing my luck, the next visitor to this blog, which boasts of as many daily visitors as the number of honest politicians in India, will be my manager. Anyway, i will still thrill myself with the fact that this is a first.
However, this is also one of the last. Posts on this blog, that is. I can officially confirm that this blog is soon to reach the annals of extinction. I know this must come as some level of deep emotional discomfort to ALL my readers - yes, all three of you (or perhaps, it's two - maybe i'm the third - d'oh!).

I shall take the liberty of assuming that you care a damn and want to know why i am shutting the blog down. I shall also take the liberty of sidestepping that question since i do not have the right answer for you now. It is difficult for me to explain. It's not like i haven't tried to. Many a time have i logged on to Blogger in the hope to write down a goodbye post with the right answer to why i am leaving. But it is always circumstances that keep me from successfully doing so. First, the internet beckons and tempts me into straying away into that glorious world that contains among other things, online stick cricket and database upon database of Jessica Alba pictures (i prefer the ones pre-pregnancy). If i somehow survive the temptations, i am left to battle with the shrewd, sadistic laptop of mine. It co-conspires with the www to keep me away from posting. It waits to check if i have reached the New Posts page on Blogger. If i haven't strayed to a gripping Bhojpuri music video on youtube or turned my attention to a friend on gtalk already, it's time for the vile www to prove itself worthy.

First it springs on me a bunch of popups (three, minimum) of which at least one will involve enlargement of a random part of the human anatomy. Since I cannot get any larger than what I am without resembling a zorb and since the other popups mock my financial status by offering me loans and mortgages, i manage to reach the X on the right-top of the popup windows with some deft maneouvering of the mouse. Then comes the Brahmastra, the popup with a Jessica Alba pic with thumbnails of assorted pretty faces thrown in for good measure. Sheesh!

It's not like i have never survived the popup attack. The worst is what follows this little victory. That's when the laptop deduces that its colleague, the internet, has failed and it (the laptop) is now the last line of defence standing between me and that brand new blogpost. To emphasize its sadism, the laptop waits till i am about to save a draft of the post and with a battlecry of the Windows error-alert sound, suddenly reboots itself. And as i fume and curse it with references to some family members, it smirks silently, all the while rebooting diligently.

And thus, the battle ensues everyday. Endlessly. So if you are reading this post, turns out i just won a battle.

A Break is taken

2008-07-06T21:50:00.001-04:00

Not the best day in sport for me. India lost in the Asia Cup finals, Ferrari sucked at Silverstone and then Federer lost (gasp!) the Wimbledon championship (gasp! gasp!) to Nadal in the greatest epic since the Mahabharata.

I realize i haven't blogged in close to a month and a half and yet i'm feeling quite indifferent about it. So i hereby officially move the status of this blog to 'Suspended until further notice'. I think i'll limit my tryst with text to the Twitter.

Don't miss me while i'm gone. Eh, who am i kidding...

Holy Offspring

2008-05-24T14:17:00.002-04:00

First, there was God. Then He decided to go the family way, so in came the Son of God. They could have named him Jesus. But why Jesus? Why not Jimmy? Eventually, a spiritual and sophisticated 'Mahakshay' was decided upon. But when the apparently low name-retention capability of the masses and ubiquitousness of the Akshays in Bollywood was put into persepective, this was further reduced to a bisyllabic suave 'Mimoh'. Result? A star was born.

So, with much pomp and celebration arrives... <insert applause here> Mimoh Chakraborty - Son of God, riding Daddy's launch vehicle aptly named Jimmy in loyal reverence. And when the faithful subjects demand entertainment, Mimoh, fortunately, does not disappoint. Much like the original Son of God, Mimoh as Jimmy wears long tresses (and carries a mean stubble too at oddly intermittent intervals in the movie), heals (parches the dry throats of loyal movie-goers deprived of Mithun classics for a few years now), performs miracles (flies over parked cars in fight sequences) and strives for social welfare (works as car mechanic - or automobile engineer as is referred to in the movie - by day and serves the nocturnal common man as DJ by night). Mimoh, in fact, goes a step or two ahead. He pumps himself up on a two-steroid-servings-a-day diet and break-dances away to glory with inspiring music by Bappa Lahiri (son of a bejewelled almost-God himself) playing in the background - two feats that were almost surely not performed in the era of transition from BC to AD.

Another point of note about Jimmy is that it tries hard to be a good movie at times. Rather than letting Mimoh's strong-as-stonewall (where 'strong-as' is silent) acting capabilities carry the movie on its shoulders, the makers try to make it classier than it seems by incorporating random usage of the English vocabulary in the dialogues. So, the effective Hindi lines are liberally interspersed with profound angrezi words like 'bloody', 'shit' and one reference to the 'human body' and its 'limit' of bardasht. Of course, it does elevate the movie from a bourgeious status, but my grouse is that it allows Mimoh to be overshadowed in a scene or two - and that is simply not acceptable. So, even as Mimoh delivers a fine performance scene after scene, he does so in the wake of fine attempts of thunder-stealing by two members of a supremely talented support cast - Srivallabh Vyas (Major Baig from Sarfarosh and Ishwar, the wise old villager in Lagaan, if you must recall) and Zulfi Syed (whose only claim to fame yet is that he worked out in Khar Gymkhana when I was a member there). Mr.Vyas comes into his own in a fine display of anguish and when he screams into Mr.Syed's face "You are a Rejected Person!" (followed by an echoed rendition of the same line for emphasis). A minute or two later, Mr.Syed grabs the spotlight with both hands as he bellows into Petite Heroine's face, "Do you think I'm a Rejected Man?" He follows that up with four repetitions of the same line in the exact same tone to ensure that Petite Heroine hears his question correctly. When that too does not elicit a suitable reply from the lady, he goes to the extent of modifying the sentence construction one last time for her convenience. "Do you think I'm a Rejected Person?", he roars, this time in clear reference to Mr. Vyas' aforementioned line. My personal grouse aside, I must admit, it is magical screenplay like this that couples with Mimoh's presence to elevate the movie-watching experience that is Jimmy.

Final verdict: Jimmy is a must-watch for all God-bhakts. Especially on a weekend with friends and ample alcohol to go around. Mimoh may not win National Awards like his father if he continues to act like he has in Jimmy, but he does show glimpses of what-could-follow with lines like "sir... baap kabhi marta nahi. vo hamesha apne bete mein zinda rehta hai". In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holi Spirits. Amen.

To Tee or Not to Tee

2008-05-14T02:50:00.003-04:00

In an interview on Tuesday, US President George Bush claimed that he quit playing golf in 2003 out of respect for the soldiers (the ones he has sent across) who died in the Iraq conflict. For some reason, this piece of information was found to be newsworthy. I would agree to an extent - information of this quality would most certainly befit the comics section. Picture this somewhere between the Peanuts and Mandrake the Magician strips:
Tony Blair: George, why have you placed your golf ball on that cup of capuccino?
George Bush: You Britishermen might like to tee, but we Americans prefer coffee
Tony Blair: (slaps head and topples backwards)

Coming back to the news item, I suspect there's more to Bush's quitting golf than meets the eye. Something dark and clandestine - some truth as enigmatic as the one that he has managed to survive two Presidential terms. My suspicions arise from two statements in the article:

"The US president traced his decision to the August 19, 2003 bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad..."
and
"Bush's last round of golf as president dates back to October 13, 2003, according to meticulous records kept by CBS news. "

What I perceive as the actual turn of events:
Aug 19, 2003: Bush golfs. Sucks at it. UN headquarters in Iraq is bombed.
Oct 13, 2003: Bush finally finishes the 18th hole after playing the same game for 56 days straight. Bush's scorecard reads 13,084,839,204 over par. His caddy collapses. Torn scorecard is found that evening in the garbage dump by local sweeper.
Oct 14, 2003: Caddy is laid to rest in solemn funeral. Cause of death: Severe exhaustion and over-exertion. Local sweeper is laid to rest in solemn funeral. Cause of death: Asphyxiation due to excessive laughing.
Apr 09, 2006: This blog is created. (Unrelated, but what you care?)
May 14, 2008: Interviewer asks Bush if he thinks the 'war on terror' is being fought the fair way. Bush replies intelligently that he is no longer familiar with the fairway since he quit playing golf in 2003 out of respect for dead soldiers in Iraq. I find reason to blog.

What? That could have happened.

cranial chaos

2008-04-23T03:00:00.001-04:00

what do i want?
what do YOU want?
who knows the answers?

Eh...

2008-04-13T19:31:00.002-04:00

I'm suffering from acute blogger's block. I really am. Million and one thoughts in the head - none that i'm able to transfer here. So it's either blogger's block or dyslexia. Former makes me feel like i can actually write - so blogger's block it is.

Work's caught up with me so that keeps the weekdays rolling by. Weekends have been decent although a tad too fast for me. A couple weekends ago was that wonderous road trip to Atlanta followed by an even-better trip to NY/NJ on the next especially since that meant catching up with Jojo after ages ('core junta' is after all, 'core junta'). This weekend was comparably relaxed. Saw "U Me aur Hum" this Sat. Must admit actors taking to direction have produced decent Bolly flicks. In fact, in parts U Me aur Hum impressed me more than the popular Taare Zameen Par. Unfortunately what could have been an entirely intense, mature take on Alzheimer's was offset by some mind-numbing attempt at humour and some supporting actors with acting capabilities comparable to those of a wet napkin.

While on Bollywood, must comment on Tashan which seems to be hotter than a tropical summer right now. From the few trailers that i've seen, it appears Yash Raj has been stung by the recession bug. They definitely seem to have spent all their available finances on recruiting the big starcast. That seems to have resulted in severe cost-cuttings on Kareena's attire (i've seen more clothes on the impoverished and homeless on Mumbai streets) and major savings on getting a strictly ordinary lyricist (if you've heard 'Dil Dance Maare' you'll know what i'm talking about).

I've been hooked on to the tv show 'Dexter' (NOT that cartoon) the last couple of weeks. Wiped off both seasons of the show; eagerly waiting for the next season to kick off. Cannot recall the last time i was addicted to a tv show.

Got a haircut today. *observes moment of silence for the dearly departed*. Before the haircut, I was an ugly fat guy with shabby long hair. Now, I'm just an ugly fat guy with ugly short hair. D-oh!! Anyhow, i'm still obsessed and vain about my hair... my precious...

Two years to the Day

2008-04-08T15:28:00.003-04:00

TheNeverknown: Two years. Can you believe it?
Alter-ego aka me: You sound shocked.
TheNeverknown: I've had my doubts but you've stood by me through these two years.
Alter-ego aka me: As have you. Happy Birthday.
<handshake. firm grip.>

Right ahead

2008-03-28T01:36:00.001-04:00

Some of them sped out of sight
Someone else took a sharp turn
Someone decided to fall out of line
But somehow i got left behind

Time appeared to stand deceptively still
All i saw blissfully passed me by
Eyes wide open yet miserably blind
Somehow i got left behind

i'm smiling

2008-03-20T02:12:00.001-04:00

In the dead of the night as the clock strikes a half hour past one, my little music player decides to humor me. In shuffle mode, it decides to belt out five consecutive songs just right for the moment. I am thinking of the few times this has happened to me before. I am reminded of the time Mairaj had a similar experience. Also that evening when TJ and I sat in Kiwa while the dj telepathically played the very tracks we predicted.

Even as I write this, my music player has rolled on to a sixth consecutive comforting track. Cheap thrill. Smile changes to grin now.

On top Down Under

2008-03-05T02:24:00.005-05:00

Victory. At long last. A team reeking of youth, confidence and weedy obnoxiousness (apparently) came of age on Tuesday, March 4. A team of Davids (in the absence of Dravid or Noel David, it's ok if you can't recall the latter) convincingly trounced the Goliaths on the actual battlefield after all those little offline skirmishes that involved name-calling, abuse-hurling and character-smearing. Like all war sagas, this one too had its quota of swashbuckling heroes, wide-eyed-evil-laugh-bearing villains and a few non-entities whose only role is to feature for a second wherein they clutch the arrow that enters their bodies as they fall with weird contorted facial expressions.

Ishant Sharma: The 'find' of the season, apparently. Though how, despite being taller than the trees in his neighbour's orchard, he wasn't found earlier is still a mystery to me. Constantly irritated Ricky Ponting through the latter half of the tour by flaunting his long mane in front of the balding Aussie captain.

Matthew Hayden: Tall, broad-shouldered and with a warrior-like demeanor on the field, it came to everyone as a surprise when it was revealed that Hayden dabbled in other off-field activities like ~~cooking~~ gardening. Hayden's vast knowledge in the gardening domain was out for all to see when he claimed to have discovered a rare weed of the obnoxious kind. Hushed mentions of the term "poetic justice" were heard when the weed flicked the bails off leaving the lawn mower stranded out of his crease in the final match.

Pravin Kumar: Picked up an offline fight with Ishant Sharma after he hunted on Sharma's bunny in the last two outings. After his newfound popularity, Kumar plans to enhance his nouveau-superstar status by having his own entry music * play every time he is brought into the attack in matches henceforth.

Brad Hogg: A typical specimen of aforementioned non-entities, Hogg played a pivotal role in the last match of the tour by fetching his teammates much-needed bottles of water. He plans to spend the next few weeks chasing down his nation's cricket board asking for more clarity on the details of his PPF and pension accounts.

Sachin Tendulkar: Provided the correct answer to the age-old question of "God who?" with the aid of a cricket bat and an injured groin. Also made news temporarily when he bagged an IPL contract that launched cash registers into overdrive. There are rumours abound that he may attempt to change his name to "Cha-ching!" Tendulkar.

Not to be continued...

* (Author: If you've ever lived in Mumbai and subscribed to 7star cable, you will find this link as hilarious as I have)

From "Catcher in the Rye"

2008-02-25T11:11:00.002-05:00

I read this classic a few weeks ago and by the time I got to the last page, what had dawned on me was the regret that I hadn't got around to reading this book earlier. Quite a few incidents and characterizations gave me those eerie goosebumps that I get whenever I am able to relate to the contents of a book. But JD Salinger had saved the knockout punch for the very end. The very last line of the novel (if you haven't read and got this by-heart already) goes - "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody".
And then I set the book down in a daze.

This is UNFAIR!!!

2008-02-01T22:44:00.000-05:00

First this and now THIS????
I bit the bullet and absorbed the pain of missing the former but the latter better not be true... grrr
And if this happens, I'm going to contemplate quitting my job and flying back.
I.Am.Angry.

The Last Battle

2008-01-23T17:24:00.000-05:00

About an hour to go for the Adelaide test to kick off and as ever, I'm the eternal optimist regarding India's chances going into the match. The Indians have the momentum from the stunning victory at Perth and they will, no doubt, be looking to capitalise on that to avoid losing this series which has been as wild as any of the preceding editions of the Border-Gavaskar series. That said, the Aussies are as clinical as any of those ruthless assassins we come across in spy-thriller novels and in all probability, the shock of losing in Perth will have them all the more motivated to show the Indians why they are the champs.

Both captains are holding their cards as close to their chests as they possibly can. Neither team has declared their playing eleven yet and that is a clear indication of the sky-high levels of pressure on both teams. India have dropped Jaffer from their twelve to accomodate Harbhajan and Karthik and whether the final Indian eleven will comprise five bowlers or a standard batting lineup is what remains to be seen. Either move will be a bold one, open to praise in case of a win and to criticism in case of a loss. Brett Lee will want to maintain his electric form from the season and will want to be at his fiery best to burn the opposition down. The Indian batting quartet of Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid and Laxman will be cognizant of the fact that this may be the last time they will be batting in a test match in Australia and they will want to make this a memorable affair.

All said and done, this should be one hellofamatch. Enough said. I shall allow cricket to do the rest of the talking for itself now

The how-to of Efficient Demonstrations/Protests

2008-01-21T15:12:00.000-05:00

So, now that Ganguly's been dropped from the one-day team for the triseries, you know what follows. Yeah, the same old protests and effigy-burning and slogan-chanting. Been there, done that. More like seen there, burned that. But, what strikes me the most is how efficient these demonstrators/protesters are! We saw similar reports in the news right after the Harbhajan-Symonds incident too and i chanced upon the following pic depicting these active demonstrators/protesters folk going about their news-making job.

Now, this pic is from the protests which happened somewhere in India (i wasn't geographically motivated to find exactly where) the day after the Sydney test. All we see here is just an Australian flag bearing the heat (quite literally). There were other pics of Bucknor and Ponting effigies (which were basically cloth and paper mannequins with headshots of said accused pasted on them so as to ensure that the "Hai hai" slogans shouted out during the burning are dedicated to the appropriate target) and just plain posters with the usual slogans having been printed without running a spell-check - e.g. "Bucknor, yuo rachist" and "Pointing has bad manners" (the latter could have been from a kindergarten book which originally read "pointing is bad manners" but let's not take anything away from the effort these demonstrators/protesters put in).
What really amazes me is how on earth do these guys manage to get together all this paraphernalia so quickly??!! OK, so the posters are somewhat understandable. Some guys with a creative streak write down their slogans on chart paper, save time by skipping the spell-check part, and go ahead with hoisting the posters onto pieces of wood or even a simple rod that the maid or kaamwali bai uses to hoist the damp clothes on to the clothesline. But, what takes the cake is the Australian flag in the pic here. Where did some guy in India get hold of an Aussie flag? Off the top of my mind, I can probably think it could have been flicked from an Aussie cricket fan who is an Indian only in non-cricketing affairs. Another theory, which i think is slightly more feasible is that the outsourcing bug has caught on to various facets of life and there's some third party out there that's sourcing these demonstrations/protests. Complete with logistics!
My theory goes thus. Company X specialises in sourcing demonstrations/protests for concerned parties that feel the need to rebel. The rebellious party reads the disturbing news in some newspaper or watches it on tv or hears of it from the neighbourhood paanwala. Decision-making authority from Rebellious Party decides that enough is enough, puts aside his tea and cigarette, cancels his commitments for the next two hours by asking his secretary to shift the meeting with local female models to the slot reserved for the hearing with local farmers, and goes straight to the headquarters of Company X (tagline: We have no branches). Now the visit does not take long since the hq is right next to that neighbourhood paanwala who provided the disturbing news in the first place. Decision-making Authority approaches Company X with statement of objective, requirements of demonstrations/protest, budget allocated for protest and random rules and regulations (e.g. no violence, limited violence or full-on blood and gore). Company X immediately goes into full throttle right from the word Go and two team leaders who were in the requirements-gathering meeting split into two - one goes to the logistics dept. while the other gathers the human resources. Both team leaders gather teams based on project fundings and rates offered per hour. The logistics team goes in first and comes up with the generic paraphernalia - effigies are brought over from the warehouse, chart paper is bought from the neighbourhood stationery store (run by the same aforementioned paanwala; some thriving businessman that dude), posters and headshots are printed out on the in-house printer and one guy uses the brand new plotter to print that huge Aussie flag (A-ha!! So that's how they got that flag!). Meanwhile the in-house motivational expert drives the resources bringing them up to pace with the issue at hand, simultaneously charging them up with descriptions of "those vile racist foreigners". Both teams ready themselves in quick time. And before you can say "Riot Act" they are out in the streets demonstrating/protesting away to glory.
The wonder is in the turnaround time, the efficiency. Mewonders if this business model can be applied to the software outsourcing business too. I need to don that rarely-used thinking cap on now. But before i leave, did i mention that Company X has a 81% stakeholder? It's that paanwala, of course.

Friday night

2008-01-12T02:21:00.000-05:00

It's been one wild week with the measure of instability in my life almost comparable to that of the Pakistani political scene in the last few years. Started off on a note so off-key i thought the fat lady had started singing and it would soon be all over for me. It's taken me some days to get back on the road and i'm not too sure if i'm still going the right way, but hey, what the heck. So here i roll away like a loose stone again (fat old rock would be more like it). I wonder if i'll be gathering any moss this time around though.
I've been reading blogs through the week (mostly humor to raise my spirits) and for some reason, most of the best humor bloggers are funky-bschool alumni or academic virtuosos in other disciplines. Sigh! I guess this page is never going to turn out to be an interesting read. Anyways, this blog needs a refined makeover (something like what Amrita Rao seems to have got...yowza!!) and it needs one fast. Whether or not i'm going to do something about it.... well, i'm going to let that be a suspense. (suspense music starts... shadow streaks by... door creaks... and even the last reader creeps out of here. d-oh!!)
Anyway, for a change, Friday was a busy day at the office. It's owlishly late now and i'm watching DDLJ for the (n^n)th time. About DDLJ... the last few times i've seen it, i've come to ~~realize~~ accept that there are so many things about the movie which would have made me despise it had been out now instead of 12 yrs ago. The story's corny, SRK is at his hammiest, Mandira Bedi appears fully-clothed minus the noodle-strap wardrobe and the story's corny (so damn corny i had to mention that again for emphasis). But it has some odd charm about it that still keeps me awake through it even at the ungodly hour of 2am.
Need to wake up early to report at the DMV for the driving test. Need to pass. Badly. Can't afford to do badly on any more tests this week.
On an absurd note, i've been thinking a lot about these select few people recently. On an even more absurd note, i feel the urge to divulge the unimportant information that only one of those select few people has called me this week.
I need to sleep. I'd buy some if i'd some money and if someone sold it. Maybe not. Maybe i'd just rent it.

Calls that i missed

2008-01-08T23:47:00.000-05:00

On a day that i missed out on all those calls, one particular call of the telephonic kind made a difference. For that single call, for those few precious minutes, i am deeply grateful.
Thank you.

Un-bright

2008-01-08T12:16:00.000-05:00

When i let myself down, a shame overcomes me - arising from self-betrayal and/or the guilt of having crashed the hopes my own had had on me. What is shame? Is it an emotion? Or a phenomenon, perhaps? Whatever it is, it's a sapping experience to be shamed after letting oneself down. Suddenly, the world seems too large for me to be of any significance or consequence. I need to look upwards even at those things that i once towered upon. Erstwhile equals seem to soar as high as untouchable stars. Crowds disappear. Solitude reigns. Introspection deepens. Shame blurs into regret. Silence is sought as badly as an addictive drug. Silence assumes control. The ubiquitous noise no longer exists.
Silence - the vanquisher, the king.
Solitude - the kingdom, the reign.
Shame - it's a humbling experience.

Many-a-Blunder Down Under

2008-01-07T13:46:00.001-05:00

It's chaos in Australia at the moment. Last heard, novelists were running towards the Aussie cricket board (Cric Aus) officials to gain some inspiration for their next racy, page-turners. Cric Aus officials, meanwhile, are trying to run away from anyoone who has any questions regarding the Sydney test match - inquisitive journos, irate Indian fans and even a few flared up monkeys who are objecting to the rampant abuse of their species under the pretext of racist remarks.

Two other people who are trying their best to go underground at the moment are the umpires who stood (and allegedly did nothing else right except standing) in the game - Mark Benson and Steve Bucknor. An angry Indian mob almost got their hands on Benson who was chatting away with former Aussie batsman (and namesake) - Mark Waugh. Benson slyly averted personal injury by marking an 'X' on his cheek and stating in chaste Hindi, "Mai Teja hoon, Mark idhar hai (pointing to Waugh)". The rage of the mob was evident from the treatment they meted out to poor Waugh, on whom the experience will have left an indelible mark (pun unintended). The other umpire, Steve Bucknor, was unavailable for comment as it turned out he was busy drafting a letter of retirement which he wanted to draft out before a pink slip reached him. Our sources say the only meeting Bucknor had yesterday was with his financial consultant to discuss various pension schemes. Mark Proctor, the match referee, was also questioned as to how Ponting was let off for appealing for a grassed catch, when he (Proctor) had penalised former Pakistani cricketer Rashid Latif in 2003 for a similar offence. Proctor obliged with a wonderfully compiled reply that seemed to contain only the monosyllables "umm..", "aah..", "er.." aside from a puzzling gurgling sound that seemed to have emerged from the lump in his throat. On the other hand, Ponting, when confronted with the same query in a press conference, felt affronted . He demanded that the journalist questioning his (Ponting's) integrity leave the the conference since his integrity and principles did not allow him to tarnish his reputation by answering such questions with the absolute truth. He insisted that he had not grassed the catch even as our special reporter saw him crossing his fingers behind his back as he made this statement.

Meanwhile, back in India, irate mobs expressed their rage in ways they know best. A spokesperson for the mob emphasised the efficiency of such methods of protest saying that while the subjects of their rage relaxed blissfully in the land Down Under, this was the best way to make them feel the heat. In his blind fervor, he then proceeded to burn down our reporter's notebook for no apparent reason.

In other related news, a Hollywood studio agreed to convert this story into a big-budget movie. However, the movie will receive an R rating in the light of its objectionable content - nudity (the famous Aussie cricket spirit was stripped bare), graphic violence (this writer ripped off his hair in frustration during the telecast of the match), drugs (Ponting "grass"ed a catch) and explicit sex scenes (well, Indian cricketers got screwed, didn't they?). In response, Bollywood replied that they will not plan a similar movie just yet and will instead wait till the Hollywood one releases and 'inspires' them.

Rewind Revive

2008-01-06T03:49:00.000-05:00

Feels at times like i'm back in the past. Wide awake in the dead of the night. Indifferent about what tomorrow will bring. Wary when not indifferent.
Next week ain't going to be a pleasant one from the looks of it.
Feels like i'm back in the past.
Await the resurrection

Hello 2008

2008-01-05T02:12:00.000-05:00

2008 is here. And so am i. Let me hit the year off with weird talk like the last time.
I hadn't always been a planner. Plans started materializing only during the college years as part of recovery and rediscovery of the self. Got myself into the habit of devising two plans for every major course of action.
Plan A was always the ideal. Plan B was always the fallback. (d-uh! no innovative nomenclature there). But i tried to make Plan B as less a compromise as i could make it seem to myself. Plan B had to be such that the pain of losing out on Plan A would be alleviated to some extent. Plan B had to be such that its benefits had to be comparable if not as good as those of Plan A.
In these last 3 years or so, i managed to get a few Plan As right. But i think Plan B plays too far an important role in my life. Maybe it's time to lose the safety net of Plan B and take a plunge with just the wings of Plan A to help me fly.
Maybe that could be my New Year resolution.
Happy New Year

Andaz Apna Apna

2007-12-15T22:31:00.000-05:00

... one more time
one good saturday night! woohoo!!

Wheee!

2007-12-05T12:12:00.001-05:00

It's snowing :)

That Song

2007-11-27T01:26:00.000-05:00

That song is everywhere
It's playing in the car.
It's playing in my head.
All the time. ALL the time. I'm not complaining.
When the dust settles and i'm no longer in this place, i'm gonna look back at this time and remember this song. How it's always the first track that's played when the cd is inserted despite the track being no.4 on the disc. How every time it plays, all the out-of-tune vocal chords in the car try to match the playback.
I was asked to think of someone everytime i heard this song. I hear the song; i recall the face, the smile, the good times.
That song is playing in my earphones right now.
That song will play in the car tomorrow morning.
That song will play in the car tomorrow evening.
That song will play in my head reminding me of the good times of now and what already seems like long, long ago.
That song is everywhere.

Yankee doodle went to town..

2007-11-26T12:49:00.000-05:00

So here i am... the land of 'dreams'. the land of 'greens'
Visited the Big Apple over the weekend. It's a slightly glorified version of Mumbai really. Except for the biting cold. wondered at first how a city thats next to the ocean can get so chilly but then geography was never my area of excellence so i let that thought just pass me by. Totally different from Richmond though. NYC is more the busy, unkempt city with flocks of people scurrying together on the roads and cars honking. Richmond is the absolute opposite. Calm, serene, you get to see not more than 10 people out on the road and all-in-all a clean city (something that i'm not used to having lived in mumbai and pune).
Stayed in new jersey and made the trips to nyc. Suburb of nj where i was put up seemed to house more indians than americans. there was an india street with indian restaurants, bollywood posters (and rajnikant posters too, mind it!) and not to forget the very-indian paanwala outside a couple of the restaurants.
Washington dc was blessed (burdened?) with my presence on sunday. How such a beautiful city can house so many politicians is something that i'll probably never fathom.
Back in Richmond for my first Monday at work. Was introduced to the too-damn-awesome-for-words game of racquetball in the evening. Realized today i cannot run around a racquetball court for more than 10 minutes at a stretch. Note to self: expansion plans are best left to businesses.
Need to sleep. Jetlag was bad last week. Gone now. Now if only i could know why i still can't get hold of some sleep...

WOW week!

2007-11-25T07:44:00.000-05:00

In a big hurry... not much time to blog
the last week - in summary:
monday - busy running around with last-minute packing.
tuesday - 27 hrs in 3 different airplanes not inclusive of 6-hr wait at chicago's flarge airport.
wednesday - first day at new workplace in new country on new continent. awed by huge HUGE campus. late-night departure for weekend vacation. virtually killed by jetlag.
thursday - drive to new jersey. trains to new york. central park. times square. indian food. almost-lethal jetlag.
friday - long lines of vacationers with cameras. empire state building. wtc ground zero. temperature 3deg celsius. wall street. madame tussaud's. more indian food.
saturday - more long lines. statue of liberty. brooklyn bridge. temperature 2deg celsius. another indian dinner. LONG sleep.
sunday - early wake-up. blog. proposed: drive to dc and then home-sweet-home.

more details later. definitely.

Going...

2007-11-19T09:49:00.001-05:00

.. going... GONE

It's "that" time of the year again

2007-11-17T04:44:00.000-05:00

Wanted: Miracles (even a singular XXL-sized miracle might do the job)

The Parting

2007-11-16T11:39:00.001-05:00

This is where it all began and this is where it ends. I'm leaving Pune from the exact place
that i arrived at on 28 Aug 2005.
Two years and two months on a ride carefree and with few pitstops. It's all over now and it's no secret to me. I think i'm leaving behind the fastest two years of whatever life i have spent in consciousness. Pune's been kind to me - i've seen everything from the better and the best to the good, the bad and the downright fugly. Every experience a new lesson. Most lessons well learnt, some incessant finger-burners. But every other experience a memorable one.
And the people! If you're someone who i've known during my Pune years (which is how i shall refer to these last 2 years henceforth), know that you shall always be remembered (if your luck is right down in the pits, you might actually be one of those people that i will want to never break contacts with... beware).
Out of here... for now.

Happy Diwali

2007-11-10T09:04:00.000-05:00

...no more
The festival's gone from being the Festival of Lights to the Festival of Sound and this year it just seems to have become the Festival of eardrum-bursting-sanity-depriving-woebegone-vile-Noise. Yeah... i know i've become the Grinch who wants to steal Diwali... or at least the Grinch who wants to steal those god-forsaken louder-than-gay-clothes firecrackers.
--------
Two upcoming events. Focus needed. Help!

Big Hits

2007-11-03T23:34:00.000-04:00

Move over OSO and Sawariya. This month's biggest releases are not yours; rather, this month Bollywood will hit gold by intertwining two of the most recent money-churning formulae - sport-based movies and sequels. Eat dust. Grovel in their revelry. Rest in pieces.
Without much further ado, let me preview the 'actual' BIG releases this month -

Scary Yuvi
A sequel to the Wayans brothers' series of parodies, this spectacle, about a mace-wielding warrior who mocks and makes light of vicious pace attacks, stars a rich North Indian in the lead role as a brutal assassin with a good sense of timing. The movie is slated to be a typical Bollywood potboiler complete with romance (co-starring a wannabe-but-will-never-be actress who tries to mooch off our hero even after they break up), family drama (interwoven story of the lead character's father who is a washed-out warrior himself but slyly manages to gain publicity through soundbytes about his estranged son), action (beer-guzzling Britisher provokes lead character with unparliamentary language. Lead character unleashes hell on unsuspecting barely-adult blond kid) and special effects (unbelievable sights of simple flicks of the hand sending red bomb-like objects to far corners of the battlefield).Preview verdict: Hard-hitting script. Great expectations

The League of Extraordinary Businessmen - Part Thooo
This one's a sequel to a movie which Indians know of only because it starred Naseeruddin Shah (If you're Indian and you still don't know of any such movie, it's ok. You haven't really missed anything special at all). In fact the "Part Thooo" in the title refers not to this being the second part but to the spittle so generously contributed by the disgruntled public watching the first movie. The sequel is about two cash-rich groups in a war to become the greatest money-spinners in the game of cricket. The story begins with one of the groups raking in all the moolah in an undisputed monopoly. Seeing the business potential, another group headed by a tv honcho asks the politician-turned-cricket-administrator of the first group to share the proverbial pie with him. Once politician-turned-cricket-administrator shuns tv-honcho's money, the latter burns with fury and decides to set up his own rival business. He attracts to his league a southpaw and a gentle giant as his trump cards. In a move to hurt the rival league, he tries to ruffle them by setting off a defection spree of has-beens whose parts in the movies are best limited to those of character artists. As November comes upon us, the mystery will be thrown out into the open as to whether the new league will be able to stand on its own or not.Preview verdict: Big-budget, but casting looks dicey

The Devil Scares Dada
Set in the post-Dravidian era, this presentation stars a retired Colonel as the Devil whose short-term goal is to oversee and ensure the elimination of the Three Kings, three old, wise soldiers who have long been the source of all that is good. The movie begins after the Colonel has slayed one of the Kings (codename: Wall) and is now baying for the blood of the second (codename: Dada). It is only Dada who stands between the Colonel and the third King (codename:God). The Colonel plans to use the upcoming battle with the warring neighbours as the platform from which he can backstab Dada. In a particular skirmish, one of the Colonel's favoured soldiers (codename: Viru) calls Dada for a run which is probably inexistent. Will Dada fall prey to his weakness? Will the Colonel succeed in his scheming ways? Wait and watch.Preview verdict: Potboiler script. I'm sweating with nervousness out of anticipation already.

A month of BIG blockbusters. Who will take the cake? The much-overdone six-pack or the also-equally-overdone Indo-Pak?

From 'The Fountainhead'

2007-10-28T10:55:00.000-04:00

The following line from the book had the wind knocked out of me for a few moments:
A quest for self-respect is proof of its lack

the stuff Dreams are made of

2007-10-19T09:51:00.001-04:00

There are dreams and there are nightmares. I'm talking dreams we get during REM sleep and not the dreams that run during boring lectures or when someone's giving you a lecture on your career. For me, a dream's a dream as long as i know it's a dream while i'm dreaming it (now, try repeating that last sentence quickly just for kicks). The stuff that freaks me out is the dream that ends before i realize that it was only a dream. Those kind of dreams are creepy. And i'm not talking nightmarish stuff - i hate those sweet dreams too if they happen without me realizing they're just dreams. Especially when the dream's about something/one i've been thinking about because then the dream tends to linger on through the day once i'm awake. And i'm just left lamenting - only if i wish i knew that this was just a dream while it was playing in my head. Sounds weird? Think of it this way... Something/one you think about a lot during your waking hours suddenly starts responding in the way you've been imagining all along... and then suddenly you wake up realizing that it was all a dream. Oww that hurts, doesn't it? But if you're aware of the unreality of the fact while you're dreaming it, you're psychologically calmer and you just treat it as a more visual rendition of what you've been imagining all through your waking day. Then, even after waking up, you're a lot more at peace because you're not left wanting it worse because the dream was just an extension of your open-eye imagination. If you were unaware of it being a dream, the waking hours post the dream become that much tougher because you just tend to stick to how real that dream felt and you begin to yearn for the something/one all that much more.
If the above crap classifies as complicated or senseless or plain stupid or this-guy-needs-a-GOOD-shrink, move on to these questions i have (yes, i offer you no respite) about dreams -
Q1. I see all dreams in the first-person. All my dreams are like FPS games. Do you ever dream in non-first-person? If yes, can i have some pointers to doing that?
Q2. Have you ever seen yourself in your dream? I've never seen myself in my dream thanks to the FPS-like setup (refer question above). Once, i actually tried to force a dream in which i tried to stand in front of a mirror so i could see myself. Came close to it but that never happened succcessfully. Pointers to seeing oneself in one's dreams will also be appreciated.
Overall, i still prefer dreams to an empty sleep. It's so damn boring otherwise to be lying for all those hours with nothing to watch.

home on a weekday

2007-10-10T13:07:00.000-04:00

back after AGES! a month and six days to be precise.
been a long day today. another long day in store tomorrow.
am in mumbai. not used to being home on a weekday. ride to mumbai was funky. the employers were kind enough to pamper me with a cab all the way home. inadvertently they took care of my entertainment by way of a quirky cab driver. interesting conversations.
time to turn in.
like i said, long day ahead

How i bought my guitar

2007-09-04T08:04:00.000-04:00

After a long (long, long) wait, i finally succeeded in buying a new guitar. Those two “long”s in parentheses emphasize the infinitely long, tense wait i had to undergo at the store on d-day. After two months of passing blames with my brother about who was responsible for the two-month delay in the original plan of buying the guitar, the last Saturday found me at Furtado’s with a single, clear objective – to walk out of the store with the guitar we had chosen on the earlier weekend. If it hadn’t been for the store running out of stock of the model-color combination i wanted, i would’ve been writing a blogpost shorter in size and dated seven days earlier than this one.

With a focused goal, i calmly asked for the black Kramer Focus i had been assured of the week before. But to my horror, the guy i had spoken to seven days earlier was out and the guy i was speaking to then was busy showing another customer the black Kramer Focus i had set my heart upon! As my darned luck would have it, it was the last black Kramer Focus in stock. To add to my anguish, i was told that the next one would be available after no less than a month. Thus began an hour-and-a-half- long ordeal which i was certainly not prepared for. When i asked (with a lot of hope in my heart) the other guy who was after ‘my’ black guitar whether he had any plans of buying the cherry-red model (the only other available piece in the Kramer Focus stock), he wince at me so pitifully that i knew i was in for a TOUGH time here.

So for the next hour, i saw ‘the other guy’ fiddle around with ‘my’ guitar. Quite ashamedly, i must admit i felt the kind of envy and hatred one must feel watching the love of one’s life in another’s arms. It didn’t help that he was a greenhorn which was evident in the way he handled the guitar and even more so when an hour later he mentioned to me, “I like this black one. It’s black, it’s sleek and it’s in my budget”. And then there was light! I needed the black Kramer Focus. He wanted a black guitar (any black guitar) in his budget. Along with my epiphany came another line from him, “I think I’m gonna go ahead with this black Kramer”. Time for me to swing into action after a depressing hour in wait. “Wait, my friend. If a black guitar is all you want, have you tried out this one ? You can save up on money and spend it on a better amp. Or even a processor.” What was shocking was that it took just this question from me to replace the triumphant look on his face with a ponderous one. And what was even more shocking was that i somehow managed to stifle the irresistible urge to shout “Halleluia!” as he let go of ‘my’ guitar and looked at some other black ones. A nail-biting half-hour of the most approving facial expressions i could summon to my face passed before i heard the magic words from him, “I think I’ll go with this one . You can go ahead with that Kramer”. I would have hugged him had i not already started packing away ‘my’ guitar to give him no chance of changing his mind. I made the cashier at Furtado’s participate in the fastest transaction ever made in the history of the purchase of musical instruments and stormed out with ‘my’ guitar. Nay, let me correct myself - …stormed out with MY guitar.

(ok.. yeah.. my brother's gonna play it more often and WAY better than i am. but the victory was mine)

p.s. Douglas was right when he said it to me two years ago. The feeling of buying the first guitar with the money you’ve earned is just magical.

Acerbic

2007-08-15T23:17:00.000-04:00

World against man
Man against world
Hate and hostility being hurled
at his face
to show him his place
He wonders
He wanders
He seeks
He reeks
of sweetness and smiles,
of failed humour and a damp style
He wonders on, he wanders on
The smile's still there, the humour long gone

Give it a Thought

2007-08-10T02:51:00.001-04:00

Think of a river
Its clear waters seeking the depth of the sea
Think of a single drop of its water
Once one of many in the rain

Think of a quiver
Of arrows as sharp as arrows can be
Think of the wounds the arrows inflict
The hurt, the sorrow and excruciating pain

Think of a shiver
Of fright that makes u flee
Thinking of none but the self
Abandoning all else for selfish gain

Think of a giver
Selfless, benevolent, in all his purity
Think of his aid to your foe
And how promptly you label him profane

Think of a believer
Content in self-belief; trusting friends with glee
Think of how you falsely question his trust
Make him relive hell again and again

The Simpsons Movie - I'm almost there

2007-08-04T09:02:00.000-04:00

Note: This is not a movie review. There was no way I was going to walk out of the movie disliking the movie. So given the unabashed impartiality, I will not label this blogpost a movie review and call it an ardent fan’s veneration instead. Another reason why I cannot review the movie is because I need to watch every second of its duration. Thanks to Mumbai’s notorious traffic and infamous rains (the latter uncannily seem to arrive only over the weekends… me no like), I missed the first fifteen minutes of the movie. Tragic, shocking, appalling… yes; I was in half a mind not to get into the movie that late as I was already distraught over having missed the start and a lot more. But better sense prevailed and I ended up making the most of what I was left with, which was some 60 minutes that I hoped would never end.

To be honest, I had always been a little hesitant, wondering whether the movie would do enough justice to the epic TV series. The hesitation did not stem from the anticipation of how I, as a fan, would receive the movie (there were no two ways about that); it was rooted more in how the movie would appeal to me as a generic movie-goer. Which brings me to the only statement that I will make in this post as an impartial viewer (believe me or not) – The Simpsons Movie will not disappoint. If at all, one walks out of the movie disliking it, s/he will do so as one who has never been a fan and hence never had any expectations in the first place. You may enjoy the movie, you may (you just may) dislike it, but there is no way you can be disappointed.

The good news is that if you have been watching the model dysfunctional American family put out their antics on tv all these years, the odds that you will walk out of their first foray on the silver screen satisfied are extremely high. Of course, three of my favourite non-Simpsons-family characters have appearances of near-zero significance or worse. Hans Moleman and the Comic Book Guy have blink-and-you-miss-‘em appearances whereas Kelsey Grammer’s magic as Sideshow Bob is altogether edited out of the final cut (From what I gather, Grammer did record a scene for the movie. I’m praying it’ll land in the dvd cut at least). But, little things like these aside, the movie is a devotee’s delight. And the best part is, it does not try ‘something refreshing’. The movie sticks to the formulae that the tv series has been applying all these years – the witticisms, dry humour, political critique disguised as laughs, Homer’s D-oh-ness… the list goes long.

Bottomline: Simply put, I love the movie. And yeah, I need to watch the first 15 minutes… grrrrr…

Standstill

2007-07-25T03:26:00.000-04:00

Some joys overshadow the sorrows
Some highs reach higher than alcohol-induced ones
Some smiles hide the pain behind the eyes
Some handshakes fit firmer than most other ones
Some angry stares show concern pouring from them
Some embraces last longer than regular hugs
And then life moves on

Vile

2007-07-21T07:33:00.001-04:00

Feel like doing something completely hateful and ghastly to someone i hate.
Will do it too.
Now all i need to do is find someone to hate and then come up with something completely hateful and ghastly to do

p.s. i'm beginning to like the usage of lowercase for the first-person i. unoriginal though. the sunday times of india has already btdt

Anathema - Empty lyrics

2007-07-12T00:25:00.000-04:00

Empty vessel
Under the sun
Wipe the dust from my face
Another morning, Black Sunday
Coming down again
Empty vessel
Empty veins
Empty bottle Wish for rain That pain again
Wash the blood off my face
The pulse from my brain
And I feel that pain again

I'm looking over my shoulder
'cos millions will whisper
I'm killing myself again
Maybe I'm dying faster
But nothing ever lasts
I remember a night from my past
When I was stabbed in the back
And its all coming back
And I feel that pain again

I abhor you, I condemn you
'cos this pain will never end
You got away without a scratch
And now you're walking on a lucky path
I have to laugh
But you'd better watch your back

There's pathetic opposition
They're the cause of my condition
I'll be coming back for them
I've a solution for this sad situation
Nothing left but to kill myself again
(because I'm so empty)

All Hail King Federer

2007-07-08T15:11:00.000-04:00

It must all have seemed part of a large conspiracy to Roger Federer soon after the match began. He seemed to have more opponents than he was prepared for – Nadal, the chair umpire, the linesmen, even Hawkeye (but then he didn’t really love it too much anyway). And unfortunately for him, Nadal chose this very inopportune day to prove to his own detractors that he could actually graze on British grass almost as well as skidding on clay anywhere in the world. So much so, the otherwise stone-cold Swiss even tried to question the Hawkeye software to vent his ire. I won’t be surprised if the perfectionist Federer decides to pursue a career in software programming to face his digital nemesis Hawkeye; he’s already accomplished almost everything in tennis anyway. Perhaps, his to-do list will now have an entry for “Rework code for Hawkeye or eliminate its existence” right below “Win French Open” and right above “Defeat Rafa on clay” which was crossed out after this year’s Hamburg Open.

But Federer, the champion that he is, must have relished this battle (it was pretty much an all-out war, actually) that ensued on the hallowed Centre Court greens. After five long years, he finally seemed to have an able competitor across the net at Wimbledon. But, the question that has persisted for a few years at Wimbledon now rang again – will this able competitor be the elusive dethroner this year? It took FedEx three hours and three quarters of the fourth to reply: no, not just yet. The match was an epic with both the top-ranked players proving why they are the best in the business. Cross-courts, down-the-lines, diving volleys, even winners from so far outside the camera's view, you wouldn't be blamed for assuming that someone in the crowd had taken a shot. Just when you thought you had seen the best rally of the match, the next point would produce a better one.

What this match has done, besides adding another star on that cream blazer for next year, is refute the popular myth that Federer cannot be stretched to a five-setter, let alone be defeated, at the All England Club. Ironic that Federer’s last five-setter in this Grand Slam came in 2001 against the legend (my fave) Pete Sampras. The result was the same as in this match and many regard that as the passing on of the torch from a seven-time Wimbledon conqueror to an erstwhile upcoming player who now boasts of five consecutive Wimbledon championships.

Coming back to that cream blazer, you can call that chic or cheeky, but Mr.Federer couldn’t care less. If 2006 saw the introduction of the blazer, 2007 saw Rog taking a step ahead by adding a vest and white pants (the latter bringing to my memory apna Bollywood ka Jeetendra) to his Wimbledon wardrobe. Perhaps, the drab white shirt and shorts were too commonplace for his well-earned royalty. Just makes me wonder, what’s up for 2008? A crown with five stars emblazoned across it?

Jump

2007-07-03T08:50:00.000-04:00

Look below
Close your eyes
Open them again
Feel your breathing
... And jump
Worry not
You're not falling
You jumped
Don't restrict yourself
Go headlong
Or feet first if you prefer
As long as you know what you want
And how you want it
And perhaps how badly you want it
Landing won't hurt
Because you're not falling
You've jumped

Which of the following...

2007-06-29T16:40:00.000-04:00

... is easier to bear/tolerate/accept?

unadulterated hatred in your heart for another person(s), or
absolute failure to hate that person(s) inspite of the crippling urge to hate him/her/them

Just Another Day

2007-06-23T21:42:00.000-04:00

(An old writeup. Just thought of having it on this blog today)

It’s just another morning, just another day. Not much has changed from yesterday, you guess. Your mind is blank but suddenly you think of her and you’re sure nothing has changed form yesterday. You dread the thought of college first thing in the morning but light up at the prospect of attending lab first up. You reach college a little late as usual, hoping hers will be among the first faces you see. But she turns up at the lab door some ten minutes later than you. You watch her wave out to someone at the door (you know who she’s waving out to) and then turn around only to catch you staring right back at her. She smiles at you and for a moment everything is bliss. She grabs the chair next to you and embarks on her everyday casual talk. You listen to every word because you don’t want to miss anything she says or does. Somewhere at the back of your mind you are thankful that nothing has changed from yesterday. The two hours at lab pass away speedily with the usual banter, her infectious laughter and the odd attempt at actual work. Then you are both out of there. Together. As usual. On the way back to classroom two floors up, she runs into some friends you don’t know. You walk away as she stays back to chat with them. But only till the next corner, where you stand waiting for her. You see her walking towards you a few minutes later. She notices you lurking around the corner and she stops in her tracks. You can see the surprise in her eyes. Just above that disarming smile on her mouth. She’s surprised that you actually waited for her. You reply that it was no big deal. You mean it. As you go up the stairs, she goes on about how you mustn’t pamper her. You smile silently knowing that that can never happen. You start talking about something else as you approach the classroom door. In the doorway, you realize she is not really listening to you any more. Her eyes scour the entire class till they settle on him. You stop talking midway through a sentence and realize that she didn’t even notice your incomplete sentence. You look at her in askance and see her eyes light up. And you know it’s him she has just found.

You’re a forgotten moment of the past as she hurries to catch the seat he has saved for her. You walk to your seat among your friends. The usual dose of remarks on how you entered with her again follow, but by now you are used to their ribbing. You know it’s no use explaining to them that there is nothing going between you and her. There can never be. You aren’t even among her best friends. She’s not your muse. It would be appalling to even think of her that way. You want to tell your friends that. But you don’t. You look at her a few benches away. She is laughing away and you notice her hands interlocked in his. It doesn’t pain anymore to see that. It did when she had just started going around with him. But not anymore. Now you are just happy to see her happy. As the day goes on, you get to speak to her off and on. In between classes, and sometimes during some boring ones, she turns around casually and your eyes meet. A smile greets another. But it’s not that novel anymore. Your heart doesn’t race or skip a beat at every look or smile from her. At least not at every look or smile. You think of the times when it did. You comprehend that you still like her as much as you did back then. Actually even more.

College ends and she leaves with her hands firmly grasping his. No ‘bye’ or ‘see you tomorrow’. You like it better that way. At least it doesn’t hurt if she misses a ‘goodbye’ when you are not expecting one. She calls late that evening just as you are about to fall asleep. Her last call was nearly a month ago. It’s about a report at college. You move on to other topics. In between all the mirth and gossip, you realize that you have been on the phone with her for over an hour now. Just like old times, you reminisce. She tells you about an irrational quarrel she had with him earlier and how miffed she is. You smile serenely over the phone because you sense a déjà vu. You talk to her about how close they both actually are and how much they like each other. You try to talk some sense into her and get her to forget her scrap with him. When all’s sorted out, she thanks you and remarks about how you always get her out of the mess she manages to get into every other time. You know you’ve had the same conversation with her before. You want to tell her how much she means to you, how fond you are of her. But you don’t. You just fake a laugh and tell her to hang up and go to sleep. Yet again. She makes a comment about how sweet you are to her. And she hangs up. As you get ready to fall asleep, you begin to rue taking her phone call. You know now, thoughts of her will lurk endlessly in your head. You begin the same old conversation with yourself. Again. Are you in love with her? You disagree. It’s been 5 years since the only time you thought you were in love. And you think of your ‘love’ all that time ago. That ‘love’ who hadn’t bothered calling up even once in all those years. That ‘love’ in whose pain you wallowed for a long time even after you had realized that she just didn’t care. That ‘love’ who had called you her friend but had turned fiend. You float back into the present. No, this couldn’t be love. You don’t want this to be love. You don’t want her to be your love. Not after your first brush with ‘love’. You consider ‘infatuation’, but immediately discard that. She isn’t just an infatuation. She never was. You remind yourself that you don’t want her to be with you. You know she is happy with him. Without you. You want to see her happy. Always. But isn’t that true love? True love. Another one of your hated romantic clichés. An incredible myth. A terrible truth? Your mind is in utter turmoil now, but when is it not? Suddenly you want to hate her for making your life and thoughts so complex. But the very next moment, you work out that you can never hate her. You love her. But you don’t want to love her. Damn, how you hate that word …

You feel you are putting yourself to sleep thinking of her yet again. You sense that it’s just another night. You drift into the surreal unconsciousness that is sleep. Tomorrow you will see her at lab again. You will see her holding his hand sometime during the day. You will see her smiling at you again. But what matters most is that you will see her. It will be just another day...

Who's the smart one now?

2007-06-22T05:53:00.000-04:00

I came across, nay, researched my way to an article on Rediff which says that first-born kids are smarter than their siblings. Now, being a responsible first son, a role-model elder brother (now that scientists have endorsed this fact, I can safely shed whatever little modesty I had left within me, can't I?) and of course, a well-educated student of science (try not to laugh too hard else you'll miss the point I'm trying to make), I am of the opinion that we, and by 'we' I mean all of us including the lesser fortunate ones who weren't the first out of their mother's wombs, must heed these scholarly scientists who have spent much of their valued time on researching such vital topics despite the pressures of releasing information to the press so that such stunning results can change the way people live. I, for one, have now become a big fan of these scientists who came up with this ground-breaking theory relating intelligence to first-borns. I am also willing to worship the ground walked on by scientists who can research their asses off to publish articles with headlines "Heavy Alcohol Consumption Raises Human Intelligence Levels" or "Chicks who Date Fat Guys Live Longer and Look Prettier".

It is my newfound respect for such scholars that led me to taking my wallet out to pay to read this profound article in its entirety on the website where it is originally published. I duly paid with my credit card by inserting it into the cd-rom tray of my pc and waited for the transaction to be carried out, wondering with awe how much science and technology have matured. My eagerness was slightly nipped in the bud when even after waiting the next 15 minutes patiently, my transaction had not been carried out. After rechecking and re-positioning my credit card, I decided to make my wait a little more enjoyable by calling up my brother (note: "younger" brother) and checking up on him lest his lower levels of intelligence be taken undue advantage of by some shrewd first-born cheat. Now, let us not call this activity "rubbing it in" since such unsophisticated words are not befitting of a smart first-born like me. Coming back to the topic, my not-so-gifted brother made some bizzarre comment about how online payments are not made via credit cards inserted into computer hardware. I silently shook my head, brushing aside the temptation of belittling the ignorance of my arrogant little brother. Blame it on the order of birth, I sighed, it's not entirely his fault. The only explanation I can offer for his frequent class-topping academic record can be all his classmates being younger siblings in their homes. Alas!

With much pain in my heart, I withdrew the credit card and sent it back to its safe haven in that torn compartment (I prefer to call it the 'airy area' or the 'donation nation', the latter mostly in memory of those currency notes that've found their way out of there) of my wallet. In fact, I am quite sure the problem was with my credit card rather than with my payment technique as my smart-neck brother had opined. I must have hit the credit limit when that nice, pretty saleslady at the mall helped me in making that wise decision of purchasing that slightly expensive 8-foot pot made of what she said was fine bone china. She was so helpful, she even promised to help me buy an exquisite thin glass cabinet for the pot's protection when I had mentioned my fear of the pot toppling over from the stool that I planned to perch it on. I guess I will have to wait till next month to buy that cabinet now.

I am digressing now. Let me get back to the main topic which I faintly remember had something to do with my brother. Or was it about intelligence? Or both? Well, if it concerned both my brother and intelligence, then let me assure you he is just another student who's definitely not cut out for spying and other covert military operations. In fact, I've had scores of people refer to me as the smart one in the family. And they've even made compliments like these seem so much warmer by passing glances at one another, perhaps to confirm the fact, with wide grins on their faces. All those people can't be wrong, can they?

She called

2007-06-04T01:34:00.000-04:00

For months together she hasn't even
Heard the sound of my name
She calls me today out of the blue
My absence begets her abuse and blame
The care in her voice unnerves me
Excuses I offer for avoiding seem lame
But how do I explain to her that
It's all become one scary game

I'm scared of the lies that accost her
I'm scared of the hatred she might foster
I'm scared losing me won't cost her
I'm scared I've already lost her

I'm scared once the alcohol's worn off
Will she still feel the same?

Tell Me

2007-05-30T09:33:00.000-04:00

Do you want to fly really low
Do you want to ride better
Do you want me to wish you hello
Do you want my suicide letter

Bliss in a Sin

2007-05-29T03:57:00.000-04:00

She beckons
I walk
Her lips in mine
And we rock...
... And we sway with every kiss
Each one hits; sweet eternal bliss
Angel in beatific white
Devil of momentary delight
I know I'll end up in crippling pain
But can't stop myself from seeing her again
I know she will hurt
But with terror I flirt
Each time I light her afire
Fill myself with guilty desire
All my resistance gone up in smoke
Another sin with which I soak
A trip to hell for which I'm booked
Another sin to which I am hooked

Disclaimer: I do not encourage or advocate the above activity. Discretion is advised.

Sibling Revelry

2007-05-24T12:42:00.000-04:00

As of this moment in time, I am the happiest brother in the world to the happiest sister in the world. I haven't had this wide a grin between my ears for ages. **grin grin**

You know you're helpless...

2007-05-18T10:19:00.000-04:00

... when you want to forgive
but you think forgiveness is an elite trait
... when you're sorely despised
but you still can't pay them back with hate
... when you step back and watch them leave
and you sit by yourself resigned to your fate
... when you see your time running out
and hope against hope that it's not too late

But what you know may not be enough
There's no smooth sailing when the seas are rough
You're never helpless even when you can't sink any lower
Because it ain't ever over, till it's over

Another revolution

2007-05-16T10:30:00.000-04:00

Who do you complain to if there's no one who'll listen
Who do you yearn for if theres no one you're missin'
Another revolution, another rolling of days
And you still find yourself alone, groping in the haze

When Men were Boys

2007-05-14T10:13:00.000-04:00

Seven 23-year-old men came together to spend a day together. Each among the seven has known every other for periods ranging from seven to seventeen years. They have seen each other as boys growing into the men they are today. But for those 24 hours, the men shed their ageing and became boys again. They shouted as they would have in their teen years, caring nought for authority. They laughed like boys as if every joke were to be the last one they would laugh at before age mellowed their funny bone. They chattered endlessly, not because their speech was stifled otherwise, but because this was where they would be heard for every word they would utter, sensible or not. They hogged down platefuls of food like the hungry young boys they had once been and complained of ever-expanding waistlines like the ageing men they are. They lived the 24 hrs in royal luxury, with no care for the hours to follow or the hours gone by.
The men came together from their own worlds of turmoil and chaos. 24 hrs later, they dispersed; each back to his own world. But for those 24 hours, the men lived in a common world. As boys.

I'm so fat...

2007-05-11T07:05:00.000-04:00

Beginning today, this series (shamelessly inspired by 'Your mom's so fat...' jokes) will last as long as my tryst with obesity and flirty affair with attempted humor.

I'm so fat...
... few morsels of food from 1996 still furtively try to find their way out of my torso.

Disclaimer: Quality of humor may not improve with time. Reader discretion and mercy are advised

Audioslave - Exploder lyrics

2007-04-23T13:24:00.000-04:00

Chorus:
If you’re free you’ll never see the walls
If you’re head is clear you’ll never freefall
If you’re right you never fear the wrong
If you’re head is high you never fear at all

Easier said than done

Bhayankar Erratas

2007-04-22T02:54:00.000-04:00

Mahatma Gandhi once said something to the tune of "Freedom counts for nothing if you don't have the freedom to make mistakes" (I wish I could quote such quotes verbatim but I always end up using terms like 'something to the tune of' ). It's good that he said something of that sort because it allows me to use it as an excuse for playing down all or at least most of my fauxs pas (or whatever the correct term is). So yesterday, a dull football match got me thinking about a lot of instances that I would like to go back in time and change the approach or action that I opted for then. Thanks to my dwindling attention span and ebbing long-term memory, I could come up with really few instances which I'm going to talk about here. Names will be withheld here for diplomacy issues in some places and in others, only because it will be a little too easy to know who I'm talking about.

- The game was lost and we had barely seven more minutes till the final whistle could relieve us of our misery. He hobbled up to me and bleakly asked me if he could sit out the last few minutes because his ankle was swelling up badly. He was not one to ask out with little bruises and wounds. I knew that yet I failed to realise the intensity of this injury. And I asked him to carry on and see out those last seven minutes. For a lost cause. Astonishingly, he silently turned and went back to what he was out on the field for. He could have argued. He could have made the decision for himself because he was the skipper and not I. But he just went back and saw out those seven horribly painful minutes. Maybe because it was in his nature to fight with no regard for pain. Maybe because he had been let down by the one person he deemed capable enough of making the right call. I'll probably never know. But thanks to my decision, he missed the next match which of course, we lost so that this incident could be left as an indelible mark in my memory. He did watch us play the last match from the sidelines. If I can claim to know him at all, watching our defeat that day from the sidelines would have hurt him as much as, if not more than, his bandaged ankle.
- The same game. Trailing 0-2 with very few intrusions from us into their box, a loose ball fell close to my feet. With two opposition defenders on either side of me, my mind raced for a decision. I could take the shot with not the best chance of seeing it cross the goal-line because I was well outside their box. Or I could take a touch which could let me get away from the sandwiching defenders so that I could follow it up with a shot with some 5 yards lesser to cover. I opted for the former and saw the ball loop safely into the keeper's hands. It didn't take me more than an instant to know I had opted for the wrong option. That one goal could have changed the face of the game. I had blown my team's best chance to regain hope and to make it worse, it all went only downwards from there.
- Friday night. A lounge. 80's pop sounds getting people to sway in their seats, a little conscious of being the first ones on the floor. She passed a slightly intoxicated (note, different from intoxicating) look at me and put it into innocent words, "Will you dance with me?". Slightly stunned, paranoid of implications and remote complications, and defintely aware of my lack of dancing skills, I mouthed a stupid excuse to back out. The disappointment on her face was momentary but it hit me hard. I could have let faith override paranoia and intoxication override missing skills. I could have made a different decision instead of the seemingly indifferent one. I lost out on a warm smile.
- Over the phone, which was how we had spent much of our time together, I kept things straight and let her know how things would be henceforth. I wasn't surprised when she broke into tears then. But then the weeping went on for a few minutes. No questions asked of me, no words spoken. Just her soft cry in my ears. I should have said something comforting. I could have just held on to the phone in the hope that she could at least find some support in my silence which was pretty much the only thing I could now spare for her. Instead, I chose to hang up thinking she needed time alone like I did. And in that action, I forced upon her my therapy for grieving with no thought for hers. I didn't think much then at the age of 16.

Damn, this has gone long. And as I scroll downward, I realise my weblog has slowly become more of a criblog. I gotta get Dave Barry to ghost-write stuff for me here.

RIP

2007-04-17T23:56:00.000-04:00

Hello darling
Do you hear me calling
Rising and falling

An untimely death
Abrupt last breath
The demise of faith

It's what seems best
Selfish vested interest
In all earnest
The nice guy is now laid to rest

Forthcoming Attraction

2007-04-14T09:47:00.000-04:00

Another Saturday night, another party.
Who's complaining? :)

Letting Go

2007-04-11T00:38:00.000-04:00

Where, I ask, is the trust
It is all, he opines, just ashes and dust
Where, I ask, is the faith
Look over your shoulder, he sayeth
Where, I ask, is the hope
In darkness, he warns, you must fruitlessly grope
When, I ask, will you learn
Not, he replies, ere you crash and burn
How, I ask, do you justify your lies so lame
We're all, he snaps back, playing the same game

Nought more have I to ask
For I still stand by my truth
In his ill-gotten pity he can bask
With his dreams of fighting nail and tooth
As before, I wish him godspeed
As he walks down his own line
Hoping, one day he'll be freed
To find his peace and with it, mine

Looking Ahead

2007-04-05T11:14:00.001-04:00

Long weekend, here I come...
Wheeeeeeee.......

Poor Start

2007-04-04T00:16:00.000-04:00

I was out for some fresh morning air
Lady on a cycle dropped her bag on the middle of the road
The kindness and compassion inside of me (never knew they existed) arose
A clanging sound as I picked up the bag to hand it over to the lady
Turned back to see a tiffin box with its contents strewn all over the road
Out of breath and out of words, a silent apology escaped me
The remains of an erstwhile lunch were handed back to the lady
The smile did not get wiped off her face
"How can I thank you?", she asked.
Sarcasm, I wondered. But the smile stayed and seemed genuine
"At least your intentions were noble", the smile dimmed but was still put up bravely
Lunch box rendered empty, she set off bearing only my apologies
I set off in the other direction with a thought or two
For the lady who would have to forego the comforts of a packed lunch from home
Wallowing in the remorse, I continued to walk homeward as another possibility fell on my ears
"Perhaps her kid will go hungry at school today"
I walked away faster

The Wonder Weekend

2007-04-02T00:04:00.000-04:00

This weekend sped by. Friday night started with a visit to The Den - a lounge which has its interiors designed to look like a hunting lodge. Good place, decent booze, good food and good music. Anyways, had good company so no question of having a bad time.

Saturday was spent lazily until I got home and decided to clean up my act and the house too in the process. So my only non-Mumbai roomie and I got into action and a few hours later, we were resting our bones in much, much cleaner surroundings with no dust bunnies left to inhale. Note the 'few hours later'. Cleaning up is the only time I despise living in such a big house. Anyways, evening was spent with TJ and Shachi over to watch Liverpool whack Arsenal and as they lazed around later (they'd spent their day at work... afsos), ManU satisfied me with a resurgent victory over Blackburn (Woohoo!!). TJ wanted to watch 300 and I think, he must be the only guy left in Pune yet to watch it. My thoughts were only reaffirmed by the House Full board which left us with our backup option. Movies on the laptop at TJ's pad. Sat nite was spent watching Apocalypto (quite impressive) and the Illusionist (didn't do much to keep us awake).

But the cherry-on-top here was finding some 15-odd episodes of The Wonder Years on the laptop. The Wonder Years!! One of the first TV shows I was addicted to. And since they don't even beam the reruns of the reruns of that show anymore, it's been eons since I last saw the musings and muses of Kevin Arnold. Those were some good days when I used to watch the show after school everyday on the then new channel called 'Star Plus'. Over the years, the episodes were almost rote, yet the reruns watched as eagerly. It was a show all kids could relate to. Almost everyone had a geeky Paul Pfeiffer-like friend or a Wayne-like irritating sibling. But each and every one of us boys had (or at least dreamt of due to lack thereof) a Winnie Cooper. The innocence of it all was too good to be true. Wondering how to hold each others' hands away from the glare of the others in the building, cribbing about each others' days at school in the evenings, sharing wada pavs and icecreams. Life was a lot simpler then but of course, there was no way we could have known how tough being grownup is. Life was a TV show back then...

Sunday passed by lazily with the help of six back-to-back episodes of the Wonder Years first thing upon waking up. Things picked up in the evening and a combination of a bike ride, cold coffee @ Durga, dvd of Babel and some vodka for the movie's intensity to set in turned out to be heaven.

To sum it all up, a Wonder Weekend.

Discotheque

2007-03-26T23:43:00.000-04:00

Abode of darkness. Arms its visitors with the license to unleash their desires in the name of fun. I'm making it sound like a dark vicious pit. But discos needn't be all that bad.
Now, I'm not a major party-goer who is found at the hottest nightspots on most evenings. I'm not even, I admit, a BIG fan of the disco. I do, though, enjoy spending time there with friends who are more interested in such places. And being quite the nocturnal being, I really don't mind wherever I am taken to as long as there's company, no bright lights and preferably some alcohol to go around.
So Sunday night marked my return to the disco scene thanks to this friend getting back from his phoren trip. There were some 10 of us together making this unplanned trip to this popular disc in Pune called Lush, which was as packed as on most weekends. We've been there before so I don't know if it was actually true that there seemed to be a lot more chicks around that evening or whether it was just that I was getting back onto the scene after a long, LONG time. Whatever it was, the constant contact kept unsettling me for some reason; a reason I'm yet to find out. But then, there were guys who seemed to want a few more sq.ft. of the dance floor for their flailing arms and drunk asses. So for the rest of the evening, I chose to tolerate contact with strange chicks instead (as perverse as that sounds).
There are these typical people you come across at discos. There'll be these young couples who'll be dancing away by themselves with hands around each other at all moments in time, at some instances exploring their partner's clothed (scantily, in the lady's case) anatomy in ways that would definitely draw wide-eyed glances if done in lighting brighter than which the discos provide. There'll be these drunk groups of stags, mostly just out of their teen years, who come there after watching movies like American Pie thinking that this will be their night when they fulfill the 'pledge' that they made to each other right after the movie. Can't miss out on the large groups of people with giggly girls and hair-gelled hunks who dance in concentric circles with the chicks marking the inner ring and the guys building the outer, protecting their lady-friends from the wrath of the aforementioned Drunk Stag types. These three types form the crux of most dance floors. Off and on, you'll also come across the Girl Gangs who'll split their time at the disc between dancing away in little tightly closed groups, trying to make their way to the bar counter for their next drink and trying to fend off vile glances (and at times, seedy pick-up lines) from the Drunk Stag types (Man, are they at large or what!).
That's pretty much all I can think of on a Tuesday morning. Other details later maybe as and when my memory and observational skills decide to collaborate again.

p.s. Sunday night was FUN. And pleasant for reasons other than the easily visible ones.

In my face

2007-03-21T14:04:00.001-04:00

It's in my face
Not on it
A jigsaw piece out of place
Whoever's(whatever's) worn it

Behind the mask that stares back
A dark face, an unknown name
Reality poised, ready to attack
It's a risk I've taken now... It's MY own game

March 21 still sucks

2007-03-21T05:42:00.000-04:00

Not a big fan of this day and nothing particularly likeable has happened yet today either
[in loving memory]

Extended D-Day

2007-03-06T02:50:00.000-05:00

The end to my D-Day finally arrived today. All's well that ends well.

Saturday Morn Live

2007-03-03T00:01:00.000-05:00

0730 hrs on a Saturday morning is by no means the right time to be on the road. Hell, I find it ghastly to even picture myself in conscious state at that time. But, when my humane side took over (rarely does that happen) and I set off to help out a friend at that ungodly hour, the only solace I found was in the fact that I had the steering wheel in my hands and the driver's seat under my ass. Call it Children's Day or whatever, but two scenes involving kids embedded themselves in my head.

Scene One: Somewhere close to the Andheri railway station, a little girl, who looked not more than 8 years old, dragged a reluctant younger boy (presumably her brother) through the traffic jam (For the unfamiliar ones, YES, Mumbai has traffic jams on its roads at 0730 hrs... on a Saturday morning!) The boy looked half-drowsy and made me rethink why I was up at this hour of the day on a Saturday morning. He left himself be dragged across the road by his sister whose efforts at that moment seemed to be concentrated on reaching the other side of the road safely with her brother. They (rather, she) seemed to be taking some hard chances as the cars sped by in the rightmost lane and I slowed down to let them cross ahead of the car I was driving, the last obstacle between them and their goal - the Other side. Suddenly her eyes met mine and perhaps she didn't realize I was going to stop to let her by anyway. An authoritative raise of the hand and a stern glare was her immediate response. At that very instant in time, she ceased to be 8. She could have been a 18-year-old girl dragging her boyfriend to the clearance sale at the showroom across the road. She could have been a 38-year-old mother dragging her unwilling son to school. She could have been a 68-year-old grandmother with no regard to her own life, yet determined to ensure the safety of her grandson whose hands she clasped. The moment passed me by as did the 8-year-old girl.

Scene Two: I got off the Aarey flyover at Goregaon and rejoined the rest of the traffic on the highway. To my left, auto rickshaws lined up at the kerb for their daily mornign wash so that passengers could seat their derrieres in 'clean' vehicles (I'd have used the word 'clean' minus the quotes if the water that washed the rickshaws was actually not black and muddy). It's not an unusual sight on a regular Mumbai morning. Urchins of all ages run around with little buckets of water and a rags that are as black as the colour on the rickshaws. As I glided past them, two kids on the pavement were hailing a rickshaw that seemed to be slowing down towards them. With a competitive edge, one kid raised his rag to show a slightly less dirtier rag to gain one up on his rival. The rickshaw driver broke both their hearts and went ahead towards the eventual winner. The victor in this case being a pintsized firebrand who had gotten off the kerb and on to the road with a rag in hand and a whistle in mouth. Blowing on the whistle furiously, he flagged the rickshaw in line behind another. He went up to the rickshaw ahead and smartly tapped on its roof to notify its driver that his time at the rickshaw-wash was up. As the rickshaw broke the line and injected itself into the traffic just ahead of me, my last sight of the young, wise marketing genius running to fill his bucket yet again, but not before guiding his hard-earned, most recent customer to the tea stall just around the kerb. Customer Care.

An early morning lesson in life for me. Hah, kids!

D-Day

2007-02-15T04:13:00.000-05:00

Just over two hrs to the first moment of truth. The way the day's gone, the signs are ominous. But then it doesn't cost me a fortune to hope. Hell, it's for free. So here I wait in hope...

Cheap Thrills

2007-02-12T08:20:00.000-05:00

After two botched attempts, I finally managed to board the 7.15am bus today. In your face, Monday morning Blues
(Homeresque) Woohoo!!

Proof of life

2007-02-09T02:16:00.000-05:00

Every moment and the moment after that, I am required to prove myself to someone or the other. Is it just me or does this apply to others too?
Proof of intent
Proof of friendship
Proof of commitment
Proof of devotion... (the list goes on)
It's an ever-continuing challenge that is enjoyable to a limit. Then it begins to get overbearing. After much observation and some experience, I've arrived at the conclusion that what proves one's mettle is how far upwards one can push that limit. The more I enjoy being under pressure, the higher the odds of ending on top seem to to get. From an evil perspective, sometimes, the more I enjoy, greater is the angst on the vile challenger's face.
Hence proved.

Unoriginal... hence Better

2007-01-22T04:42:00.000-05:00

Once again, I turn to other sources to fill up space here. Rudyard Kipling yields to my hunting and delivers. And how.

If
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

- Rudyard Kipling

(a stony silence of reflection sets in)

Boo-hoo time

2007-01-20T05:23:00.000-05:00

XAT was a disaster. And I hate using that term, so when I do use it, it's as a measure of intensity. It's like readying yourself for an airstrike and then stepping on a landmine in the process. You don't know what's struck you, it all ends in a moment and after it's done, there's just a WHOLE lot of pieces to collect.

She stands at the head of the bed in the room that I haven't visited in eons. She watches another man sleep every night next to her. She wants to be touched but no one bothers to so much as undo the garb that covers her... not even I. I need to change that soon. Soon, we will be one as before. In my arms, she will create and recreate sweet music. Yes, my rusty hands may not be as effective as before but we will recreate the old magic again. For, as sleazy I've made that sound, she's still among my first loves - my first guitar.

Guys put their bodies through hell only to build a V-shaped body. To my credit, I've eaten my way up to an O. Just 7 more alphabets to go, I surmise?

Time and Tide wait for none

2007-01-08T22:49:00.000-05:00

2007 has pounced upon us all. Early in the morning of the 9th day of the year, I awake with the ubiquitous thought of how change is the only constant (And no, this isn't last night's whiskies from Abhijeet's birthday talking). Relationships change, feelings change, as does attitude, and so do circumstances among all other things. And with all of those, YOU change. The pleasant changes keep the smiles on YOUr face, the not-so-pleasant ones harden YOU. YOU change... YOU mature... YOU grow. But at the crux of things, YOU still assume YOUrself as the constant. The constant in a continuously metamorphosising world. It's a paradox but it's not something YOU can deny. YOU ask YOUr best friends to never change, because YOU believe the good parts of life should stay with YOU as they are. YOU wish for the good times to never end for the same reason. YOU desist tough changes like say, moving alone to a new place or parting with old friends because adaption involves displacement from YOUr comfort zone, the basic, most irritating part of change. At all times, and like most things in nature, YOU continually seek YOUr equilibrium. That one sweet spot from where ideally YOU would never want to move. But perhaps the equilibrium YOU seek is perhaps not static at all. Perhaps the equilibrium YOU seek is in motion. How well YOU tune YOUrself to that motion is perhaps the key to this lock. Maybe it's about how effectively YOU accelerate and decelerate to keep pace with this motion. Maybe it's about setting the pace YOUrself.

X-must

2006-12-25T10:42:00.000-05:00

Happy birthday Jesus
You're 2006 years old today, they opine
They call it Christmas
The season when all's happy and fine
But I still see bitterness around
And sadness still spread
Despair and violence still abound
And many with neither water nor bread
'Friends' at each other's throats
Others at work behind backs
Talking and biting, the wily turncoats
Some at work with knives and hacks
Why the hate, why the spite?
Why does all the faith and trust go for a toss?
One by one, they all fall on a lonely night
Looking for names to blame for their loss
I know you have the answers to all
It's we who don't know where to look
You reply through what we know as the Soul
While we stonedly scour every religious book
Religion is not my cup of tea
Nor is theology into what i delve
But alas, peace within us is what we can never see
Heck, I'll just lie back and listen to 2112

Loneliness vs Solitude

2006-12-23T13:11:00.000-05:00

"There is a difference between loneliness and solitude. Loneliness is boring, whereas in solitude you can inspect and examine your deeds and thoughts."
- Sudha Murthy in 'How I Taught My Grandmother To Read and other stories'
There is no way I can deny the former sentence. The latter I can only partly agree with...
It's probably up to how you visualise loneliness - in my view, there are those that see loneliness as a depressing factor, some convert every moment of loneliness into solitude, using or utilising each moment to reflect on some thought or the other, and then there are those that are absolutely unperturbed by loneliness, some even oblivious to it... some preferring to stay that way out of choice. It's a tricky period - loneliness certainly is. The surreal sound of silence, the serenity of oneness, away from the crowds, away from din... it can be your peace, it can be your undoing. Either way, it can be your release. You are warned...

How do only wise guys always end up saying famous quotes?

2006-12-16T03:08:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd add a touch of wisdom to this page. And since wisdom is not my best drinking buddy, I shall just go out with others' drinking buddies (or, in saner words, I will just mooch off on others' wise words).

"I don't know the secret of success, but the secret of failure is to try to please everybody." --Bill Cosby
(Woohoo... upside is that I managed to crack at least some secret. At least according to Bill Cosby's analysis)

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." - Galileo Galilei
(Easy for him to say that. He was a physicist+astronomer+philosopher. I'm the average-ugly-fat-Joe)

"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." - Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)
(Friends who? Guess Mr. Martin Luther King Jr. doesn't know of my average-ugly-fat-Joe status)

"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
(I guess it's definitely better than staying still in a dark place. At least if you're moving, you might get into some trouble and end up making someone laugh as you get hurt)

"Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung." - Voltaire (1694-1778)
(... and/or blogged)

Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded. - Fyodor Dostoevski
(Guilty as charged... hehehe)

The Trial

2006-12-02T20:41:00.000-05:00

What's the verdict? Guiltier than thou? Spared and exiled to exoneration-nation? I love you prosecutors (at least some of you for sure) but frankly, I grew oblivious of the trial eons ago. I really thank you prosecutors (not just some... but all). You've shown me how innocence is not a plain colour like black or white - somewhere in my indifference I found that innocence is a coat of grey with some green and some more red thrown in. I have nothing against the plaintiff. I bear no ill towards the judge. I don't even oppose the plaintiff himself doubling up as the judge here. He was wronged and this certainly is no court of law. He seeks justice but since that is another grey area itself, I will just hope he finds his peace. And who am I to oppose the double-play? I am part-defence-attorney myself. Alas, my co-defendant, who is actually the prime accused here, may not be in sure hands. That's perhaps wherein the error lies. You've labeled the wrong defendant the prime accused. Set the defendant free, please. Pass me the noose, if you please.
The defence rests its case (if any)

To Forgive

2006-11-23T04:56:00.001-05:00

Shallow as a puddle.
Gone green. But only perhaps to avoid going white
White, the colour of a pure soul
Ironically, also the colour of a shamed, weary face

Bent over with the burden
An unerasable mark
Is it? Where's the ray of light?
An arrow on the wall, perhaps?

Seek a power - the power to forgive.
The eraser to obliterate this mark,
The hole for the light to peep through
And shine upon the arrow
On the wall of blame
It shows the way out
Of this hall of shame

Lousy

2006-11-21T08:01:00.000-05:00

You actually thought I was perfect???
Get the r out of this friend
Now, perhaps, that's more like me

24 hrs to Time-Zero

2006-11-18T00:00:00.000-05:00

I'm not numb today. That might be helpful although it's not the feeling I'm used to just before an exam. With 24 hrs to go, things might change and I might go the usual deadskin way in due course. But I like this non-numbness. It's new and it's exhilarating. Not that I'm in the best of shapes to appear and crack the test. But it definitely looks like a new challenge. The non-numbness might just (let me stick out and say 'will certainly' instead) accentuate the sensation in the aftermath. I'm definitely ready for it. The whiplash or the smooth caress (and I hope it'll be the latter), whatever's in store, I'm ready for it. Ready to feel it. I'm not numb today. Dumb perhaps.

Dear God

2006-11-17T03:49:00.000-05:00

Hi. A little request. May I please have my next two doses of miracles in advance this Sunday?

Bad week

2006-11-15T10:26:00.000-05:00

Back after quite some time. 3 weeks to be precise. Sucks to return on a bad note but hey, that's the way it is. Not the best week. Thought away from work would turn out cool. Turns out holidays are breaks from the monotony (aka work) when all the shit that's piled up out of your sight comes to the fore.
This week stinks.
It better end on a high note. Can't afford to have it end ANY other way (fingers crossed, now trying to cross toes)

p.s. Beware. I'm gonna be home (the real deal... not the 'home away from home') for a few days. And I'm a little messed (if I can ever be). SOOooooo... there might be regular posts here. (Do I hear a shriek fading in the distance?)

Lesson for the day (where day == yesterday)

2006-10-25T06:24:00.000-04:00

Giving is good
Giving what you earned is better
Giving it to the ones who have given to you all your life is the best

some Iced Earth to while away the wasted days

2006-10-25T06:09:00.000-04:00

Been listening to the few songs of theirs that I have on my home pc ever since last weekend. This 'vacation' was weird. Can't make up my mind whether it was good enough or not. Might try and weigh the pros and cons a little later maybe. Off the top of my head, I could list out stuff I would've wanted to happen to me in these 4 days, people that I would've wanted to meet and other crib-list-items. Too lazy to do all that now. For now, Iced Earth is the sound in my ears. I need a portable music player... badly. It's making its way up my things-to-buy-on-priority list.
note to self: also on priority list - to finish off '1984' (it's friggin impressive)

Again

2006-10-18T03:27:00.000-04:00

With a brush of the hand
He wipes the blood off his face
It just leaves behind more sweat and grime instead
With vigour anew he rises
He stumbles but rises again
Once more for all those that he has bled
The principles, the people
His barricaded self, the ultimate steeple

Again he rises
He cares nought of another fall
He'll fight to the end
Till he has ended it all

Again he rises.

Lesson for the day

2006-10-17T01:50:00.000-04:00

If even after a month your boss doesn't know your name, you've got MAJOR room for improvement (lightly put)